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This chapter examines the role of the clergy in pastoral care in their parishes. It considers the expectations of the Church's Canons and the bishops. It considers the evidence for parochial visiting, care for the sick and the dying, including drawing up people's wills, and the administration of charity. It also explores their role as chair of the parish vestry, and in the administration and reform of the Poor Law. It investigates their role in the moral oversight of the residents of their parish; the part religious societies played in improving the spiritual and moral lives of parishioners, and their role as a reconciler in their parish; the significance of the appointment of many clergy as justices of the peace in the later 18th century; and the impact of this on their role.

This chapter argues that Christian nonprofits are not the first examples of parachurch organizations in the United States. The history of parachurch organizations is traced from 19th-century religious societies to contemporary 501(c)(3) public charities. It is argued that the decline of Bible, tract, Sunday School, and moral societies is at least partly due to the rise of denominational agencies. The rise of contemporary Christian nonprofits is, in turn, due to significant changes in denominational boundaries and identities.

The chapter shows how itinerant preaching served to extend and nurture the work of the Connexion, where the initiative came from in opening new areas of work, how itinerancy was organised (including Lady Huntingdon’s personal role in this), and the source of funds for building chapels and running the Connexion. All the main reformed denominations were represented within the Connexion’s congregations; socially they appear to have consisted principally of artisans and small tradesmen. Ministry was supplied by students of Lady Huntingdon’s college, by Anglican clergymen, and occasionally by other established preachers. Other aspects of the Connexion discussed in this chapter include: instances of violent opposition; growing pressure for ministers to settle with congregations; sources of authority within congregations; the development of religious societies within the Connexion; pressures for regular Communion services; the use of the Anglican Prayer Book; the development of the Connexion’s own hymn book; the religious instruction of children; and the number, size, and catchment areas of congregations.

This chapter charts the immense efforts made by several religious organizations, including missionary societies, to engage with the large numbers of visitors expected in London, Their activities included additional services and lectures, the opening of book depositories close to Hyde Park, the preparation of tracts, some of which were published in several languages, and the hiring of extra missionaries and colporteurs to distribute tracts. Special evangelical services were held at Exeter Hall attracting audiences of 3‐4000. While the Bishop of London laid plans to welcome visiting Anglicans to the metropolis, the main evangelical organizations went into top gear with the intention of saving souls. This chapter also examines how the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Religious Tract Society managed to obtain space inside the Crystal Palace, but only after much controversy.

This chapter examines the formation, spread, social composition and inner workings of the French Prophets as a movement. Based on extensive prosopographical research, it argues that the Camisards did not appeal to isolated individuals, but rather to pre-existing networks of diplomats, merchants, lawyers, ministers, physicians and intellectuals. It demonstrates on this basis how the Camisards capitalised on a vibrant millenarian culture upon their arrival and that beliefs in prophecy and miracles survived among all levels of the social ladder well beyond 1700. This new insight into the religious landscape of early eighteenth-century England suggests that enthusiasm transcended religious and social boundaries and therefore that it ought to be distinguished from both radical dissent and what historians call ‘popular religion’.

The chapter offers a critical evaluation of the post-secularist argument through the analysis of an empirical case that is meant to show the link between secularism or laicité and religious pluralism. The Italian case is exemplary of a constitutional democracy whose society does not have religious pluralism, but one dominant religion. It shows that in order to be consistent with the constitutional principle of equal rights a mono-religious society has the need to adopt a more secularist politics but weaker chances to produce a full liberal society.

This chapter focuses on the modern study of Old Testament theology. The biblical theology movement attempted to draw together elements from both Old and New Testaments so as to make a coherent theology which would result in one presentation able to embrace the whole Christian Bible. Another approach during the 1950s and 1960s focused upon some particular theme which was regarded as able to give a coherent and unifying structure to the whole body of material. The discussion in this chapter revolves around the affirmation of the Old Testament about God and his nature; the concern of the Old Testament for community as against merely individual values in its ordering of the world; and the critique offered in the prophets and elsewhere of a nominally religious society and the acceptance of scepticism within the tradition.

This chapter examines how the Awakening became a modern, popular religious movement through the foundation of hundreds of new religious voluntary societies to support evangelistic initiatives. Awakened Protestants throughout Germany envisioned these new organizations as the means to join with like-minded Christians in working for shared evangelistic goals. They were motivated by concern over theological rationalism within their churches, indifference toward religion in their society, and the spiritual condition of non-Christian peoples. Awakened Protestants founded four main types of extra-ecclesial organizations: voluntary societies for the distribution of Bibles and religious literature in Germany and voluntary societies for sending missionaries to non-Christian regions and Jewish communities in Europe. Their presence established a new sphere of religious activity between the individual Christian and the institutional churches. In establishing these new religious societies, awakened Protestants rationalized the task of evangelism through their creation of administrative bureaucracies to operate their religious societies.

This chapter describes the background of John Wesley’s distinct version of the band meeting. The deep background of the Wesleyan bands is Philipp Jakob Spener’s collegia pietatis and Anthony Horneck’s Religious Societies. Spener’s influence in Continental Pietism continued when a revival among the Moravians at Herrnhut resulted in the creation of the Banden. Horneck’s influence was felt within Anglicanism when the Wesleys and other particularly earnest Anglicans gathered together at Oxford University to hold one another accountable for their pursuit of holiness. These parallel traditions were joined together when the Wesleys first encountered Moravians on their missionary trip to Georgia and subsequently formed the Fetter Lane Society in London. This chapter argues that though the tensions between these expressions of Anglican and Moravian piety were more than the Fetter Lane Society could hold, it nevertheless marked a crucial step in the development of John Wesley’s “method” of “social holiness.”

This chapter traces the beginning and development of tract publication and distribution from the later seventeenth through to the early nineteenth centuries, with accounts in chronological order of the aims, methods, membership, and publications of six societies: the Welsh Trust, an early example of nonconformists and conformists cooperating; the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, a Church of England society, the largest and most long-lasting of those analysed; the interdenominational and evangelical Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge among the Poor; John Wesley’s Society for Distributing Religious Tracts among the Poor; the Unitarian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and the Religious Tract Society.

This chapter examines the complex relationship between Anglicanism and Methodism. Revising the view that Methodism was an ever-separating movement, this chapter contends that the eighteenth-century Church of England was a varied body, with myriad challenges which it confronted through the maintenance of a pastoral ideal, lived out ‘on the ground’ by the parish clergy. The industrializing parish of Madeley, Shropshire (where the incumbent from 1760 to 1785 was the Revd John William Fletcher), is used as a case study. Together with Madeley, other examples of dutiful and evangelically minded clergy who utilized the experimental religion and religious irregularities often associated with Methodists or Dissenters, are surveyed. The chapter concludes that Fletcher and many evangelically minded Anglican-Methodist clergy found the Church of England sufficiently strong and flexible enough to do the work of the Church rigorously and creatively, and that Methodism could serve as a means of Anglican pastoral success.

The centrality of Wesley’s vision for restoring primitive Christianity is most clearly seen in the manner he conducted his ministry in Georgia. The application of his view of primitive Christianity in his clerical practice in the colony is the focus of chapter 4. His endeavours to imitate the practices of Christ and the early church manifested themselves variously through interest in prayer book revision, precise sacramental observance, confession, penance, ascetical discipline, deaconesses, religious societies, and missions to the Indians. Not surprisingly, Wesley’s implementation of practices encouraged by the Usager Nonjurors was met with varying degrees of approval and opposition. By the end of his time in Georgia, his confidence in the early church councils and canons was diminished, but his pursuance of the form and spirit of the primitive church was maintained.

Chapter 3 investigates Wesley’s appointment to, and early years as a parson in, Epworth, in Lincolnshire. It explores in particular his campaign to bring moral reform to the parish. It examines Wesley’s interests in the religious societies and the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK). His short-lived consideration of the society for the reformation of manners is also considered. His membership of the SPCK brought Wesley into contact with like-minded clergy and churchmen who aimed for religious renewal. The chapter also outlines how Wesley confronted his parishioners and set an acrimonious tone to his relations with them. It also considers his creation of a religious society in Epworth, which met regularly in the rectory and sought to instil greater piety and religious energy into his parishioners’ lives. It explores the rules of the society and the ways in which Wesley developed the society. Wesley’s behaviour in Epworth were not without opponents and those who derided his efforts.