David W. Bebbington | |
---|---|
Born | David William Bebbington 25 July 1949 Nottingham, England |
Nationality | British |
Spouse | Eileen Bebbington (m. 1971) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Thesis | The Nonconformist Conscience (1975) |
Doctoral advisor | David Thompson |
Academic work | |
Discipline | History |
Sub-discipline | Ecclesiastical history |
Institutions | University of Stirling |
Main interests | History of evangelicalism |
David William Bebbington FRSE FRHistS (born 25 July 1949) is a British historian who is a professor of history at the University of Stirling in Scotland and a distinguished visiting professor of history at Baylor University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh [1] and the Royal Historical Society.
Bebbington was born in Nottingham,England,on 25 July 1949 and was raised in Sherwood,a northern suburb of Nottingham. An undergraduate at Jesus College,Cambridge (1968–1971),Bebbington began his doctoral studies there (1971–1973) before becoming a research fellow of Fitzwilliam College (1973–1976). Since 1976 he has taught at the University of Stirling,where since 1999 he has been Professor of History. [2]
He was President of the Ecclesiastical History Society (2006–2007). [3]
Bebbington is widely known for his definition of evangelicalism,referred to as the Bebbington quadrilateral,which was first provided in his 1989 classic study Evangelicalism in Modern Britain:A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. [4] Bebbington identifies four main qualities which are to be used in defining evangelical convictions and attitudes: [5] [6]
Bebbington (along with Mark Noll and others) has exerted a large amount of effort in placing evangelicalism on the world map of religious history. Through their efforts they have made it more difficult for scholars to ignore the influence of evangelicals in the world since the movement’s inception in the eighteenth century. [7] [8]
Evangelicalism, also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasises the centrality of being "born again", in which an individual experiences personal conversion; the authority of the Bible as God's revelation to humanity; and spreading the Christian message. The word evangelical comes from the Greek (euangelion) word for "good news".
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the Georgian era and preceded the Edwardian era, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe.
William Ewart Gladstone was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-consecutive terms beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times, for over 12 years.
Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and American Protestants as a reaction to theological liberalism and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists argued that 19th-century modernist theologians had misunderstood or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which they considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
Nonconformists were Protestant Christians who did not "conform" to the governance and usages of the state church in England, and in Wales until 1914, the Church of England.
The Third Great Awakening refers to a historical period proposed by William G. McLoughlin that was marked by religious activism in American history and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century. It influenced pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong element of social activism. It gathered strength from the postmillennial belief that the Second Coming of Christ would occur after mankind had reformed the entire Earth. It was affiliated with the Social Gospel movement, which applied Christianity to social issues and gained its force from the awakening, as did the worldwide missionary movement. New groupings emerged, such as the Holiness movement and Nazarene and Pentecostal movements, and also Jehovah's Witnesses, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Thelema, and Christian Science. The era saw the adoption of a number of moral causes, such as the abolition of slavery and prohibition.
The Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced as a Private Member's Bill by Archbishop of Canterbury Archibald Campbell Tait, to limit what he perceived as the growing ritualism of Anglo-Catholicism and the Oxford Movement within the Church of England. The bill was strongly endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, and vigorously opposed by Liberal party leader William Ewart Gladstone. Queen Victoria strongly supported it. The law was seldom enforced, but at least five clergymen were imprisoned by judges for contempt of court, which greatly embarrassed the Church of England archbishops who had vigorously promoted it.
Mark Allan Noll is an American historian specializing in the history of Christianity in the United States. He holds the position of Research Professor of History at Regent College, having previously been Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. Noll is a Reformed evangelical Christian and in 2005 was named by Time magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America.
The Rev Dan Taylor (1738–1816) was the founder of the New Connexion of General Baptists, a revivalist offshoot from the Arminian Baptist tradition, one of two main strands within the British Baptist movement.
John Campbell was a Scottish Congregationalist minister at the Moorfields Tabernacle in London. He was the second successor there of George Whitefield, the Calvinistic Methodist. He founded and edited religious magazines and journals, including the Christian Witness and the British Banner.
Derek John Tidball is a British theologian, sociologist of religion, and Baptist minister. From 1995 to 2007 he was the principal of London Bible College which later took the name London School of Theology.
Dissenting Gothic is an architectural style associated with English Dissenters - Protestants not affiliated with the Church of England. It is a distinctive style in its own right within Gothic Revival architecture that emerged primarily in Britain, its colonies and North America, during the 19th century.
Eugenio F. Biagini is an Italian historian, specialising in democracy and liberalism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, Ireland and Italy, and is currently Professor in Modern British and European History at the University of Cambridge. He is best known for his work in free trade economics and ideology, the Italian risorgimento, Irish national identity, and the religious dimension of popular radicalism in the nineteenth century.
In the United States, evangelicalism is a movement among Protestant Christians who believe in the necessity of being born again, emphasize the importance of evangelism, and affirm traditional Protestant teachings on the authority as well as the historicity of the Bible. Comprising nearly a quarter of the U.S. population, evangelicals are a diverse group drawn from a variety of denominational backgrounds, including Baptist, Mennonite, Methodist, Pentecostal, Plymouth Brethren, Quaker, Reformed and nondenominational churches.
Scottish religion in the nineteenth century includes all forms of religious organisation and belief in Scotland in the 19th century. This period saw a reaction to the population growth and urbanisation of the Industrial Revolution that had undermined traditional parochial structures and religious loyalties. The established Church of Scotland reacted with a programme of church building from the 1820s. Beginning in 1834 the "Ten Years' Conflict" ended in a schism from the established Church of Scotland led by Dr Thomas Chalmers known as the Great Disruption of 1843. Roughly a third of the clergy, mainly from the North and Highlands, formed the separate Free Church of Scotland. The evangelical Free Church and other secessionist churches grew rapidly in the Highlands and Islands and urban centres. There were further schisms and divisions, particularly between those who attempted to maintain the principles of Calvinism and those that took a more personal and flexible view of salvation. However, there were also mergers that cumulated in the creation of a United Free Church in 1900 that incorporated most of the secessionist churches.
The Nonconformist conscience was the moralistic influence of the Nonconformist churches in British politics in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Nonconformists, who were dissenters from the Church of England, believed in the autonomy of their churches and fought for religious freedom, social justice, and strong moral values in public life.
The evangelical revival in Scotland was a series of religious movements in Scotland from the eighteenth century, with periodic revivals into the twentieth century. It began in the later 1730s as congregations experienced intense "awakenings" of enthusiasm, renewed commitment and rapid expansion. This was first seen at Easter Ross in the Highlands in 1739 and most famously in the Cambuslang Wark near Glasgow in 1742. Most of the new converts were relatively young and from the lower groups in society. Unlike awakenings elsewhere, the early revival in Scotland did not give rise to a major religious movement, but mainly benefited the secession churches, who had broken away from the Church of Scotland. In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century the revival entered a second wave, known in the US as the Second Great Awakening. In Scotland this was reflected in events like the Kilsyth Revival in 1839. The early revival mainly spread in the Central Belt, but it became active in the Highlands and Islands, peaking towards the middle of the nineteenth century. Scotland gained many of the organisations associated with the revival in England, including Sunday Schools, mission schools, ragged schools, Bible societies and improvement classes.
The history of Christianity in Britain covers the religious organisations, policies, theology and popular religiosity since ancient history.
Ian M. Randall is a British historian who is best known for his works on the history of European evangelicalism and Protestant nonconformity. He is a research associate at the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide at Westminster College in Cambridge, England, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Randall also serves as a senior research fellow at Spurgeon's College in London and the International Baptist Theological Study Centre in Amsterdam.
Society and culture of the Victorian era refers to society and culture in the United Kingdom during the reign of Queen Victoria.