A campaigner for women's rights
This is a remarkable and controversial book by any standards. The verdict is still out on whether its author Ann Eliza Young (formerly Webb) presented her case with complete impartiality, but certainly its contents are sufficiently detailed to reveal shocking and extraordinary details of her experiences during her time as a pluralist wife of Brigham Young of the Latter-Day Saints. A child of Mormon parents, Ann entered into her marriage with Young when he was 67 years old and she was 24, a divorcee and the mother of two children. Her writings on her experiences of the Mormon lifestyle in Utah make gripping reading and her book is filled with accounts of privation, cruelty and violence. She filed for divorce from Brigham Young in 1873 and went on to become an outspoken advocate for the rights of women in 19th century America and an ardent and campaigning opponent of polygamous marriage. This book is her account of her life as one of Young's wives and on its original publication propelled Ann into the public arena and became a best seller of its day. It still makes compelling reading. Available in softcover and hardcover for collectors.

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

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

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

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

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

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