To Be Like Jesus


Book Description

In his classic novel, The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan wrote allegory of the progress of the Christian Pilgrimage from the City of Destruction (this world) to the Celestial City (the world to come). Written in 1678 and now translated into over 200 languages, its message is still significant and relevant for Christians today. As an allegory, it pictures the struggles and challenges that confront Christians at all times. This book, relates the true story of a Christian journey that started over fifty years ago in Africa but extended to Europe (England) and America. It is interspersed with personal stories, encounters and reminiscences that point to the struggles, hurdles and hindrances faced by Christians today in their journey anywhere in the world. It suggests spiritual vitamins essential for spiritual stamina in the Christian journey in spiritual formation. The book evaluates the vital characteristics of spiritual formation and suggests from a biblical and theological perspective the disciplines necessary for its development. It affirms its validity with reference to the way in which class meetings played a major role in the Wesleyan tradition of spiritual formation. It recommends that exploring modern forms of class meetings would address current church decline.













The United States Catalog


Book Description







Lord's Dominion


Book Description

Semple covers virtually every aspect of Canadian Methodism. He examines early nineteenth-century efforts to evangelize pioneer British North America and the revivalistic activities so important to the mid-nineteenth-century years. He documents Methodists' missionary work both overseas and in Canada among aboriginal peoples and immigrants. He analyses the Methodist contribution to Canadian education and the leadership the church provided for the expansion of the role of women in society. He also assesses the spiritual and social dimensions of evangelical religion in the personal lives of Methodists, addressing such social issues as prohibition, prostitution, the importance of the family, and changing attitudes toward children in Methodist doctrine and Canada in general. Semple argues that Methodism evolved into the most Canadian of all the churches, helping to break down the geographic, political, economic, ethnic, and social divisions that confounded national unity. Although the Methodist Church did not achieve the universality it aspired to, he concludes that it succeeded in defining the religious, political, and social agenda for the Protestant component of Canada, providing a powerful legacy of service to humanity and to God.







The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century


Book Description

This new edition expands and updates the only general interpretation of the rise and influence of perfectionist revivalism in America and Europe. Fifteen years of expanding research on the holiness movement reinforce this volume's continuing seminal value to cultural and social research. The new concluding essay describes the history of the revival through the turn of the century. This book expands our understanding of the fragmentation and coalescence of American religion by analyzing the factors which created numerous new holiness denominations. Dieter also outlines the historical and theological factors that separate this largely Wesleyan and Methodist wing of evangelicalism from the fundamentalism of Reformed evangelicals. The identification of such nuances will prove especially helpful to those struggling with the extreme diversity in American religion, especially in evangelicalism. For students and scholars of American religious movements as well as students of the feminist, temperance, abolitionist, and populist movements in American society.