You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Transatlantic Religion offers a historical reinterpretation of nineteenth-century American Christianity, one that emphasizes European connections. Its authors represent a diverse group of international scholars offering new insights based on a range of analytical approaches to previously unexamined archival sources.
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.
Knowledge of the ideas of the theologian Emanuel V. Gerhart is essential for understanding nineteenth-century American theology. Gerhart was one of the first to introduce a complete systematic Christocentric theological system to Americans. His Institutes of the Christian Religion developed the ideas of European theologians and promoted the effort to systematize Mercersburg theology. Gerhart embraced German idealism rather than Scottish philosophy in his scholarship. As a mediating theologian, he attempted to reconcile historical Christianity with modern culture. His lectures, essays, and texts addressed the religious challenges and intellectual issues of his day from a Christocentric perspective. Together they were a major contribution to the Mercersburg Movement in particular and American theology in general from the antebellum period to the progressive era. His publications were devoted to a range of disciplines that included education, philosophy, and theology. This volume portrays Gerhart’s core theological ideas as found in his main texts and offers introductory commentaries and gives the historical background for his intellectual contributions.
From the closing decades of the eighteenth century, German theology has been a major intellectual force within modern western thought, closely connected to important developments in idealism, romanticism, historicism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Despite its influential legacy, however, no recent attempts have sought to offer an overview of its history and development. Oxford History of Modern German Theology, Vol. I: 1781-1848, the first of a three-volume series, provides the most comprehensive multi-authored overview of German theology from the period from 1781-1848. Kaplan and Vander Schel cover categories frequently omitted from earlier overviews of the time period, such as the place...
This Handbook considers Christian thought in the long nineteenth century (from the French Revolution to the First World War), encompassing not only doctrine and theology, but also Christianity's mutual influence on literature and the arts, political and economic thought, and the natural and social sciences.
These essays by John Nevin, theologian of Mercersburg Theology, are united by two primary themes: Part 1 documents Nevin’s noteworthy and innovative application of idealist philosophy to Reformed theology in antebellum America. American Christians largely rejected any inherited philosophical discipline or categories, claiming the right to invent moral and religious reality without attention to Christian tradition. The paradoxical result was authoritarian rationalism: religious doctrines imitated scientific reasoning (“common-sense” philosophy) but were imposed by ecclesiastical fiat. In contrast, Nevin summoned his fellow theologians to pay fresh attention to the Idea: the rational unp...
After-Mission touches on on three questions.The first question is about self-perception and identity-formation strategies, and the various views that we have on the Protestants’ relation to their Arab Muslim Middle Eastern context. This will furnish the basis for the ensuing parts, as it will provide the study with coherent and analytical readings of the cultural situation and intellectual views of the Arab Eastern Protestants in their Sitz im Leben from the perspective of the hermeneutic tripod of ‘identity–othering–relationality’. The second question, about the theological dimension, asks what kind of a theological discourse do the Protestants need to develop, and how do they nee...
The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism offers a comprehensive assessment of John Calvin and the tradition of Calvinism as it evolved from the sixteenth century to today. Featuring contributions from scholars who present the latest research on a pluriform religious movement that became a global faith. The volume focuses on key aspects of Calvin's thought and its diverse reception in Europe, the transatlantic world, Africa, South America, and Asia. Calvin's theology was from the beginning open to a wide range of interpretations and was never a static body of ideas and practices. Over the course of his life his thought evolved and deepened while retaining unresolved tensions and questions ...
Schleiermacher is now regarded as an influential figure in the history of Christian thought, theories and methods in religious studies, and hermeneutics. The German-language critical edition of his work beginning in 1980, Schleiermacher Kritische Gesamtausgabe, and English translations of key portions of his corpus beginning in the late nineteenth century, have allowed scholars to investigate the richness of his thought. German scholars have often focused on Schleiermacher's ties to early modern philosophy, his aesthetics, hermeneutics, and theory of religion, while English-speaking scholars have often focused on the theological influences and implications of Schleiermacher's work. Over the ...
In Thoughts on Preaching and Pastoral Ministry, James M. Garretson provides a detailed narrative of James W. Alexander’s life in order to better understand his approach to gospel labors. Garretson draws deeply from Alexander’s correspondence, tracking the spiritual development of his life as it shaped his practice of pastoral ministry. In addition, assessments of Alexander’s sermons, books, and especially reviews provide valuable personal statements that shed light on his character and convictions. Throughout, Alexander is allowed to speak for himself so that the reader may enter into the spiritual pulse that animated his life and actions. Bracing, heartening, and at times frustrating, Alexander’s growth as a Christian and development as a minister is the story of a man subdued by God’s grace and a life marked by a growing conformity to the likeness of Christ. For those whose privilege it is to serve as ministers of the gospel, Alexander’s life and instruction provide inspiration and wisdom for how to do pastoral ministry well and with all of one’s heart.