E. Brooks Holifield

Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America

History & Biography

“Dorsett makes Billy Sunday come alive as a complex person, not a cardboard caricature. He notes the flaws, but despite all of Sunday's agonies and insecurities, Dorsett likes the man, and the result is a new awareness of the private complexity of a public celebrity.”

Christocentric Reformed Theology in Nineteenth-Century America

Theology

“Finally, Gerhart gets due recognition. This is a judicial and thoughtful selection from a theologian who helped introduce historical and organic development to a religious scene awash in individualistic piety. His peers honored him; this volume shows why.”

Coena Mystica

Theology

“No theological debate in nineteenth-century America displayed more erudition, logical acumen, and knowledge of European scholarship than the clash between Hodge and Nevin over the sacraments. The editors of this volume not only provide stunningly good introductions, but they also arrange the material in an ingenious way that deepens our insights into the issues and enables us to easily follow the discussion.”

Edwards on the Will

Theology

“This book elevates the study of eighteenth-century New England theology to a new level of sophistication and insight. With a precise, fresh, and lively literary style, Guelzo makes old controversies come alive for a twentieth-century reader. This is intellectual history at its best--learned, animated, and compelling. It is one of the finest studies of theology in America ever written.”

Imitating Christ

Christian Living

“Exemplifying the cogency, lucidity, and critical sharpness that we have come to expect of his writing, Luke Timothy Johnson dissects the two prevailing—and conflicting—visions of discipleship in American Christianity. He has given us a sweeping overview of Christian spiritualities and a penetrating analysis of their transformations in the modern world.”

Incarnation and Sacrament

Theology

“Charles Hodge at Princeton Seminary and John Williamson Nevin at Mercersburg Seminary in Pennsylvania drew the rapt attention of nineteenth century Reformed theologians when they battled with each other over the deepest themes of Christian thought, from sacraments and the Incarnation and to history and redemption . . . This is a revealing, brief introduction to a controversy that has continued to evoke interest and generate commentary almost two centuries after the two theologians began their exchange.”

John Williamson Nevin

History & Biography

“The case can be made that John Williamson Nevin was the most creative conservative Protestant theologian of nineteenth-century America. Linden DeBie’s thorough and nuanced account depicts a theologian seeking to transform American Christianity by overcoming its endemic individualism. DeBie brings to this task an impressive knowledge of Christian tradition, German philosophy, and nineteenth-century views of history. He also locates Nevin within a setting riven by debates over politics, sectarian piety, and sacramental worship as well as slavery and social order. This is an impressive work.”

Piety and Profession

Discipleship & Christian Education

“Glenn Miller has written a comprehensive account of Protestant seminary education, but he has also produced a significant and penetrating interpretation of Protestantism in American culture. Vast in scope, the book links ministerial training to a social and cultural context that can encompass lucid accounts of how railroads shaped the schools, consumption patterns affected their governance, capitalists financed innovation within them, theological conflict divided them, and science shook them. The cast of characters is immense, from learned theologians and shrewd administrators to activist women and determined African American clergy. By telling the story with such awareness of its larger setting, Miller allows us to see American Protestantism in a new and fresh way.”

Reckoning with History

History & Biography

“At a time when too many American Christians believe too many smug and untruthful stories about their history and therefore call for Christian dominion, Yoo tells a truthful story and suggests that repentance might be more appropriate. He reveals the extent to which the white Christian churches have embodied some of the worst impulses in American history: They supported the settler colonialism that destroyed vast Indigenous cultures, and they defended or passively accepted two centuries of enslavement and a further century of racial subjugation. This is a powerful rejoinder to a triumphalist reading of Christian history. It should be read wherever Christians gather.”

Retrieving Catholicity in American Protestantism

History & Biography

“John Williamson Nevin thought deeply throughout the latter part of his career about the theological meaning of history and the theoretical foundations of historical writing. Michael J. Stell’s masterly editing enables us to see the changes and continuities in Nevin’s thinking about historical development. A critical but appreciative interpreter of German philosophical idealism, Nevin challenged the philosophical assumptions of the nineteenth-century denominational histories and called for a broader view of history within American churches. His challenge echoes even today.”

The Mystical Presence

Theology

“No single book on sacramental thought from nineteenth-century America has attracted more attention in the past half century than The Mystical Presence . . . This new edition by Linden J. DeBie and W. Bradford Littlejohn clarifies [Nevin's] importance by placing his work in its American context, showing his engagement with European theologians, and locating him in his own theological tradition . . . Nevin's work will continue to make a mark, and this new edition brings to bear the latest scholarship.”

The Puritan as Yankee

History & Biography

“Grounded in an extraordinary range of reading and a fresh analysis of the primary sources, Mullin's biography provides innovative and surprising insight into one of America's most intriguing nineteenth-century religious leaders. The Horace Bushnell we discover in these pages doesn't fit the stereotypes. At once liberal and conservative, modern and traditionalist, fascinated by science and captivated by miracles, hopeful of progress and worried by change, the Bushnell we meet here eludes our easy categories. Mullin wonderfully locates him in his time and place, carrying us from the labyrinths of church politics to the academic lecture halls and the social disarray of mid-nineteenth-century America. This is a superb study of a complex and important Protestant leader.”

The Spirit of American Liberal Theology

Theology

“No one knows more about American theological liberalism than Gary Dorrien, and no book about it is more illuminating than this astonishing study of the liberal tradition in the nation in which it has been most persistent and diverse. Dorrien has read everything—from multi-volume tomes to letters and notes in archival collections—and then condensed this material into a coherent narrative in which the reader encounters not only the ideas but also the creative human beings who gave them birth. Writing in a terse and lively style, he presents us with an inclusive array of personalities and positions: men and women, Black and white, who refashioned an ancient tradition in a continually changing culture. The story is full of gripping descriptions, lucid insights, and bold judgments. It is a magisterial work.”