This sixth volume of Hughes Oliphant Old's monumental, acclaimed study of preaching throughout history, The Modern Age, tells the story of preaching and worship from the French Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1789-1989). During this period preaching continued to support the historic Christian faith while the church undertook to resist secularization, come to grips with biblical criticism, and initiate bold overseas missions.

Opening with the revived Catholic Order of Preachers, continental Protestants such as Abraham Kuyper, and the self-consciously modern preaching of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Old moves on to consider Victorian figures such as John Henry Newman and Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He carefully lays out the tensions between Old and New School Calvinism as well as the beginnings of black preaching and the great American tradition of Charles Finney, Dwight L. Moody, Harry Emerson Fosdick, and many more. In the twentieth century Old's focus falls on the crises of the two world wars, especially the courageous ministries of German, Dutch, and Hungarian preachers during the Third Reich.