Evidence of mainstream denominational decline virtually throws itself in our faces--growing religious pluralism in North America; the decline over the last half century in the salience, prestige, power, and vitality of Protestant denominational leadership; slippage in mainline membership and corresponding growth, vigor, visibility, and political prowess of conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist bodies; patterns of congregational independence, including loosening of or removal of denominational identity, particularly in signage, and the related marginal loyalty of members; emergence of megachurches, with resources and the capacity to meet needs heretofore supplied by denominations (training, literature, expertise); growth within mainline denominations of caucuses and their alignment into broad progressive or conservative camps, often with connections to similar camps in other denominations; widespread suspicion of, indeed hostility towards, the centers and symbols of denominational identity--the regional and national headquarters; migration of individuals and families through various religious identities, sometimes out of classic Christianity altogether. Denominationalism looks doomed and is so proclaimed. It may be. However, viewing the sweep of Anglo-American history, this volume suggests how much denominations and denominationalism have changed, how resilient they have proved, how significant these structures of religious belonging have been in providing order and direction to American society, and how such enduring purposes find ever new structural/institutional expression.

Evidence of mainstream denominational decline virtually throws itself in our faces--growing religious pluralism in North America; the decline over the last half century in the salience, prestige, power, and vitality of Protestant denominational leadership; slippage in mainline membership and corresponding growth, vigor, visibility, and political prowess of conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist bodies; patterns of congregational independence, including loosening of or removal of denominational identity, particularly in signage, and the related marginal loyalty of members; emergence of megachurches, with resources and the capacity to meet needs heretofore supplied by denominations (training, literature, expertise); growth within mainline denominations of caucuses and their alignment into broad progressive or conservative camps, often with connections to similar camps in other denominations; widespread suspicion of, indeed hostility towards, the centers and symbols of denominational identity--the regional and national headquarters; migration of individuals and families through various religious identities, sometimes out of classic Christianity altogether. Denominationalism looks doomed and is so proclaimed. It may be. However, viewing the sweep of Anglo-American history, this volume suggests how much denominations and denominationalism have changed, how resilient they have proved, how significant these structures of religious belonging have been in providing order and direction to American society, and how such enduring purposes find ever new structural/institutional expression.

Explores how the church has engaged—and should engage—the American context What might faithful and meaningful Christian witness look like within our changing contemporary American context? After analyzing contemporary challenges and developing a missiological approach for the US church, Craig Van Gelder and Dwight Zscheile reflect on the long, complex, and contested history of Christian mission in America. Five distinct historical periods from the beginning of the colonial era to the dawn of the third millennium are reviewed and critiqued. They then bring the story forward to the present day, discussing current realities confronting the church, discerning possibilities of where and how the Spirit of God might be at work today, and imagining what participating in the triune God’s mission may look like in an uncertain tomorrow.

The Handbook of Denominations in the United States has long been the gold standard for reference works about religious bodies in America. The purpose of this Handbook is to provide accurate and objective information about the most significant Christian traditions and denominations in the United States today. It contains descriptions of over 200 distinct Christian denominations as well as overviews of the several major Christian traditions to which they belong—based on shared historical and theological roots and commitments. The information for each denomination has been provided by the religious organizations themselves and focuses on the denominations' doctrines, statistics, and histories. The 14th edition is completely updated with current statistics, new denominations, and recent trends. The book has been made more useful and manageable by moving very small groups into broader articles while giving more detail and description to the large and influential denominations.

Once upon a time, the state shared the public square with the church. The central location of the church building in every European town is mute testimony to this state of affairs. But those days are long gone. Nowadays there is an implicit or explicit consensus regarding the proper place of the church: out of sight and out of mind. How has this sea change come about? Through a complete metanoia (“change of mind”) regarding the public square. Church and state used to be in agreement about ultimate reality, but then came the wars of religion and the desire for a neutral state. This gave us the agnostic state, incapable of making any judgement regarding truth or falsehood regarding religion. Freedom of religion has been the result. But this freedom has come with a price – the loss of a grip on ultimate reality, on transcendent standards and values. It is every person for him- or herself, the triumph of congeries of opinion over truth. Under these conditions, the church has itself experienced a transformation. It has been fragmented into myriad churches, none of which may claim ultimacy, all of which claim to proclaim the truth. We no longer have the body of Christ visibly expressed; instead we have denominations, private-legal constructs expressive of various consumer-oriented flavors of faith orientation. Has unity then been abandoned? No; for it is not a question of unity or no unity, it is a question of what kind of unity. In the modern world, the churches have exchanged unity in terms of confession, with unity in terms of politics. Political parties are the vehicles through which Christians express a joint conviction. And this has brought the church down to the level of the interest group and the lobbyist, the inevitable result of an age of denominationalism. Over 100 years ago, P. J. Hoedemaker already delineated and analyzed this state of affairs. The abysmal condition of the Dutch Reformed church formed the historical backdrop for his analysis, but the principles he developed during the course of his critique of the national church are applicable across the board in the modern world. Hoedemaker excavates the biblical and Reformational foundations of ecclesiology, the basics apart from which the church cannot escape from its current abasement.

In "Reconciling Theology", leading thinker on Anglicanism and ecumenism Paul Avis focuses on the perennial Christian issues of argument, debate, polemic and conflict, on the one hand, and dialogue, search for common ground, working for agreement and harmony, on the other. Exploring the tension and interaction between them in a range of contexts in modern theology and the Church, Avis offers a rigorous but accessible vision of church which moves beyond the usual dichotomy of liberal or orthodox.

Volume V extends the study of the Oxford History of Dissenting Protestant Traditions series into the twentieth century, following the spatial, cultural, and intellectual changes in dissenting identity and practice as these once European traditions globalized and settled down in other places.