The Fire Divine

The evangelical revival of the eighteenth century was a renewal movement of international proportions. It had its origins in Europe, affected each of the constituent nations of the British Isles and set many of the American colonies ablaze during the 1740s. It sought to reinvigorate a flagging Protestantism with a new stress on individual conversion, small group spirituality, community revivals and practical Christianity. In the process of these revivals, a new movement was actually brought into being - evangelicalism. Contemporary evangelical Christians can trace their roots to the evangelical revival, and beyond it to the various expressions of Protestantism that arose during the sixteenth-century Reformation. Both these streams have flowed together to create the modern evangelical identity, and the legacy of both needs to be appreciated if that identity is to be fully understood. Beginning with a short narrative account of the famous conversion of John Wesley at Aldersgate Street, London, in May 1738, David Ceri Jones offers a lively, accessible and informative introduction to the roots and main events, personalities and ideas of the evangelical revival. He also assesses its wider impact, and concludes by sketching in the subsequent development of the evangelical movement in the nineteenth century.

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