A Patterned Life

David Bebbington–one of the most influential historians working today–is widely acknowledged as a world authority on religious history. He is also recognized for having devised the Bebbington Quadrilateral as the standard definition of evangelicalism, one of the most important global religious movements of the twenty-first century. In this lively study, Eileen Bebbington–who first met her husband as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge over forty years ago–paints a vivid portrait of the life and thought of this leading scholar. Many who know Professor Bebbington's most celebrated books, such as Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, Patterns in History, The Mind of Gladstone, and Victorian Religious Revivals, will be delighted to learn that his first such effort was actually A History of the Ancient World with Which Is Incorporated Classical Mythology, a duly footnoted, four-volume work written at the age of nine! A Patterned Life is much more than an account of the intellectual development of a preeminent historian; it is a study of a life lived as a disciple of Jesus Christ–a human and often humorous account of eccentricities, an honest acknowledgment of trials, and an inspiring witness to one person's efforts to integrate a deep, earnest Christian faith with the best of modern thought.