As a pandemic and racial reckoning exposed society’s faults, Christian thinkers were laying the groundwork for a better future. A public health and economic crisis provoked by Covid-19. A social crisis cracked open by the filmed murder of George Floyd. A leadership crisis laid bare as the gravity of a global pandemic met a country suffocating in political polarization and idolatry.In the spring of 2020, ***Comment***magazine created a publishing project to tap the ...

Winner of the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award (1995)"The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism's most respected historians.Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—...

Viewing the Civil War as a major turning point in American religious thought, Mark A. Noll examines writings about slavery and race from Americans both white and black, northern and southern, and includes commentary from Protestants and Catholics in Europe and Canada. Though the Christians on all sides agreed that the Bible was authoritative, their interpretations of slavery in Scripture led to a full-blown theological crisis.

A readable, far-reaching history of a multi-denominational, multi-regional, and multi-ethnic religious group, Protestants in America explores the physical and ideological roots of the denomination up to the present day, and traces the origins of American Protestants all the way back to the first English colony at Jamestown. The book covers their involvement in critical issues from temperance to the civil rights movement, the establishment of Protestant organizations like the Ameri...

In this popular introduction to church history, now in its third edition, Mark Noll isolates key events that provide a framework for understanding the history of Christianity. The book presents Christianity as a worldwide phenomenon rather than just a Western experience.Now organized around fourteen key moments in church history, this well-received text provides contemporary Christians with a fuller understanding of God as he has revealed his purpose through the centuries. This new...

In this popular introduction to church history, now in its third edition, Mark Noll isolates key events that provide a framework for understanding the history of Christianity. The book presents Christianity as a worldwide phenomenon rather than just a Western experience.Now organized around fourteen key moments in church history, this well-received text provides contemporary Christians with a fuller understanding of God as he has revealed his purpose through the centuries. This new...

In the beginning of American history, the Word was in Spanish, Latin, and native languages like Nahuatal. But while Spanish and Catholic Christianity reached the New World in 1492, it was only with settlements in the seventeenth century that English-language Bibles and Protestant Christendom arrived. The Puritans brought with them intense devotion to Scripture, as well as their ideal of Christendom -- a civilization characterized by a thorough intermingling of the Bible with everything els...

A best-selling text thoroughly updated, including new chapters on the last 30 years"An excellent study that will help historians appreciate the importance of Christianity in the history of the United States and Canada." – The Journal of American History“Scholars and general readers alike will gain unique insights into the multifaceted character of Christianity in its New World environment. Nothing short of brilliant.” – Harry S. Stout, Yale University“A new standard...

One of our foremost historians of religion here chronicles the arrival of Christianity in the New World, tracing the turning points in the development of the immigrant church that have led to today's distinctly American faith.Taking a unique approach to this fascinating subject, Noll focuses on what was new about organized Christian religion on the American continent by comparison with European Christianity. In doing so, Noll provides a broad outline of the major events in ...

Mark Noll, one of the most influential historians of American religion writing today, traces the explosive political effects of the religious intermingling with race.Noll demonstrates how supporters and opponents of slavery and segregation drew equally on the Bible to justify the morality of their positions. He shows how a common evangelical heritage supported Jim Crow discrimination and contributed powerfully to the black theology of liberation preached by Martin Luther King Jr.

As Africa and Asia take their place as the new Christian heartlands, a new and robust company of saints is coming into view.In seventeen inspiring narratives Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom introduce pivotal Christian leaders in Africa and Asia whohad tenacious faith in the midst of deprivation, suffering and conflict. Spanning a century, from the 1880s to the 1980s, their stories demonstrate the vitality of the Christian faith in a diversity of contexts.This kaleidoscopic witness to the pow...

In the beginning of American history, the Word was in Spanish, Latin, and native languages like Nahuatal. But while Spanish and Catholic Christianity reached the New World in 1492, it was only with settlements in the seventeenth century that English-language Bibles and Protestant Christendom arrived. The Puritans brought with them intense devotion to Scripture, as well as their ideal of Christendom -- a civilization characterized by a thorough intermingling of the Bible with everything els...