A pair of Grove City College professors have edited and contributed to a recently-published guide to all things Presbyterian.
“The Oxford Handbook of Presbyterianism” covers the storied Protestant denomination’s history, theology, worship practices and institutional structures.
Dr. Paul C. Kemeny, professor of Biblical and Religious Studies and interim dean of the Calderwood School of Arts and Letters, and Dr. Gary Scott Smith ’72, emeritus professor and former chair of the Department of History, have produced a state-of-the-art reference tool. The book features contributions from 36 leading religious scholars and historians, including Ivor J. Davidson, Michael S. Horton, Margaret Bendroth and Mark A. Noll.
Both Grove City College scholars contributed chapters to the work on top of their editing duties. Kemeny’s chapter covers the theological and other disagreements that prompted schisms in the denomination in Scotland, the U.S., Brazil and Korea during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Smith, an ordained Presbyterian minister who currently serves as a parish associate at Saint Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, N.C., analyzes the extensive efforts by Presbyterians to improve social conditions in the United States, Canada, Africa and Asia.
The book covers major facets of Presbyterian history, theological beliefs, worship practices, ecclesiastical forms and structures, as well as important ethical, political and educational issues. The contributors address the topics objectively and judiciously, according to publisher Oxford University Press.
“The Oxford Handbook of Presbyterianism” is available online at the publisher’s website here.