A cultural history of fundamentalism's formative decades; Protestant fundamentalists have always allied themselves with conservative politics and stood against liberal theology and evolution From the start, however, their relationship with mass culture has been complex and ambivalent Selling the Old-Time Religion tells how the first generation of fundamentalists embraced the modern business and entertainment techniques of marketing advertising, drama, film, radio, and publishing to spread the gospel Selectively, and with more sophistlcation than has been accorded to them, fundamentalists adapted to the consumer society and popular culture with the accompanying values of materialism and immediate gratification. Selling the Old-Time Religion is written by a fundamentalist who is based at the country's foremost fundamentalist institution of higher education. It is a candid and remarkable piece of self-scrutiny that reveals the movement's first encounters with some of the media methods it now wields with well-documented virtuosity. Douglas Carl Abrams draws extensively on sermons, popular journals, and educational archives to reveal the attitudes and actions of the fundamental leadership and the laity. Abrams discusses how fundamentalists' outlook toward contemporary trends and events shifted from aloofiness to engagement as they moved inward from the margins of American culture and began to weigh in on the day's issues - from jazz to ""flappers"" - in large numbers. Fundamentalists in the 1920s and 1930s ""were willing to compromise certain traditions that defined the movement, such as premillennialism, holiness, and defense of the faith,"" Abrams concludes, ""but their flexibility with forms of consumption and pleasure strengthened their evangelistic emphasis, perhaps the movement's core."" Contrary to the myth of fundamentalism's demise after the Scopes Trial, the movement's uses of mass culture help explain their success in the decades following it. In the end fundamentalists imitated mass culture not to be like the world but to evangelize it.

Sam Haselby offers a new and persuasive account of the role of religion in the formation of American nationality. The book shows how, in the early American republic, a contest within Protestantism reshaped American political culture, leading to the creation of an enduring religious nationalism. Following U.S. independence, the new republic faced vital challenges, including a vast and unique continental colonization project undertaken without (in the centuries-old European senses of the terms) either "a church" or "a state." Amid this crisis, two distinct Protestant movements arose: one, a popular and rambunctious frontier revivalism, and the other a nationalist, corporate missionary movement dominated by New England and Northeastern elites. The former heralded the birth of popular American Protestantism, while the latter marked the advent of systematic Protestant missionary activity in the West. The world-historic economic and territorial growth that accelerated in the early American republic, and the complexity of its political life, gave both movements unusual opportunity for innovation and influence. The Origins of American Religious Nationalism explores the competition between them in relation to major contemporary political developments. More specifically, political democratization, large-scale immigration and unruly migration, fears of political disintegration, the rise of American capitalism and American slavery, and the need to nationalize the frontier, all shaped, and were shaped by, this contest. The book follows these developments, focusing mostly on religion and the frontier, from before the American Revolution to the rise of Andrew Jackson. The approach helps explains many important general developments in American history, including why Indian removal took place when and how it did, why the political power of the Southern planter class could be sustained, and, above all, how Andrew Jackson was able to create the first full-blown expression of American religious nationalism.

Many Quakers who reached maturity towards the end of the nineteenth century found that their parents' religion had lost its connection with reality. New discoveries in science and biblical research called for new approaches to Christian faith. Evangelical beliefs dominant among nineteenth-century Quakers were now found wanting, especially those emphasising the supreme authority of the Bible and doctrines of atonement, whereby the wrath of God is appeased through the blood of Christ. Liberal Quakers sought a renewed sense of reality in their faith through recovering the vision of the first Quakers with their sense of the Light of God within each person. They also borrowed from mainstream liberal theology new attitudes to God, nature and service to society. The ensuing Quaker Renaissance found its voice at the Manchester Conference of 1895, and the educational initiatives which followed gave to British Quakerism an active faith fit for the testing reality of the twentieth century.

Incorporating perspectives from religious studies, humor studies, cultural and film studies, and theology, as well as original data from textual analysis and the voices of religious comedians, this book critically analyses the experiences of believers who appreciate that their faith is not necessarily a barrier to their laughter. It is often thought that religion and humor are incompatible, but Religious Humor in Evangelical Christian and Mormon Culture shows that humor is not only a popular means of entertainment, but also a way in which an individual or community expresses their identity and values. Elisha McIntyre argues that believers embrace their sense of humor, actively producing and consciously consuming comic entertainment that reflects their own experiences. This process is not however without conflict. The book argues that there are specific characteristics that indicate a unique kind of humor that may be called 'religious humor'. Through an examination of religious humor found in stand-up comedy, television sitcoms, comedy film and satirical cartoons, and drawing on interview data, the book outlines the main considerations that Christians take into account when choosing their comedy entertainment. These include questions about ideology, blasphemy, taboos around the body, and the motives behind the joke.

John Wesley (1703-1791) is the chief architect and source of inspiration to the teaching commonly referred to as Christian perfection. Among his many publications, the book that best summarizes his teachings on holiness is A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, as believed and taught by the Reverend Mr. John Wesley, from the year 1725 to the year 1777. For many years this timeless classic has been reproduced in various formats. Now, for the first time, John Wesley's 'A Plain Account of Christian Perfection' is being offered in a definitive Annotated Edition by Mark K. Olson. This edition is volume one in a projected three volume series. The Annotated Edition offers the following: The entire text has been divided into chapters and verses for detailed study and cross-referencing. The introduction examines in detail when and why Wesley wrote A Plain Account. The verse by verse commentary discusses the history and background behind the text, offering unsurpassed explanation of Wesley's doctrine of perfect love. Five end notes address Wesley's early doctrinal development, the impact of Aldersgate on his perfection doctrine, many testimonies of attaining perfection, and other relevant material from early Methodism. Over 150 quotations from Wesley's sermons, writings, and letters offer unlimited clarification to his views on perfection. The insights of many Wesley scholars are included: Albert Outler, Randy Maddox, Kenneth Collins, William Greathouse, Thomas Oden, Harold Lindstrom, Stephen Gunter, H. Ray Dunning, Theodore Runyon, plus many others. A timeline details every event in Wesley's lifetime corresponding to A Plain Account. Several exhaustive indexes are included: scripture, annotation, subject, author, Wesley quotations, and two synonym indexes from Wesley's Journal and A Plain Account. The Essential Reading Section further empowers the study of Wesley's theology of perfection. Included are: o Twenty key sermons, along with their dates and locations in Wesley's Works (both the Jackson and Bicentennial editions). o Wesley's most important writings on perfection, listing their date and location in his Works. o 250 letters relevant to his theology of perfection. The index includes their date and location in Wesley's Works, with a brief description of their contents. Two additional volumes are planned in the series. John Wesley's Theology of Perfection will offer specialized studies for those wanting to dig deeper into Wesley's theology of perfection. The third volume, John Wesley's Doctrine of Christian Perfection, will present in systematic format every facet of Wesley's views on perfection. The projected release for both volumes is 2006 and 2007. Together, these three volumes will present one of the most thorough and exhaustive studies ever done on Wesley's most beloved, yet, most controversial doctrine.

This landmark volume, the first of two, assesses the prospects and promise of Lutheran theology at the opening of a new millennium. From four continents, the thirty noted and respected contributors not only gauge how such classic themes as grace, the cross, and justification wear today but also look to key issues of ecumenism, social justice, global religious life, and the impact of contemporary science on Christian belief.

Covenant: A Vital Element of Reformed Theology provides a multi-disciplinary reflection on the theme of the covenant, from historical, biblical-theological and systematic-theological perspectives. The interaction between exegesis and dogmatics in the volume reveals the potential and relevance of this biblical motif. It proves to be vital in building bridges between God's revelation in the past and the actual question of how to live with him today.

Using as their starting point a 1976 Newsweek cover story on the emerging politicization of evangelical Christians, contributors to this collection engage the scholarly literature on evangelicalism from a variety of angles to offer new answers to persisting questions about the movement. The standard historical narrative describes the period between the 1925 Scopes Trial and the early 1970s as a silent one for evangelicals, and when they did re-engage in the political arena, it was over abortion. Randall J. Stephens and Randall Balmer challenge that narrative. Stephens moves the starting point earlier in the twentieth century, and Balmer concludes that race, not abortion, initially motivated activists. In his examination of the relationship between African Americans and evangelicalism, Dan Wells uses the Newsweek story's sidebar on black activist and born-again Christian Eldridge Cleaver to illuminate the former Black Panther's uneasy association with white evangelicals. Daniel K. Williams, Allison Vander Broek, and J. Brooks Flippen explore the tie between evangelicals and the anti-abortion movement as well as the political ramifications of their anti-abortion stance. The election of 1976 helped to politicize abortion, which both encouraged a realignment of alliances and altered evangelicals' expectations for candidates, developments that continue into the twenty-first century. Also in 1976, Foy Valentine, leader of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, endeavored to distinguish the South's brand of Protestant Christianity from the evangelicalism described by Newsweek. Nevertheless, Southern Baptists quickly became associated with the evangelicalism of the Religious Right and the South's shift to the Republican Party. Jeff Frederick discusses evangelicals' politicization from the 1970s into the twenty-first century, suggesting that southern religiosity has suffered as southern evangelicals surrendered their authenticity and adopted a moral relativism that they criticized in others. R. Ward Holder and Hannah Dick examine political evangelicalism in the wake of Donald Trump's election. Holder lays bare the compromises that many Southern Baptists had to make to justify their support for Trump, who did not share their religious or moral values. Hannah Dick focuses on media coverage of Trump's 2016 campaign and contends that major news outlets misunderstood the relationship between Trump and evangelicals, and between evangelicals and politics in general. The result, she suggests, was that the media severely miscalculated Trump's chances of winning the election.

This book offers a history of three generations of Baptist and Methodist clergymen in nineteenth-century Virginia, and through them of the congregations and communities in which they lived and worked. Unlike previous scholars, who examined Southern Protestantism as only a proslavery and pro-Confederate ideology, Schweiger takes a wider view and finds a broad transformation of the social and cultural context of religious experience in the region. She traces several major themes, such as the contrast between rural and urban experience, or the Methodist and Baptist schisms of the 1840's through the lives and careers of 800 clergy.

Trollope and the Church of England is the first detailed examination of Trollop's attitude towards his Anglican faith and the Church, and the impact this had on his works. Jill Durey controversially explodes the myth that Trollope's most popular characters just happened to be clerical and were simply a skit on the Church, by revealing the true extent of his lifelong fascination with religion.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has 6 million members in the United States today (and 13 million worldwide). Yet, while there has been extensive study of Mormon history, comparatively little scholarly attention has been paid to contemporary Mormons. The best sociological study of Mormon life, Thomas O'Dea's The Mormons, is now over fifty years old. What is it like to be a Mormon in America today? Melvyn Hammarberg attempts to answer this question by offering an ethnography of contemporary Mormons. In The Mormon Quest for Glory Hammarberg examines Mormon history, rituals, social organization, family connections, gender roles, artistic traditions, use of media, and missionary work. He writes as a sympathetic outsider who has studied Mormon life for decades, and strives to explain the religious world of the Latter-Day Saints through the lens of their own spiritual understanding. Drawing on a survey, participant observation, interviews, focus groups, attendance at religious gatherings, diaries, church periodicals, lesson manuals, and other church literature, Hammarberg aims to present a comprehensive picture of the religious world of the Latter-Day Saints.

This enlightening book examines the physical objects found in elite Virginia households of the eighteenth century to discover what they can tell us about their owners' lives and religious practices. Lauren F. Winner looks closely at punch bowls, needlework, mourning jewelry, baptismal gowns, biscuit molds, cookbooks, and many other items, illuminating the ways Anglicanism influenced daily activities and attitudes in colonial Virginia, particularly in the households of the gentry.

This volume is a collection of essays in honour of Tubingen theologian Eberhard Jungel, and is presented to him on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Jungel is widely held to be one of the most important Christian theologians of the past half-century. The essays honour Professor Jungel both by offering critical interlocutions with his theology and by presenting constructive proposals on themes in contemporary dogmatics that are prominent in his writings. The proposed Festschrift introduces a new generation of theologians to Eberhard Jungel and his theology. The volume also includes an exhaustive bibliography of Jungel's writings and of secondary sources that deal extensively with his thought.