This masterful survey of world religions presents a clear and concise portrait of the history, beliefs, and practices of Eastern and Western religions. The authors, both respected scholars of world religions, have over 50 years of combined teaching experience. Their book is accessibly written for introductory classes, can be easily adapted for one- or two-semester courses, and employs a neutral approach for broad classroom use. The third edition has been revised throughout, with updated material on the history and contemporary configurations of each tradition and new sections addressing gender, sexuality, and the environment. It also includes effective sidebars, photographs, timelines, charts, calendars, glossaries, and a spelling guide. Online resources through Baker Academic's Textbook eSources include Powerpoint/Keynote slides, new maps and videos, and a large question bank of multiple-choice test questions (available to professors upon request).

The 1920s saw one of the most striking revolutions in manners and morals to have marked North American society, affecting almost every aspect of life, from dress and drink to sex and salvation. Protestant Christianity was being torn apart by a heated controversy between traditionalists and the modernists, as they sought to determine how much their beliefs and practices should be altered by scientific study and more secular attitudes. Out of the controversy arose the Fundamentalist movement, which has become a powerful force in twentieth-century America.
During this decade, hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of young girl preachers, some not even school age, joined the conservative Christian cause, proclaiming traditional values and condemning modern experiments with the new morality. Some of the girls drew crowds into the thousands. But the stage these girls gained went far beyond the revivalist platform. The girl evangelist phenomenon was recognized in the wider society as well, and the contrast to the flapper worked well for the press and the public. Girl evangelists stood out as the counter-type of the flapper, who had come to define the modern girl. The striking contrast these girls offered to the racy flapper and to modern culture generally made girl evangelists a convenient and effective tool for conservative and revivalist Christianity, a tool which was used by their adherents in the clash of cultures that marked the 1920s.

How did the early Christian movement, which began among Jewish people and in close association with the Jewish temple and synagogues of the first century, develop into a predominantly Gentile movement by the end of the first century? Was this "parting of the ways" spurred by internal tensions within the Christian church, socio-political factors in the Roman city of Antioch, or growing hostility from the larger Jewish community? In "Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways," Thomas A. Robinson addresses this intriguing historical question by taking a careful look at the writings of one of the few Christian writers who wrote about this parting firsthand--Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, who was martyred in the early years of the second century. Through a careful examination of the historical and sociological setting of first-century Antioch, Robinson sifts the testimony of this church father on issues such as the nature of Christian conversion at Antioch, the sources of Jewish-Christian tensions in that city and in the broader Roman world, and the development of the terms "Christian" and "Christianity." Assessing a number of current theories about the nature of the Jewish-Christian parting, Robinson stresses the importance of hearing the voice of Ignatius himself on these questions. This is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the early days of Christianity and in Jewish-Christian relations.

Uldine Utley defined the ""girl evangelist"" of the 1920s and 1930s. She began her preaching career at age eleven, published a monthly magazine by age twelve, and by age fourteen was regularly packing the largest venues in major American cities, including Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden. She stood toe to toe with Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson, the most famous revivalist preachers of the day. She became a darling of the secular press and was mimicked and modeled in fiction and plays. In Preacher Girl, the first full biography of Utley, author Thomas Robinson shows that Utley's rise to fame was no accident. Utley's parents and staff carefully marked out her path early on to headline success. Not unlike Hollywood, revivalism was a business in which celebrity equaled success. Revivalism mixed equal parts of glamour and gospel, making stars of its preachers. Utley was its brightest. But childhood fame came at a price. As a series of Utley's previously unpublished poems reveal, after a decade of preaching, she was facing a near-constant fight against physical and mental exhaustion as she experienced the clash between the expectations of revivalism and her desires for a normal life. Utley burned out at age twenty-four. The revival stage folded; fame faded; only a broken heart and a wounded mind remained. Both Utley's meteoric rise and its tragic outcome illuminate American religion as a business. In his compelling chronicle of Utley's life, Robinson highlights the surprising power of American revivalism to equal Hollywood's success as well as the potentially devastating private costs of public religious leadership. The marketing and promotion machine of revivalism brought both fame and hardship for Utley - clashing by-products in the business of winning souls for Christ.

The Early Church: An annotated Bibliography of Literature in English is designed for students and interested laypersons, providing them with a non-technical, informed survey of recent scholarly debate on major topics important to an understanding of the early church. Divided into twenty-six chapters, each with an introductory essay of 2-3 pages, the bibliography contains abstracts of about one thousand books and major articles dealing with the church from the beginning of the second century roughly to the end of the sixth. Specific chapters deal with the development of the cannon, conversion and missions, persecution and martyrdom, monasticism, church office, church and state, creeds, orthodoxy and heresy, regional forms of Christianity, church and society, Constantine and the Christian empire, Christology, women, ethice, Gnosticism, Jewish-Christian relations, Roman society and empire, art and architecture, theology, worship and the liturgy, and patristic exegesis. More general chapters introduce the reader to the basic reference works, including dictionaries, atlases, serials, patristic texts and general histories. The entries are extensively cross-referenced, and user-friendly codes direct the reader to introductory works, survey articles, bibliographies, and collections of primary texts. Each abstract indicates the number of pages of bibliography, indexes, maps, charts, etc., and most abstracts are followed by a list of book reviews, enabling the user to gain access to a wider evaluation of the work in question. Almost forty pages of indexes (general and modern authors) complete the volume, making this a key tool for those interested in the early church.