The Elusive Quest of the Spiritual Malcontent: Some Early Nineteenth-Century Ecclesiastical Mavericks - Paperback

by Timothy C. F. Stunt (Author)

Timothy C. F. Stunt has gathered a range of his essays, both published and unpublished in a collection of largely biographical studies. His subjects range from discontented Quakers hesitating over their identity, to respectable Anglicans who were fascinated with the charismatic phenomena of tongue speaking and healing. Some of the characters with whom he is concerned can be described as "mavericks" on account of their strikingly individualist inclinations. Occasionally their unpredictability takes on a quasi-comic identity, which could even qualify them to be described as "loose cannons." On the other hand, some of them like Edward Irving, Norris Groves, and John Darby played a crucial part in the development of nineteenth-century evangelicalism. In their quest for the ideal church of their dreams, they were often disappointed but one cannot but admire the single-mindedness of their quest.

Author Biography

Timothy C. F. Stunt has taught Ancient and Modern History for nearly fifty years in secondary schools in England, Switzerland, and the United States. He is the author of From Awakening to Secession (2000) and has contributed some forty articles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.