The Shakers are perhaps the best known of American religious communities. Their ethos and organization had a practical influence on many other communities and on society as a whole. This three volume collection presents writings from a broad cross-section of those who opposed the Shakers and their way of life.

The Shakers are perhaps the best known of American religious communities. Their ethos and organization had a practical influence on many other communities and on society as a whole. This three volume collection presents writings from a broad cross-section of those who opposed the Shakers and their way of life.

The Shakers are perhaps the best known of American religious communities. Their ethos and organization had a practical influence on many other communities and on society as a whole. This three volume collection presents writings from a broad cross-section of those who opposed the Shakers and their way of life.

Evangelical Dissent in the early eighteenth century had to address a variety of intellectual challenges. How reliable was the Bible? Was traditional Christian teaching about God, humanity, sin and salvation true? What was the role of reason in the Christian faith? Philip Doddridge (1702-51) pastored a sizeable evangelical congregation in Northampton, England, and ran a training academy for Dissenters which prepared men for pastoral ministry. Philip Doddridge and the Shaping of Evangelical Dissent examines his theology and philosophy in the context of these and other issues of his day and explores the leadership that he provided in evangelical Dissent in the first half of the eighteenth century. Offering a fresh look at Doddridge's thought, the book provides a criticial examination of the accepted view that Doddridge was influenced in his thinking primarily by Richard Baxter and John Locke. Exploring the influence of other streams of thought, from John Owen and other Puritan writers to Samuel Clarke and Isaac Watts, as well as interaction with contemporaries in Dissent, the book shows Doddridge to be a leader in, and shaper of, an evangelical Dissent which was essentially Calvinistic in its theology, adapted to the contours and culture of its times.

This book examines and compares the theological views of Dr John Owen (1616-83), the Puritan pastor and theologian, and John Wesley (1703-91), the evangelist and founder of Methodism. Protracted doctrinal debate occurred during their lives over the doctrines of atonement and justification, Owen and Wesley representing the Calvinist and Arminian interpretations of the controversy. The author demonstrates that the Arminian reaction to 17th century high Calvinism might have been avoided had theologians like John Owen pursued the relatively moderate theological formulations of John Calvin and his 16th century colleagues. The analysis seeks both to assess the various aspects of the debate within the context of historical theology, and to evaluate them according to the criteria of biblical exegesis. The author discusses the philosophical foundations of the ultra-orthodoxy of John Owen and offers a positive solution to a controversy which was shelved rather than solved, and which continues to vex those who seek a coherent biblical grasp of the Reformed Faith.

The Christian idea of a good death had its roots in the Middle Ages with ars moriendi, featuring reliance on Jesus as Savior, preparedness for the life to come and for any spiritual battle that might ensue when on the threshold of death, and death not taking place in isolation. Evangelicalism introduced new features to the good death, with its focus on conversion, sanctification and an intimate relationship with Jesus. Scholarship focused on mid-nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformist beliefs about death and the afterlife is sparse. This book fills the gap, contributing an understanding not only of death but of the history of Methodist and evangelical Nonconformist piety, theology, social background and literary expression in mid-nineteenth-century England. A good death was as central to Methodism as conversion and holiness. Analyzing over 1,200 obituaries, Riso reveals that while the last words of the dying pointed to a timeless experience of hope in the life to come, the obituaries reflect changing attitudes towards death and the afterlife among nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformist observers who looked increasingly to earthly existence for the fulfillment of hopes. Exploring tensions in Nonconformist allegiance to both worldly and spiritual matters, this book offers an invaluable contribution to death studies, Methodism, and Evangelical theology.

When Henry VIII died in 1547 he left a church in England that had broken with Rome - but was it Protestant? The English Reformation was quite different in its methods, motivations and results to that taking place on the continent. This book: * examines the influences of continental reform on England * describes the divorce of Henry VIII and the break with Rome * discusses the political and religious consequences of the break with Rome * assesses the success of the Reformation up to 1547 * provides a clear guide to the main strands of historical thought on the topic.

A Will to Choose traces the history of African-American Methodism beginning with their emergence in the fledgling American Methodist movement in the 1760s. Responding to Methodism's anti-slavery stance, African-Americans joined the new movement in large numbers and by the end of the eighteenth century, had made up the largest minority in the Methodist church, filling positions of authority as class leaders, exhorters, and preachers. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, African Americans used the resources of the church in their struggle for liberation from slavery and racism in the secular culture.

Winner of the 2013 Book Award of Excellence, The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship What is the meaning of the Holy Spirit's activity in Luke-Acts, and what are its implications for today? Roger Stronstad offers a cogent and thought-provoking study of Luke as a charismatic theologian whose understanding of the Spirit was shaped wholly by his understanding of Jesus and the nature of the early church. Stronstad locates Luke's pneumatology in the historical background of Judaism and views Luke as an independent theologian who makes a unique contribution to the pneumatology of the New Testament. This work challenges traditional Protestants to reexamine the impact of Pentecost and explores the Spirit's role in equipping God's people for the unfinished task of mission. The second edition has been revised and updated throughout and includes a new foreword by Mark Allan Powell.

John Wesley's Ecclesiology: A Study in Its Sources and Development looks at the major traditions and sources that shaped Wesley's study of church doctrine. Wesley's ecclesiology is best understood in light of the sources and background that contributed to his own theological formation, as well as the events that he faced in the course of his endeavors in the Wesleyan Revival. Therefore, this study first examines the possible sources for Wesley's doctrine of the church and then moves to the investigation of the development of his ecclesiology in the course of his ministry. In doing so, this study looks at the large number of works written by John Wesley and the primary sources of the various traditions that influenced Wesley. John Wesley's rich legacy was inherited from several traditions including primitivism, Anglicanism, Puritanism, Pietism, and to a lesser extent, Roman Catholicism and these sources were instrumental in shaping his ecclesiology. Anyone interested in reading Wesley in the Christian tradition would want to read this book. Wesley's ecclesiology will provide Wesleyan Churches with a renewed understanding of their origins and a model for moving toward truly catholic, thoroughly evangelical, and continually reformed church.

This major textbook is a newly researched historical study of Evangelical religion in its British cultural setting from its inception in the time of John Wesley to charismatic renewal today. The Church of England, the Church of Scotland and the variety of Nonconformist denominations and sects in England, Scotland and Wales are discussed, but the book concentrates on the broad patterns of change affecting all the churches. It shows the great impact of the Evangelical movement on nineteenth-century Britain, accounts for its resurgence since the Second World War and argues that developments in the ideas and attitudes of the movement were shaped most by changes in British culture. The contemporary interest in the phenomenon of Fundamentalism, especially in the United States, makes the book especially timely.

This illustrated dictionary for the Episcopal Church is an essential reference to its terminology, worship, structure, and polity. Originally intended as a resource for new members and confirmands in the Episcopal Church, since it was first published in 1985 the dictionary has become increasingly popular with clergy, vestries, and other lay ministers and leaders. This entirely new edition has been expanded, revised, and updated to include new terms that have come into use since it was first published, as the language Episcopalians use to describe their faith, worship, and common life continues to evolve. A Dictionary for Episcopalians is an ideal reference book for new members, seminarians, clergy, confirmation and inquirers classes, altar guilds, church school teachers, and anyone who wants to learn more about the Episcopal Church. With illustrations and a pronunciation guide, it is a useful addition to every parish library and sacristy."

As both a preeminent scholar of Balck Angelican and Episcopalians and devout parishoner, the late James Hewitt writes an illuminus hsitory of one of the most famous black congregrations in America. From its humble beginnings, St. Philip's originated from classes conducted by Elais Neau and other Angelic clerks for the society for the propagations of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. From these cateisem classes emerged a higly educated, African-American group comprised of free and enslaved blacks. W.E.B Dubuois hailed it as the foundation for the Talented Tenth in his classic book Souls of Balck Folk After the American Revolution, St. Philip's has since becoem the church of middle-class blacks across New York City. Hewlitt's careful and percise scholarship chronicles over two centuries of of the church's history, which fills a significant lagun in African-American Religious history.

Dozens of beautiful photos, both vintage and contemporary, draw us into the fascinating world of Shaker communities' accomplishments, their progressive views, and their still-resonating impact on American life. This book focuses specifically on two Shaker villages, Hancock and Mount Lebanon, which were close neighbors situated on either side of the Taconic Mountain Range bordering New York and Massachusetts. Mount Lebanon was the vibrant voice of Shakerism for over 160 years while Hancock lived in the shadows of its larger sister. Explaining the beliefs that grounded these villages, this book unfolds the Shaker legacies we live with today, involving Shakers' spiritual beliefs, their social welfare structures, their wide-ranging industries from seeds to herbal medicines to furniture to fancy goods, and their building of villages and of lives with a sense of purpose and permanency.

The Jehovah's Witnesses endured intense persecution under the Nazi regime, from 1933 to 1945. Unlike the Jews and others persecuted and killed by virtue of their birth, Jehovah's Witnesses had the opportunity to escape persecution and personal harm by renouncing their religious beliefs. The vast majority refused and throughout their struggle, continued to meet, preach, and distribute literature. In the face of torture, maltreatment in concentration camps, and sometimes execution, this unique group won the respect of many contemporaries. Up until now, little has been known of their particular persecution.

While the most standard treatments of John Wesley's theology focus their attention on his distinctive 'way of salvation', they fail to provide a thorough examination of Wesley's 'means of grace.' This book offers the first detailed discussion of the means of grace as the liturgical, communal, and devotional context within which growth in the Christian life actually occurred. Knight shows how the means of grace together form an interrelated pattern that enables a growing relationship with God.

An Uncommon Christian seeks to show how and why James Brainerd Taylor (1801-1829) became a popular participant during America's Second Great Awakening, and why the Princeton graduate and Yale Seminary student grew to be a frequent example of evangelical Protestant spirituality and evangelistic passion long after his untimely death. Those interested in religious revivals, evangelism and missions, spirituality, early nineteenth-century American history, the integration of faith and action with university or seminary studies, or inspirational Christian biography will benefit from this exhaustive and long overdue book on a forgotten "hero" of the Protestant faith.

Throughout his magnum opus, Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth converses with the great theologians of post-reformation orthodoxy, quoting from works in his private collection. When Barth became Honorary Professor of Reformed Theology at the University of GAttingen in 1921, his knowledge of the Reformed tradition was practically non-existent; he quickly amassed his collection of ancient copies in order to acquire a thorough knowledge of orthodoxy. In Karl Barth and Post-Reformation Orthodoxy, Rinse H. Reeling Brouwer identifies and discusses the sources of Barth's conversations and analyses Barth's use and (mis)understandings of them. Each chapter focuses on one of the topics in Christian Dogmatics, with the last chapter exploring the way in which Barth's role as a reader of the 19th-century writer of a textbook on Reformed Dogmatics Heinrich Heppe influenced the ultimate shaping of Church Dogmatics. Reeling Brouwer offers a major contribution to Barth scholarship and an important resource for theologians as well as historians focusing on the post-reformation protestant theology.

Although literary-historical studies have often focused on the range of dissenting religious groups and writers that flourished during the English Revolution, they have rarely had much to say about seventeenth-century Baptists, or, indeed, Baptist women. Baptist Women's Writings in Revolutionary Culture, 1640-1680 fills that gap, exploring how female Baptists played a crucial role in the group's formation and growth during the 1640s and 50s, by their active participation in religious and political debate, and their desire to evangelise their followers. The study significantly challenges the idea that women, as members of these congregations, were unable to write with any kind of textual authority because they were often prevented from speaking aloud in church meetings. On the contrary, Adcock shows that Baptist women found their way into print to debate points of church organisation and doctrine, to defend themselves and their congregations, to evangelise others by example and by teaching, and to prophesy, and discusses the rhetorical tactics they utilised in order to demonstrate the value of women's contributions. In the course of the study, Adcock considers and analyses the writings of little-studied Baptist women, Deborah Huish, Katherine Sutton, and Jane Turner, as well as separatist writers Sara Jones, Susanna Parr, and Anne Venn. She also makes due connection to the more familiar work of Agnes Beaumont, Anna Trapnel, and Anne Wentworth, enabling a reassessment of the significance of those writings by placing them in this wider context. Writings by these female Baptists attracted serious attention, and, as Adcock discusses, some even found a trans-national audience.

"This colection brings together two generations of scholarship on many important topics in African-American religious history. . . . A useful and judiciously chosen compilation that should serve well in the classroom."
-- "Religious Studies Review"

"It serves as a smorgasbord of the study of black spirituality."
-- "Black Issues Book Review"

Down by the Riverside provides an expansive introduction to the development of African American religion and theology. Spanning the time of slavery up to the present, the volume moves beyond Protestant Christianity to address a broad diversity of African American religion from Conjure, Orisa, and Black Judaism to Islam, African American Catholicism, and humanism.

This accessible historical overview begins with African religious heritages and traces the transition to various forms of Christianity, as well as the maintenance of African and Islamic traditions in antebellum America. Preeminent contributors include Charles Long, Gayraud Wilmore, Albert Raboteau, Manning Marable, M. Shawn Copeland, Vincent Harding, Mary Sawyer, Toinette Eugene, Anthony Pinn, and C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya. They consider the varieties of religious expression emerging from migration from the rural South to urban areas, African American women's participation in Christian missions, Black religious nationalism, and the development of Black Theology from its nineteenth-century precursors to its formulation by James Cone and later articulations by black feminist and womanist theologians. They also draw on case studies to provide a profile of the Black Christian church today.

This thematic history of the unfolding of religious life in AfricanAmerica provides a window onto a rich array of African American people, practices, and theological positions.

William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury 1828-1848, led the Church of England during the beginning and expansion of the Oxford Movement, at a time when the precursor to the Church Commissioners was established, and during the momentous debates and decisions in Parliament which saw the final retreat from the myth of an all Anglican legislature. Howley's chairmanship of the commissions of the 1830s and 1840s which began the gargantuan task of reforming the Church's practices and re-arranging its finances, made him an object of fury and scorn to some of those who benefited from things as they were, most especially in the cathedrals. Exploring the central events and debates within the Church of England in the first half of the nineteenth century, this book draws on primary and secondary evidence about Howley's career and influence. A section of original sources, including his Charges and other public documents, correspondence and speeches in the House of Lords, places Howley's achievements in proper context and illustrates his prevailing concerns in education, the establishment and political reform, relationships with the Tractarians, and in the early stages of Church reform. Dealing thematically with many of the issues faced by Howley, and exploring his own High Church theological views in historical context, James Garrard offers a fruitful re-appraisal of the intellectual, spiritual and 'party' context in which Howley moved.

Sharing Friendship represents a post-liberal approach to ecclesiology and theology generated out of the history, practices and traditions of the Anglican Church. Drawing on the theological ethics of Stanley Hauerwas, this book explores the way friendship for the stranger emerges from contextually grounded reflection and conversations with contemporary Anglican theologians within the English tradition, including John Milbank, Oliver O'Donovan, Rowan Williams, Daniel Hardy and Anthony Thiselton. Avoiding abstract definitions of character, mission or friendship, John Thomson explores how the history of the English Church reflects a theology of friendship and how discipleship in the New Testament, the performance of worship, and the shape of Anglican ecclesiology are congruent with such a theology. The book concludes by rooting the theme of sharing friendship within the self-emptying kenotic performance of Jesus' mission, and looks at challenges to the character of contemporary Anglican ecclesiology represented by secularization and globalization as well as by arguments over appropriate new initiatives such as Fresh Expressions.

A study of the history and contribution of the Huguenots in Britain. It is characterized by a blend of scholarship with lucidity, balance and humour. Originally published in 1985, this second edition takes into account new research and writings since the first edition. All referencing material has been updated in the light of new findings. The plate section has also been expanded to include recently available pictures of Huguenot artefacts and scenes.