Protestants

C. Scott Dixon is Senior Lecturer at Queen’s University of Belfast, UK. He is the author of numerous books and articles on early modern religious history, including The Reformation and Rural Society (1996) and The Reformation in Germany (2002). Dixon has been the recipient of Alexander von Humboldt research fellowships in association with the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel and the Freie Universität Berlin.

“In this thoughtful and highly original book, Scott Dixon takes a thematic approach to the process of building the new Christian communities … Scott Dixon has done an admirable job, given the constraints of space and the breadth of his coverage, in painting a broad-ranging and sophisticated picture of a complex and expansive movement.”  (EHR Oxford Journal Clippings, 6 June 2012)"Dixon's contribution lies, rather, in his fascinating and highly original thesis that the formative phase of Protestantism, as a creative social force, must be viewed as extending to the revivalist impulses of the 18th-century Great Awakening in the New World...Dixon's writing here is detailed, solid, and compelling. Summing Up: Highly recommended." (Choice, 1 May 2011) "This is a remarkable work, for its striking originality, its powerful and independent-minded synthesis, its sensitivity to the primary and secondary material, its deployment of really gripping examples and case studies, and its conjoining of the European and North American Protestant experience….”—Mark Greengrass, University of Sheffield

• Acknowledgments viiIntroduction: Law and Gospel 11 Foundations 8Wittenberg and Rome 9Leucorea 9Our theology 11Theses, dialogue, and debate 15Martin Luther and the German nation 19Swiss Protestants 24The gospel of Christian freedom 24Reformations 33Order 33Disorder 40Geneva and Europe 47The honor of Christ 47The Reformed matrix 552 Kingdoms 60Kings, Priests, and Prophets 61Civic Protestantism 65Theaters of reform 65Commune and covenant 70The Politics of Faith 74Protestant polities 74Conscience and authority 82Scripture and identity 873 Communities 93Biblical Utopias 94The Pursuit of Purity 98Wheat and tares 98Godly people 107New World Protestants 115The holy commonwealth 115The ways of providence 1214 Dominions 128Bonds of Communion 129Under the cross 129Confessional culture: the Protestants of Germany 135Christian Subjects 144The pansophic mind 144The biblical soul 150Protestant Environments 158Liturgy and architecture 158Christianography 163The Missionary Turn 1685 Revivals 174Signs of the Times 175Histories 175Prophecy and wrath 180True Christianity 184Pietists 184The radical rebirth 197The End of Reformation 205Politics and piety 205Mixed multitudes 212Epilogue: Modern Protestants 223Endnotes 229Index 261