Methodism in Victorian Shetland

Methodism arrived in Shetland in the 1820s, growing until 1866 and remaining relatively strong. It suffered from the handicaps of geography, the weather, poverty and the dictates of the fishing industry. Lay leadership was hard to find, ministers were overburdened, other denominations provided competition and emigration deprived the Methodist movement of talent. On the other hand, patronage, the work of James Loutit and the doctrines and institutions of Methodism provided advantages. Education and temperance drew in the young, the movement fitted into Shetland life and most fundamentally the Evangelical impulse and episodes of revival brought growth. Shetland Methodism became something exceptional: by far the most successful branch of the denomination in Scotland.

The Burden of Christendom

The Founding of Harvard was a first order of business in Puritan Massachusetts. The Puritans had inherited not only the university tradition from Christendom, but also a strong emphasis, as part of their heritage from John Calvin, on educated clergy and educated lay leadership. Harvard College was designed to serve both church and state. It adopted the standard classic university curriculum, supplemented by theological training and Christian worship. William Ames, who had hoped to come to Massachusetts, proposed alternatives that would have better integrated theology with more secular learning, such as treating both metaphysics and ethics as subdisciplines of theology in the arts curriculum and removing Aristotle from these parts of the curriculum while retaining Plato.

The East African Revival

The East African Revival was a renewalist movement that spread during the 1930s from Uganda and Rwanda into Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Congo , and South Sudan. It is known as the Balokole movement from the Luganda word for “saved ones” (wokovu in Swahili). Its members attempted to reform mission-initiated churches from within by emphasizing an internalized Christian faith, high ethical standards, strong bonds of corporate fellowship, and the prominence of lay leadership. Women were able to assert greater moral and spiritual authority within the Revival than had become common outside it. Its vision of a transnational community of Christians acted as a critique to ethnonationalist views current in East Africa in the mid-20th century. The same vision also influenced global evangelical movements. The Revival possessed a number of strands, although a strong mainstream element has influenced the historiography of the movement as a largely unified and cosmopolitan form of evangelical Christianity. The Revival maintained momentum into the 1990s and remains a pervasive influence on the language, morals, and spiritual practice of Protestant churches in East Africa, even as newer Pentecostal movements make an impact on the region.

Introduction

This book makes a series of arguments that challenge the standard interpretation of the Pilgrim story and the influence of Plymouth on the colonization of New England and the history of the United States. Those who are commonly referred to as Pilgrims are presented as members of the broader English puritan movement. Lay leadership such as that of William Brewster was central to the forming and conduct of congregational churches. These believers recognized that “further light” might always provide further insight into God’s designs. And Plymouth’s role in shaping the religious and cultural institutions of Massachusetts were more significant than previously realized.

Facing the Refugee Experience

This chapter examines how the refugee experience had a huge significance in the lives of those who survived it and had to be dealt with in one way or another. In particular, it explores how the Polish–Lithuanian Jewry came to terms with the terrible events in Ukraine. Looking at all the attempts to make sense of the tragedy together, it seems clear that the religious thinkers did not develop any kind of unified conceptual framework to allow the survivors—and the rest of Polish Jewry—to work through their traumatic experiences. That would be done not in the spiritual realm but in the public sphere. From mid-March to mid-April of 1650, the Council of Four Lands, Polish Jewry's lay leadership, met in special session with leading rabbis to address some of the most important issues facing Polish Jews at that time. Foremost among them were questions of identification; another issued to be faced was that of conversion. The chapter then recounts how the memories of the Khmelnytsky uprising were preserved by the prayers composed for 20 Sivan.

The Construction of the Great Synagogue in Stockholm, 1860–1870: A Space for Jewish and Swedish-Christian Dialogues

The construction of the Great Synagogue in Stockholm during the 1860s initiated Jewish communal debates on the position and public presence of Jews in the Swedish pre-emancipatory society. An investigation into the construction process not only reveals various Jewish opinions on the sacred building, but also the pivotal role of Swedish-Christian actors in shaping the synagogue’s location, architecture, and the way it was presented in the public narrative. The Jewish community’s conceptualization and the Swedish society’s reception of the new synagogue turned it into a space on the ‘frontier.’ Conceptually situated in-between the Jewish community and the Swedish-Christian society, it encouraged cross-border interactions and became a physical product of the Jewish and Swedish-Christian entangled relationship. Non-Jewish architect Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander, historical figures prominent in the Swedish national narrative, and local and national newspapers were incorporated by the Jewish lay leadership into the creative process, and they influenced and circulated the community’s self-understanding as both Swedish citizens and Jews of a modern religion. The construction process and final product strategically communicated Jewish belonging to the Swedish nation during the last decade of social and legal inequality, thus adding to the contemporary political debate on Jewish emancipation.

The Scottish ideal: Lay education and training in the Church of Scotland

This article argues that in the face of an unprecedented crisis in ministry and mission in the Church of Scotland decisive action is needed in the area of the education and training of its lay members. It examines how the church’s theological and cultural heritage shaped a negative attitude towards lay leadership, and reviews attempts at reform in recent years as well as proposals regarding education and training contained in the Kirk’s current Radical Action Plan.

Protestant Dissenting Traditions in Asia in the Twentieth Century

Protestant Christianities in Asia today are Asian, but they also carry markers of piety, resilience, and social sensibility which reflect dissenting traditions. While acknowledging the fundamental importance of Asian agency, elements of Protestant Dissent can be identified among the multiple ideas, traditions, personalities, social phenomena, and historical events which have contributed to the formation of Asian Christianity. Denominational names often signify connection with a dissenting Christian identity. A dissenting heritage is often associated with education, an emphasis on bible -reading and translation, an openness to women and lay-leadership in positions of authority, and a cautious attitude towards relationships with governments. Links are also found in stories about pioneer personalities. However, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, British Methodist, and some Baptist churches who joined in national union schemes in India, China, the Philippines, and Thailand, have generally had their memory, and sometimes their polity, subsumed under the shared vision of a new national church.