John Knox considered himself a preacher, not a writer of books. His History of the Reformation of Religion in the Realm of Scotland is an extended sermon on the duty of Scottish Christians to rely solely, obediently, and unflinchingly on God. The printed work contains five books, but Knox did not write Book 5. In Book 4, Knox made the point that the Lord authorizes and requires all Christians (even common subjects, when they are able to do so) to correct their rulers' religion and to compel them to obey God's commandments. For Knox, no more history was needed. His sermon was “compleat.”

Jean-Alphonse Turrettini (1671–1737) was the last of the line of theology professors from his family at the Academy of Geneva, following his grandfather Benedict (1588–1631) and his father François (1623–1687), the famed Reformed scholastic theologian. Jean-Alphonse started his theological career as the pastor of the Italian congregation in Geneva in 1693; he was then named professor of church history at the Academy in 1697 and then rector in 1701 and finally professor of theology in 1705. Although his father was one of the principal architects of the Helvetic Formula Consensus (1675), Jean-Alphonse led the movement toward eliminating such credal religion through the abrogation of the Formula in 1706.

It is now well recognized that the papal condemnation of Modernism in 1907 had a devastating effect on American Catholic intellectual life. This was particularly true in the archdiocese of New York where St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, had been one of the leading centers of scholarly activity. Suspicion of Modernism cast a cloud over several of the professors and led to the termination of their highly-regarded journal, the New York Review. The fate of the Dunwoodie faculty during the Modernist crisis is a story that has often been told. Less well known, however, is the effect that the condemna knowledge of the colonial situation to a larger canvas in his widely-read synoptic work American Indians and Christian Missions: Studies in Cultural Conflict (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). Clyde A. Milner II and Floyd A. O'Neil, eds., Churchmen and the Western Indians, 1820–1920 (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985) was a much-noticed collection of essays on interactions. At the middle of this period President Grant inaugurated new policies on church and state; these are well reviewed in Robert H. Keller, Jr., American Protestantism and the United States Indian Policy, 1869–1882 (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1983).

In standard Jewish reference works the figure of Pope Pius X has either been sorely neglected or has received a decidedly negative press. For the concise New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, Pius X simply does not exist. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia mentions rather cryptically that the pope was “better disposed” towards the Jews than had been his immediate predecessors. On the other hand, the monumental Encyclopaedia Judaica characterizes Pius as “disdainful of Judaism and the Jewish people.” Catholic biographies of this pontiff, essentially hagiographic, provide little or no insight into his relations with the Jews or his position on the Jewish question. However, as we shall attempt to argue, Giuseppe Sarto (1835–1914), who was elected pope in 1903 and canonized in 1954, maintained warm personal relationships with individual Jews throughout his ecclesiastical career, held a positive view of the Jewish character, defended the Jewish people against defamation and violence, and was instrumental in halting a twenty-year-old antisemitic campaign that had previously been waged in Italy by the clerical party.

From the 1920s onward, many individuals and denominations have referred to themselves as Baptist-fundamentalists or fundamentalist-Baptists. Increasingly, however, scholars are emphasizing the stark contrast between fundamentalism and Baptist life.1 More than any other, the life of J. Frank Norris stands as an example of the tension, if not irreconcilability, between the two camps. The enigmatic, or perhaps oxymoronic, nature of Norris's theological life was paralleled by his political endeavors in which he claimed to be a Democrat, but almost always supported Republican candidates. Being from Texas, it was natural that Norris would begin his career as a Baptist Democrat. In time, however, he evolved into a fundamentalist Republican. He actually attempted to be a fundamentalist-Baptist religiously and a Republican-Democrat politically. The fusion of these two religious traditions was no less problematic than fusion of the political parties.