Most of all, the documents reveal the challenges and excitement of the struggle to establish a women's community, to be unfettered in their work with the poor and suffering, and to govern themselves, in a world largely hostile to their aspirations."--BOOK JACKET.

This volume is the first comprehensive overview of women, gender and religious change in modern Britain spanning from the evangelical revival of the early 1800s to interwar debates over women’s roles and ministry. This collection of pieces by key scholars combines cross-disciplinary insights from history, gender studies, theology, literature, religious studies, sexuality and postcolonial studies. The book takes a thematic approach, providing students and scholars with a clear and comparative examination of ten significant areas of cultural activity that both shaped, and were shaped by women’s religious beliefs and practices: family life, literary and theological discourses, philanthropic networks, sisterhoods and deaconess institutions, revivals and preaching ministry, missionary organisations, national and transnational political reform networks, sexual ideas and practices, feminist communities, and alternative spiritual traditions. Together, the volume challenges widely-held truisms about the increasingly private and domesticated nature of faith, the feminisation of religion and the relationship between secularisation and modern life. Including case studies, further reading lists, and a survey of the existing scholarship, and with a British rather than Anglo-centric approach, this is an ideal book for anyone interested in women's religious experiences across the nineteeth and twentieth centuries.

Monsignor Michael Nazir-Ali draws on the rich history of Ecclesia Anglicana, the complex reality that has been the English church from the beginning – he discusses its glories, achievements, vicissitudes and failures; as well as the expansion and adaptation of this 'Anglican' heritage to different parts of the world and many cultures. Nazir-Ali starts with the different ways in which England was first evangelized and how, in turn, the Church of (or in) England (Ecclesia Anglicana) was able to send missionaries to continental Europe for primary evangelism and church planting. He examines the more recent past with the evangelical and Catholic revivals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their significance for mission both at home and abroad. The formation of mission agencies gave a new impetus to mission, challenging people to give, to pray, and to go. He then considers what we can learn from mission today in different parts of the world; providing specific examples of such missionary activity of the churches in Nigeria and Kenya, as well as the churches in South East Asia. The book examines how the gospel connects with culture, what we need to learn from the global Church about mission and ministry, the different models for mission and ministry, ranging from the incarnational to the itinerant, from inculturation to social and political activism and from embassy to hospitality.

This is the story of an Anglican Religious Community established in the parish of Cowley, Oxford, England in 1866—the Society of S. John the Evangelist. From their geographic location they soon became known as “The Cowley Fathers”. Four years later they expanded their work in America, first in Boston and later in Philadelphia where they were invited to take charge of S. Clement’s Church. Soon after their arrival there was suspicion and misunderstanding on the part of many in the Diocese of Pennsylvania who did not accept this mostly foreign group of priests from England. The deep compassion for the poor and marginalized, the relief work in the face of tragedy and disaster won their critics over and eventually opposition ceased. The Cowley Fathers whose influence attracted the poor and wealthy soon spread beyond the confines of the parish. Their ministry through teaching, preaching, retreats, missions and spiritual counsel attracted many. Interest in the Society grew. By the end of the 19th century there were branch houses in India, South Africa and Scotland. This book offers a unique account of the SSJE Community in Philadelphia and the parish they served.

From the earliest centuries of the church, asceticism and the contemplative life have been profoundly important aspects of western Christianity. And in assessing the glories of western civilization, perhaps the best place to start is within medieval monastic institutions, not outside of them. For while monasteries withdrew from the main currents of their societies, until the rise of universities in the 12th century they provided fertile soil and sanctuary to the liberal arts and sciences as well as those who wanted to spend their lives focused upon God. They became the driving cultural forces of Europe, nurturing education, music, manuscript illumination, art and history, agriculture, animal husbandry - all in addition to spiritual guidance. In this first general history of monasticism since 1900, Andrea Dickens explores the cloistered communities and individuals who have aspired to the ascetic ideal in their religious life, assessing the impact they have made on the wider church and its practices. She discusses some of the best known names in Christian history - including Cuthbert, Columba, Hilda of Whitby, Peter Abelard and Thomas Merton - and traces the monastic impulse from its beginnings in the Egyptian desert through the Rule of St Benedict, Cluny's foundation in 910, the austerity of the Cistercians, the legacy of women's houses, the critique of Luther and Calvin, Trappists and Catholic reform, up to the present-day ecumencial Taize community. Offering a lively and informed overview of western monasticism, the book will be essential reading for students of history and religion as well as the lay reader.