The Evangelical Age of Ingenuity in Industrial Britain argues that British evangelicals in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries invented new methods of spreading the gospel, as well as new forms of personal religious practice, by exploiting the era's growth of urbanization, industrialization, consumer goods, technological discoveries, and increasingly mobile populations. While evangelical faith has often been portrayed standing in inherent tension with the transitions of modernity, Joseph Stubenrauch demonstrates that developments in technology, commerce, and infrastructure were fruitfully linked with theological shifts and changing modes of religious life. This volume analyzes a vibrant array of religious consumer and material culture produced during the first half of the nineteenth century. Mass print and cheap mass-produced goods--from tracts and ballad sheets to teapots and needlework mottoes--were harnessed to the evangelical project. By examining ephemera and decorations alongside the strategies of evangelical publishers and benevolent societies, Stubenrauch considers often overlooked sources in order to take the pulse of "vital" religion during an age of upheaval. He explores why and how evangelicals turned to the radical alterations of their era to bolster their faith and why "serious Christianity" flowered in an industrial age that has usually been deemed inhospitable to it.

About the Author
Joseph Stubenrauch is Assistant Professor of History at Baylor University.

Reviews
The Evangelical Age of ingenuity in Industrial Britain is an excellent, well-written work that adds to existing scholarship in this field. * Baptist Quarterly *
[A] good book on a fascinating topic. * Hannah Barker, Victorian Studies *
Stubenrauch's major achievement in this study is to restore the connections between evangelicalism and economics, not to privilege one era at the expense of another. * William Gibson, Fides et Historia *
This is truly a well-researched and engaging study that significantly revises how scholars might understand the relationship between Christianity and modernity. It also gives much food for thought... Overall, this is an excellent contribution to modern British religious history, and in particular to the study of evangelicalism. * David G. Reagles, Church History and Religious Culture *


Awards
Winner of Winner of the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize 2018 by the American Society of Church History..



Book Information
ISBN 9780198783374
Author Joseph Stubenrauch
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 564g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 169mm * 22mm