Now in its fourth edition, this bestselling textbook (over 125,000 copies sold) isolates key events that provide a framework for understanding the history of Christianity. The book presents Christianity as a worldwide phenomenon rather than just a Western experience. This popular textbook is organized around 14 key moments in church history, providing contemporary Christians with a fuller understanding of God as he has revealed his purpose through the centuries. The new edition includes a new preface, updates throughout the book, revised "further readings" for each chapter, new sidebar content, and study questions. It also more thoroughly highlights the importance of women in Christian history and the impact of world Christianity. Turning Points is well suited to introductory courses on the history of Christianity as well as study groups in churches. Additional resources for instructors are available through Textbook eSources.

"The scandal of the evangelical mind, " says historian Mark Noll, "is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." This critical yet constructive book explains the decline of evangelical thought in North America and seeks to find, within evangelicalism itself, resources for turning the situation around. According to Noll, evangelical Protestants make up the largest single group of religious Americans; they also enjoy increasing wealth, status political influence, and educational achievement. Yet, despite its size and considerable intellectual potential, evangelical Protestantism makes only a slight contribution to first-order public discourse in North America: it neither sponsors a single research university, nor supports a single periodical devoted to in-depth interaction with modern culture, nor cultivates attitudes that treat the worlds of science, the arts, politics, and social analysis with the seriousness that God intends. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind explains how this situation developed by tracing the history of evangelical thinking in America. Noll's analysis shows how Protestants successfully aligned themselves with national ideals and with the particular expressions of an American Enlightenment in the decades before the Civil War; explains how fundamentalists at the start of the twentieth century preserved essential elements of the faith, but only by grievously damaging the life of the mind; gives specific attention to evangelical thought on politics and science; and discusses what some have called an "evangelical intellectual renaissance" in recent decades and shows why it is more apparent than real. Written to encourage reform as well as to inform, this book endswith an outline of some preliminary steps by which evangelicals might yet come to love the Lord more thoroughly with the mind.

America's Book shows how the Bible decisively shaped American national history even as that history influenced the use of Scripture. It explores the rise of a strongly Protestant Bible civilization in the early United States that was then fractured by debates over slavery, contested by growing numbers of non-Protestant Americans (Catholics, Jews, agnostics), and torn apart by the Civil War. This first comprehensive history of the Bible in America explains why Tom Paine's anti-biblical tract The Age of Reason (1794) precipitated such dramatic effects, how innovations in printing by the American Bible Society created the nation's publishing industry, why Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831 and the bitter election of 1844 marked turning points in the nation's engagement with Scripture, and why Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were so eager to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. Noll's magisterial work highlights not only the centrality of the Bible for the nation's most influential religious figures (Methodist Francis Asbury, Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Catholic Bishop Francis Kenrick, Jewish scholar Solomon Schechter, agnostic Robert Ingersoll), but also why it was important for presidents like Abraham Lincoln; notable American women like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frances Willard; dedicated campaigners for civil rights like Frederick Douglass and Francis Grimke; lesser-known figures like Black authors Maria Stewart and Harriet Jacobs; and a host of others of high estate and low. The book also illustrates how the more religiously plural period from Reconstruction to the early twentieth century saw Scripture become a much more fragmented, though still significant, force in American culture, particularly as a source of hope and moral authority for Americans on both sides of the battle over white supremacy-both for those hoping to fight it, and for others seeking to justify it.

"Blending a commanding knowledge of the fi eld with a rare gift for synthesis and lucid expression, Mark Noll brings to life what it meant for Christians in a diff erent time and place to wrestle with the political implications of their faith." Nathan O. Hatch, University of Notre Dame "His study . . . should provoke us afresh to a reexamination of the interpretation of belief and culture in our own time." David F. Wells, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary When Christians understand the religious history of the United States, with its close connection to political history, they are better prepared to make knowledgable contributions to the current discussion of national values, priorities and purposes. Christians in the American Revolution begins with a brief survey of the political and religious background of the pre-Revolutionary years. Th e author then examines the influence of various religious convictions on the movement for independence and, conversely, the eff ect of the Revolution on colonial church bodies and their understanding of Christian truth. Colonial Christians responded in four major ways to the Revolution: they supported complete freedom in politics and religion; they advocated social and political reform; they called for submission to English authority; and they argued against involvement of Christians in the war eff ort. Whether Patriot, Reformer, Loyalist or Pacifi st, American Christian colonials infl uenced not only the fledgling nation, but the development of religious thought to the present. This revised edition includes a new bibliographic essay detailing contributions to this field since the first edition was published in 1977. MARK A. NOLL (PhD, Vanderbilt University) is McManis Professor of Christian Th ought at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. In recent years he has been a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School, University of Chicago Divinity School, Westminster Th eological Seminary and Regent College (Vancouver, British Columbia). A widely recognized expert in American religious history, he has written numerous books, including America's God, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind and A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada.

In this popular introduction to church history, now in its third edition, Mark Noll isolates key events that provide a framework for understanding the history of Christianity. The book presents Christianity as a worldwide phenomenon rather than just a Western experience.
Now organized around fourteen key moments in church history, this well-received text provides contemporary Christians with a fuller understanding of God as he has revealed his purpose through the centuries. This new edition includes a new preface; updates throughout the book; revised "further readings" for each chapter; and two new chapters, including one spotlighting Vatican II and Lausanne as turning points of the recent past.
Students in academic settings and church adult education contexts will benefit from this one-semester survey of Christian history.

Winner of a Christianity Today 2005 Book Award The word evangelical is widely used and widely misunderstood. Where did evangelicals come from? What motivated them? How did their influence become so widespread throughout the world during the eighteenth century? In this paper edition of this inaugural book in a series that charts the course of English-speaking evangelicalism over the last 300 years, Mark Noll offers a multinational narrative of the origin, development and rapid diffusion of evangelical movements in their first two generations. Theology, hymnody, gender, warfare, politics and science are all taken into consideration. But the focus is on the landmark individuals, events and organizations that shaped the story of the beginnings of this vibrant Christian movement. The revivals in Britain and North America in the mid-eighteenth century proved to be foundational in the development of the movement, its ethos, beliefs and subsequent direction. In these revivals, the core commitments of evangelicals were formed that continue to this day. In this volume you will find the fascinating story of their formation, their strengths and their weaknesses, but always their dynamism.

Historian Mark Noll traces evangelicalism from its nineteenth-century roots. He applies lessons learned in the milieu of Great Britain and North America to answer the question: Have evangelicals grown to mature confidence in their views of God and Scripture so they may stand-alone if they must-between faith and higher critical skepticism? "This is nuts-and-bolts history at its best." - Douglas Jacobsen, Fides et Historia "This is not only an outstanding study of evangelical biblical scholarship, it is the best survey of the twentieth-century evangelical thought that we have." - George Marsden "This book will be of immense value to all who want to know what the background to current evangelical biblical scholarship is, and who want to explore the likely developments in the future." - Gerald Bray, The Churchman " Noll] has enriched our knowledge of this history through his mastery of its substance and has come to grips with its findings." - Todd Nichol, Word and World Mark A. Noll, the McManis Professor of Christian Thought and professor of church history at Wheaton College, has written more than ten books, including Religion, Faith and American Politics, and Christian Faith and Practice in the Modern World. He edited Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation. His PhD degree is from Vanderbilt University.

"Both by his choice of confessions and by his judicious and scholarly introductions, Mark Noll has made the major Reformation confessions and catechisms] available in a form that is sure to deepen and enlighten doctrinal discussion and confessional awareness and that will therefore contribute to solidly evangelical and hence soundly ecumenical theology. I am delighted to see this book appear." - Jaroslav Pelikan, Yale University "It is a delight to welcome Mark Noll's well-chosen, well-edited selection of key sixteenth-century statements of faith - Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Anabaptist, Roman Catholic. To have this significant material brought together in one book is a boon, for the enrichment that comes of studying it as a whole is very great. For anyone who would take the measure of the Reformation conflict, this collection is a 'must.'" - J.I. Packer, Regent College "Mark Noll has ably introduced these still living confessions to a modern audience more prone to forgetfulness than any since the sixteenth century. This collection will be useful not only for classes in historical and systematic theology, but also to pastors and lay readers who wish better to understand their Protestant heritage." - Thomas C. Oden, Drew University

Religion has been a powerful political force throughout American history. When race enters the mix the results have been some of our greatest triumphs as a nation--and some of our most shameful failures. In this important book, Mark Noll, one of the most influential historians of American religion writing today, traces the explosive political effects of the religious intermingling with race.

Noll demonstrates how supporters and opponents of slavery and segregation drew equally on the Bible to justify the morality of their positions. He shows how a common evangelical heritage supported Jim Crow discrimination and contributed powerfully to the black theology of liberation preached by Martin Luther King Jr. In probing such connections, Noll takes readers from the 1830 slave revolt of Nat Turner through Reconstruction and the long Jim Crow era, from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to "values" voting in recent presidential elections. He argues that the greatest transformations in American political history, from the Civil War through the civil rights revolution and beyond, constitute an interconnected narrative in which opposing appeals to Biblical truth gave rise to often-contradictory religious and moral complexities. And he shows how this heritage remains alive today in controversies surrounding stem-cell research and abortion as well as civil rights reform.

"God and Race in American Politics" is a panoramic history that reveals the profound role of religion in American political history and in American discourse on race and social justice.

Narrates the drama of a famous preacher's entire career in his historical context. George Whitefield (1714-1770) is remembered as a spirited revivalist, a catalyst for the Great Awakening, and a founder of the evangelical movement in America. But Whitefield was also a citizen of the British Empire who used his political savvy and theological creativity to champion the cause of imperial expansion. In this religious biography of "the Grand Itinerant," Peter Choi reexamines the Great Awakening and its relationship to a fast-growing British Empire in the context of a dramatic human story. Choi shows that as the British Empire and the Great Awakening evolved, so did Whitefield and his influence. Rather than focusing on his early preaching career, as many books do, Choi follows the trajectory of Whitefield's whole life, including his relation-ships to Britain, the American colonies, slavery, war, and higher education. George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire tells the fascinating, multifaceted life story of Whitefield both as revivalist preacher and subject of the British Empire.

Mark A. Noll presents a fresh and accessible history of Protestantism from the era of Martin Luther to the present day. Beginning with the founding of Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Anabaptist churches in the sixteenth-century Reformation, he also considers the rise of other important Christian movements like Methodism and Pentecostalism. Focussing on worldwide developments, rather than just the familiar European and American histories, he considers the recent expansion of Protestant movements in Africa, China, India, and Latin America, emphasising the on-going and rapidly expanding story of Protestants worldwide. Noll examines the contributions from well-known figures including Martin Luther and John Calvin, along with many others, and explores why Protestant energies have flagged recently in the Western world yet expanded so dramatically elsewhere. Highlighting the key points of Protestant commonality including the message of Christian salvation, reliance on the Bible, and organization through personal initiative, he also explores the reasons for Protestantism's extraordinary diversity. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.