This volume introduces readers to the faith and work of four figures of the 19th century revival movement called the German Awakening: -- August Tholuck (1799-1871) -- Johann Hinrich Wichern (1808-1881) -- Theodor Fliedner (1800-1864) -- Friedrich von Bodelschwingh (1831-1910) The German Awakening engendered a spirituality that fostered human kindness, grounded it in awakened faith, and gave it the shape of loving service to society. This remarkable and unique scholarly contribution: -- translates the majority of its materials for the first time in English. -- includes a variety of spiritual genres -- sermons, hymns, commentaries, mission statements, etc.
August Hermann Francke described his conversion to Pietism in gripping terms that included intense spiritual struggle, weeping, falling to his knees, and a decisive moment in which his doubt suddenly disappeared and he was “overwhelmed as with a stream of joy.” His account came to exemplify Pietist conversion in the historical imagination around Pietism and religious awakening. Jonathan Strom’s new interpretation challenges the paradigmatic nature of Francke’s narrative and seeks to uncover the more varied, complex, and problematic character that conversion experiences posed for Pietists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Grounded in archival research, German Pietism and the Problem of Conversion traces the way that accounts of conversion developed and were disseminated among Pietists. Strom examines members’ relationship to the pious stories of the “last hours,” the growth of conversion narratives in popular Pietist periodicals, controversies over the Busskampf model of conversion, the Dargun revival movement, and the popular, if gruesome, genre of execution conversion narratives. Interrogating a wide variety of sources and examining nuance in the language used to define conversion throughout history, Strom explains how these experiences were received and why many Pietists had an uneasy relationship to conversions and the practice of narrating them. A learned, insightful work by one of the world’s leading scholars of Pietism, this volume sheds new light on Pietist conversion and the development of piety and modern evangelical narratives of religious experience.
Today, practicing shamanism doesn't mean you have to live in a rain forest or a desert. Thanks to a modern renaissance of shamanic spirituality, practitioners from all walks of life now use powerful indigenous techniques for healing, insight, and spiritual growth. With Awakening to the Spirit World, teachers Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wesselman bring together a circle of renowned Western shamanic elders Tom Cowan, Carol Proud foot-Edgar, Jose Stevens, and Alberto Villoldo to present a comprehensive manual for making these practices accessible and available in our daily lives, including; How the original practice of shamanism shaped the world's spiritual traditions and why it is still relevant today The art of the shamanic journey a time-tested meditative method for experiencing important spiritual lessons and truths Guidance for avoiding common pitfalls of shamanic practice Instruction for working with your dreams, connecting to your spirit guides, healing yourself and your environment A CD of drumming to facilitate your shamanic journeys.
In German Religious Women in Late Ottoman Beirut. Competing Missions, Julia Hauser offers a critical analysis of the German Protestant Kaiserswerth deaconesses’ orphanage and boarding school for girls in late Ottoman Beirut as situated within the larger field of educational development in the city. Drawing, among other sources, on the deaconesses’ largely unpublished letters home, her study illuminates that the only way missionary organizations like the deaconesses' could succeed was by entering into negotiations with their local environment, adapting their agenda in the process. Mission, therefore, was shaped not merely at home, but by conflictual negotiations on the periphery ‒ a perspective quite different from the top-down isolationist perspective of earlier research on missions.
The historical movement known as Pietism emphasized the response of faith and inward transformation as crucial aspects of conversion to Christ. Unfortunately, Pietism today is often equated with a holier-than-thou spiritual attitude, religious legalism, or withdrawal from involvement in society. In this book Roger Olson and Christian Collins Winn argue that classical, historical Pietism is an influential stream in evangelical Christianity and that it must be recovered as a resource for evangelical renewal. They challenge misconceptions of Pietism by describing the origins, development, and main themes of the historical movement and the spiritual-theological ethos stemming from it. The book also explores Pietism s influence on contemporary Christian theologians and spiritual leaders such as Richard Foster and Stanley Grenz. Watch a 2015 interview with the authors of this book here:
THE DAY OF AWAKENING is a book of revelation and Self-discovery, challenging our misconceptions and inviting our self-inquiry. It deals with states of awakening to mystical consciousness and the true nature of man. It speaks of the path of initiation and includes examples of the highs and lows of every man's earnest endeavor to accommodate and adjust to himself as he goes through the inevitable changes encountered on the way to Self-realization. But before we can proceed on the path of enlightenment, there are aspects of the spiritual life that need to be understood, facets of every righteous man's journey, about which he may entertain false concepts and universal beliefs, such as: this world, healing, supply, mind, and body. In this book, a Mystic's Manual, all these are dealt with, as well as aspects of belief that assail man: what is Law, the effects of karma, understanding the nature of God, error, and prayer; meditation, forgiveness, and the truth of Individual Being. It contains the wisdom of the ages in simple, contemporary parable, poetry, and illustration, interwoven with Scripture. Like a germinating seed breaching the confines and limitations of its shell, it is the Call of Awakening, leaving us ultimately with no choice but to respond to the irresistible unfoldment of Soul, whose revelations of the moment lead man to an understanding of the truth of his being and his oneness with God. Life then becomes an awareness of the Living Word and not just words, such that thereafter everything speaks.
This book explores the influences of German theology on Emanuel Gerhart and Charles Hodge, two Reformed theologians who addressed questions concerning method and atonement theology in light of modernism and new scientific theories.
When a young Lutheran pastor named Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805-1880) interceded for a tormented woman in his village, he got more than he reckoned for. "We've seen enough of what the Devil can do", he told her. "Now let us see what God can do". But would one man's simple faith hold out against the onslaught of occult forces that began to reveal themselves? Two years later the enemy, defeated, howled, "Jesus is the victor!" and fled. Nothing would ever be the same in Mottlingen, Blumhardt's rural parish in the Black Forest. The palpable nearness of God -- and the reality of the great cosmic battle between good and evil -- was in many ways reminiscent of apostolic times. Sick and disabled people were healed, mental illness vanished, and stolen goods were returned. Murders were even solved, and broken marriages restored. Marked by the transformation of lives and relationships, yet devoid of exaggerated emotionalism and religiosity, the revival spread like a quiet tide, beyond the Black Forest, throughout Germany, and even farther, despite the efforts of a cynical press and Blumhardt's nervous ecclesiastical superiors. To those who despair over the spiritual poverty of contemporary Christianity, this book offers quiet but bold assurance that God can work as powerfully in our time as he did in his.
This book is an introduction to prayer, drawing on Eastern and Western traditions. Translated from the original Japanese into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Korean, and Spanish, Awakening to Prayer has already become a modern spiritual classic. In this simple yet profound book, Japanese Carmelite Augustine Ichiro Okumura explores the fundamental nature and root of prayer, the human and divine reality that underlies all praying. Drawing on the images, stories, and insights of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, the author considers prayer as conversation, as listening, as resting in the divine. In a long chapter on the "anthropology of prayer," he discusses the relationship between prayer times and other daily activities, the need for both repeated ritual and silence, the problem of distractions and deviations in prayer. The book culminates in a moving reflection on Christ's prayer and what it means to pray authentically as a Christian.
