Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction

By Mark A. Noll

Mark A. Noll, named one in all America's such a lot influential evangelicals by means of Time Magazine, presents a clean and available historical past of Protestantism from the period of Martin Luther to the current day. Noll starts off with the founding of Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Anabaptist church buildings within the sixteenth-century Reformation, and considers the increase of different vital Christian activities like Methodism and Pentecostalism. yet instead of concentrating on simply the common ecu and American histories, he discusses the new enlargement of Protestant routine in Africa, China, India, and Latin the US, emphasizing the on-going and quickly increasing tale of Protestants all over the world. The booklet highlights the contributions of famous figures starting from Martin Luther and John Calvin to Karl Barth, Dora Yu, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, and Pandita Ramabai, and it sheds gentle on why Protestant energies have flagged lately within the Western global whereas increasing dramatically in different places. Detailing the major issues of Protestant commonality--including the message of Christian salvation, reliance at the Bible, and association via own initiative--he illuminates the explanations for Protestantism's remarkable diversity.

Show description

Quick preview of Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction PDF

Similar Theology books

Original Sin: A Cultural History

Essayist and biographer Alan Jacobs introduces us to the realm of unique sin, which he describes as not just a profound thought yet an important one. As G. okay. Chesterton explains, "Only with unique sin do we straight away pity the beggar and mistrust the king. "Do we arrive during this international predisposed to evil?

The Phenomenon of Man

Visionary theologian and evolutionary theorist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin utilized his entire lifestyles, his super mind, and his nice non secular religion to construction a philosophy that might reconcile faith with the clinical thought of evolution. during this undying ebook, which incorporates the quintessence of his proposal, Teilhard argues that simply as residing organisms sprung from inorganic subject and advanced into ever extra complicated pondering beings, people are evolving towards an "omega point"—defined by way of Teilhard as a convergence with the Divine.

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

Velvet Elvis is the 1st ebook from Rob Bell, the hot York occasions bestselling writer of affection Wins.  chosen as one in all 2011’s such a lot influential humans by means of Time journal, pastor Bell deals unique and refreshingly own views on what Christianity is really all approximately in Velvet Elvis.  a colourful voice for a brand new iteration of Christians—the so much recognizable Christian chief between younger adults—Rob Bell conjures up readers to take a clean examine conventional questions of religion.

The Conference of the Birds (Penguin Classics)

Composed within the 12th century in north-eastern Iran, Attar's nice mystical poem is one of the most vital of all works of Persian literature. A marvellous, allegorical rendering of the Islamic doctrine of Sufism - an esoteric method keen on the hunt for fact via God - it describes the implications of the convention of the birds of the realm once they meet to start the quest for his or her excellent king, the Simorgh poultry.

Extra resources for Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction

Show sample text content

Many commentators have famous the non secular adjustments in Europe from the turning out to be numbers of Muslims. Fewer have remarked on how major the hot Christian immigration has develop into, together with many church buildings serving African immigrants in France, huge congregations choked with Caribbean and African novices in England, and Sunday Adelaja’s Pentecostal church in Kiev. An American exception? In comparative viewpoint, it truly is extraordinary that as American society through the twentieth century has turned prosperous, smooth, and various, it has now not tracked what occurred while Europe turned extra glossy, prosperous, and numerous. In measurable phrases of normal church adherence, professed trust in God, monetary aid of spiritual associations, and salience of faith in political debate, the U.S. has appeared to modify larger to fashionable situations. a few have argued that americans instruction a skinny kind of Christianity, with the conventions of individualistic and consumer-driven tradition dictating the content material and kind of spiritual lifestyles. Others word that American schooling, mass media, the courts, and govt in any respect degrees now heed assistance from the church buildings basically on infrequent events. It has even been argued that the adaptation among secularism within the usa and Europe is that it occurs in the American church buildings rather than as a strength riding humans from the church buildings. yet inspite of valid questions about quality controls, the placement continues to be transparent: through comparability with Europe, there are extra humans within the usa who actively training Protestant faiths, the power of Protestant church buildings and voluntary agencies is bigger, and the impression of Protestants in public existence is extra noticeable. The makeup of yankee Protestantism is, even if, altering speedy. over the past half-century, the as soon as dominant mainline church buildings (Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal, and Congregational), whereas retaining huge and comparatively well-funded denominations, have yielded public area to a large number of extra evangelical, fundamentalist, Pentecostal, sectarian, holiness, self sufficient, and immigrant church buildings. cautious empirical learn means that mainline Protestants now make up approximately 15% of the yankee inhabitants, with one other 26% in as a rule Caucasian evangelical or conservative Protestant church buildings and nine% within the principally Protestant African American church buildings (the different 1/2 the population divides 20% Catholic, 10% different spiritual teams, and 20% functionally unattached). one of many huge advancements that introduced sharply centred Christian morality again into the yankee public sq. used to be the civil rights flow of the Fifties and Sixties. Its prime spokesman used to be the black Baptist minister, Martin Luther King, Jr, who skilfully mixed pacifism from India’s Mahatma Gandhi with a lot from conventional African American Christianity. King’s so much unswerving supporters have been usual church-goers from black Methodist and Baptist church buildings who practised simple biblical religion.

Download PDF sample

Rated 4.34 of 5 – based on 28 votes