Despite the fact that women are often mentioned as having played instrumental roles in the establishment of Methodism on the Continent of Europe, very little detail concerning the women has ever been provided to add texture to this historical tapestry. This book of essays redresses this by launching a new and wider investigation into the story of pioneering Methodist women in Europe. By bringing to light an alternative set of historical narratives, this edited volume gives voice to a broad range of religious issues and concerns during the critical period in European history between 1869 and 1939. Covering a range of nations in Continental Europe, some important interpretive themes are suggested, such as the capacity of women to network, their ability to engage in God's work, and their skill at navigating difficult cultural boundaries. This ground breaking study will be of significant interest to scholars of Methodism, but also to students and academics working in history, religious studies, and gender.

Baptized in the Spirit creatively examines the most recent trends in Pentecostal and charismatic theology, especially with regard to the displacement of Spirit baptism as Pentecostalism s central distinctive. The author begins by focusing on the significance of the Holy Spirit in reciprocal and mutual work with the Son in fulfilling the will of the Father. He also shows how the pneumatological emphases in Pentecostal and charismatic theology can help to correct the tendency in Western Christianity to subordinate the Spirit to the Word."

This book isn't just about discovering our spiritual gifts, or even receiving them-it's about releasing them! God wants you to experience the great wonder of moving in and through His graceAnd#8212;on a daily basis.As you read, you'll first gain an overview of spiritual gifts and be introduced to the way the Holy Spirit moves and operates within them. Then you'll explore the nine most widely recognized spiritual gifts. These are not the only gifts God gives His children, but they are vital to understand and then activate according to His leading.Releasing Spiritual Gifts Today is filled with many examples of how the gifts have been used in action, both within the pages of the Bible and in the present day. God desires to pour out His gifts on His people with even greater degrees of impact and authority. This is your opportunity to find out what the Lord can do for you and through you as you release His spiritual gifts today in an outpouring of His love, grace, and power.

Evangelicalism, an inter-denominational religious movement that has grown to become one of the most pervasive expressions of world Christianity in the early twenty-first century, had its origins in the religious revivals led by George Whitefield, John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. With its stress on the Bible, the cross of Christ, conversion and the urgency of mission, it quickly spread throughout the Atlantic world and then became a global phenomenon. Over the past three decades evangelicalism has become the focus of considerable historical research. This research companion brings together a team of leading scholars writing broad-ranging chapters on key themes in the history of evangelicalism. It provides an authoritative and state-of-the-art review of current scholarship, and maps the territory for future research. Primary attention is paid to English-speaking evangelicalism, but the volume is transnational in its scope. Arranged thematically, chapters assess evangelicalism and the Bible, the atonement, spirituality, revivals and revivalism, worldwide mission in the Atlantic North and the Global South, eschatology, race, gender, culture and the arts, money and business, interactions with Roman Catholicism, Eastern Christianity, and Islam, and globalization. It demonstrates evangelicalism's multiple and contested identities in different ages and contexts. The historical and thematic approach of this research companion makes it an invaluable resource for scholars and students alike worldwide.

The main concern of this study, first published in 1990, is the part played by Protestantism in the complex of social processes of 'secularization'. The book deals with the way in which Protestant schism and dissent paved the way for the rise of religious pluralism and toleration; and it also looks at the fragility of the two major responses to religious pluralism - the accommodation of liberal Protestantism and the sectarian rejection of the conservative alternative. It examines the part played by social, economic and political changes in undermining the plausibility of religion in western Europe, and puts forward the argument that core Reformation ideas must not be overlooked, particularly the repercussions of different beliefs about authority in competing Christian traditions.

Previous studies of revival have tended to approach these remarkable moments in history from either a strictly local or a sweeping national perspective. In so doing they have dealt with either the detailed circumstances of a particular situation or the broader course of events. These approaches, however, have given the incorrect impression that religious awakening are uniform movements. As a result revivals have been misunderstood as homogeneous campaigns. This is the first study of the 1859 revival from a regional level in a comprehensive manner. It examines this movement, arguably the most significant and far-reaching awakening in modern times, as it appeared in the city of Aberdeen, the rural hinterland of north-east Scotland, and among the fishing villages and towns that stretch along the Moray Firth. It reveals how, far from being unvarying, the 1859 revival was richly diverse. It uncovers the important influence that local contexts brought to bear upon the timing and manifestation of this awakening. Above all, it has established the heterogeneous nature of simultaneous revival movements that appeared in the same vicinity.

Most of the early twentieth-century Pentecostal denominations were peace churches that encouraged a stance of conscientious objection. However, since the Second World War Pentecostals have largely abandoned their pacifist viewpoint as they have taken on a more literal Biblical hermeneutic from their interaction with Evangelical denominations. This book traces the history of nonviolence in Pentecostalism and suggests that a new hermeneutic of the Bible is needed by today's Pentecostals in order for them to rediscover their pacifist roots and effect positive social change. The book focuses on how Pentecostalism has manifested in South Africa during the twentieth century. Much of the available academic literature on hermeneutics and exegesis in the field of Pentecostal Studies is of an American or British-European origin. This book redresses this imbalance by exploring how the Bible has been used amongst African Pentecostals to teach on the apparent paradox of a simultaneously wrathful and loving God. It then goes onto suggest that how the Bible is read directly affects how Pentecostals view their role as potential reformers of society. So, it must be engaged seriously and thoughtfully. By bringing Pentecostalism's function in South African society to the fore, this book adds a fresh perspective on the issue of pacifism in world Christianity. As such it will be of great use to scholars of Pentecostal Studies, Theology, and Religion and Violence as well as those working in African Studies.

Claim your prophetic promise in the midst of the storm!

What do you do when you receive a promise from the Lord but it doesn’t come to pass? How do you get from promise to fulfillment?

When Ryan Johnson’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, God took him on a revelatory journey, showing him how prophetic promises are realized. In the midst of her grim diagnosis, Ryan’s mother was having recurring dreams of playing with her adult grandchildren. These dreams were prophetic signposts that the diagnosis would not be a death sentence. This gave Ryan faith to press into God for answers and contend for a miracle. Now his mother is healed and cancer free! During this process, the Holy Spirit revealed keys to activating faith and seeing promises come to pass, even when it seems like the situation is hopeless.

How to Contend for Your Miracle will show you how to…

• Use the dreams, visions, and prophetic words that God gives as anchors for your faith and weapons against the enemy.
• Activate the gift of faith to accelerate the fulfillment of your prophetic promises.
• Thrive in the midst of your struggle by standing on the Word of God.
  

Rise up! Contend for your miracle, so all of God’s promises can come to pass!

"These encounters bring amazing changes to our life, resulting in more faith, surrender, power, understanding, and fruit." – Randy Clark, bestselling author of Power to Heal

“The subject of Heaven on earth is one of those strategic themes and Candice Smithyman is one of those anointed chosen messengers.” – James W. Goll, God Encounters Ministries

This is the key to supernaturally shifting atmospheres!

Many Christians assume that only a few gifted individuals can move in the miraculous, but the Bible teaches that all believers have unlimited access to the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.

When you discover your identity in Jesus, cultivate a heavenly mindset, and access the authority you have received in Jesus, you can immediately release the power of Heaven into your everyday circumstances. This is the key to changing atmospheres and circumstances around you.

Candice Smithyman is a prophetic voice who has learned to move in the supernatural by accessing an open Heaven. Now, she wants to mentor you to do the same.

Releasing Heaven will…

• Encourage you to confidently enter the supernatural realm as a citizen of Heaven.
• Empower you to release miracles by praying from a heavenly dimension.
• Impart principles for accessing your heavenly riches every day.
• Teach you how to release the vats of heaven for your need and the needs of others.

Begin accessing the Heavenly realm to change your world today!

The aesthetics of everyday life, as reflected in art museums and galleries throughout the western world, is the result of a profound shift in aesthetic perception that occurred during the Renaissance and Reformation. In this book, William A. Dyrness examines intellectual developments in late Medieval Europe, which turned attention away from a narrow range liturgical art and practices and towards a celebration of God's presence in creation and in history. Though threatened by the human tendency to self-assertion, he shows how a new focus on God's creative and recreative action in the world gave time and history a new seriousness, and engendered a broad spectrum of aesthetic potential. Focusing in particular on the writings of Luther and Calvin, Dyrness demonstrates how the reformers' conceptual and theological frameworks pertaining to the role of the arts influenced the rise of realistic theater, lyric poetry, landscape painting, and architecture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

To many people, the Church of England and worldwide Anglican Communion has the aura of an institution that is dislocated and adrift. Buffeted by tempestuous and stormy debates on sexuality, gender, authority and power - to say nothing of priorities in mission and ministry, and the leadership and management of the church - a once confident Anglicanism appears to be anxious and vulnerable. The Future Shape of Anglicanism offers a constructive and critical engagement with the currents and contours that have brought the church to this point. It assesses and evaluates the forces now shaping the church and challenges them culturally, critically, and theologically. The Future Shape of Anglicanism engages with the church of the present that is simultaneously dissenting and loyal, as well as critical and constructive. For all who are engaged in ecclesiological investigations, and for those who study the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion, this book offers new maps and charts for the present and future. It is an essential companion and guide to some of the movements and forces that are currently shaping the church.

This stimulating volume explores how the memory of the Reformation has been remembered, forgotten, contested, and reinvented between the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries. Remembering the Reformation traces how a complex, protracted, and unpredictable process came to be perceived, recorded, and commemorated as a transformative event. Exploring both local and global patterns of memory, the contributors examine the ways in which the Reformation embedded itself in the historical imagination and analyse the enduring, unstable, and divided legacies that it engendered. The book also underlines how modern scholarship is indebted to processes of memory-making initiated in the early modern period and challenges the conventional models of periodisation that the Reformation itself helped to create. This collection of essays offers an expansive examination and theoretically engaged discussion of concepts and practices of memory and Reformation. This volume is ideal for upper level undergraduates and postgraduates studying the Reformation, Early Modern Religious History, Early Modern European History, and Early Modern Literature.

This stimulating volume explores how the memory of the Reformation has been remembered, forgotten, contested, and reinvented between the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries. Remembering the Reformation traces how a complex, protracted, and unpredictable process came to be perceived, recorded, and commemorated as a transformative event. Exploring both local and global patterns of memory, the contributors examine the ways in which the Reformation embedded itself in the historical imagination and analyse the enduring, unstable, and divided legacies that it engendered. The book also underlines how modern scholarship is indebted to processes of memory-making initiated in the early modern period and challenges the conventional models of periodisation that the Reformation itself helped to create. This collection of essays offers an expansive examination and theoretically engaged discussion of concepts and practices of memory and Reformation. This volume is ideal for upper level undergraduates and postgraduates studying the Reformation, Early Modern Religious History, Early Modern European History, and Early Modern Literature.

Sanctification is a central theme in the theology of both John and Charles Wesley. However, while John's theology of sanctification has received much scholarly attention, significantly less has been paid to Charles' views on the subject. This book redresses this imbalance by using Charles' many poetic texts as a window into his rich theological thought on sanctification, particularly uncovering the role of resignation in the development of his views on this key doctrine. In this analysis of Charles' theology of sanctification, the centrality he accorded to resignation is uncovered to show a positive attribute involving acts of intention, desire and offering to God. The book begins by putting Charles' position in the context of contemporary theology, and then shows how he differed in attitude from his brother John. It then discusses in depth how his hymns use the concept of resignation, both in relation to Jesus Christ and the believer. It concludes this analysis by identifying the ways in which Charles understood the relationship between resignation and sanctification; namely, that resignation is a lens through which Charles views holiness. The final chapter considers the implications of these conclusions for a twenty-first century theological and spiritual context, and asks whether resignation is still a concept which can be used today. This book breaks new ground in the understanding of Charles Wesley's personal theology. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars of Methodism and the Wesleys as well as those working in theology, spirituality, and the history of religion.

This book examines the contributions, both intentional and unintentional, of Nigerian Pentecostal churches and NGOs to development, studying their development practices broadly in relation to the intersecting spheres of politics, economics, health, education, human rights, and peacebuilding. In sub-Saharan Africa, Pentecostalism is fast becoming the dominant expression of Christianity, but while the growth and civic engagement of these churches has been well documented, their role in development has received less attention. The Nigerian Pentecostal landscape is one of the most vibrant in Africa. Churches are increasingly assuming more prominent roles as they seek to address the social and moral ills of contemporary society, often in fierce competition with Islam for dominance in Nigerian public space. Some scholars suggest that the combination of an enchanted worldview, an emphasis on miracles and prosperity teaching, and a preoccupation with evangelism discourages effective political engagement and militates against development. However, Nigerian Pentecostalism and Development argues that there is an emerging movement within contemporary Nigerian Pentecostalism which is becoming increasingly active in development practices. This book goes on to explore the increasingly transnational approach that churches take, often seeking to build multicultural congregations around the globe, for instance in Britain and the United States. Nigerian Pentecostalism and Development: Spirit, Power, and Transformation will be of considerable interest to scholars and students concerned with the intersection between religion and development, and to development practitioners and policy-makers working in the region.

Originally published in 1996 Religious Higher Education in the United States looks at the issue of higher education and a lack of a clearly articulated purpose, an issue particularly challenging to religiously-affiliated institutions. This volume attempts to address the problems currently facing denomination-affiliated institutions of higher education, beginning with an introduction to government aid and the regulation of religious colleges and universities in the US. The greater part of the volume consists of 24 chapters, each of which begins with a historical essay followed by annotated bibliographical entries covering primary and secondary sources dating back to 1986 on various denomination-connected institutions.

Philip Gorski is a very well-known and highly respected author. His work on Christianity and Democracy is ground breaking and he is a pioneer of the field. The book is incredibly topical and will be of interested to those studying Christianity, religion and politics and evangelicalism. This will be the first academic book to take this approach to the subject area.

Rodney Hogue didn’t believe that believers could be oppressed by demons…

But one day, the Holy Spirit revealed that he was being oppressed by a demonic
spirit. In disgust, Rodney commanded the demon to leave in Jesus’ name. To his
surprise, it did! Since then, he’s been driven by a passion to see others set free from
spiritual strongholds, and brought into a powerful encounter with the love, freedom,
and healing of Jesus!

Today, Hogue teaches that the first step to deliverance is exposing the works of
darkness. All too often, a demonic presence is overlooked as merely a bad habit or
something that “runs in the family.” Unless we recognize the enemy’s stealth tactics,
we will fail to confront the true issue and continue to experience demonic torment.

In Liberated, Hogue offers powerful tools for discerning and defeating the enemy’s
work through the Holy Spirit’s power.

Discover how to:

• Operate in your spiritual jurisdiction of authority when confronting demons.
• Recognize signs and symptoms of demonic oppression.
• Identify and close any open doors granting demons access to your life.
• Confidently deal with evil spirits when they manifest.
• Step-by-step, minister deliverance for yourself and others.
• Rebuild broken areas of life after receiving inner healing and deliverance.

When strongholds are exposed, freedom comes and healing can begin!

God Delights in You
God loves us. With all our faults and failures, with all the secret sins no one else knows about. In fact, He rejoices over us so much that He breaks out in inexpressible joy and song as He thinks about us.
"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing." --Zephaniah 3:17
That's how God feels about you He looks at you, He thinks of you...and He sings for joy
In "The Singing God" Sam Storms explores God's immeasurable love for His children. You don't need to be different; you don't need to be better. You just need to know that God loves you just the way you are now...today. When you truly believe this, you will find the strength and incentive to fight sin, experience freedom from shame, and walk in the fullness of all that God desires for you.

In recent years, there has been an upsurge of interest in religion and religious issues. Some have linked this to a neo-liberal form of individualism, while others noted that secularism has left people bereft of a humanly necessary link with the transcendent. The importance of identity issues has also been remarked upon. This book examines how liberal forms of religion are allowing people to engage with religion on their own terms, while also feeling part of something more universal. Looking at liberal approaches to the Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity and Islam - this book teases out how postmodern culture has shaped the way in which people engage with these religions. It also compares and contrasts how liberal thinking and theology have been expressed in each of the faiths examined, as well as the reactionary responses to its emergence. By considering how liberalism has influenced the narrative around the Abrahamic faiths, this book demonstrates how malleable faith and spirituality can be. As such, it will be of interest to scholars working in Religious Studies, Theology, Sociology and Cultural Anthropology.

ECPA Christian Book of the Year Christianity Today Book of the Year Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist IVP Readers' Choice Award How can we trust God in the dark? Framed around a nighttime prayer of Compline, Tish Harrison Warren, author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, explores themes of human vulnerability, suffering, and God's seeming absence. When she navigated a time of doubt and loss, the prayer was grounding for her. She writes that practices of prayer "gave words to my anxiety and grief and allowed me to reencounter the doctrines of the church not as tidy little antidotes for pain, but as a light in darkness, as good news." Where do we find comfort when we lie awake worrying or weeping in the night? This book offers a prayerful and frank approach to the difficulties in our ordinary lives at work, at home, and in a world filled with uncertainty.

Little known in America but venerated as a martyr in Iran, Howard Baskerville was a twenty-two-year-old Christian missionary from South Dakota who traveled to Persia (modern-day Iran) in 1907 for a two-year stint teaching English and preaching the gospel. He arrived in the midst of a democratic revolution-the first of its kind in the Middle East-led by a group of brilliant young firebrands committed to transforming their country into a fully self-determining, constitutional monarchy, one with free elections and an independent parliament. The Persian students Baskerville educated in English in turn educated him about their struggle for democracy, ultimately inspiring him to leave his teaching post and join them in their fight against a tyrannical shah and his British and Russian backers. "The only difference between me and these people is the place of my birth," Baskerville declared, "and that is not a big difference." In 1909, Baskerville was killed in battle alongside his students, but his martyrdom spurred on the revolutionaries who succeeded in removing the shah from power, signing a new constitution, and rebuilding parliament in Tehran. To this day, Baskerville's tomb in the city of Tabriz remains a place of pilgrimage. Every year, thousands of Iranians visit his grave to honor the American who gave his life for Iran. In this rip-roaring tale of his life and death, Aslan gives us a powerful parable about the universal ideals of democracy-and to what degree Americans are willing to support those ideals in a foreign land. Woven throughout is an essential history of the nation we now know as Iran-frequently demonized and misunderstood in the West. Indeed, Baskerville's life and death represent a "road not taken" in Iran. Baskerville's story, like his life, is at the center of a whirlwind in which Americans must ask themselves: How seriously do we take our ideals of constitutional democracy and whose freedom do we support?