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I, Jeanne Guyon

I, Jeanne Guyon

Guyon's books have been in print without interruption for three hundred years. This is because so many Christians have been profoundly influenced by her incredible life. Readers of Jeanne Guyon have been waiting for this book.

Guyon’s biography and autobiography are the most recommended, most read, and most revered life stories of any Christian woman in church history. Nancy James, who is America's leading authority on Jeanne Guyon, has given us a new, better, and clearer story of Guyon’s life. She has combined Guyon’s biography and autobiography into one. The author has then cast the story in first person, that is, with Guyon speaking.

We know Guyon as never before. I, Jeanne Guyon takes its place as one of Christianity's most significant biographies. Here is the story of someone who became the most known woman in European history. You will learn the story of her imprisonments, as she tells you the ignominy she endured and reaction to it all.

I, Jeanne Guyon opens up the incredible story of her life even further and causes her life to be even more influential than before.

"Jeanne Guyon is the greatest Christian since the apostles" - John Wesley

Available at Amazon or from the publisher

Bastille Witness

Bastille Witness: The Prison Autobiography of Madame Guyon

Nancy Carol James
Sharon D. Voros
Copyright (c) 2011

This translation of Madame Guyon’s prison autobiography provides a compelling account of her eight years of incarceration from 1695 to 1703. Her style is conversational and personal with a keen sense of spirituality in the midst of adversity. Madame Guyon’s lack of formal education, which was not offered to women especially in matters concerning theology, caused her published works to become suspect, confiscated, and condemned. These memoirs were never published in her lifetime and only came to light when the French scholar Marie-Louise Gondal identified the manuscript as a copy of the fourth part of her autobiography. Madame Guyon consistently maintained that she was innocent of all charges. She shows great courage and faith in these prison memoirs that shed light on her most difficult years, including the interrogation practices, the criticism of her writings, and the circumstances for her release. This text is a testimony to her perseverance and a tribute to her writing ability in those times of stress and constant humiliation.

"Not only is Madame Guyon a deep and profound theologian, but she invites the Christian into an ever deeper relationship with God. Madame Guyon stands alongside the greats in the mystical tradition—Mother Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, and Thomas àKempis."

-- Dr. Ian Markham, dean of Virginia Theological Seminary

"Madame Guyon reached for the heights of mystical contemplation, undeterred by the obstacles thrown in her way by the church she professed to love and serve. She was a pioneer: very involved with the problems of her world, yet centuries ahead of her time."

-- Carlos M. N. Eire, professor, Yale University

Available from the author - order Here

Nancy C. James

Dr. James is a full-time author working on new books and articles about Jeanne Guyon. She currently is translating Guyon’s Biblical commentaries on the New Testament. She released Guyon’s commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians, Luke, and Revelation. She is planning on releasing Guyon’s commentaries on the book of John soon.

James received her Masters of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary. She has a Ph.D. in Religious Studies with a specialty in Philosophical Theology from the University of Virginia.

For information on any of Nancy's books visit the books page here or visit the author's Amazon Author page here

What critics have said about her writing:

"A gripping and uplifting story, passionately told. Part devotional manual, part history, and part mystery thriller, Nancy James's Standing in the Whirlwind bears eloquent witness to the Christian ethic of love and to the power of faith, as well as to the power of narrative. Truly amazing in its range and depth, this book has the feel of a Hitchcock film, and the substance of a seventeenth century mystical treatise. Through the story of her own ordeal with a rural Virginia congregation, Reverend James manages to draw the reader into many worlds at once with daring and expert skill, and a contemplative's eye for the ultimate presence of the divine in all of life. Very few books ever sweep me away. This one surely did."

Carlos Eire, Yale University professor and award-winning author of "Waiting for Snow in Havana" & "Waiting to Die in Miami"

The Pure Love of Madame Guyon

In seventeenth-century France, Madame Guyon wrote about the concept of "pure love." "Love pure and holy, is a deathless fire," she wrote, and is "ethereal fare." Her popular books spread quickly through Europe and the New World, drawing the attention of Louis XIV and the court at Versailles. The Inquisition attacked her writing and concepts, resulting in her decade long incarceration, including years in the Bastille. Archbishop Fénelon defended Guyon while the leading cleric, Bishop Bossuet, demanded that the Vatican condemn Fénelon and Guyon as heretics.

A contemporaneous historian wrote a history of the "Great Conflict" between Guyon, Bossuet, Fénelon, and the Vatican entitled Supplement to the Life of Madame Guyon, which is regarded as having been written in the eighteenth-century. Professor Nancy C. James's translation of this manuscript from the Bodleian Library at Oxford University is featured in this book, coupled with an analysis of the powerful theology of Guyon that influenced both the growth of the Quakers and Romanticism. This history addresses roots of our social conflicts as individual consciences struggle against destructive political power.

Available at Amazon

Standing in the Whirlwind

This spiritual autobiography focuses on James's tumultuous tenure as a rector of two rural Episcopal parishes in Virginia after working at a Washington D.C. jail and teaching at Lorton Reformatory.

Initially, both of James's parishes support her charitable idea of inviting homeless African American persons from Washington D.C. to join church socials. This acceptance, however, quickly changes to a malicious plot of a few parishioners who begin to mercilessly harass her, kill her pets, damage her property, and even attempt to arrange her "accidental" death. Some members of local law enforcement even take bribes, turning their backs on her cries for help.

As a counterbalance to these horrific experiences, James finds solace and spiritual strength both in fondly recalling her childhood in Alaska and in the mystical theology of Madame Guyon, incarcerated by Louis XIV for being a female religious thinker.

Available at Amazon

Endorsement from Guyon's family

Dr. Nancy Carol James, Ph.D.

"Madame Guyon provides a living example of a simple yet profound message, that anyone can establish a close relationship with God through contemplative meditation. Despite the loss of children to disease, an unhappy marriage, failing health, and incarceration for heresy, she lived a life at peace, while serving her fellow man. Nancy James' research and published works illustrate details of Madame Guyon’s life, a source of inspiration to all who seek God’s peace within a troubled world."

-- Don Guiou (Guyon) descendant of Madame Guyon