Dynamic worship, energetic circuit-riding preachers, and a close-up, personal style of leadership made Methodism a movement perfectly suited to bring the word of God to the new nation of America. And Francis Asbury led the way, rising from unremarkable working-class metalworker to bishop of a denomination stretching over a continent.
The first issue of Christian History magazine's series of four on the Reformation explores the roots and fruits of reform. On a quiet October Wednesday in 1517, a young Augustinian monk and theology professor, with one nail to the Wittenberg Castle door, struck a death blow to medieval Catholicism. That’s the story we think we know of Martin Luther, his 95 Theses, and the beginning of the Reformation. But is it the whole story?
It didn’t take long for the ideas of Luther, Zwingli, and many others to ignite a sea change in society at large: peasants revolting, priests and nuns marrying, church art destroyed, heretics on both sides persecuted by church and state, and a philandering king whose search for a male heir would birth the Church of England. Read about one of the most turbulent eras of all of history in issue #118, The People’s Reformation, the second in our Reformation series.
Seven Christian authors who gave us cheerful hobbits, wise old women, sharp-witted detectives, and one memorable lion gave us something more: a vision for all of life. Meet George MacDonald, G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield in Christian History magazine 113: Seven Literary Sages.