English Church History

Though they may seem to be dividing the country irreparably, today's heated cultural and political battles between right and left, progressives and the Tea Party, religious and secular are far from unprecedented. In this engaging and important work, Stephen Prothero reframes the current debate, viewing it as the latest in a number of flashpoints that have shaped our national identity.

While Christians generally acknowledge that the Bible is God's Word, many of us lack robust confidence in the reality of its trustworthiness. We may not be sure if we really believe what we read. But the more we understand how Scripture came to be, the more we discover its power and truth. Historian Susan Lim unpacks how the history of the Bible bolsters our faith and anchors us through the changing tides of time. The story of Scripture, while messy and complicated at times, is also the story of how God shepherded his people throughout the centuries in and through these writings.

Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, often treated as fringe cultists or marginalized polygamists unworthy of serious examination. In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park excavates the brief, tragic life of a lost Mormon city, demonstrating that the Mormons are essential to understanding American history writ large. Using newly accessible sources, Park re-creates the Mormons' 1839 flight from Missouri to Illinois.

Freedom's Prophet is a long-overdue biography of Richard Allen, founder of the first major African American church and the leading black activist of the early American republic. A tireless minister, abolitionist, and reformer, Allen inaugurated some of the most important institutions in African American history and influenced nearly every black leader of the nineteenth century, from Douglass to Du Bois.

The Jesus People movement was a unique combination of the hippie counterculture and evangelical Christianity. It first appeared in the famed "Summer of Love" of 1967, in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and spread like wildfire in Southern California and beyond, to cities like Seattle, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. In 1971 the growing movement found its way into the national media spotlight and gained momentum, attracting a huge new following among evangelical church youth.

The “modern Jesus” of progressives—supposedly friendlier and more accepting than the Savior we know from the Gospels—is gaining popularity and acceptance among self-identified Christians. But they don’t realize that progressive Christianity rejects the biblical revelation of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Hijacking Jesus addresses perennial questions about the nature of Christ and his teaching, testing the historical and theological accuracy of progressive Christians.

Missionary Diplomacy illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Missionaries served as consuls, translators, and occasional trouble-makers who forced the State Department to take actions it otherwise would have avoided. Yet as decades passed, more Americans began to question the propriety of missionaries' power.

No matter your season of life as a woman, you long to be loved and appreciated. But perhaps most days you're left feeling unseen, unheard, or unknown. Though centuries apart from your life today, the women who knew Jesus faced similar fears and insecurities. Their names aren't etched onto the pages of Scripture, but they are etched into the heart of God. In this book, Paige Allen invites you to take a second look at the life-changing encounters of seven unnamed women who came face-to-face with Jesus in the Bible.

From a best-selling Catholic author! A brief history of Catholic and non-Catholic traditions concerning sacred Church music: chants, the mass, hymns, the cantata, oratorio, motets, anthems, Gospel music, wedding songs, and much more! A great handbook and trivia guide to hundreds of facts related to sacred music in Church history.

Who were the Puritans? For most, the first few things that might come to mind are Pilgrims, turkeys, and the Mayflower. Yes, the Pilgrims who landed in Plymouth back in 1620 were indeed subscribers to Puritan ideals, but the story of the Puritans runs much deeper than that. The Puritans were a direct result of the backlash created by England’s pseudo-Reformation in the 1500s.

Selina Lennox is a Bright Young Thing. Her life is a whirl of parties and drinking, pursued by the press and staying on just the right side of scandal, all while running from the life her parents would choose for her. Lawrence Weston is a penniless painter who stumbles into Selina's orbit one night and can never let her go even while knowing someone of her stature could never end up with someone of his. Except Selina falls hard for Lawrence, envisioning a life of true happiness. But when tragedy strikes, Selina finds herself choosing what's safe over what's right.

Letters from Jesus: Studies from the Seven Churches of Revelation explores Christ’s warnings to the seven most prominent churches in Asia Minor in the book of Revelation. These letters date back to 95 AD, but they help us make a fascinating discovery about civilization: Life hasn’t changed that much over the last two millennia. Author Chris Palmer illustrates the truths contained in the Letters from Jesus using modern, everyday examples.

Weikart reveals the startling and fascinating truth about the most hated man of the 20th century: Adolf Hitler was a pantheist who believed nature was God. In Hitler's Religion, Weikart explains how the laws of nature became Hitler's only moral guide - how he became convinced he would serve God by annihilating supposedly "inferior" human beings and promoting the welfare and reproduction of the allegedly superior Aryansin accordance with racist forms of Darwinism prevalent at the time.

The first comprehensive history of modern American evangelicalism to appear in a generation, American Apocalypse shows how a group of radical Protestants, anticipating the end of the world, paradoxically transformed it.

How did the Islamic State attract so many followers and conquer so much land? By being more ruthless, more apocalyptic, and more devoted to state building than its competitors. The shrewd leaders of the Islamic State combined two of the most powerful yet contradictory ideas in Islam - the return of the Islamic Empire and the end of the world - into a mission and a message that shapes its strategy and inspires its army of zealous fighters.

In recent years, stories of religious universities and institutions grappling with their slave-owning past have made headlines in the news. People find it shocking that the Church itself could have been involved in such a sordid business. This timely book, the result of many years of research, is a study of the origins of this problem.

Warm, insightful, even at times amusing, Teems's depiction of King James has all the elements of a grand tale - conspiracy, kidnapping, witchcraft, murder, love, despair, loss. Majestie offers an engaging new look at the world's most cherished, revered, and influential translation of Sacred Writ and the king behind it.

In which the author gives a concise account of, together with sundry caustic animadversions on, the very fantastic theology of the sect. This treatise is professedly taken from the writings of Justin, Miltiades, Irenæus, and Proculus.

The Catholic Church is the longest standing and the most universal of all institutions. The contributions made by Catholic men and women over the past 2,000 years are most impressive, from a properly functioning calendar to the inventions of many things that we all take for granted today. Fr. Meconi, SJ walks listeners through the most amazing achievements of Christ's Body on earth—from economic and mercantile developments to scientific and astronomical advances, from the cataloging of zoological and botanical species to the cherishing of beautiful music and fine arts.

An examination of sex and the Bible by one of the leading biblical scholars in the United States. For several decades, Michael Coogan's introductory course on the Old Testament has been a perennial favorite among students at Harvard University. In God and Sex, Coogan examines one of the most controversial aspects of the Hebrew Scripture: What the Old Testament really says about sex, and how contemporary understanding of those writings is frequently misunderstood or misrepresented.