James A. Patterson’s groundbreaking study of the life and mind of James Robinson Graves explores the history of Landmarkism in the nineteenth century. Under this doctrine, Graves proposed that “true” Baptists should be able to trace their lineage directly to the early church, rather than through the strands of Protestantism. Controversial in its day, and often poorly understood now, Landmarkism, in Patterson’s nuanced interpretation, is important for understanding an essential feature of Baptist life to the present day: how do Baptists stake out their identities in reference to other Baptists and to members of competing denominations? While Graves has been widely dismissed by recent historians, in Patterson’s skillful revision, this figure draws much nearer to central concerns of Baptist thinking since the First Great Awakening.

This addition to the America’s Baptists series blends biographical insight with a thematic approach that focuses primarily on Graves’s controversial beliefs about ecclesiology, Baptist history, and eschatology. Patterson divides this work into seven chapters that progress chronologically, and this updated edition includes an expanded discussion of Christian republicanism, elaborates on the question of Graves and race, and features a longer epilogue to account for recent scholarship on Graves and Landmarkism.

James Robinson Graves is an accessible introduction to the significant albeit disputed role that the Landmark tradition played in the shaping of Southern Baptist life and thought. Seminary students and scholars of nineteenth-century Southern Baptist history will find a rich new interpretation of this misunderstood figure.

JAMES A. PATTERSON holds a PhD in American church history from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is emeritus university professor of theological studies at Union University. He is the author of Shining Lights: A History of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities and To All the World: A History of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, 1972–1997.

Drawing on ethnographic field work she conducted among Christians in her home state of North Carolina, Claudia Gould crafts stories that lay open the human heart and social complications of fundamentalist belief. These stories and the compelling characters who inhabit them draw us into the complex essence of religious experience among southern American Christians.

Jesus Shock is the second in a series of short works on seminal concerns of the impact that Jesus Christ made in the world. The first work, The Philosophy of Jesus (St. Augustine’s Press, 2007), explored philosophy in light of Jesus, rather than the other way around. The present work investigates the reception Jesus received both in His lifetime and continuously to the present time, not only from His enemies, but from His friends, a reception of shock, astonishment, even disgust.
  Perhaps a few remarks from the book best explains it:

The point of the book:
 The point of the title: Imagine a storm has downed a telephone wire so that everyone who touches it is shocked in every cell of his body. Well, the storm of God’s crazy love has “downed” (incarnated) Jesus, and everyone who touches this “live wire” is shocked in every cell of his soul.
 The question of the book: Why is “Jesus” the most non-neutral, the most controversial, the most embarrassing name in the world? Why is talking about Jesus like talking about sex?
 This whole book is really about a single movie line, the greatest line in the greatest movie in history. Bet you know what it is.
 Jesus-Shock is about the Real Presence of Christ in the Gospels and in the Eucharist. It
is not about the theology of the Real Presence, but about the experience of Him there, and about the experience of everyone in the Gospels who met Him.

 What was the bitterest controversy of the Protestant Reformation, both between Protestants and Catholics and between different Protestant denominations, the one that had both sides calling the other not just heretics but devils?   
 Answer: It was not Justification by Faith, the hallmark of the Reformation, even though that question is about nothing less momentous than how to be saved, how to get to Heaven. It was not the relation between religion and politics, even though that was a matter of life or death (literally, on battlefields and at guillotines and hangings) and not just a matter of truth or falsity, or of good or evil. It was not about the sufficiency of the Bible, or the corruption in the Church, or the relation between the Bible and the Church. It was not about the Pope, and the governance of the Church. It was not about Mary or saints or angels or Purgatory. It was not about the Incarnation or the Trinity or the Atonement.
 It was about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

 Jesus-Shock, in addressing this controversy forcefully and faithfully, shows the reasons why to this day the name of “Jesus” stirs up controversy, even revulsion, in polite society. In the true spirit of ecumenism, it also points the way toward a true rapprochement among His modern-day disciples.

Candidly, with a mixture of joy, poignancy, and gratitude, the chairman and president of the John Templeton Foundation reflects on the learning and growing he has experienced and the perspectives he has gained throughout his life. In so doing, he continues the legacy of his father, Sir John Templeton, who has used stories from his life to provide instruction for his children, grandchildren, and other future descendants, just as he has drawn on those stories in his many books of inspiration and guidance for the general public.

Dr. Templeton shares stories about his personal life, his career in medicine, his early involvement with philanthropy, and his commitment to the John Templeton Foundation and its mission. Events and circumstances in his youth opened him to spirituality, taught him about altruistic love, and introduced him to values he would cultivate throughout his life: thrift, saving, hard work, creativity, and responsibility.

His journey takes him from his early life in Winchester, Tennessee, to New Jersey, Yale University, medical school, the Navy, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the John Templeton Foundation. Along the way, there were lessons learned from his disruptive behavior in elementary school; the deaths of his grandmother and mother; travel to Europe, Africa, and throughout the U.S.; marriage and fatherhood; his growing commitment as a Christian; and his family's experience with an armed robbery. It continues with his experiences in pediatric surgery at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, including work with conjoined twins; experience with the mutual fund industry and a role with the Templeton Growth Fund; an intensely rewarding medical specialty in trauma; philanthropy and fund-raising efforts, including a sad experience with fraud; the pride of professorship; and serving as chairman and president of the John Templeton Foundation.

With gratitude he credits his many mentors for the wisdom they passed on to him. Among them are John Galbraith, Dr. C. Everett Koop, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, and, of course, always and above all, his father. With appreciation, he recounts the blessings of a full and productive life that continue today as he provides leadership to the diverse programs and initiatives of the John Templeton Foundation.

Vogel weaves together strands of evidence into a complete fabric including, among other aspects of Smith’s environment, the content of his daily dictation of scriputre and revelation—all contributing to a nearly complete view of what occurred on any given day in Smith’s lfie. The result is as much intellectual history as traditional biography. Readers will feel engaged in the dramatic, formative events in the prophet’s life against a backdrop of theology, local and national politics, Smith family dynamics, organizational issues, and interpersonal relations. One can form a mental picture, and many will find themselves carrying on an internal dialogue about the issues raised.

Vogel addresses the following broad themes:
1. The home that Joseph Smith was raised in was religiously divided. His mother’s family was orthodox and partly mystical; his father’s family tended toward rationalism and skepticism. Joseph’s maternal grandfather published an account of seeing a heavenly light and hearing Jesus’ voice. Joseph’s paternal grandfather promoted Thomas Paine’s skeptical critique of the Bible, The Age of Reason.

2. When Andrew Jackson was elected U.S. president in 1828, it was a key transitional period in American history. Jackson was a Mason and an advocate of secularism, which alarmed evangelical Protestants.

3. The Smith family experienced a series of financial setbacks and lost their farm in 1825. Joseph felt disinherited and saw no way of escape—no chance for his family to regain its former standing in the community.

4. Joseph found solace in religion. In the early 1820s, he had a powerful conversion experience and felt that Jesus had forgiven him of his sins. This inspired him to share the gospel message with others, particularly with his own family. About the same time, Smith found a talent for preaching and delivered “passable” Methodist sermons at a nearby revival.

5. Over time, Joseph became aware that people trusted him and that he could be an influence for good or ill, that even through nefarious means, God worked through him when his heart was right. He realized this when he led groups in search of Spanish treasure in New York and Pennsylvania. Although no treasure was found, the men sincerely believed that Smith had a spiritual gift and could see where casks of gold were hidden in the earth. This training ground in spiritual leadership was invaluable because the prophet learned how to create an environment for belief—one in which people could exercise faith and be converted to Christ through the sensible influence of the Spirit, all prior to the overarching work of restoring primitive Christianity.

Winner, 2019 Booker Worthen Prize from the Central Arkansas Library System.

A dedicated advocate for social justice long before the term entered everyday usage, Rabbi Ira Sanders began striving against the Jim Crow system soon after he arrived in Little Rock from New York in 1926. Sanders, who led Little Rock’s Temple B’nai Israel for nearly forty years, was a trained social worker as well as a rabbi and his career as a dynamic religious and community leader in Little Rock spanned the traumas of the Great Depression, World War II and the Holocaust, and the social and racial struggles of the 1950s and 1960s.

Just and Righteous Causes—a full biographical study of this bold social-activist rabbi—examines how Sanders expertly navigated the intersections of race, religion, and gender to advocate for a more just society. It joins a growing body of literature about the lives and histories of Southern rabbis, deftly balancing scholarly and narrative tones to provide a personal look into the complicated position of the Southern rabbi and the Jewish community throughout the political struggles of the twentieth-century South.