James D. Bratt

John F. Woolverton

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when asked at a press conference about the roots of his political philosophy, responded simply, “I am a Christian and a Democrat.” This is the story of how the first informed the second—how his upbringing in the Episcopal Church and matriculation at the Groton School under legendary educator and minister Endicott Peabody molded Roosevelt into a leader whose politics were fundamentally shaped by the Social Gospel. A work begun by religious historian John Woolverton (1926 2014) and recently completed by James Bratt, A Christian and a Democrat is an engaging analysis of the surprisingly spiritual life of one of the most consequential presidents in US history. Reading Woolverton’s account of FDR’s response to the toxic demagoguery of his day will reassure readers today that a constructive way forward is possible for Christians, for Americans, and for the world.

A Religious Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt

A Christian and a Democrat

James Comey

Christian and a Democrat

This is the first full-scale English-language biography of the highly influential and astonishingly multifaceted Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) - theologian, minister, politician, newspaper editor, educational innovator, Calvinist reformer, and prime minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. James Bratt is the ideal scholar to tell the story of Kuyper's remarkable life and work. He expertly traces the origin and development of Kuyper's signature concepts - common grace, Christian worldview, sphere sovereignty, Christian engagement with contemporary culture - in the dynamic context of his life's story.

Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat

Abraham Kuyper

Edward Dommen

Having grown out of a 2004 consultation sponsored by the John Knox International Reformed Center, the University of Geneva, and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the essays in John Calvin Rediscovered revive the social and economic thought of John Calvin, first exploring Calvin in his own time and then turning to Calvin's global influence.

The Impact of His Social and Economic Thought

John Calvin Rediscovered

John Bolt

Johan Herman Bavinck

Paul J. Visser

Crucial themes and issues explored by a premier missiologist Johan Herman Bavinck (1895-1964) was a prominent twentieth-century Dutch Calvinist missiologist who wrestled with the tension between religious absolutism and relativism, as many Christians do in today's pluralistic context. The J. H. Bavinck Reader gathers together a choice selection of Bavinck's significant writings that are essential for understanding his theology of missions, his approach to world religions, and his religious psychology. His treatment of religious consciousness and Christian faith expands on the brief treatment of it in his own work The Church Between Temple and Mosque. The concluding chapters show how Bavinck's theoretical reflection on religious consciousness was rooted in his close observation during his years as a missionary in Indonesia. Offering a constructive way forward, Bavinck affirms both the particularity of salvation in Christ and the universality of the Christian hope. A substantial introduction enhances the book with the most thorough biographical sketch of Bavinck available.

The J. H. Bavinck Reader

Traces the history of American Calvinism from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s and examines the development of the Dutch American community

A History of a Conservative Subculture

Dutch Calvinism in Modern America

Roy M. Anker

Quentin James Schultze

Lambert Zuidervaart

Quentin Schultze

John Worst

Essays discuss youth culture, rock music, MTV, and the impact of television

Youth, Popular Culture, and the Electronic Media

Dancing in the Dark

One of the most enduring images from the early years of American history is that of a preacher on horseback, slogging through mud and rain to bring folks in the backwoods the message of God and glory. Such religious revivals not only became the defining mark of American religion but also played a central role in the nation's developing identity, independence, and democratic principles. But revivalism has always generated opposition, too, even in its century of glory. In Anti-Revivalism in Antebellum America, James D. Bratt offers extensive introductions to primary anti-revivalist documents. These works range from the Philadelphia Methodist John F. Watson's protests against camp meetings in 1819, to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "Eighty Years and More," written in 1898, in which she recalls her youthful encounter with revival preaching and her rebound into political activism and religious agnosticism. Through the recovered voices of antebellum religious critics, Bratt shows how American culture was already being reshaped a generation before the Civil War and how evangelical religion stood at the center of a "culture war." If revivals typified the era when Americans launched and defined their new nation, then objections to these revivals embodied the growing discontent at what the nation had become. An important and long overdue collection, this book urges an understanding of anti-revival literature both in the context of the era when it emerged as well as in terms of the broader dynamic of American life. Includes selections from Orestes Brownson, Horace Bushnell, Calvin Colton, Orville Dewey, Albert Baldwin Dod, George Elley, Charles G. Finney, John Williamson Nevin, Stephen Olin, Phoebe Palmer, Daniel Alexander Payne, Ephraim Perkins, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Joseph Smith, Harriet Beecher Stowe, La Roy Sunderland, John Fanning Watson, Ellen G. White, and Friedrich C. D. Wyneken.

James D. Bratt

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