Church History articles from March 2008

Church History archives from March 2008

The celibate bridegroom and his virginal brides: metaphor and the marriage of Jesus in early Christian ascetic exegesis (1).(Critical essay)
March 1, 2008... "LET us kiss him whose embrace is chastity. Let us have intercourse (copulemur) with him with whom marriage is virginity" (2) thus Paulinus of Nola, a late-ancient aristocratic bishop and ascetic practitioner, exhorts his friend Severus to...

Siblings and the sexes within the medieval religious life (1).(Essay)
March 1, 2008... IN 1156, the German visionary Elisabeth of Schonau received a series of revelations concerning Saint Ursula, whose body, together with some of the eleven thousand virgins supposedly martyred alongside her, had allegedly been discovered in a...

Vested struggles: the social and ecclesiological significance of stoles in seventeenth-century France (1).(Essay)
March 1, 2008... IN his six-part poem, Le Lutrin (The Lectern; 1674-83), Nicolas Boileau details the "heroic struggle that ensues between a bishop and a cantor after the former takes it upon himself to install a lectern within the choir of one of his diocese's...

The religious heritage of the British northwest and the rise of Mormonism *.(Essay)
March 1, 2008... IN March 1840, Wilford Woodruff, one of the twelve apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ventured into the county of Herefordshire in western England. Woodruff had traveled to England with many of the other Mormon...

Saint Apolo from Europe, or "What's in a Luganda name?" (1).
March 1, 2008... APOLO Kivebulaya was a Ganda Christian, an evangelist to Toro and to Boga and an Anglican priest. He remains a beloved saint in the Anglican churches of Congo and Uganda. Without exception, he is described as a humble, unassuming man who owned...

"No mystery God": black religions of the flesh in pre-war urban America (1).(Essay)
March 1, 2008... "Every day belief in an anthropomorphic God owes its origin in no small measure to the black man." --W. E. B. Du Bois, "The Gift of the Spirit" (1924) (2) IN the early 1940s, Arthur Huff Fauset found so many black migrants disappointed...

A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church. By Calvin R. Stapert. The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies 7. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007. xiv + 233 pp. $18.00 paper. This is an interesting...

Monastic Bodies: Discipline and Salvation in Shenoute of Atripe.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Monastic Bodies: Discipline and Salvation in Shenoute of Atripe. By Caroline T. Schroeder. Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. ix + 240 pp. $79.95 cloth. Caroline Schroeder...

The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and Its Historian.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and Its Historian. By Patrick Wormald. Edited by Stephen Baxter. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006. xviii + 293. $78.95 cloth. The untimely death of Patrick Wormald in 2004 deprived...

Plenitude of Power: The Doctrine and Exercise of Authority in the Middle Ages; Essays in Memory of Robert Louis Benson.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Plenitude of Power: The Doctrine and Exercise of Authority in the Middle Ages; Essays in Memory of Robert Louis Benson. Edited by Robert C. Figueira. Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006. xii + 207 pp....

Rievaulx Abbey and its Social Context, 1132-1300: Memory, Locality, and Networks.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Rievaulx Abbey and its Social Context, 1132-1300: Memory, Locality, and Networks. By Emilia Jamroziak. Medieval Church Studies 8. Tumhout: Brepols, 2005. xii + 253 pp. $60.00 cloth. In her discerning study of the Rievaulx cartulary and its...

Law and Theology in Twelfth-Century England: The Works of Mater Vacarius (c. 1115/20-c. 1200).(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Law and Theology in Twelfth-Century England: The Works of Mater Vacarius (c. 1115/20-c. 1200). By Jason Taliadoros. Disputatio 10. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007. x + 326. $81.00 cloth. Though Vacarius was born in Lombardy and studied in Bologna,...

Art and Identity in Thirteenth-Century Byzantium: Hagia Sophia and the Empire of Trebizond.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Art and Identity in Thirteenth-Century Byzantium: Hagia Sophia and the Empire of Trebizond. By Antony Eastmond. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs 10. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2004. xxii + 210 pp. $89.95 cloth. Antony Eastmond...

Books under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Books Under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England. By Kathryn Kerby-Fulton. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. lii + 566 pp. $50.00 cloth. With Books Under Suspicion, Kathryn...

Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, c. 1400-1700.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, c. 1400-1700. Edited by Thomas S. Freeman and Thomas F. Mayer. Studies in Modem British Religious History 15. Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 2007. x + 254 pp. $85.00 cloth. The editors of this collection of...

Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Edited by Andrew Spicer and Sarah Hamilton. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2005. xviii + 349 pp. $99.95 cloth. What makes a space sacred? These essays have as their collective...

Monks, Miracles and Magic: Reformation Representations of the Medieval Church.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Monks, Miracles and Magic: Reformation Representations of the Medieval Church. By Helen Parish. London: Routledge, 2005. viii + 229. $34.95 paper. This well-structured book focuses on the engagement of English Protestants with the history...

Reforming Priests and Parishes: Tuscan Dioceses in the First Century of Seminary Education.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Reforming Priests and Parishes: Tuscan Dioceses in the First Century of Seminary Education. By Kathleen M. Comerford. Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 27. Leiden: Brill, 2006. xx + 164 pp. $98.00 cloth. Scholars...

Erasmus, Contarini, and the Religious Republic of Letters.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Erasmus, Contarini, and the Religious Republic of Letters. By Constance M. Furey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xiv + 258 pp. $65.00 cloth. This is an elegantly written and perceptive monograph, with fresh and interesting...

Foxe's Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Foxe's Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture. By John N. King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xvii + 356 pp. $110.00 cloth. John Foxe's Acts and Monuments (commonly known as the Book of Martyrs) is a bibliographer's...

Prophecy, Politics and the People in Early Modern England.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Prophecy, Politics and the People in Early Modern England. By Tim Thornton. Suffolk, U.K.: Boydell, 2006. + 269 pp. $85.00 cloth. This book studies non-biblical prophetic traditions in England from the sixteenth century to the present day....

The Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation: Glory, Laud and Honour.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... The Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation: Glory, Laud and Honour. By Graham Parry. Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 2006. xii + 209 pp. $80.00 cloth. In his recent Anglicanism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press,...

Benedict Poiger, Theologia Ex-magica (1780) oder: Theologie ohne Hexen und Zauberer (1784). Mit einem Anhang: Ferdinand Sterzinger--Von dem gemeinen Vorurtheile der wirkenden und thatigen Hexerey (1766).(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Benedict Poiger, Theologia Ex-magica (1780) oder: Theologic ohne Hexen und Zauberer (1784). Mit einem Anhang: Ferdinand Sterzinger--Von dem gemeinen Vorurtheile der wirkenden und thatigen Hexerey (1766). Edited by Ulrich Lehner,...

A Will to Choose: The Origins of African American Methodism.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... A Will to Choose: The Origins of African American Methodism. By J. Gordon Melton. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. xii + 319 pp. $80.00 cloth; $29.95 paper. Of the writing of books on African American Methodism there will be no...

Lining out the Word: Dr. Watts Hymn Singing in the Music of Black Americans.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Lining out the Word: Dr. Watts Hymn Singing in the Music of Black Americans. By William T. Dargan. Music of the African Diaspora 8. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. xvi + 325. $45.00 cloth. William Dargan's Lining out the...

Equations from God: Pure Mathematics and Victorian Faith.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Equations from God: Pure Mathematics and Victorian Faith. By Daniel J. Cohen. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. xii + 244 pp. $50.00 cloth. Daniel Cohen, an assistant professor of history at George Mason University,...

Painting the Bible: Representation of Belief in Mid-Victorian Britain.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Painting the Bible: Representation of Belief in Mid-Victorian Britain. By Michaela Giebelhausen. British Art and Visual Culture since 1750. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006. xii + 249 pp. $99.95. This work began as a dissertation and carries...

Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England. By Timothy Larsen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. xii + 322 pp. $110.00 cloth. The "crisis of faith" in mid-Victorian Britain has been the subject of a vast...

Brokers of Culture: Italian Jesuits in the American West, 1848-1919.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Brokers of Culture: Italian Jesuits in the American West, 1848-1919. By Gerald McKevitt. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007. xx + 429 pp. $60.00 cloth. In Brokers of Culture, Gerald McKevitt sets out to tell the story of...

Good Intentions Gone Awry: Emma Crosby and the Methodist Mission on the Northwest Coast.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Good Intentions Gone Awry: Emma Crosby and the Methodist Mission on the Northwest Coast. By Jan Hare and Jean Barman. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007. xxvi + 310 pp. $85.00 cloth; $29.95 paper. Emma Jane Douse...

Religious Culture in Modern Mexico.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Religious Culture in Modern Mexico. Edited by Martin Austin Nesvig. Jaguar Books on Latin America Series. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. x + 282 pp. $75.00 cloth; $29.95 paper. Liberal reformer Nicolas Pizarro Suarez's 1861...

Priest, Parish, and People: Saving the Faith in Philadelphia's "Little Italy.".(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Priest, Parish, and People: Saving the Faith in Philadelphia's "Little Italy." By Richard N. Juliani. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. xii + 396 pp. $35.00 paper. Written by a professor of sociology, Priest, Parish,...

Good Hearts: Catholic Sisters in Chicago's Past.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Good Hearts: Catholic Sisters in Chicago's Past. By Suellen Hoy. Urbana" University of Illinois Press, 2006. xvi + 246 pp. $50.00 cloth; $22.00 paper. Because of its title, a reader might worry lest Suellen Hoy's book reinforce the...

Out of Due Time: Wilfrid Ward and the Dublin Review.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Out of Due Time: Wilfrid Ward and the Dublin Review. By Dom Paschal Scotti. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2006. xii + 333 pp. $69.96 cloth. Wilfrid Ward was, notably, the authorized biographer of John Henry...

Danger on the Doorstep: Anti-Catholicism and American Print Culture in the Progressive Era.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Danger on the Doorstep: Anti-Catholicism and American Print Culture in the Progressive Era. By Justin Nordstrom. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. x + 300 pp. $30.00 cloth. Anti-Catholic prejudice in the contemporary...

W. E. B. Du Bois: American Prophet.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... W. E. B. Du Bois: American Prophet. By Edward J. Blum. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. viii + 278 pp. $39.95 cloth. The life, thought, and activities of W. E. B. Du Bois have been treated from many angles by scholars...

Evangelical From the Beginning: The Story of the Evangelical Congregational Church.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Evangelical From the Beginning: The Story of the Evangelical Congregational Church. Edited by Terry Heisey. Lexington, Ky.: Emeth, 2006. 381 pp. $24.50 cloth; $19.00 paper. The Evangelical Congregational Church traces its roots to Jacob...

An Archbishop for the People: The Life of Edward J. Hanna.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... An Archbishop for the People: The Life of Edward J. Hanna. By Richard Gribble, C.S.C. New York: Paulist Press, 2006. x + 292 pp. $24.95 paper. This is the first biography of Edward J. Hanna, archbishop of San Francisco (1915-1935) and...

Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America. By Matthew Avery Sutton. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007. xii + 358 pp. $26.95 cloth. Fifty years after her death, Aimee Semple McPherson continues to...

The Church of England and the Holocaust: Christianity, Memory and Nazism.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... The Church of England and the Holocaust: Christianity, Memory and Nazism. By Tom Lawson. Studies in Modern British Religious History 12. Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 2006. x + 213 pp. $80.00 cloth. In the opening pages of The Church of...

Awesome Families: The Promise of Healing Relationships in the International Church of Christ.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Awesome Families: The Promise of Healing Relationships in the International Church of Christ. By Kathleen E. Jenkins. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2005. xii + 284 pp. $22.95 paper. At the center of Kathleen E. Jenkins's...

Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement. By Tanya Erzen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. x + 285 pp. $50.00 cloth; $19.95 paper. Abstinence-only education, purity pledge cards, virginity...

Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screen.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screen. By Jeremy Cohen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. xii + 320 pp. $29.95 cloth. Throughout his distinguished scholarly career, Jeremy Cohen has explored the...

Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent.(Reformation and Modern Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From Luther to Contemporary Practices)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent. By Bryan D. Spinks. Liturgy, Worship, and Society Series. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006. xiv + 192 pp. $29.95 paper. Reformation and...

Incorrectly Political: Augustine and Thomas More.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Incorrectly Political: Augustine and Thomas More. By Peter Iver Kaufman. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. viii + 280 pp. $35.00 paper. In this book Peter Iver Kaufman analyzes and reflects on the life and writings in...

A History of Global Anglicanism.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... A History of Global Anglicanism. By Kevin Ward. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xii + 363 pp. $85.00 cloth; $35.99 paper. Who would have thought forty years ago that the Anglican Communion would be on the forefront of...

An Introduction to Quakerism.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... An Introduction to Quakerism. By Pink Dandelion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xv + 277 pp. $85.00 cloth; $19.99 paper. In the past decade, Pink Dandelion, program leader in the Centre for Postgraduate Quaker Studies at the...

Modern Christian Thought: The Enlightenment and the Nineteenth Century.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Modern Christian Thought: The Enlightenment and the Nineteenth Century. By James C. Livingston. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2006. vxi + 544 pp. $29.00 paper. For those familiar with James C. Livingston's 1971 classic, Modern Christian...

The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... The Guadalupan Controversies in Mexico. By Stafford Poole, C.M. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006. xvi + 320 pp. $65.00 cloth. This is a valuable new offering from one of the field's most prominent practitioners of...

There Before Us: Religion, Literature, and Culture from Emerson to Wendell Berry.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... There Before Us: Religion, Literature, and Culture from Emerson to Wendell Berry. Edited by Roger Lundin. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007. xxii + 250 pp. $18.00 paper. The essays comprising There Before Us leave one wondering how the...

Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics. By Stephen J. Grabill. Emory University Studies in Law and Religion. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2006. x + 275 pp. $38.00 paper. Ignored, derided, or simply missing from many...

Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture.(Book review)
March 1, 2008... Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture. By Vincent J. Miller. New York: Continuum, 2003. vii + 256 pp. $17.95 paper. We are awash in talk about the ethics of consumption. From the "eat local" movement to...

Books received.
March 1, 2008... Aageson, James W., Paul, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Early Church. Library of Pauline Studies. Peabody, Mass.: Henderson Publishing, 2007. Akenson, Donald Harman, Some Family: The Mormons and How Humanity Keeps Track of Itself. London:...