Witnesses of Perfect Love

Witnesses of Perfect Love
Author: Amy Caswell Bratton
Publisher: Clements Publishing Group Inc.
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2014-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1926798309

In Witnesses of Perfection Amy Caswell Bratton explores how the eighteenth-century doctrine of Christian Perfection spread in the early British Methodist communities. Alongside leaders such as John and Charles Wesley teaching about Christian Perfection, Methodist men and women told narratives of Christian Perfection which transmitted the doctrine. Using narrative to spread Christian Perfection was effective because it both communicated the content of the experience of Christian Perfection and also commended this experience to the listener. This study is noteworthy for its detailed analysis of several first-hand narratives that testify to the experience, and which were made public for the edification of the Methodist community in the Arminian Magazine and other publications. The narratives of four Methodist people are examined at length: Sarah Crosby (1729-1804), George Clark (1710-1797), William Hunter (1728-1797) and Bathsheba Hall (1745-1780). In addition to observing the transmission of the doctrine through narrative, the study of these stories illuminates early Methodist spirituality and the doctrine of Christian Perfection (or entire sanctification) through the embodiment of Perfection in the life of real people. This lived-out expression of Christian Perfection draws attention to unique elements of the doctrine as each narrative illustrates nuances of Christian Perfection. Finally, the narratives of Perfection offer the embodiment of transformation which resulted in lasting change.

A Cultural History of Hair in the Age of Enlightenment

A Cultural History of Hair in the Age of Enlightenment
Author: Margaret K. Powell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-12-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350087947

Hair, or lack of it, is one the most significant identifiers of individuals in any society. In Antiquity, the power of hair to send a series of social messages was no different. This volume covers nearly a thousand years of history, from Archaic Greece to the end of the Roman Empire, concentrating on what is now Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Among the key issues identified by its authors is the recognition that in any given society male and female hair tend to be opposites (when male hair is generally short, women's is long); that hair is a marker of age and stage of life (children and young people have longer, less confined hairstyles; adult hair is far more controlled); hair can be used to identify the 'other' in terms of race and ethnicity but also those who stand outside social norms such as witches and mad women. The chapters in A Cultural History of Hair in Antiquity cover the following topics: religion and ritualized belief, self and society, fashion and adornment, production and practice, health and hygiene, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, class and social status, and cultural representations.