Ramblings In Beulah Land

From its inception in the nineteenth century, the Wesleyan/Holiness religious tradition has offered an alternative construction of gender and supported the equality of the sexes. In Holy Boldness, Susie C. Stanley provides a comprehensive analysis of spiritual autobiographies by thirty-four American Wesleyan/Holiness women preachers, published between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. While a few of these women, primarily African Americans, have been added to the canon of American women's autobiography, Stanley argues for the expansion of the canon to incorporate the majority of the women in her study. She reveals how these empowered women carried out public ministries on behalf of evangelism and social justice. The defining doctrine of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition is the belief in sanctification, or experiencing a state of holiness. Stanley's analysis illuminates how the concept of the sanctified self inspired women to break out of the narrow confines of the traditional "women's sphere" and engage in public ministries, from preaching at camp meetings and revivals to ministering in prisons and tenements. Moreover, as a result of the Wesleyan/Holiness emphasis on experience as a valid source of theology, many women preachers turned to autobiography as a way to share their spiritual quest and religiously motivated activities with others. In such writings, these preachers focused on the events that shaped their spiritual growth and their calling to ministry, often giving only the barest details of their personal lives. Thus, Holy Boldness is not a collective biography of these women but rather an exploration of how sanctification influenced their evangelistic and social ministries. Using the tools of feminist theory and autobiographical analysis in addition to historical and theological interpretation, Stanley traces a trajectory of Christian women's autobiographies and introduces many previously unknown spiritual autobiographies that will expand our understanding of Christian spirituality in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. The Author: Susie C. Stanley is professor of historical theology at Messiah College. She is the author of Feminist Pillar of Fire: The Life of Alma White.

Recipient of the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History for 2007 Faith in the Great Physician tells the story of how participants in the evangelical divine healing movement of the late nineteenth century transformed the ways Americans coped with physical affliction and pursued bodily health. Examining the politics of sickness, health, and healing during this period, Heather D. Curtis encourages critical reflection on the theological, cultural, and social forces that come into play when one questions the purpose of suffering and the possibility of healing. Curtis finds that advocates of divine healing worked to revise a deep-seated Christian ethic that linked physical suffering with spiritual holiness. By engaging in devotional disciplines and participating in social reform efforts, proponents of faith cure embraced a model of spiritual experience that endorsed active service, rather than passive endurance, as the proper Christian response to illness and pain. Emphasizing the centrality of religious practices to the enterprise of divine healing, Curtis sheds light on the relationship among Christian faith, medical science, and the changing meanings of suffering and healing in American culture.

The A to Z of the Holiness Movement relates important new developments in the Holiness Movement—such as the widely discussed "Holiness Manifesto"—are thoroughly discussed, and the content has also been expanded to include information on figures from Asia and Africa to reflect the continued growth of the Holiness Movement. With a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries, this reference has information that cannot be found elsewhere.

It is much harder to define a religious movement than it is to define a religion or denomination. That applies especially when that movement almost defies definition as the Holiness Movement does. The Holiness Movement is a Methodist religious renewal movement that has over 12 million adherents worldwide. Perhaps the most familiar public manifestation of the holiness movement has been its urban holiness missions, and the Salvation Army_noted for its service ministries among poor and people suffering the dislocations that accompany war and disaster_is the most notable example. In the second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Holiness Movement, important new developments in the Holiness Movement_such as the widely discussed 'Holiness Manifesto'_are thoroughly discussed, and the content has also been expanded to include information on figures from Asia and Africa to reflect the continued growth of the Holiness Movement. With a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries, this reference has information that cannot be found elsewhere.

Quarterly accession lists; beginning with Apr. 1893, the bulletin is limited to "subject lists, special bibliographies, and reprints or facsimiles of original documents, prints and manuscripts in the Library," the accessions being recorded in a separate classified list, Jan.-Apr. 1893, a weekly bulletin Apr. 1893-Apr. 1894, as well as a classified list of later accessions in the last number published of the bulletin itself (Jan. 1896)