This book examines the evangelical Christian worship focusing primarily in the island-state of Grenada. The study is based upon the author's detailed study of Pentecostal communities in that island-state as well as her own background in Barbados. The study traces the development of Pentecostal religious communities from Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Wesleyan Methodist movement.

Many scholars have documented how migration from Latin America to the United States shapes the interconnected spheres of religious participation, political engagement, and civic formation in host countries. What has largely gone unexplored is how the experiences of migration and adaptation to the host country also shape the ecclesiological arrangements, theological imagination, and communal strategies of immigrant religious networks. These communities maintain close ties with their home countries while simultaneously developing a religious life that distinguishes them both from their home countries and from faith communities of the dominant culture in their host countries. Joao Chaves offers an account of the dynamics that shape the role of immigrant churches in the United States. Migrational Religion acts as a case study of a network formed by communities of Brazilian immigrants who, although affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, formed a distinctive ethnic association. Their churches began to appear in the United States in the 1980s due to Brazilian Baptist missionary activity. As Brazilian migration increased in the last decades of the twentieth century, hundreds of Brazilian evangelical churches were founded to cater to first-generation immigrants. Initially their leaders conceived of these churches as extensions of their denomination in Brazil. However, these church communities were under constant pressure to adapt to their rapidly changing context, and the challenges of immigrant living pushed them in exciting new directions. Brazilian churches in the United States faced a number of issues peculiar to their nature as diasporic communities: undocumented parishioners, membership fluctuation caused by national and international migration patterns, anti-immigrant prejudice, and more. Based on six years of ethnographic work in eleven congregations across the United States, dozens of interviews with Brazilian pastors, and extensive archival history in English and Portuguese, Migrational Religion documents how such churches adapted to unique challenges, and reveals how the diasporic experience fosters incipient theologies in churches of the Latinx diaspora.

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a church of Brazilian origin, has been enormously successful in establishing branches and attracting followers in post-apartheid South Africa. Unlike other Pentecostal Charismatic Churches (PCC), the UCKG insists that relationships with God be devoid of 'emotions', that socialisation between members be kept to a minimum and that charity and fellowship are 'useless' in materialising God's blessings. Instead, the UCKG urges members to sacrifice large sums of money to God for delivering wealth, health, social harmony and happiness. While outsiders condemn these rituals as empty or manipulative, this book shows that they are locally meaningful, demand sincerity to work, have limits and are informed by local ideas about human bodies, agency and ontological balance. As an ethnography of people rather than of institutions, this book offers fresh insights into the mass PCC movement that has swept across Africa since the early 1990s.

First published in 1992, this book examines the intellectual confrontation between priest and Freethinker from 1660 to 1730, and the origins of the early phase of the Enlightenment in England. Through an analysis of the practice of historical writing in the period, Champion maintains that historical argument was a central component for displaying defences of true religion. Taking religion, and specifically defences of the Church of England after 1660, as central to the politics of the period, the first two chapters of the book explore the varieties of clericalist histories, arguing that there were rival emphases upon regnum or sacerdos as the font of true religion. The remainder of the book examines how radical Freethinkers like John Toland or the third Earl of Shaftesbury set about attacking the corrupt priestcraft of established religion, but also importantly promoted a reforming civil theology.

Originally published in 1906, this book presents an attempt 'to ascertain the office and position of certain Bishops in the Provincial Chapter of Canterbury, and likewise to trace the history of the Precedence of certain English Prelates'. Extensive notes and an appendices section are incorporated within the text. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the Anglican Church and the history of Christianity.

A panoramic history of Puritanism in England, Scotland, and New England This book is a sweeping transatlantic history of Puritanism from its emergence out of the religious tumult of Elizabethan England to its founding role in the story of America. Shedding critical new light on the diverse forms of Puritan belief and practice in England, Scotland, and New England, David Hall provides a multifaceted account of a cultural movement that judged the Protestant reforms of Elizabeth's reign to be unfinished. Hall's vivid and wide-ranging narrative describes the movement's deeply ambiguous triumph under Oliver Cromwell, its political demise with the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, and its perilous migration across the Atlantic to establish a "perfect reformation" in the New World. A breathtaking work of scholarship by an eminent historian, The Puritans examines the tribulations and doctrinal dilemmas that led to the fragmentation and eventual decline of Puritanism. It presents a compelling portrait of a religious and political movement that was divided virtually from the start. In England, some wanted to dismantle the Church of England entirely and others were more cautious, while Puritans in Scotland were divided between those willing to work with a troublesome king and others insisting on the independence of the state church. This monumental book traces how Puritanism was a catalyst for profound cultural changes in the early modern Atlantic world, opening the door for other dissenter groups such as the Baptists and the Quakers, and leaving its enduring mark on what counted as true religion in America.

Originally published in 1913, this book presents a study of the effect of the Puritan Revolution upon the Church of England and the Universities, as institutions closely connected with the Church. The text focuses on the immediate and material results of the Revolution, rather than the influence exercised upon religious thought, the future history of parties within the Church or the relations of the Church to Dissent. Evidence is collected regarding the methods through which the Revolution was accomplished and the outward aspects of the Puritan movement. Appendices are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Puritanism, British history and the history of Christianity.

First volume in the new Westminster Abbey Record Series, covering changes in Abbey ritual during the Reformation. This book is the first volume in a new venture, the Westminster Abbey Record Series, which aims to publish documents, calendars, lists and indexes from the Abbey's large and continuous archive of over a thousand years, making itscontents available both to scholars and to a wider interested public. This edition of the earliest Chapter Act Book of the Dean and Chapter is an essential source for the impact of the Reformation at Westminster. The years covered in this volume show the business of setting up a reformed cathedral; the administration of the Abbey's large estate is also well illustrated, including the relations with the powerful courtiers and politicians who were among the Abbey's tenants. Dr CHARLES KNIGHTON gained his Ph.D. from Magdalene College, Cambridge.

This book is the first systematic attempt to describe a coherent and comprehensive Anglican understanding of Church. Rather than focusing on one school of thought, Dr Locke unites under one ecclesiological umbrella the seemingly disparate views that have shaped Anglican reflections on Church. He does so by exploring three central historical developments: (1) the influence of Protestantism; (2) the Anglican defence of episcopacy; and (3) the development of the Anglican practice of authority. Dr Locke demonstrates how the interaction of these three historical influences laid the foundations of an Anglican understanding of Church that continues to guide and shape Anglican identity. He shows how this understanding of Church has shaped recent Anglican ecumenical dialogues with Reformed, Lutheran, Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. Drawing on the principle that dialogue with those who are different can lead to greater self-understanding and self-realization, Dr Locke demonstrates that Anglican self-identity rests on firmer ecclesiological foundations than is sometimes supposed.

Originally published in 1943, the aim of this concise book was 'to consider generally the theological principles involved in the relation of the Anglican Communion to non-episcopal churches, making clear the relevance of these principles to the issues raised in South India'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the Anglican Communion and India.

This essay by C. H. Smyth won the Thirlwall and Gladstone Prize, awarded by the History Faculty in the University of Cambridge, in 1925 and was first published in the following year. The text looks in depth at the English Reformation under Edward VI, which was almost unique in the fact that it was primarily concerned with social and domestic considerations, rather than foreign policy, and emphasises the role of foreign figures such as Martin Bucer in working with Archbishop Cranmer to create an intellectually rigorous form of Anglicanism. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the English Reformation and Protestantism in England.

This monograph tracks the development of the socio-economic stance of early Mormonism, an American Millenarian Restorationist movement, through the first fourteen years of the church's existence, from its incorporation in the spring of 1830 in New York, through Ohio and Missouri and Illinois, up to the lynching of its prophet Joseph Smith Jr in the summer of 1844. Mormonism used a new revelation, the Book of Mormon, and a new apostolically inspired church organization to connect American antiquities to covenant-theological salvation history. The innovative religious strategy was coupled with a conservative socio-economic stance that was supportive of technological innovation. This analysis of the early Mormon church uses case studies focused on socio-economic problems, such as wealth distribution, the financing of publication projects, land trade and banking, and caring for the poor. In order to correct for the agentive overtones of standard Mormon historiography, both in its supportive and in its detractive stance, the explanatory models of social time from Fernand Braudel's classic work on the Mediterranean are transferred to and applied in the nineteenth-century American context.

Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) was the leading Baptist theologian of his era, though his works are just now being made available in a critical edition. Strictures on Sandemanianism is the fourth volume in The Works of Andrew Fuller. In this treatise, Fuller critiqued Sandemanianism, a form of Restorationism that first emerged in Scotland in the eighteenth century and was influencing the Scotch Baptists of Fuller's day. Fuller's biggest concern was the Sandemanian belief that saving faith is merely intellectual assent to the gospel. Fuller believed this "intellectualist" view of faith undermined evangelical spirituality. Strictures on Sandemanianism became a leading evangelical critique of Sandemanian views. This critical edition will introduce scholars to this important work and shed light on evangelical debates about the faith, justification, and sanctification during the latter half of the "long" eighteenth century (ca. 1750 to 1815).

A product of trans-Atlantic revivalism and awakening, Methodism initially took root in America in the eighteenth century. In the mid-nineteenth century, Methodism exploded to become the largest religious body in the United States and the quintessential form of American religion. This Cambridge Companion offers a general, comprehensive introduction to various forms of American Methodism, including the African-American, German Evangelical Pietist, holiness and Methodist Episcopal traditions. Written from various disciplinary perspectives, including history, literature, theology and religious studies, this volume explores the beliefs and practices around which the lives of American Methodist churches have revolved, as well as the many ways in which Methodism has both adapted to and shaped American culture. This volume will be an invaluable resource to scholars and students alike, including those who are exploring American Methodism for the first time.

In On Time, Punctuality and Discipline in Early Modern Calvinism, Max Engammare explores how the sixteenth-century Protestant reformers of Geneva, France, London, and Bern internalized a new concept of time. Applying a moral and spiritual code to the course of the day, they regulated their relationship with time, which was, in essence, a new relationship with God. As Calvin constantly reminded his followers, God watches his faithful every minute. Come Judgement Day, the faithful in turn will have to account for each minute. Engammare argues that the inhabitants of Calvin's Geneva invented the new habit of being on time, a practice unknown in antiquity. It was also fundamentally different from notions of time in the monastic world of the medieval period and unknown to contemporaries such as Erasmus, Vives, the early Jesuits, Rabelais, Ronsard, or Montaigne. Engammare shows that punctuality did not proceed from technical innovation. Rather, punctuality was above all a spiritual, social, and disciplinary virtue.

Puritanism has a reputation for being emotionally dry, but seventeenth-century Puritans did not only have rich and complex emotional lives, they also found meaning in and drew spiritual strength from emotion. From theology to lived experience and from joy to affliction, this volume surveys the wealth and depth of the Puritans' passions.

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Read the Introduction.

"This is a timely book about the tortuous journey of biblical feminism in our time. The book will sober its own constituencies while also contributing to the ongoing analysis of contemporary American religion and gender."
--Marie Griffith, author of "God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission"

"Pamela Cochran interweaves two engaging stories in this carefully researched study, both of which are vitally important to our understanding of American evangelicalism. One story is about the small cadre of feminist leaders within evangelicalism who struggled heroically against the tide of rising political conservatism and male dominance. The other is about evangelicalism's often unwitting embrace of biblical hermeneutics, therapeutic individualism, and consumerism, and its difficulties in adapting to an increasingly pluralistic culture. Scholars in religious studies, history, and the social sciences will benefit greatly from reading this book."
--Robert Wuthnow, author of "Saving America?: Faith-Based Services and the Future of Civil Society"

"A valuable book that tells a story that is obscured amid the thunderous and simplifying voices that dominate public discussion of religion and gender politics."
--"Altar Magazine"

"Finally! Cochran's Evangelical Feminism provides a detailed analysis of the articulation of egalitarianism and feminist ideas--and their opponents--in evangelical organizations, theological debates and leadership in the 1970s and 1980s. A welcome addition to the field."
--Sally K. Gallagher, author of "Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life"

"Cochran intends herconcrete analysis of the split among evangelical feminists to exemplify larger themes in the story of American religious life, including inclusivity, anti-institutionalism, individualism, voluntarism, and populism. This text would make a worthy addition to women's studies collections and to theological libraries." --"Choice"

For most people, the terms "evangelical" and "feminism" are contradictory. "Evangelical" invokes images of conservative Christians known for their strict interpretation of the Bible, as well as their support of social conservatism and traditional gender roles. So how could an evangelical support feminism, a movement that seeks, at its most basic level, to redress the inequalities, injustice, and discrimination that women face because of their sex?

Evangelical Feminism offers the first history of the evangelical feminist movement. It traces the emergence and theological development of biblical feminism within evangelical Christianity in the 1970s, how an internal split among members of the movement came about over the question of lesbianism, and what these developments reveal about conservative Protestantism and religion generally in contemporary America.

Cochran shows that biblical feminists have been at the center of changes both within evangelicalism and in American culture more broadly by renegotiating the religious symbols which shape its deepest values.

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Read the Introduction.

athis book of offers a degree of courageous moral engagement that builds at least a tenuous bridge across the cultural divide.a
--Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

a Nelson has given us a wonderfully intimate glimpse into how rituals and belief animate the religious experiences of black-southerners. This is an important work that will challenge scholars of religion and race to rethink the nature of religious experience.a
--American Journal of Sociology

"Nelson reveals the spiritual lives of black Southerners like few authors before him. In beautifully written and theoretically engaging prose, the ritual experience of low country worshippers emerges in rich and compelling detail. This book will surely deepen our understanding of power and authority in African American religious life."
--Marla Frederick, author of "Between Sundays: Black Women and Everyday Struggles of Faith"

"A very welcome book, not just for what we learn about one African American congregation, but for its reminder of what it means to see the world with religious eyes. Nelson's guided tour of a Charleston, South Carolina, pentecostal AME church is both enlightening and elegantly written. This book will shift the terms of debate about the role of ritual and experience in American religious life."
--Jim Spickard, University of Redlands

Dreams and visions, prophetic words from God about "dusty souls," speaking in tongues while "in the spirit"--narratives of these and similar events comprise the heart of Every Time I Feel the Spirit. This in-depth study of a Black congregation in Charleston, South Carolina provides a window intothe tremendously important yet still largely overlooked world of African American religion as the faith is lived by ordinary believers.

For decades, scholars have been preoccupied with the relation between Black Christianity, civil rights, and social activism. Every Time I Feel the Spirit is about black religion as religion. It focuses on the everyday experience of religion in the church, congregants' relationships with God, and the role that God and Satan play in congregants' lives--not only as objects of belief but as actual agents. It explores the concepts of religious experience and religious ritual, while emphasizing the attributions that people make to the operation of spiritual forces and beings in their lives.

Through interviews and field work, Nelson uncovers what religious people themselves see as important about their faith while extending and refining sociological understandings of religious ritual and religious experience.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Preface.

"A timely analysis of a religious movement that is quietly exercising enormous political influence today. Shuck's careful reading of LaHaye's troubling vision establishes unexpected connections with the leading edge of contemporary network culture."
--Mark C. Taylor, author of About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture

"With this book, Glenn W. Shuck establishes himself as one of the foremost scholars of American evangelical Christianity. This work is both wonderfully written and creative. Based on Shuck's even-handed and insightful analysis, the reader learns about the meaning and astonishing popularity of books about end times, especially the Left Behind series. Marks of the Beast provides a dynamic lens into the meaning of religion in modern times."
--Michael O. Emerson, Director, Du Bois Center for the Advanced Study of Religion and Race, University of Notre Dame "A provocative study."
--"Berkshire Eagle""Well-researched work employing sociological, literary, and theological perspectives."--"Choice"

The "Left Behind" series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins has become a popular culture phenomenon, selling an astonishing 40 million copies to date. These novels, written by two well-known evangelical Christians, depict the experiences of those "left behind" in the aftermath of the Rapture, when Christ removes true believers, leaving everyone else to suffer seven years of Tribulation under Satan's proxy, Antichrist.

In Marks of the Beast, Shuck uncovers the reasons behind the books' unprecedented appeal, assessing why the novels have achieved a status within the evangelical community even greater than HalLindsey's 1970 blockbuster "The Late Great Planet Earth," It also explores what we can learn from them about evangelical Christianity in America.

Shuck finds that, ironically, the series not only reflects contemporary trends within conservative evangelicalism but also encourages readers--especially evangelicals--to embrace solutions that enact, rather than engage, their fears. Most strikingly, he shows how the ultimate vision put forth by the series' authors inadvertently undermines itself as the series unfolds.

The story of Adam and Eve, ubiquitous in the art and literature of the period, played a central role in the religious controversies of sixteenth-century Europe. This is the first book to explore stories about Adam and Eve in German Lutheran areas and to analyze their place in Lutheran culture and identity. Kathleen Crowther examines Lutheran versions of the story of Adam and Eve in bibles, commentaries, devotional tracts, sermons, plays, poems, medical and natural history texts, and woodcut images. Her research identifies how Lutheran storytellers differentiated their unique versions of the story from those of their medieval predecessors and their Catholic and Calvinist contemporaries. She also explores the appeal of the story of Adam and Eve to Lutherans as a means to define, defend and disseminate their distinctive views on human nature, original sin, salvation, marriage, family, gender relations and social order.

In Understanding Your Mormon Neighbor, Ross Anderson seeks to help Christians relate to Latter-day Saints by giving insights into Mormon life and culture. Anderson's work is supported both by his lifetime of experiences growing up Mormon and by current research that utilizes many Latter-day Saints' own sources. This book explains the core stories that form the Mormon worldview, shares the experiences that shape the community identity of Mormonism, and shows how Mormons understand truth. Anderson shares how most Mormons see themselves and others around them, illuminating why people join the LDS Church and why many eventually leave. Latter-day Saints will find the descriptions of their values, practices, and experiences both credible and familiar. Understanding Your Mormon Neighbor suggests how Christians can befriend Latter-day Saints with confidence and sensitivity and share the grace of God wisely within their relationships. Anderson includes discussion questions for individuals and small groups, black and white photographs and charts, and an appendix that includes 'Are Mormons Christians?' and 'Should I Vote for a Mormon?'