Revivalism and Social Reform

Revivalism and Social Reform
Author: Timothy L. Smith
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2004-11-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 172521279X

This is an important work, which should be read by anyone who is trying to understand nineteenth-century America. It will be of especial interest to students of church history, intellectual history, and social reform. Henry Lee Swint, 'Mississippi Valley Historical Review' This is a brilliant study, full of stimulating suggestions, rich bibliographical leads, and well-chosen quotations. A chief feature of the work, which won the Brewer prize for 1955, is its apt and extensive documentation. The author has industriously ranged through mountains of books, periodicals, and fugitive materials, and competently supported his well-written narrative with illuminating footnotes, which happily and helpfully appear where they belong at the foot of each - and almost every - page. Hence his judgments are backed by impressive scholarship. Robert T. Handy, 'Church History' So many historians have tracked the trail of the American revivalists that it is difficult for anyone to discover something new about that trail. Timothy Smith claimed to discover that they were more oriented towards social reform than their critics saw them to be. He backed up, with solid documentation, his claim that they were, in their own way, fathers of the Social Gospel. His book represented one of those rare moments in the study of American church history: the development of an original thesis, one worthy of the argument which it has during the past decade inspired and survived. Martin E. Marty

Systematic Theology

Systematic Theology
Author: Charles Grandison Finney
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 524
Release: 2018-07-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1773562681

Written by a Presbyterian preacher in the 1800's this book is revered by some and considered heresy by others. The arguments given in Finney's various lectures will cause many to consider their own positions and seek to justify what they believe. Finney deals with many different subjects going from moral law, government, love, depravity and other diverse but important subjects. Regardless of what your own position on these subjects are, this work is a good masterpiece of religious thought but the ideas and reasons for Finney's arguments may leave theologians wondering if such thinking is something we should be keeping around.

A Dream of the Judgment Day

A Dream of the Judgment Day
Author: John Howard Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197533744

"The End is near! This phrase, so well known in the contemporary United States, invokes images of manic self-proclaimed prophets of doom standing on street corners shouting their warnings and predictions to amused or indifferent passers-by. However, such proclamations have long been a feature of the American cultural landscape, and were never exclusively the domain of wild-eyed fanatics. A Dream of Judgment Day describes the origins and development of American apocalypticism and millennialism from the beginnings of English colonization of North America in the early 1600s through the formation of the United States and its travails in the nineteenth century. It explores the reasons why varieties of millennialism are an essential component of American exceptionalism, and focuses upon the nation's early history to better establish how millennialism and apocalypticism are the keys to understanding early American history and religious identity. This sweeping history of eschatological thought in early America encompasses not just traditional and non-traditional Christian beliefs in the end of the world, but also how American Indians and African Americans have likewise been influenced by, and expressed, those beliefs in unique ways"--

Theology in America

Theology in America
Author: E. Brooks Holifield
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 627
Release: 2003-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 030010765X

A magisterial work of American theological history--authoritative, insightful, and unparalleled in scope This book, the most comprehensive survey of early American Christian theology ever written, encompasses scores of American theological traditions, schools of thought, and thinkers. E. Brooks Holifield examines mainstream Protestant and Catholic traditions as well as those of more marginal groups. He looks closely at the intricacies of American theology from 1636 to 1865 and considers the social and institutional settings for religious thought during this period. The book explores a range of themes, including the strand of Christian thought that sought to demonstrate the reasonableness of Christianity, the place of American theology within the larger European setting, the social location of theology in early America, and the special importance of the Calvinist traditions in the development of American theology. Broad in scope and deep in its insights, this magisterial book acquaints us with the full chorus of voices that contributed to theological conversation in America's early years.

Prevailing Prayer

Prevailing Prayer
Author: Charles G. Finney
Publisher:
Total Pages: 64
Release: 1965
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780825426032

A classic series of sermons that speaks powerfully to each generation, calling us to a genuine relationship of trust and obedience.

Finney Lives On

Finney Lives On
Author: V. Raymond Edman
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2018-02-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532646763

“It is necessary for us as human beings to establish patterns of principles and methods to understand intelligently our social, moral, and spiritual processes for purposes of accurate continuity in all good things. It may have been the divine recognition of this need which provided through Moses ‘the pattern of the things in the heavens’ (Hebrews 9:23). Providence from time to time, throughout the Christian age, has raised up exemplary men who by their teachings and methods have given to posterity an enlightened process by which a wayward generation may find its way back to God. One of these, and by no means the least, was Charles G. Finney, who embodied in ministry and literature principles and methods which are certain to produce, anywhere, a genuine spiritual revival of Christian zeal and devotion.” —From the Foreword