Jacques de Vitry's Historia Occidentalis is one of the more remarkable and informative studies of contemporary western Christendom to come out of the thirteenth century. As numerous commentators have pointed out, it is unmistakably the product of the spiritual-intellectual school of Master Peter the Chanter of Paris, who inspired a generation of scholars and churchmen to marry popular preaching with the theology of the schools. Written early in the third decade of the thirteenth century, the Historia Occidentalis analyzes the moral state of the western church and juxtaposes in full relief the modes of both degeneracy and religious renewal within that society. Its thesis is that despite all the evils of the day, God is still working in and through the various elements of Christian society to sanctify his people; and these Christian people, for all of their failings, continue to share in the spiritual regeneration of Providence. The Historia Occidentalis has been characterized by one modern historian as “pulpit history.”

The abolition of monastic vows and mandatory clerical celibacy and the exaltation of marriage and the family were among the most revolutionary changes in religion and ethics produced by the Reformation. Although scholars have given it too little attention, the controversy over the relative merits of marriage and celibacy, and particularly the campaign for clerical marriage, played a major role in the development of the Reformation. The law of celibacy and vows of chastity became principal topics of discussion when the reformers strove to break down the old order of medieval Christianity. The most concrete manifestation of the impact of the controversy over marriage and celibacy lay in the fact that many priests joined the Reformation movement precisely to escape the restrictions imposed upon their domestic life by the old order.

Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin (1831–1863), has been characterized as a representative of the Broad Church movement of the early to mid-nineteenth century. Convinced that the Church of England's sacraments and liturgies, indeed its very structure, should correspond to the times and not to some ancient formulary, Whately argued continuously for a general reformation of its rules and regulations and for a separate church body to arbitrate disputes over spiritual matters. Recognizing the force of his arguments on these and myriad other subjects, a reviewer for the Christian Observer commented that “the Archbishop is a great intellectual gladiator, and all parties will confess that it is far pleasanter to have him with them than against them.” The nature of his role as a Christian advocate also was noted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. “He showed a rare union of literary talent, knowledge of human nature, and administrative ability, and the work that he accomplished places him in the highest rank of Christian statesmen. … [His essays] have had a wide influence upon the course of religious thought in England for more than a quarter of a century.”

The founders of successful religious and social movements have received much attention from popular and scholarly writers. Would-be prophets who failed, on the other hand, generally have been ignored, except for a few sensational cases such as those of Sabbatai Sevi, the Jewish messianic pretender of the seventeenth century, or Jim Jones, whose charismatic leadership of a group suicide in Guyana shocked the nation and the world. Yet although religious leaders who fail usually attract little attention, they are often as interesting as those who succeed. Their lives vividly highlight aspects of new religious and social movements which we might otherwise overlook. One of the most remarkable religious failures in nineteenth- century America was James J. Strang, the schismatic Mormon prophet who set up a community of 2,500 on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan and ruled it for nearly ten years until he was assassinated in 1856. Strang was articulate and capable, a compelling intellect and speaker who seemed totally sincere to some yet an utter fraud to others. His life raises fundamental questions about the promise and the dangers inherent in prophetic leadership, not simply in early Mormonism but in many similar movements as well.

In the late-flowering study of religion in the South, relatively little attention has been given to its intellectual traditions. The field's rich body of literature, largely produced in the last two decades, has yielded only one serious study of theology in the region, E. Brooks Holifield's The Gentlemen Theologians. So great has been the historians' stress upon the heartfelt, emotional character of popular religion in the South, says Holifield, that even to inquire into a “Southern religious ‘mind’ … is to question a commonplace.” One might say that, lacking a Jonathan Edwards, the South has no call for a Perry Miller. Even Holifield felt compelled to analyze the social status of his regional divines in order to create interest in their tomes of derivative common sense theology.