Book Description

The five-volume Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions series is governed by a motif of migration ('out-of-England'). It first traces organized church traditions that arose in Britain and Ireland as Dissenters distanced themselves from a state church defined by diocesan episcopacy, the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and Royal Supremacy, but then follows those traditions as they spread beyond Britain and Ireland—and also analyses newer traditions that emerged downstream in other parts of the world from earlier forms of Dissent. Secondly, it does the same for the doctrines, church practices, stances toward state and society, attitudes toward Scripture, and characteristic patterns of organization that also originated in earlier British and Irish dissent, but that have often defined a trajectory of influence independent of ecclesiastical organizations. The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, Volume V follows the spatial, cultural, and intellectual changes in dissenting identity and practice in the twentieth century, as these once European traditions globalized. While in Europe dissent was often against the religious state, dissent in a globalizing world could redefine itself against colonialism or other secular and religious monopolies. The contributors trace the encounters of dissenting Protestant traditions with modernity and globalization; changing imperial politics; challenges to biblical, denominational, and pastoral authority; local cultures and languages; and some of the century's major themes, such as race and gender, new technologies, and organizational change. In so doing, they identify a vast array of local and globalizing illustrations which will enliven conversations about the role of religion, and in particular Christianity.