The Protestant Evangelical Awakening

by W. Reginald Ward

This book marks a major development in our understanding of the religious history of both Europe and North America during the first half of the eighteenth century. It studies the early history of the Protestant revival movements from a pan-European, as well as Anglo-American viewpoint, and shows the interrelationships and movements among the major Protestant communities. It is a contribution to the history not only of religious belief and practice, but also to that of the successes and failures of eighteenth-century statecraft in dealing with problems of religious excitement and division during an age of enlightenment. It is based on a vast range of archival resources and published scholarly work ranging from Eastern Europe to the American colonies.

Genres: History, Theology, Religion, Christianity, Church History

388 pages, Hardcover

First published June 4, 1992

Reviews

[David Goetz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An immensely impressive book, the first in Ward's trilogy (followed by Christianity under the Ancien Regime, 1648-1789 and Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History, 1670-1789) which re-wrote much of our historical understanding of evangelicalism.

This volume in particular focuses on Protestant evangelical awakenings, obviously: in Silesia, in Austria, among Zinzendorf and the Moravians, in the north-west and south-west of the Habsburg empire, in Switzerland and the Lower Rhine, in the American colonies (with more attention than usual given to awakenings among the Dutch Reformed, the Lutherans, etc.), and in the UK. Ward's strength is in demonstrating how 18C religious awakenings followed from 17C political upheavals: "Almost everywhere the revival began in resistance to a real or perceived threat of assimilation by the state in its modern shape, and the timetable of the revival, even in the West, was set by the timetable of the Protestant crisis in Eastern and Central Europe where that threat was most raw and crude" (353).

Caveat lector: this is not a work of popular history. As Mark Noll noted not long after Ward's death, "His scholarship is dense, and his writing does not suffer fools gladly." See this link for a helpful summary of Ward's contributions to our understanding of evangelicalism.

[Joshua Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating study of early evangelicalism and the associated religious awakenings on a transatlantic scale. Ward is by no means easy to read, but research students will certainly benefit from the wealth of material and scholarship in this excellent volume.

Readers will also be interested in his work on the intellectual history of early evangelicalism: Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History, 1670–1789 (2006).

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Opens your eyes to what went on in Christian history immediately following the Thirty Years War in Europe and gives thought as to what is happening today.