The nineteenth century was one of the most fascinating and volatile periods in Christian history. It was during this time that Christianity evolved into a truly global religion, which led to an ever greater variety of ways for Christians to express and profess their faith. Frances Knight addresses the crucial question of how Christianity contributed to individual identity in a context of of widespread urbanisation and modernisation. She explores important topics such as the Evangelical revival led by the likes of the founder of the Christian Mission - later the Salvation Army - William Booth; the Oxford Movement under Newman, Keble and Pusey; Mormonism and Protestant revivalism in the USA; socialism and the impacts of Karl Marx and anarchism; continuing theological divisions between Protestants and Catholics; and the development of pilgrimage and devotion at places like Lourdes and Knock. Her book also examines the most significant intellectual trends, such as the rise of critical approaches to the Bible, and the different directions that these took in Britain and America. The author's unique emphasis on the 'ordinary' experience of Christians worldwide makes her volume indispensable for students and general readers who will be fascinated by this sensitive twenty-first century perspective on the nineteenth century.

Despite its size, Ely has always been one of the most wealthy and important dioceses in the country. The essays here focus on the careers of its bishops, with additional chapters on its buildings and holdings. The diocese of Ely, formed out of the huge diocese of Lincoln, was established in 1109 in St Etheldreda's Isle of Ely, and the ancient Abbey became Ely Cathedral Priory. Covering at first only the Isle and Cambridgeshire, it grewimmensely in 1837 with the addition of Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire and West Suffolk. The latter two counties left the diocese in 1914, but a substantial part of West Norfolk was added soon after. Until the nineteenth century Ely was one of the wealthiest dioceses in the country, and in every century there were notable appointments to the bishopric. Few of the bishops were promoted elsewhere; for most it was the culmination of their career, and manyhad made significant contributions, both to national life and to scholarship, before their preferment to Ely. They included men of the calibre of Lancelot Andrewes in the seventeenth century, the renowned book-collector John Moorein the eighteenth, and James Russell Woodford, founder of the Theological College, in the nineteenth. In essays each spanning about a century, experts in the field explore the lives and careers of its bishops, and their families and social contacts, examine their impact on the diocese, and their role in the wider Church in England. Other chapters consider such areas as the estates, the residences, the works of art and the library and archives. Overall, they chart the remarkable development over nine hundred years of one of the smallest, richest and youngest of the traditional dioceses of England. Peter Meadows is manuscript librarian in Cambridge University Library. Contributors: Nicholas Karn, Nicholas Vincent, Benjamin Thompson, Peter Meadows, Felicity Heal, Ian Atherton, Evelyn Lord, Frances Knight, Brian Watchorn

Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) is famous worldwide for founding the Garden City movement, and he continues to be frequently cited by planners and theorists. When he was dying, he urged his prospective biographer to remember that 'the spiritual dimension' had always been central to his life and work. He wanted this to be prominently brought out in any biography. Almost a century after his death, Ebenezer Howard: Inventor of the Garden City is the first book that does justice to that wish. Frances Knight has written a very readable biography, the first since the 1980s, with a properly contextualized analysis of Howard's religious views. Shaped in the world of London Congregationalism, he became a keen seeker after unity and peace. He grafted new religious ideas, particularly from spiritualism, and later from Theosophy, into his biblically-informed, Protestant faith. Prone to spiritual epiphanies, he believed that he had been raised up to preach the 'gospel of the garden city' and to tackle the housing crisis by beginning to build the New Jerusalem in the Hertfordshire countryside. Although he sometimes appeared naïve, he was astute, and highly skilled at combining different, and sometimes conflicting, ideas in a way that built consensus and gained support from people across the social and political spectrum. As well as explaining the remarkable sequence of events that led from the publication of his ideas to the foundation of Letchworth as the world's first garden city, just five years later, this book investigates other neglected aspects of Howard's life including: the years he spent in America, his career as a shorthand writer, and his relationship with his first wife Lizzie - herself an important garden city pioneer. Howard wanted his garden cities to be places of spiritual exploration, and as this book shows, early Letchworth certainly lived up to those expectations.

The British state between the mid-seventeenth century to the early twentieth century was essentially a Christian state. Christianity permeated society, defining the rites of passage - baptism, first communion, marriage and burial - that shaped individual lives, providing a sense of continuity between past, present and future generations, and informing social institutions and voluntary associations. Yet this religious conception of state and society was also the source of conflict. The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 brought limited toleration for Protestant Dissenters, who felt unable to worship in the established Church, and there were challenges to faith raised by biblical and historical scholarship, science, moral questioning and social dislocations and unrest. This book brings together a distinguished team of authors who explore the interactions of religion, politics and culture that shaped and defined modern Britain. They consider expressions of civic consciousness in the expanding towns and cities, the growth of Welsh national identity, movements for popular education and temperance reform, and the influence of organised sport, popular journalism, and historical writing in defining national life. Most importantly, the contributors highlight the vital role of religious faith and religious institutions in the understanding of the modern British state.

This is the first study to consider the meaning of Anglicanism for ordinary people in nineteenth-century England. It is concerned equally with the beliefs of lay people and parish clergy, examining Anglicanism both as a supernatural belief system and as part of English society. It draws extensively on unpublished sources, particularly those for rural areas. Frances Knight argues that in the period up to 1870 the Church retained its popularity among a sizeable proportion of the people.

Studies in Church History 59 addresses the historical development of life events to which the churches have responded with specific rites and ceremonies. The volume contributes to current discussion in life cycle history and the ongoing debate about 'rites of passage,' both ecclesiastical and secular. The major life cycle events, such as birth, marriage and death, are considered; so too are the churching or 'purification' of women after childbirth, confirmation and first communion, and ordination, as well as less widespread rites of passage, such as royal anointing and the renunciation of wealth. The twenty-two papers span Christian history and include contributions from Frances Knight, Thomas O'Loughlin, Elisabeth van Houts and Alexandra Walsham. Taken together, the articles offer clear evidence of the continuing potency of ecclesiastical rites of passage, as well as of their ability to be refashioned for the needs of successive generations of believers.

In her debut novel, Minister Frances Knight-Pinckney will show you successful ways to live as a Christian without conforming to the world. As Christians today, we are faced with many challenges, yet we are expected to live a certain lifestyle. Just as our physical body requires a checkup from our doctors, our spiritual body requires a checkup from God. By reading this book, you will discover what sets you apart from this world and why a spiritual checkup is vital on this Christian journey. In return, you will either begin or continue to live a life that is indeed pleasing to God "

The period known as the fin de siecle - defined in this groundbreaking book as chiefly the period between1885 and 1901 - was a fluid and unsettling epoch of optimism and pessimism, endings and beginnings, aswell as of new forms of creativity and anxiety. The end of the century has attracted much interest from scholars of literary and cultural studies, who regard it as a critical moment in the history of their disciplines; but it has been relatively ignored by religious historians. Frances Knight here sets right that neglect. She shows how late Victorian society (often said to be one of the most intensely Christian cultures the world has ever seen) reacted to the bold agendas being set by the thinkers of the fin de siecle; and how prominent Church figures during the era first identified many of the concerns that have preoccupied Christians latterly. These include an active interest in social justice and the creation of new types of communities; increasingly open discussion of the sexual exploitation of children; debates about society's 'decadence'; new ideas about the role of women; and the belief in the redemptive powers of art, pioneered by figures as diverse as P.T. Forsyth, Percy Dearmer and Samuel and Henrietta Barnett.Examining in particular the Christian world of fin de siecle London, the author offers penetrating insights intoa society in which the ritual and culture of Christianity sometimes permeated the aesthetic movement andwhere devotees of the aesthetic movement - like Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde and their disciples - often revealed a fascination with Christianity. She argues that the 'long 1890s' was a decisive decade in which various sections of Christian opinion, both on the progressive and the more conservative wings of the faith, began to express views which set the tone for attitudes which would become commonplace in the twentieth century. Victorian Christianity at the Fin de Siecle is the focussed treatment of religion and culture at the end of the nineteenth century that the field has long needed. It will be welcomed by scholars of church history, social and cultural history and the history of ideas.