Restoring the Reformation

This book traces British missionary initiative in post-Revolutionary Francophone Europe from the genesis of the London Missionary Society, the visits of Robert Haldane and Henry Drummond, and the founding of the Continental Society. While British evangelicals aimed at the reviving of a foreign Protestant cause of momentous legend, they received unforeseen reciprocating emphases from the Continent which forced self-reflection on Evangelicalism's own relationship to the Reformation. ""Kenneth Stewart's scholarly account of what is known a Le reveil in Francophone Switzerland and France deals with a subject--spiritual awakening and revival--that is of perennial interest to English-speaking evangelicals. Contrary to the received historiography of this revival, Stewart convincingly demonstrates that it was profoundly indigenous in its origins, though British influence did have its role to play. Marked by both learning and confessional commitment, Stewart's book is essential reading for anyone interested in the fascinating history of the French Reformed churches after the eighteenth-century Revolution."" --Michael A. G. Haykin, Principal, Toronto Baptist Seminary ""Ken Stewart has put ecclesiastical historians in his debt by placing the Genevan reveil in its detailed British and European context. This is particularly effective in his analysis of Protestantism in Napoleonic and Restoration France prior to the events of 1817 and in his reevaluation of the part played by Robert Haldane both in Geneva and in France. Stewart's grasp of the theological issues is perceptive and evenhanded."" --Timothy Stunt, PhD, The Wooster School, Danbury, Connecticut, and the author of From Awakening to Secession: Radical Evangelicals in Switzerland and Britain: 1815-1833 ""Based on an impressive command of the sources, Kenneth Stewart has provided an authoritative account of the origins and development of the reveil. In a convincing narrative, he has demonstrated how, amid the upheavals of the revolutionary era, a combination of German Moravian and British evangelical influences helped to shape a spiritual awakening in Francophone Europe that would have profound influence in renewing Reformed Christianity in the post-Napoleonic era."" --Stewart J. Brown, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Edinburgh Kenneth J. Stewart is Professor of Theological Studies at Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia, USA. A native Canadian, he is a graduate of the University of Waterloo, Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia), and New College, Edinburgh.