Fehler, Timothy G.

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Fehler, Timothy G.

PERSONAL:

Married; wife's name Jacquelyn; children: Gabrielle, Mireille. Education: Baylor University, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1988; University of Wisconsin—Madison, M.A., 1990, Ph.D., 1995.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Furman University, 3300 Poinsett Hwy., Greenville, SC 29613. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Furman University, Greenville, SC, associate professor of history.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fulbright scholar, 1991-93; fellow, Institut für Europäische Geschichte, 1993-94, Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek, 2001-02, and Gerhard ten Doornkaat Koolmann Stiftung, 2002; Alester G. Furman, Jr., and Janie Earle Furman Award for Meritorious Teaching, Furman University, 2001.

WRITINGS:

Poor Relief and Protestantism: The Evolution of Social Welfare in Sixteenth-Century Emden, Ashgate Publishing (Brookfield, VT), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian Timothy G. Fehler focuses on the relationship between religion and social reform in Poor Relief and Protestantism: The Evolution of Social Welfare in Sixteenth-Century Emden. The book analyzes the ways in which the German city of Emden responded to the changing needs of the poor during the 1500s. During this time, Protestants who faced religious persecution in their native countries of England or the Netherlands were fleeing to Emden, transforming what had been a small city into a rising commercial and intellectual center. But this influx, combined with grain shortages in the late 1500s, created significant economic hardships in the city, and those in authority faced the challenge of caring for a rapidly increasing number of poor people. According to Journal of Ecclesiastic History contributor Brian Pullan, Fehler provides a "solid" analysis of the administrative policies that the authorities adopted, and "succeeds in bringing to life a few vivid examples of attempts to give and withhold alms in such a way as to steer unsatisfactory recipients away from adultery, lewdness or idleness and into a more god-fearing way of life." In the Journal of Church and State, reviewer Eric C. Rust deemed Poor Relief and Protestantism a thoroughly researched and well reasoned work that is both "enlightening and timely."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Church History, December, 2000, Charles H. Parker, review of Poor Relief and Protestantism: TheEvolution of Social Welfare in Sixteenth-Century Emden, p. 896.

Journal of Church and State, summer, 2000, Eric C. Rust, review of Poor Relief and Protestantism, p. 573.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, April, 2001, Brian Pullan, review of Poor Relief and Protestantism, p. 371.