C. Stacey Woods was a moving force in mid-century American evangelicalism. A. Donald MacLeod tells the story of a man of great strengths and weaknesses whose most striking achievement was perhaps encouraging fundamentalism to actively engage the university.
In 1974, the International Congress on World Evangelization met in Lausanne, Switzerland. Gathering together nearly 2,500 Protestant evangelical leaders from more than 150 countries and 135 denominations, it rivaled Vatican II in terms of its influence. But as David C. Kirkpatrick argues in A Gospel for the Poor, the Lausanne Congress was most influential because, for the first time, theologians from the Global South gained a place at the table of the world's evangelical leadership—bringing their nascent brand of social Christianity with them. Leading up to this momentous occasion, after World War II, there emerged in various parts of the world an embryonic yet discernible progressive coalition of thinkers who were embedded in global evangelical organizations and educational institutions such as the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians. Within these groups, Latin Americans had an especially strong voice, for they had honed their theology as a religious minority, having defined it against two perceived ideological excesses: Marxist-inflected Catholic liberation theology and the conservative political loyalties of the U.S. Religious Right. In this context, transnational conversations provoked the rise of progressive evangelical politics, the explosion of Christian mission and relief organizations, and the infusion of social justice into the very mission of evangelicals around the world and across a broad spectrum of denominations. Drawing upon bilingual interviews and archives and personal papers from three continents, Kirkpatrick adopts a transnational perspective to tell the story of how a Cold War generation of progressive Latin Americans, including seminal figures such as Ecuadorian René Padilla and Peruvian Samuel Escobar, developed, named, and exported their version of social Christianity to an evolving coalition of global evangelicals.
Dallas Theological Seminary is often viewed as a bastion of conservative evangelicalism, marked by an unswerving devotion to theological positions of fundamentalism, biblical inerrancy, and dispensational premillennialism.An Uncommon Union, the first book-length history of Dallas Theological Seminary, written by a graduate and veteran faculty member of DTS, provides a necessary corrective to such a simplistic assessment. Using the tenures of the school’s five presidents as the backbone for his narrative, John D. Hannah reveals the tensions that DTS has experienced in its eighty-plus years of existence.Each successive president of DTS brought his own unique style and perceptions to the school, even as he dealt with the changing religious and cultural milieu that swirled around it. Hannah argues that, rather than being a monolithic institution, Dallas Theological Seminary is a unique blend of differing heritages and of opposing traditions, a place that defies easy categorization.A keenly insightful and thoughtful work, An Uncommon Union illuminates the path charted by the leaders of a prominent American seminary in a rapidly changing world. All readers interested in the history and future of evangelicalism, regardless of their theological persuasion, will benefit from this book.
The evangelical embrace of conservatism is a familiar feature of the contemporary political landscape. What’s less well-known, however, is that the connection predates the Reagan revolution, going all the way back to the Depression and World War II. Evangelical businessmen at the time were quite active in opposing the New Deal—on both theological and economic grounds—and in doing so claimed a place alongside other conservatives in the public sphere. Like previous generations of devout laymen, they self-consciously merged their religious and business lives, financing and organizing evangelical causes with the kind of visionary pragmatism that they practiced in the boardroom. In God’s Businessmen, Sarah Ruth Hammond explores not only these men’s personal trajectories but also those of the service clubs and other institutions that, like them, believed that businessmen were God’s instrument for the Christianization of the world. Hammond presents a capacious portrait of the relationship between the evangelical business community and the New Deal—and in doing so makes important contributions to American religious history, business history, and the history of the American state.
The Disruption of Evangelicalism is the first comprehensive account of the evangelical tradition across the English-speaking world from the end of the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It offers fresh perspectives on conversionism and the life of faith, biblical and theological perspectives, social engagement, and mission. Tracing these trajectories through a period of great turbulence in world history, we see the deepening of an evangelical diversity. And as events unfold, we notice the spectrum of evangelicalism fragments in varied and often competing strands. Dividing the era into two phases-before 1914 and after 1918-draws out the impact of the Great War of 1914-18 as evangelicals renegotiated their identity in the modern world. By accenting his account with the careers of selected key figures, Geoffrey Treloar illustrates the very different responses of evangelicals to the demands of a critical and transitional period. The Disruption of Evangelicalism sets out a case that deserves the attention of both professional and arm-chair historians.
Thomas F. Torrance invites evangelicals to think more Christianly Thomas F. Torrance and Evangelical Theology: A Critical Analysis brings Torrance into closer conversation with evangelical theology on a range of key theological topics. Thomas F. Torrance and the Evangelical Tradition (Thomas A. Noble) Torrance, The Tacit Dimension, and The Church Fathers (Jonathan Warren P. (Pagán)) Torrance and the Doctrine of Scripture (Andrew T. B. McGowan) Revelation, Rationalism, and an Evangelical Impasse (Myk Habets) Theology and Science in Torrance (W. Ross Hastings) A Complexly Relational Account of the Imago Dei in Torrance's Vision of Humanity (Marc Cortez) Barth, Torrance, and Evangelicals: Critiquing and Reinvigorating the Idea of a "Personal Relationship with Jesus" (Marty Folsom) Torrance and Atonement (Christopher Woznicki) Torrance and Christ's Assumption of Fallen Human Nature: Toward Clarification and Closure (Jerome Van Kuiken) Torrance, Theosis, and Evangelical Reception (Myk Habets) Thinking and Acting in Christ: Torrance on Spiritual Formation (Geordie W. Ziegler) 'Seeking Love, Justice and Freedom for All': Using the Work of T.F. and J.B. Torrance to Address Domestic and Family Violence (Jenny Richards) Toward a Trinitarian Theology of Work (Peter K. W. McGhee) Torrance and Global Evangelicalism: Some Potential Generative Exchanges with Contemporary Indian Evangelical Theology (Stavan Narendra John) Thomas Forsyth Torrance (1913–2007) was one of the most important theologians of the twentieth century, yet his work remains relatively neglected by evangelicals. A diverse collection of contributors engage Torrance's pioneering and provocative thought, deriving insights from theological loci such as Scripture, Christology, and atonement, as well as from broader topics like domestic violence and science. These stimulating essays reveal how Torrance can help evangelical theologians articulate richer and deeper theology.
An essential new reference work for students and general readers interested in the history, dynamics, and influence of evangelicalism in recent American history, politics, and culture. What makes evangelical or "born-again" Christians different from those who identify themselves more simply as "Christian"? What percentage of Americans believe in the Rapture? How are evangelicalism and Baptism similar? What is the influence of evangelical religions on U.S. politics? Readers of Evangelical America: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Religious Culture will learn the answers to these questions and many more through this single-volume work's coverage of the many dimensions of and diversity within evangelicalism and through its documentation of the specific contributions evangelicals have made in American society and culture. It also illustrates the Evangelical movement's influence internationally in key issues such as human rights, environmentalism, and gender and sexuality.
In Transatlantic Charismatic Renewal, c.1950-2000, Atherstone, Maiden and Hutchinson curate new approaches to the study of charismatic renewal as an effective response to globalization, modernity and secularization.
The Surprising Work of God tells the story of how America's mid-twentieth-century spiritual awakening became a worldwide Christian movement. This seminal study brings a unique perspective to the history, personalities, and institutions of that period and offers an intimate look at evangelicalism through the window of the life, ministry, and writings of Harold John Ockenga and his long friendship with Billy Graham. Ockenga was pastor of the historic Park Street Congregational Church in Boston and cofounder of Fuller Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the National Association of Evangelicals, and Christianity Today. As such, he was a central figure in the birth and development of American neo-evangelicalism. This lively, engaging story will be of value to anyone with an interest in the American church of the last century.