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Books > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches
This textbook not only provides a historical overview of Mexican
American religious traditions but also focuses on society today.
Making this a very comprehensive overview of the subject areas.
This is the first book to attempt to focus on this topic. Each
chapter includes a helpful pedagogy including a general overview,
case studies, suggestions for further reading, questions for
discussion, and a glossary. Making this the ideal textbook for
students approaching the topic for the first time. The use of case
studies and first person narratives provides a much needed 'lived
religion' approach to the subject area. Helping students to apply
their learning to the world around them.
Exploring the response of evangelicals to the collapse of 'Greater
Christian Britain' in Australia in the long 1960s, this book
provides a new religious perspective to the end of empire and a
fresh national perspective to the end of Christendom. In the
turbulent 1960s, two foundations of the Western world rapidly and
unexpectedly collapsed. 'Christendom', marked by the dominance of
discursive Christianity in public culture, and 'Greater Britain',
the powerful sentimental and strategic union of Britain and its
settler societies, disappeared from the collective mental map with
startling speed. To illuminate these contemporaneous global shifts,
this book takes as a case study the response of Australian
evangelical Christian leaders to the cultural and religious crises
encountered between 1959 and 1979. Far from being a narrow national
study, this book places its case studies in the context of the
latest North American and European scholarship on secularisation,
imperialism and evangelicalism. Drawing on a wide range of archival
sources, it examines critical figures such as Billy Graham, Fred
Nile and Hans Mol, as well as issues of empire, counter-cultural
movements and racial and national identity. This study will be of
particular interest to any scholar of Evangelicalism in the
twentieth century. It will also be a useful resource for academics
looking into the wider impacts of the decline of Christianity and
the British Empire in Western civilisation.
Christianity Today Book Award ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award Apart
from the doctrine of God, no doctrine is as comprehensive as that
of creation. It is woven throughout the entire fabric of Christian
theology. It goes to the deepest roots of reality and leaves no
area of life untouched. Across the centuries, however, the doctrine
of creation has often been eclipsed or threatened by various forms
of gnosticism. Yet if Christians are to rise to current challenges
related to public theology and ethics, we must regain a robust,
biblical doctrine of creation. According to Bruce Ashford and Craig
Bartholomew, one of the best sources for outfitting this recovery
is Dutch neo-Calvinism. Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, and their
successors set forth a substantial doctrine of creation's goodness,
but recent theological advances in this tradition have been
limited. Now in The Doctrine of Creation Ashford and Bartholomew
develop the Kuyperian tradition's rich resources on creation for
systematic theology and the life of the church today. In addition
to tracing historical treatments of the doctrine, the authors
explore intertwined theological themes such as the omnipotence of
God, human vocation, and providence. They draw from diverse streams
of Christian thought while remaining rooted in the Kuyperian
tradition, with a sustained focus on doing theology in deep
engagement with Scripture. Approaching the world as God's creation
changes everything. Thus The Doctrine of Creation concludes with
implications for current issues, including those related to
philosophy, science, the self, and human dignity. This exegetically
grounded constructive theology contributes to renewed appreciation
for and application of the doctrine of creation-which is ultimately
a doctrine of profound hope.
In A Divine Revelation of Angels, Mary Baxter describes dreams, visions, and revelations of angels that God has given her. Explore the fascinating dynamics of angelic beings, including their appearance, their assigned functions and roles, and how they operate, not only in the heavenly realms, but also in our lives here on earth. Discover the difference between good angels and bad angels (demons) and their activities so you can distinguish angels of light from angels of darkness. Learn how God’s holy angels are magnificent beings who are His messengers and warriors sent to assist, sustain, protect, and deliver us through the power of Christ.
Many people wonder why they can’t overcome sins and temptations, and why they experience recurring problems in their health, finances, and relationships. A Divine Revelation of Deliverance exposes these schemes of Satan. Through the Scriptures, visions of warfare, and personal encounters with evil spiritual forces, Mary K. Baxter has discovered powerful truths to help you overcome your fear of the enemy, recognize and conquer satanic traps, experience victory over sins and failures, be free from unexplained attacks, and intercede for the deliverance of others. This is a war that must be fought with the supernatural power and weapons of God.
The important questions in ecumenical dialogue centre upon issues
of authority and order. This book uses the development of ministry
in the early Methodist Church to explore the origins of the
Methodist Order and identify the nature of authority exercised by
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. Showing Methodism
as having been founded upon Episcopalian principles, but in a
manner reinterpreted by its founder, Adrian Burdon charts the
journey made by John Wesley and his people towards the ordination
of preachers, which became such a major issue amongst the first
Methodist Societies. Implications for understanding the nature and
practice of authority and order in modern Methodism are explored,
with particular reference to the covenant for unity between English
Methodists and the Church of England.
When approaching the most public disagreement over predestination
in the eighteenth century, the 'Free Grace' controversy between
John Wesley and George Whitefield, the tendency can be to simply
review the event as a row over the same old issues. This assumption
pervades much of the scholarly literature that deals with early
Methodism. Moreover, much of that same literature addresses the
dispute from John Wesley's vantage point, often harbouring a bias
towards his Evangelical Arminianism. Yet the question must be
asked: was there more to the 'Free Grace' controversy than a simple
rehashing of old arguments? This book answers this complex question
by setting out the definitive account of the 'Free Grace'
controversy in first decade of the Evangelical Revival (1739-49).
Centred around the key players in the fracas, John Wesley and
George Whitefield, it is a close analysis of the way in which the
doctrine of predestination was instrumental in differentiating the
early Methodist societies from one another. It recounts the
controversy through the lens of doctrinal analysis and from two
distinct perspectives: the propositional content of a given
doctrine and how that doctrine exerts formative pressure upon the
assenting individual(s). What emerges from this study is a clearer
picture of the formative years of early Methodism and the vital
role that doctrinal pronouncement played in giving a shape to early
Methodist identity. It will, therefore, be of great interest to
scholars of Methodism, Evangelicalism, Theology and Church History.
It has long been accepted that when Samuel Taylor Coleridge
rejected the Unitarianism of his youth and returned to the Church
of England, he did so while accepting a general Christian
orthodoxy. Christopher Corbin clarifies Coleridge's religious
identity and argues that while Coleridge's Christian orthodoxy may
have been sui generis, it was closely aligned with moderate
Anglican Evangelicalism. Approaching religious identity as a kind
of culture that includes distinct forms of language and networks of
affiliation in addition to beliefs and practices, this book looks
for the distinguishable movements present in Coleridge's Britain to
more precisely locate his religious identity than can be done by
appeals to traditional denominational divisions. Coleridge's search
for unity led him to desire and synthesize the "warmth" of heart
religion (symbolized as Methodism) with the "light" of rationalism
(symbolized as Socinianism), and the evangelicalism in the Church
of England, being the most chastened of the movement, offered a
fitting place from which this union of warmth and light could
emerge. His religious identity not only included many of the
defining Anglican Evangelical beliefs, such as an emphasis on
original sin and the New Birth, but he also shared common polemical
opponents, appropriated evangelical literary genres, developed a
spirituality centered on the common evangelical emphases of prayer
and introspection, and joined Evangelicals in rejecting baptismal
regeneration. When placed in a chronological context, Coleridge's
form of Christian orthodoxy developed in conversation with Anglican
Evangelicals; moreover, this relationship with Anglican
Evangelicalism likely helped facilitate his return to the Church of
England. Corbin not only demonstrates the similarities between
Coleridge's relationship to a form of evangelicalism with which
most people have little familiarity, but also offers greater
insight into the complexities and tensions of religious identity in
late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain as a whole.
Attitudes towards divorce have changed considerably over the past
two centuries. As society has moved away from a Biblical definition
of marriage as an indissoluble union, to that of an individual and
personal relationship, secular laws have evolved as well. Using
unpublished sources and previously inaccessible private
collections, Holmes explores the significant role the Church of
England has played in these changes, as well as the impact this has
had on ecclesiastical policies. This timely study will be relevant
to ongoing debates about the meaning and nature of marriage,
including the theological doctrines and ecclesiastical policies
underlying current debates on same-sex marriage.
W.R. Ward was one of the most influential historians of modern
religion to be found at work in Britain during the twentieth
century. Across fifty years his writings provoked a major
reconsideration by historians of the significance of religion in
society and its importance in the contexts of political, cultural
and intellectual life. Ward was, above all, an international
scholar who did much to repudiate any settled understanding that
religious history existed in merely national categories. In
particular, he showed how much British and American religion owed
to the insights of Continental European thought and experience.
This book presents many of Ward's most important articles and gives
a picture of the character, and extraordinary breadth, of his work.
Embracing studies of John Wesley and the development of Methodism
at large, the ambitions of Evangelicals in an age of international
mission, the place of mysticism in evolution of Protestantism and
the relations of churches and secular powers in the twentieth
century, Andrew Chandler concludes that it was in such scholarship
that Ward 'quietly recast the picture that we have of the past and
drew our attention towards a far greater, more difficult and more
interesting, landscape.'
Professor Sell explores the lives and ideas of four unjustly
neglected Anglican philosophers: W.G. De Burgh (1866-1943); W.R.
Matthews (1881-1973); O.C. Quick (1885-1944); H.A. Hodges
(1905-1976). This study fills an important gap in the history of
twentieth-century philosophical and theological thought. Sell
argues that these writers covered a wide range of philosophical
topics in an illuminating way, and that a comparison of their
respective standpoints and methods is instructive from the point of
view of the viability or otherwise of Christian philosophizing. He
discusses the challenges these four philosophical Anglicans issued
to certain important trends in the philosophy and theology of their
day, and argues that some of them are of continuing relevance.
"Ryken's Worldly Saints offers a fine introduction to
seventeenth-century Puritanism in its English and American
contexts. The work is rich in quotations from Puritan worthies and
is ideally suited to general readers who have not delved widely
into Puritan literature. It will also be a source of information
and inspiration to those who seek a clearer understanding of the
Puritan roots of American Christianity." -Harry Stout, Yale
University " the typical Puritans were not wild men, fierce and
freaky, religious fanatics and social extremists, but sober,
conscientious, and cultured citizens, persons of principle,
determined and disciplined excelling in the domestic virtues, and
with no obvious shortcomings save a tendency to run to words when
saying anything important, whether to God or to a man. At last the
record has been put straight." -J.I. Packer, Regent College
"Worldly Saints provides a revealing treasury of primary and
secondary evidence for understanding the Puritans, who they were,
what they believed, and how they acted. This is a book of value and
interest for scholars and students, clergy and laity alike."
-Roland Mushat Frye, University of Pennsylvania "A very
persuasive...most interesting book...stuffed with quotations from
Puritan sources, almost to the point of making it a
mini-anthology." -Publishers Weekly "With Worldly Saints,
Christians of all persuasions have a tool that provides ready
access to the vast treasures of Puritan thought." -Christianity
Today "Ryken writes with a vigor and enthusiasm that makes
delightful reading-never a dull moment." -Fides et Historia
"Worldly Saints provides a valuable picture of Puritan life and
values. It should be useful for general readers as well as for
students of history and literature." -Christianity and
Literature"
Child Protection in the Church investigates whether, amidst
publicised promises of change from church institutions and the
introduction of "safe church" policies and procedures, reform is
actually occurring within Christian churches towards safeguarding,
using a case study of the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania, Australia.
Through the use of interviews and document analysis, the book
provides an insight into the attitudes and practices of "ordinary
clergypersons" towards child sexual abuse and safeguarding to
understand how safe ministry is understood and executed in everyday
life in the Church, and to what extent it aligns with policy
requirements and criminological best practice. It adopts
organisational culture theory, the perspective used to explain how
clerical culture enabled and concealed child sexual abuse in the
Church to the present, in order to understand how clerical
attitudes (cognition) and practice (conduct) today is being shaped
by some of the same negative cultures. Underlying these cultures is
misunderstandings of abuse causation, which are shown here to
negatively shape clerical practice and, at times, compromise policy
and procedural requirements. Providing an insight into the lived
reality of safeguarding within churches, and highlighting the
ongoing complexities of safe ministry, the book is a useful
companion to students, academics, and practitioners of child
protection and organisational studies, alongside clergy, church
leaders, and those training for the ministry.
Theologians and scholars of religion draw on rich resources to
address the complex issues raised by political reconciliation in
the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia, South Africa, Northern
Ireland and elsewhere. The questions addressed include: Can truth
set a person, or a society, free? How is political forgiveness
possible? Are political, personal, and spiritual reconciliation
essentially related? Explorations in Reconciliation brings
Catholic, Protestant, Mennonite, Jewish and Islamic perspectives
together within a single volume to present some of the most
relevant theological work today. The Open Access version of this
book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/ISBN, has
been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non
Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. The support of the Irish
School of Ecumenics Trust in making this OA version possible is
gratefully acknowledged.
This critique provides a framework for understanding and interpreting the widespread but little-known New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement.
As the authors state in the preface: "We write this book with two major goals in mind. First, to give people an idea of the sheer size and reach of the NAR movement. And second, to systematize its key teachings and practices and evaluate them on the basis of Scripture and careful reasoning . . In our judgment, the NAR perspective crosses these boundaries [that is, certain broad parameters, revealed in Scripture and practiced in the historical orthodox church], and it does so in part because of flawed theology rooted in a flawed understanding of Scripture. We wish to warn readers about a possible confusion: Some critics have linked the NAR movement with mainstream Pentecostalism and charismatics. We do not do this. In fact, it is our contention that the NAR movement deviates from classical Pentecostal and charismatic teachings. This movement has emerged out of independent charismatic churches and, thus, has gained a foothold in many of those churches in varying degrees."
With a focus on England from the accession of Elizabeth I to the
mid-1620s, this book examines the practice of direct, scholarly
disputation between fundamentally opposing and oftentimes
antagonistic Catholic, Protestant and nonconformist puritan
divines. Introducing a form of discourse hitherto neglected in
studies of religious controversy, the volume works to rehabilitate
a body of material only previously examined as part of the great,
subjective mass of polemic produced in the wake of the Reformation.
In so doing, it argues that public religious disputation - debate
between opposing clergymen, arranged according to strict academic
formulae - can offer new insights into contemporary beliefs,
thought processes and conceptions of religious identity, as well as
an accessible and dramatic window into the major theological
controversies of the age. Formal disputation crossed confessional
lines, and here provides an opportunity for a broad, comparative
analysis. More than any other type of interaction or material,
these encounters - and the dialogic accounts they produced -
displayed the shared methods underpinning religious divisions,
allowing Catholic and reformed clergymen to meet on the same field.
The present volume asserts the significance of public religious
disputation (and accounts thereof) in this regard, and explores
their use of formal logic, academic procedure and recorded dialogue
form to bolster religious controversy. In this, it further
demonstrates how we might begin to move from the surviving source
material for these encounters to the events themselves, and how the
disputations then offer a remarkable new glimpse into the
construction, rationalization and expression of post-Reformation
religious argument.
Every year an estimated 600,000 U.S. Latinos convert from
Catholicism to Protestantism. Today, 12.5 million Latinos
self-identify as Protestant--a population larger than all U.S. Jews
and Muslims combined. Spearheading this spiritual transformation is
the Pentecostal movement and Assemblies of God, which is the
destination for one out of four converts. In a deeply researched
social and cultural history, Gaston Espinosa uncovers the roots of
this remarkable turn and the Latino AG's growing leadership
nationwide. Latino Pentecostals in America traces the Latino AG
back to the Azusa Street Revivals in Los Angeles and Apostolic
Faith Revivals in Houston from 1906 to 1909. Espinosa describes the
uphill struggles for indigenous leadership, racial equality, women
in the ministry, social and political activism, and immigration
reform. His analysis of their independent political views and
voting patterns from 1996 to 2012 challenges the stereotypes that
they are all apolitical, right-wing, or politically marginal. Their
outspoken commitment to an active faith has led a new generation of
leaders to blend righteousness and justice, by which they mean the
reconciling message of Billy Graham and the social transformation
of Martin Luther King Jr. Latino AG leaders and their 2,400
churches across the nation represent a new and growing force in
denominational, Evangelical, and presidential politics. This
eye-opening study explains why this group of working-class Latinos
once called "the Silent Pentecostals" is silent no more. By giving
voice to their untold story, Espinosa enriches our understanding of
the diversity of Latino religion, Evangelicalism, and American
culture.
Believers were meant to live free of the cares of this world. This
book reveals ways to overcome the worry habit and walk in faith by
obeying God's Word.
Christianity and the Alt-Right: Exploring the Relationship looks
back at the 2016 presidential election and the support President
Trump enjoyed among white Evangelicals. This cutting-edge volume
offers insights into the role of race and racism in shaping both
the Trump candidacy and presidency and the ways in which
xenophobia, racism, and religion intersect within the Alt-Right and
Evangelical cultures in the age of Trump. This book aims to examine
the specific role that Christianity plays within the Alt-Right
itself. Of special concern is the development of what is called
"pro-white Christianity" and an ethic of religious tolerance
between members of the Alt-Right who are Pagan or atheist and those
who are Christian, whilst also exploring the reaction from
Christian communities to the phenomenon of the Alt-Right. Looking
at the larger relationship between American Christians, especially
white Evangelicals, and the Alt-Right as well as the current
American political context, the place of Christianity within the
Alt-Right itself, and responses from Christian communities to the
Alt-Right, this is a must-read for those interested in religion in
America, religion and politics, evangelicalism, and religion and
race.
Christianity and the Alt-Right: Exploring the Relationship looks
back at the 2016 presidential election and the support President
Trump enjoyed among white Evangelicals. This cutting-edge volume
offers insights into the role of race and racism in shaping both
the Trump candidacy and presidency and the ways in which
xenophobia, racism, and religion intersect within the Alt-Right and
Evangelical cultures in the age of Trump. This book aims to examine
the specific role that Christianity plays within the Alt-Right
itself. Of special concern is the development of what is called
"pro-white Christianity" and an ethic of religious tolerance
between members of the Alt-Right who are Pagan or atheist and those
who are Christian, whilst also exploring the reaction from
Christian communities to the phenomenon of the Alt-Right. Looking
at the larger relationship between American Christians, especially
white Evangelicals, and the Alt-Right as well as the current
American political context, the place of Christianity within the
Alt-Right itself, and responses from Christian communities to the
Alt-Right, this is a must-read for those interested in religion in
America, religion and politics, evangelicalism, and religion and
race.
This book critically examines contemporary Pentecostalism in South
Africa and its influence on some of the countries that surround it.
Pentecostalism plays a significant role in the religious life of
this region and so evaluating its impact is key to understanding
how religion functions in Twenty-First Century Africa. Beginning
with an overview of the roots of Pentecostalism in Southern Africa,
the book moves on to identify a current "fourth" wave of this form
of Christianity. It sets out the factors that have given rise to
this movement and then offers the first academic evaluation of its
theology and practice. Positive aspects as well as extreme or
negative practices are all identified in order to give a balanced
and nuanced assessment of this religious group and allow the reader
to gain valuable insight into how it interacts with wider African
society. This book is cutting-edge look at an emerging form of one
of the fastest-growing religions in the world. It will, therefore,
be of great use to scholars working in Pentecostalism, Theology,
Religious Studies and African Religion as well as African Studies
more generally.
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