The year 1988 marked the 100th anniversary of the publication of H. C. Lea's A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. I would like to get the next century off to a good start by renaming his enterprise “A History of the Criminal Prosecution of Heretics in the Middle Ages.” The term inquisition has been widely misunderstood and misused by historians. There are two distinct abuses, one upper-case and the other lower-case.

On 29 April 1538 a letter was sent from Archbishop Cranmer to Thomas Cromwell complaining about the indictment of five men of Smarden and Pluckley in Kent. They had been holding “unlawful assemblies” and, so Cranmer argued, were indicted “of none occasion or ground else, but for by cause they are accounted fauters [supporters] of the new doctrine, as they call it.” He pleaded that their indictments might be overturned, for “if the king's subjects within this realm which favour God's word, shall be unjustly vexed at sessions, it will be no marvel though much sedition be daily engendered within this realm.” In view of the imminent conservative turn that religious policy was about to take in England, a development that would bring down Cromwell in its wake, Cranmer's concern at the ability of Catholic-minded local officials to harass Protestants is not to be wondered at.

Horace Bushnell has never lacked for commentators, and with notable exceptions the general picture of him (whether for praise or vilification) has been that of the “father” of American theological liberalism. This standard interpretation of Bushnell, however, fails to do justice to one of the more interesting aspects of his thought: his discussion in his treatise Nature and the Supernatural of the possibility of modern-day miracles. Although considered scandalous by his contemporaries and a pitiable misunderstanding by later commentators, his arguments, I believe, bear reexamination. In his treatment of the question of modern miracles Bushnell both offered his contribution to a 300-year-long theological debate and set forth his vision of the direction in which American Protestantism must head in order to meet squarely the growing spiritual crisis of nineteenth-century culture.

The African Orthodox church, an expression of religious autonomy among black Americans, had its genesis in the work and thought of George Alexander McGuire, a native of Antigua, whose religious journey and changing ecclesiastical affiliation paralleled his deepening interest in and commitment to the cause of Afro-American nationalism and racial consciousness. Born in 1866 to an Anglican father and a Moravian mother, George Alexander McGuire was educated at Mico College for Teachers in Antigua and the Nisky Theological Seminary, a Moravian institution in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands (then the Danish West Indies). In 1893 McGuire, having served a pastorate at a Moravian church in the Virgin Islands, migrated to the United States, where he became an Episcopalian. In 1897 he was ordained a priest in that church and, in the succeeding decade, served several parishes, including St. Thomas Church in Philadelphia, which was founded by Absalom Jones. His abilities and skills were recognized, and in 1905 he became the archdeacon for Colored Work in the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas. Here he became involved with various plans—none of which bore fruit—which would have provided for the introduction of black bishops in the Episcopal church to assist in that church's work of evangelization among black Americans. It is believed, however, that McGuire was influenced by the different schemes which were advanced, and that he “almost certainly carried away from Arkansas the notion of a separate, autonomous black church, and one that was episcopal in character and structure, as one option for black religious self-determination and one avenue for achieving black independence.”

Japan offers a profound instance of the encounter between culture and Christian mission. From 1859 to 1940 American Protestant missionaries encountered powerful cultural shifts as Japan modernized. Public enthusiasm for Western ways in the late nineteenth century tempted missionaries and some Japanese to believe that Christianity was Japan's greatest resource for national development. However, the rise of nationalism made the role of churches and missionaries in Japanese life problematic. Scholars have not examined closely the Protestant missionary adaptation to Japanese nationalism. The missionaries of the Episcopal church provide an important instance of such response.