George A. Rawlyk

Evangelicalism : comparative studies of popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and beyond, 1700-1990

The first comparative history of one of the most dynamic popular religious movements in recent times, Evangelicalism offers a uniquely comprehensive survey of this complex phenomenon from its emergence in the mid-eighteenth century to the present. International in scope, the book includes essays by leading American, Canadian, English, Irish, Scottish, and Australian scholars and compares developments in every major region in the English-speaking world. The contributors examine the many ways that evangelicalism has been shaped by its popular nature, and explore the international networks of communication that have given it much of its distinctive character, from trans-Atlantic publishing networks in the eighteenth century to mass-marketing campaigns in the twentieth, and covering a wide range of other influences and trends, including Methodism, the legacy of George Whitefield, the American Civil War, anti-Catholicism, religious and civil revolution, and Pentecostalism. Based on path-breaking scholarship, this book is vital to students of religion who wish to grasp the breadth and complexity of evangelicalism as a social and political force as well as an irreducibly religious phenomenon.

Amazing grace : Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States

In Amazing Grace sixteen church historians provide a survey of evangelicalism throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. Some articles focus on colourful leaders and thinkers; others draw on economic, political, social, and cultural history as well as theology. In this comparative history the authors show how conversionism, revivalism, activism, and confidence in the authority of Scripture united world evangelicals, while historical and cultural differences set apart each groups expression of faith.

Religion in Canada: A Historical Overview:

Christianity has profoundly shaped the contours of Canadian life from the early seventeenth century to the present. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Canadian Catholicism and Protestantism had been more influential in virtually every aspect of Canadian life than they had been in the United States. Throughout the last two centuries in Canada, there has been a growing gap between elite religion and the populist variety. Secularization has not necessarily destroyed Canadian Christianity. Rather, it has helped to de-Christianize the elite but not necessarily the rank and file. Thus secularization has significantly weakened the churches, especially the mainline ones. The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a remarkable transformation of Canadian religious life. Not only are more and more Canadians abandoning Christianity altogether, but more are privatizing their faith, and a significant percentage of those who are remaining in the churches are Evangelical. There is, then, a noteworthy residue of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pietism and orthodoxy still to be found in Canadian Christianity.

AWASH IN A SEA OF NEW BOOKS ABOUT AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY

Nathan O. Hatch. The Democratization of American Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. xiv + 312 pp. Illus. Jon Butler. Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. xii + 360 pp. Richard T. Hughes and C. Leonard Allen. Illusions of Innocence: Protestant Primitivism in America, 1630-1875. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988. xviii + 296 pp. Ted Ownby. Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. xii + 286 pp. Illus. Nancy Taton Ammerman. Baptist Battles: Social Change and Religious Conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention. New Brunswick, NJ.: Rutgers University Press, 1990. xv + 388 pp. J. William Frost. A Perfect Freedom: Religious Liberty in Pennsylvania. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. x + 221 pp. In recent years, the contours of American historiography, especially for the post-Revolutionary period, have been profoundly ...

Any Hope for Canadian-American Relations Scholarship?

John Sloan Dickey. Canada and the American Presence: The United States Interest in an Independent Canada. New York: New York University Press, 1975. 202 + xxi pp. Roger F. Swanson. Intergovernmental Perspectives on the Canadian-US. Relationship. New York: New York University Press, 1978. 278 + xvii pp. Janice L. Murray, ed., Canadian Cultural Nationalism. New York: New York University Press, 1977.139 + ix pp. Elliot J. Feldman and Neil Nevitte. eds., The Future of North America: Canada, the United States, and Quebec Nationalism. Cambridge: Harvard Center for International Affairs, 1979.375 pp. W. R. Willoughby. The Joint Organizations of Canada and the United States. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980.289 + xi pp. The Committee for an Independent Canada has atrophied into bleak obliv- ion. The Waffle Movement disintegrated into tiny sectarian cults and then disappeared from the Canadian political stage. Most Canadians in early 1981 obviously want more U.S. investment rather than less. Unemployment...