Religion & Liberty Online Archives

History

June 09, 2023

Spreading the Flame: The Pioneering Ministry of William Grimshaw

We have discussed so far the nature of the 18th-century evangelical revival in Britain through the eyes of the most well-known names, John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield. From the 1740s onward, communities across the nation experienced the impact of the revival through the pioneering ministries of many more dedicated individuals, however. Continue Reading...
May 12, 2023

Charles Wesley: Hymn Writer of the Evangelical Revival

The evangelical revival we have been revisiting not only left a legacy of Christians and churches renewed and empowered but also a devotional spirituality embedded in hymn and song. Charles Wesley (1707–1788) worked tirelessly alongside his elder brother John as evangelist and pastor. Continue Reading...
February 23, 2023

You Can’t Erase the Past by Changing a Name

Early in January, the U.S. Department of Defense began a massive undertaking to change the names of nine military bases, two ships, and over 1,000 other items, including signs and roads, all of which are currently linked to Confederate figures. Continue Reading...
February 10, 2023

Why the British Evangelical Revival Still Matters

In the middle decades of the 18th century, a powerful spiritual movement swept through much of North America and Great Britain, as well as some parts of northern Europe. This evangelical revival (or, in North America, the Great Awakening) transformed not only individual believers but culture and society as well, and produced some extraordinary personalities, people used mightily by God. Continue Reading...
February 25, 2022

Canon law, works of mercy, and human dignity

“All human societies face about the same problems,” claim David Friedman, Peter Leeson, and David Skarbek in their fascinating and peculiar book Legal Systems Very Different from Ours. “They deal with them in an interesting variety of different ways. Continue Reading...
January 10, 2022

Today is Lord Acton’s 188th birthday. His philosophy should guide our next two centuries

Today, January 10, 2022, is Lord Acton’s 188th birthday. This difficult era of a global pandemic, a crisis in institutions, and civil unrest seems a strange time to look back on the life and legacy of a Victorian historian of ideas—but, as Lord Acton himself remarked, “if the Past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and surest emancipation.” Continue Reading...