Church History articles from June 2007

Church History archives from June 2007

From peoplehood to church membership: Mormonism's trajectory since World War II.
June 1, 2007... Christians of every stripe are bound into faith communities by two sets of identifying metaphors. One, the body of Christ, is derived from the New Testament's account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The other, drawn from Hebraic...

The lives and literary roles of children in advancing conversion to Christianity: hagiography from the Caucasus in late antiquity and the middle ages (1).
June 1, 2007... Children are the weakest and most fragile members of their families as well as of the society in which they live. At the same time children embody a potential for growth and renewal that is greater than that of anyone else. On many occasions,...

Agnes of Harcourt, Felipa of Porcelet, and Marguerite of Oingt: women writing about women at the end of the thirteenth century (1).
June 1, 2007... Three vernacular religious biographies were written by women about other women around the year 1300: Agnes of Harcourt's Francien Vie d'Isabelle de France (ca. 1283), Felipa of Porcelet's Provencal Vida de la benaurada sancta Doucelina (begun...

Fasting, piety, and political anxiety among French reformed Protestants.
June 1, 2007... Fasting has an ancient and revered place in the many religious traditions that human communities have fostered throughout history and across the globe. In India, to take a modern example, Hindu women commonly carry out ritual fasts or vrats....

"Bad things" and "good hearts": mediation, meaning, and the language of Illinois Christianity.
June 1, 2007... A delegation of Illinois Indians on a diplomatic mission astonished the residents of New Orleans in 1730 with their ardent participation in the Catholic ritual life of the colonial capital. The Jesuit Mathurin le Petit observed that during...

Christianity and the Secular.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Christianity and the Secular. By Robert A. Markus. Blessed Pope John XXIII Lecture Series in Theology and Culture. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. xii + 100 pp. $30.00 cloth; $15.00 paper. The essays that make up...

Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea. By Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006, xvii + 367 pp. $29.95 cloth. For over two decades...

A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II 408-450.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II 408-450. By Fergus Millar. Sather Classical Lectures 64. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. xxvi + 284 pp. $49.95 cloth. In his latest work, Fergus Millar offers a...

Face to Face: Portraits of the Divine in Early Christianity.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Face to Face: Portraits of the Divine in Early Christianity. By Robin Margaret Jensen. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2005. xviii + 236 pp. $29.00 cloth; $22.00 paper. No portrait of the historical Jesus ever existed. Yet Jesus, as a...

Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination. By Susan Ashbrook Harvey. The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 42. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. xviii + 426 pp. $45.00 cloth. Susan Ashbrook...

The Transformation of a Religious Landscape: Medieval Southern Italy, 850-1150.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Transformation of a Religious Landscape: Medieval Southern Italy, 850-1150. By Valerie Ramseyer. Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006. xviii + 229 pp. $42.50 cloth. ...

International Mobility in the Military Orders (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries): Traveling on Christ's Business.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... International Mobility in the Military Orders (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries): Traveling on Christ's Business. Edited by Jochen Burgtorf and Helen Nicholson. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2006. xxii + 219 pp. $59.75 cloth. ...

Pre-Reformation Religious Dissent in the Netherlands, 1518-1530.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Pre-Reformation Religious Dissent in the Netherlands, 1518-1530. By J. Alton Templin. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2006. x1ii + 266 pp. $39.95 paper. The title of this book prompts a question: When did the Protestant...

John Calvin as Teacher, Pastor, and Theologian: The Shape of His Writings and Thought.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... John Calvin as Teacher, Pastor, and Theologian: The Shape of His Writings and Thought. By Randall C. Zachman. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker-Academic, 2006. 283 pp. $24.99 cloth. In this volume, Zachman collects essays written over a number of...

Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. By Lyndal Roper. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. xiv + 362 pp. $35.00 cloth. This book ranks among the most important works on witchcraft ever published at any time. The...

Confession and Resistance: Defining the Self in Late Medieval England.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Confession and Resistance: Defining the Self in Late Medieval England. By Katherine Little. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. viii + 196 pp. $27.50 paper. Katherine Little's relatively brief but learned book makes an...

Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750. By Jodi Bilinkoff. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005. xiv + 184 pp. $45.00 cloth. In recent years, religious women including those with formal religious vocations,...

Philip Melanchthon and the English Reformation.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Philip Melanchthon and the English Reformation. By John Schofield. St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006. xvi + 238 pp. $99.95 cloth. This fine, clearly written study examines the relation of the...

The Church of Mary Tudor.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Church of Mary Tudor. Edited by Eamon Duffy and David Loades. Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006. xxxii + 351 pp. $99.95 cloth. Somewhat ironically, the editors' introduction to this excellent volume lurks...

Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy: Catholic and Anti-Catholic Discourses in Early Modern England.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy: Catholic and Anti-Catholic Discourses in Early Modern England. By Arthur F. Marotti. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. xii + 308 pp. $55.00 cloth; $25.00 paper. Over the past...

The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon's Thought.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon's Thought. By Stephen A. McKnight. Eric Voegelin Institute Series in Political Philosophy: Studies in Religion and Politics. Columbia: The University of Missouri Press, 2006. xvi + 195 pp. $37.50...

Enforcing Reformation in Ireland and Scotland, 1550-1700.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Enforcing Reformation in Ireland and Scotland, 1550-1700. Edited by Elizabethanne Boran and Crawford Gribben. St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006. xii + 267 pp. $99.95 cloth. Historians of early...

The Pastoral Role of the Roman Catholic Church in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1750-1850.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Pastoral Role of the Roman Catholic Church in Pre-famine Ireland, 1750-1850. By Emmet Larkin. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006. xvi + 302 pp. $69.95 cloth. For over two decades, Emmet Larkin, now...

Gathering to His Name: The Story of Open Brethren in Britain and Ireland.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Gathering to His Name: The Story of Open Brethren in Britain and Ireland. By Tim Grass. Studies in Evangelical History and Thought. Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2006. xx + 593 pp. 29.95 [pounds sterling]; $49.99 paper. This nicely...

Auden and Christianity.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Auden and Christianity. By Arthur Kirsch. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. xxii + 214 pp. $30.00 cloth. Late in 1940, W. H. Auden, who had just recently arrived in America, began attending Episcopal services. Having lost his...

Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University. By Thomas Albert Howard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. xiv + 476 pages. $135.00 cloth. Howard's book is a welcome addition to studies of nineteenth-century...

The Papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust. By Frank J. Coppa. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006. xxii + 359 pp. $59.95 cloth. In the encyclical Humani Generis Unitas (The Unity of the Human Race), drafted in...

Church and State in Late Imperial Russia: Critics of the Synodal System of Church Government (1861-1914).(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Church and State in Late Imperial Russia: Critics of the Synodal System of Church Government (1861-1914). By John D. Basil. Minnesota Mediterranean and East European Monographs 13. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. xii + 216 pp....

City, Temple, Stage: Eschatological Architecture and Liturgical Theatrics in New Spain.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... City, Temple, Stage: Eschatological Architecture and Liturgical Theatrics in New Spain. By Jaime Lara. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. xii + 300 pp. $65.00 cloth. Jaime Lara puts space in its right place in the way...

Barbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Barbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment. By David J. Weber. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. xx + 476 pp. $35.00 cloth; $20.00 paper. In an article published in 1988 on the historiography of the...

The World of John Winthrop: Essays on England and New England 1588-1649.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The World of John Winthrop: Essays on England and New England 1588-1649. Edited by Francis J. Bremer and Lynn A. Botelho. Massachusetts Historical Society Studies in American History and Culture 9. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society,...

Sister Societies: Women's Antislavery Organizations in Antebellum America.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Sister Societies: Women's Antislavery Organizations in Antebellum America. By Beth A. Salerno. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005. x + 237 pp. $38.00 cloth. Scholars of abolitionism have long recognized the central role...

The Penitente Brotherhood: Patriarchy and Hispano-Catholicism in New Mexico.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Penitente Brotherhood: Patriarchy and Hispano-Catholicism in New Mexico. By Michael P. Carroll. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ix + 270 pp. $45.00 cloth. Michael P. Carroll, professor of sociology and author...

Faith in Their Own Color: Black Episcopalians in Antebellum New York City.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Faith in Their Own Color: Black Episcopalians in Antebellum New York City. By Craig D. Townsend. Religion and American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. xii + 244 pp. $45.00 cloth. Craig Townsend has authored a very...

The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era. By Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Religion and American Culture Series. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. xi + 229 pp. $29.50 cloth. "In Western modernity,"...

Sing Them Over Again to Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in America.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Sing Them Over Again to Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in America. Edited by Mark A. Noll and Edith L. Blumhofer. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2006. xx + 260 pp. $63.00 cloth; $32.50 paper. As its title--the first line of a gospel...

A Coat of Many Colors: Religion and Society along the Cape Fear River of North Carolina.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... A Coat of Many Colors: Religion and Society along the Cape Fear River of North Carolina. By Walter H. Conser, Jr. Religion in the South. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. xii + 373 pp. $50.00 cloth. A Coat of Many Colors:...

The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible. By Allen Dwight Callahan. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006. xiv + 287 pp. $30.00 cloth. Allen Dwight Callahan opens his book with the following words: "African Americans are...

Horse-and-Buggy Mennonites: Hoofbeats of Humility in a Postmodern World.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Horse-and-Buggy Mennonites: Hoofbeats of Humility in a Postmodern World. By Donald B. Kraybill and James P. Hurd. Pennsylvania German History and Culture Series 7. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. xii + 363 pp....

Eating in Eden: Food and American Utopias.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Eating in Eden: Food and American Utopias. Edited by Etta M. Madden and Martha L. Finch. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. xvi + 296 pp. $34.95 cloth. As Mary Douglas taught us all some years ago, a meal is more than just a...

The Fourth R: Conflicts over Religion in America's Public Schools.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Fourth R: Conflicts over Religion in America's Public Schools. By Joan DelFattore. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. x + 343 pp. $29.95 cloth. In 1839 a letter writer to a Philadelphia newspaper under the pen name...

A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion. By Catherine L. Albanese. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007. xii + 628 pp. $40.00 cloth. With this stunning historical narrative, Catherine...

God in Public: Four Ways American Christianity and Public Life Relate.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... God in Public: Four Ways American Christianity and Public Life Relate. By Mark G. Toulouse. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2006. xxiv + 271 pp. $19.95 paper. The rather ungainly subtitle tells the story: After a couple of...

Apostle to the Wilderness: Bishop John Medley and the Evolution of the Anglican Church.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Apostle to the Wilderness: Bishop John Medley and the Evolution of the Anglican Church. By Barry L. Craig. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005. 247 pp. $45.00 cloth. John Medley (1804-92), an Anglican bishop of...

The Catholic Origins of Quebec's Quiet Revolution, 1931-1970.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Catholic Origins of Quebec's Quiet Revolution, 1931-1970. By Michael Gauvreau. McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion 41. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005. xiv + 505 pp. $85.00 cloth. This important book...

The Souls of Purgatory: The Spiritual Diary of a Seventeenth-Century Afro-Peruvian Mystic, Ursula de Jesus.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Souls of Purgatory: The Spiritual Diary of a Seventeenth-Century Afro-Peruvian Mystic, Ursula de Jesus. Translated, edited, and introduction by Nancy E. van Deusen. Dialogos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004. x + 221 pp....

Cross and Flag in Africa: The "White Fathers" during the Colonial Scramble (1892-1914).(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Cross and Flag in Africa: The "White Fathers" during the Colonial Scramble (1892-1914). By Aylward Shorter, Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2006. xxvi + 294 pp. $25.00 paper. Relatively little research has been carried out in English on the...

Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1848.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Needles, Herbs, Gods, and Ghosts: China, Healing, and the West to 1848. By Linda L. Barnes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. xvi + 460 pp. $49.95 cloth. This insightful and richly documented study by Linda Barnes explores...

Jewish Dogs: An Image and Its Interpreters: Continuity in the Catholic-Jewish Encounter.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Jewish Dogs: An Image and Its Interpreters: Continuity in the Catholic-Jewish Encounter. By Kenneth Stow. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006. xxii + 318 pp. $55.00 cloth. In...

Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History. By David Frankfurter. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006. xviii + 286 pp. $29.95 cloth. From 1987 well into the 1990s, American televisions and...

The People's Work: A Social History of the Liturgy.(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The People's Work: A Social History of the Liturgy. By Frank C. Senn. Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Fortress, 2006. vi + 377 pp. $35.00 cloth. This work, intended as a "beginning outline," is cast as "a social history of the [Christian]...

Books received.
June 1, 2007... Ashworth, Timothy, Paul's Necessary Sin: The Experience of Liberation. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006. Beneke, Chris, Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Brockey,...

Minutes of the American Society of Church History annual business meeting.(SOCIETY NOTICES)(Conference news)
June 1, 2007... January 6, 2007, 5:00-6:00 p.m. Hyatt Regency Atlanta 1. Jan Shipps called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. Eighty-five persons were in attendance. The Society gained a significant number of new members this past year, especially...