Revivals are outbursts of religious enthusiasm in which there are numerous conversions. In this book the phenomenon of revival is set in its broad historical and historiographical context. David Bebbington provides detailed case-studies of awakenings that took place between 1841 and 1880 in Britain, North America and Australia, showing that the distinctive features of particular revivals were the result less of national differences than of denominational variations. These revivals occurred in many places across the globe, but revealed the shared characteristics of evangelical Protestantism. Bebbington explores the preconditions of revival, giving attention to the cultural setting of each episode as well as the form of piety displayed by the participants. No single cause can be assigned to the awakenings, but one of the chief factors behind them was occupational structure and striking instances of death were often a precipitant. Ideas were far more involved in these events than historians have normally supposed, so that the case-studies demonstrate some of the main patterns in religious thought at a popular level during the Victorian period. Laymen and women played a disproportionate part in their promotion and converts were usually drawn in large numbers from the young. There was a trend over time away from traditional spontaneity towards more organised methods sometimes entailing interdenominational co-operation.

Victorian Religious Revivals: Culture and Piety in Local and Global Contexts

History

Bebbington, David

World

Oxford University Press

Patterns in History: A Christian Perspective on Historical Thought

Apollos

Forty-eight Old Boys from Magdalen College School, Oxford were killed in the carnage of The Great War. Six of the boys are immortalized by the names of the six Houses of the School. But the 42 young men have great stories to tell and what better time to tell them than one hundred years on? In addition to the double VC winner, Noel Chavasse and Fox Russell VC, those honored in this fine book include a 1st Class cricketer Francis Roberts and a member of the inaugural Welsh Rugby team, Richard Garnous Williams. Their accounts cover the span of The Great War years and theaters. As well as describing their military adventures, we read of their school careers and characters.

Magdalen College School in the Great War

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Pen_and_Sword

The book is a collection of twenty-one essays discussing how Baptists throughout the world have related to other Christians and to other institutions and movements over the centuries. The theme of this collection of twenty-one essays, 'Baptists and Others', includes relations with other Christians and with other institutions and movements. What, the authors ask, has been the Baptist experience of engaging with different groups and developments? The theme has been explored by means of case studies, some of which are very specific in time and place while others cover long periods and more than one country. In the first half the contents are arranged by period. The first section examines early Baptists, the second nineteenth-century Baptists in Britain and America and the third Baptists in the twentieth century. The second half turns to various parts of the world. There is a section on Australia, another on New Zealand and a third on Asia and Africa. The overall picture is one of a complicated series of relationships as Baptists defined themselves as different from other bodies and yet, especially in the twentieth century, tried to co-operate in mission and ecumenical endeavour. 'Baptists are often regarded as enthusiastic separatists and unenthusiastic ecumenists. These essays, based on hard evidence rather than passing impressions, are a necessary correction to superficial prejudices and show the reality to be much more complex and nuanced, as well as varied over time and place. The book is a smorgasbord of delights. Yet, readers should avoid the temptation to pick and choose from the menu, ensuring rather that each offering is digested so they enjoy a balance and nutritious meal.' Derek Tidball

Interfaces. Baptists and Others: International Baptist Studies (Studies in Baptist History and Thought)

Religion & Spirituality

Sutherland, Martin

Christian Books & Bibles

Paternoster

Description: The Nonconformists of England and Wales, the Protestants outside the Church of England, were particularly numerous in the Victorian years. From being a small minority in the eighteenth century, they had increased to represent nearly half the worshipping nation by the middle years of the nineteenth century. These Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, Unitarians, and others helped shape society and made their mark in politics. This book explains the main characteristics of each denomination and examines the circumstances that enabled them to grow.  It evaluates the main academic hypothesis about their role and points to signs of their subsequent decline in the twentieth century. Here is a succinct account of an important dimension of the Christian past in Britain.  Endorsements: "No one can understand the Victorians who does not appreciate the impact of a dynamic Christian counter-culture in their midst--Protestant Dissent. Nonconformity gave the age its pre-eminent preacher, C.H. Spurgeon, its most famous missionary, David Livingstone, one of the most respected women in all of British history, the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, recreational institutions such as the YMCA and Aston Villa football club, highly successful businesses such as Thomas Cook's tours and Cadbury's chocolate, and much more. David Bebbington is the greatest authority on Victorian Nonconformity working today and this book is the best introduction to this subject that has ever been written. There is no better place to start learning about the Free Churches in nineteenth-century Britain than with this learned, lucid, and accessible volume." Timothy Larsen, McManis Professor of Christian Thought, Wheaton College  "It is a very good thing to see this new edition of David Bebbington's detailed, informative, and clearly outlined primer on the Nonconformist churches during the period when their national influence was at its height. The booklet is carefully detailed, unusually informative, and skilfully outlined. Its success in explaining who the Nonconformists were, how they differed from the Church of England (and among themselves), and why their fortunes rose and fell makes this an ideal beginning point for further study, both historical and theological." Mark A. Noll, McAnaney Professor of History, University of Notre Dame  "This welcome reprint and light revision of Professor Bebbington's work reminds us that communities often caricatured as narrow and hypocritical were attempting to 'create a Christian counter-culture' which gave meaning to the lives of many ordinary people and influenced society at large. Combining critical analysis with engaging vignettes of individuals, this is an attractive, lucid and authoritative introduction to Victorian Nonconformity." Henry D. Rack, Honorary Fellow and former Bishop Fraser Senior Lecturer in Ecclesiastical History, University of Manchester  About the Contributor(s): David Bebbington has served since 1976 at the University of Stirling, where he is Professor of History. His books include Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (1989), The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer and Politics (2004) and The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody (2005).

Victorian Nonconformity (Headstart History Papers)

Plantagenet Press Ltd