The Empire of the Holy Spirit: Reflections on biblical and historical patterns of life in the Spirit

In an interview that he gave in 2011 historian Mark Noll related how an African scholar had once told him that Western historians needed to get the Holy Spirit back into their writing of history. Western historians have been so focused on a multitude of ways of explaining the past-via political systems strong personalities military conflicts economic forces-that they have had no space for understanding the work of the Holy Spirit in history. This collection of essays on the person and work of the Holy Spirit seeks to show what a proper pneumatological focus can mean for both historical and theological reflection and why this observation by this African Christian is so vital for the West in the twenty-first century.