Charles Grandison Finney was the foremost evangelist in the pre-Civil War United States. His revivals in the cities along the Erie Canal; his well-organized campaigns in Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, and the British Isles; his prominent pastorate at New York's Broadway Tabernacle; and his teaching career at Oberlin College exemplify the evangelical spirit that swept the country following the Second Great Awakening. This lively biography by historian Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe tells the story of Finney's remarkable life and offers fresh insights into the nature of evangelicalism and the...

This is the first full-length treatment of mass-evangelist Billy Sunday to appear in 30 years. Lyle Dorsett makes a fresh and original contribuion to our understanding of this pugnaious baseball player-turned-preacher with his use of the Sunday family papers, a source previously unavailable to biographers.

Perhaps the most eminent of eminent Victorians, a master alike of parliamentary debate and public oratory, and regarded as the greatest Christian statesman of his day, William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) governed Britain at a time when the country stood at the apex of world affairs. In this book historian David Bebbington presents a superb, balanced portrait of Gladstone-his character, his convictions, his actions, and his legacy.

The Library Of Religious Biography is a series of original biographies on important religious figures throughout American and British history.

One of the most influential and dynamic evangelists of the twentieth century, Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944) was a complex, controversial figure with a flair for the dramatic. Against the backdrop of the Roaring Twenties, Sister Aimee, as she was widely known, cultivated her ministry, preaching the -old-time religion- and calling for a return to simple biblical Christianity. A religious leader who strongly identified with ordinary folk, McPherson attracted thousands of fiercely loyal followers throughout the United States and Canada.
Edith Blumhofer's thorough biography is grounded in...

This acclaimed biography explores the religious life of Thomas Jefferson and the contribution his strident commitment to religious liberty made to the formation of the nation. Renowned historian Edwin Gaustad chronicles Jefferson's intellectual growth, paying particular attention both to Jefferson's private struggle to come to grips with his own faith and to his public role as champion of religious liberty. This volume is must reading for anyone interested in the religious life of one of America's most significant figures.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), mathematician, physicist, inventor, and religious thinker was a man at odds with his time. The optimism of the Enlightenment and the belief among philosophers and scientists that the universe was both discoverable and rational made them feel invincible. Reason alone, declared the intellectuals, could discover a God of natural religion that was to replace the God of traditional Christianity. Pascal, on the other hand, was not so confident. In his Pensees, he wrote, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread." For Pascal, the universe was full...

Taking up where Merton's own Seven Storey Mountain ends, this penetrating biography by Lawrence Cunningham explores Merton's monastic life and his subsequent growth into a modern-day spiritual master. Though the basic story of Thomas Merton's life may be well known, the details of his spiritual development are less familiar. Cunningham shows that Merton's prolific writings and his continuing influence can only be understood against the background of his contemplative experience as a Trappist monk. "If one does not understand Merton as a monk," writes Cunningham, "one does not understand...

Garnering awards from Choice, Christianity Today, Books & Culture, and the Conference on Christianity and Literature when first published in 1998, Roger Lundin's Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief has been widely recognized as one of the finest biographies of the great American poet Emily Dickinson. Paying special attention to her experience of faith, Lundin skillfully relates Dickinson's life -- as it can be charted through her poems and letters -- to nineteenth-century American political, social, religious, and intellectual history.
This second edition of Lundin's...

Horace Bushnell (1802-1876) is one of the most studied figures innineteenth-century American religious history, but there has beenno major biography of him for almost fifty years. "The Puritan asYankee provides a much-needed -- and provocatively new -- lookat this famous American Christian thinker.

Based on a close reading of Bushnell's writings and unpublishedsources as well as careful attention to how contemporaries saw him, Robert Bruce Mullin's book throws fresh light on its subject. Breakingfrom the long tradition of portraying Bushnell as the father ofAmerican liberal...