In the nineteenth century the dissenting Christian community fought for the civil rights of Roman Catholics nonChristians and even atheists on an issue of principle which had its flowering in the enthusiastic and undivided support which nonconformity gave to the campaign for Jewish emancipation. This book offers a case study of a theologically conservative group defending religious pluralism in the civic sphere showing that the concept of religious equality was a grand vision at the center of the political philosophy of the dissenters.

Author Biography

Timothy Larsen (Ph.D. University of Stirling, Scotland) is Professor of Theology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has been elected a Visiting Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of numerous books including Christabel Pankhurst: Fundamentalism and Feminism in Coalition (Boydell, 2002), with Treier, D. The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2007), with Husbands, M. Women, Ministry, and the Gospel: Exploring New Paradigms (InterVarsity Press, 2007).Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press) was named The Book of the Year for 2006 by Books and Culture. and Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals. is regarded as essential reading for those wishing to understand the development of Evangelicalism.