Религия: прочее
Различные книги в жанре Религия: прочееRefounding the Church from the Underside
As the Christian church in the West moves further into the post-Christian era a dilemma rises for those thoughtful followers of Jesus Christ who find themselves in venerable, older church institutions that have become forgetful of their reason for being in the purpose of God. Such Christendom church institutions, as Henderson designates them, rather become somewhat idolatrous of their traditions, their sanctuaries, their ecclesiastical accoutrements, not to mention their dependence on a questionable category of persons called clergy. A younger generation, involved in many of these churches, is raising insistent questions about the integrity of so much of this–while at the same time being appreciative of so much that is good.
Henderson's long career as a teaching pastor and mentor to the younger generations help us walk through this dilemma with refreshing insights about purpose (teleology), Kingdom integrity, form, and the disciplines necessary to transform these communities from the underside. He employs the term refounding as indicating something much more profound than renewal–a reclaiming of its original intent in the heart and mind of God.
Essential Church History
Essential Church History is an interesting, informative, and consistently readable narrative of the church. It brings to life central people and dramatic events that shaped the Christian religion-including the formation of the canon, the Arian controversy, the Crusades, and the Reformation period. Adam Murrell skillfully shows how the Bible, the believer's ultimate authority, must remain at the forefront in order for the church to be guided into truth. When that authority is abandoned or forsaken, however, the consequences are always devastating, as witnessed in the errors of Arianism, Pelagianism, holy wars, the moral bankruptcy of the medieval church, and liberal Protestantism.
Essential Church History will serve as a fascinating introduction to the panoramic history of Christianity, all the while providing biblical truths for students and teachers of church history, for pastors, and for general readers.
Shackled by a Heavy Burden
This book shares one pastor's journey to uncover the inherent barriers that cause many African American parishioners not to receive the help they need regarding their mental and emotional health. These barriers are revealing and may be surprising to clergy and counseling professionals. In this book, Kennard Murray examines the phenomenon of resistance to professional counseling in the African American community and the source of this resistance, the reasons parishioners seek out pastors for help during emotional distress, whether pastors feel adequately equipped to provide such counseling, and the need for training on making appropriate referrals. Also, the author identifies an emerging method of providing church-based pastoral counseling in local churches to address the barriers of resistance to seeking help in the community at large. The information contained within these pages will help not only African American pastors, but also pastors in rural communities where other counseling professionals are not readily accessible.
The New Perspective on Paul
Can someone please explain this «New Perspective on Paul»? Where did it come from and will it help or hinder Christian interpreters to grasp the apostle's writings more clearly? In The New Perspective on Paul: An Introduction, Kent Yinger provides concise, readable, and authoritative answers to these and other questions currently exercising students of Paul.
Plunging into the Kingdom Way
What practices might a community of faith take up that will bear witness to the alternative world Jesus envisions and calls us towards? That is the question that Grandview Calvary Baptist Church, an initially small and fragile group of Christ followers, has kept asking over the last twenty years. Along the way, this small group has spawned a vibrant community of faith that has traveled along four trajectories towards a shared life in community, radical hospitality, justice for the least, and confession leading to transformation. In a culture where individualism, consumerism, injustice, and autonomy shape us all, these practices have re-shaped not only the people of this church but also the neighborhood they inhabit in the East side of Vancouver, British Columbia.
For anyone wanting to recover ancient but newly shaped practices of the first disciples, Plunging into the Kingdom Way offers renewed hope. By relating their story in conversation with a host of theologians, sociologists, and philosophers, Tim Dickau sparks the imagination for how you and your friends, your community, or your church can live out the radical vision of Jesus in your neighborhood today. Plunge in and you will discover renewed hope that you can actually follow the way of Jesus today.
New Wine Tastings
This collection of essays provides samplings of a theological engagement of culture that Paul Louis Metzger has been developing over the years in his work as founder and director of The Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins at Multnomah Biblical Seminary of Multnomah University. Metzger espouses an incarnational over against a predominantly worldview-oriented or market-driven theological approach to engaging culture, and situates his work in Trinitarian communal and co-missional thought forms. This volume of biblically and theologically framed and compassion-driven essays addresses such themes as postmodernity, structural evil, cultural genocide, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, the prison system, the global slave trade, and the arts. It will be welcomed by those analyzing and developing theological-cultural paradigms and engaging key issues in the contemporary setting.
Baptism in the Spirit
This book is about that treasured doctrine of Pentecostalism: baptism in the Holy Spirit, understood as a work subsequent to conversion to Christ. Since James Dunn's publication of Baptism in the Holy Spirit, there has been heated response from Pentecostals in defense of the doctrine. Key players are Roger Stronstad, Howard Ervin, David Petts, James Shelton, Robert Menzies, and ex-Pentecostal Max Turner. This book reviews Pentecostal criticisms of Dunn with respect to Luke-Acts, concluding that Pentecostals are right: for Luke, receiving the Spirit was not the inception of new covenant life. It was a powerful enabling for prophecy and miracles; for the church's outward mission and its internal life. After placing Luke-Acts in a wider canonical context, the book closes with some practical lessons from Luke-Acts for today's Pentecostal churches.
Black and Tired
African American scholar Anthony Bradley understands the growing interest in the intersections of theology and economics emerging in light of Christianity's commitment to loving the poor. Local and global disparities in human flourishing call for prudential judgments that wed good intentions with sound economic principles. This book tackles the issues of race, politics, contemporary culture, globalization, and education by wedding moral theology and economics. For readers who enjoy the writings of African-American intellectuals like Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, this book will be a breath of fresh air in terms of economics and public policy but is unique because it also explicitly applies Christian moral teachings to today's global concerns.
Entering the Stream
The notion and phrase of «entering the stream» has long been an image for merger and union. Most often it is meant to sum up the idea of union with the Divine Principle or God. Less often, yet still common, it is used to image the union of ideas, bodies, and movements.
The sense that one thing folds into or flows into another and gets lost is still a major underpinning toward the belief that there is some «ah ha» moment in life where we are able to drift out of simple, commonplace existence and enter the field of ALL knowing. We believe that there can be and is a moment of merger (a born-again instant), an awakening to something outside of what it means to be singularly dual.
It is not by chance that the two sacramental rites within Christianity that have the deepest roots in the gathered community over time–reaching down into the loam of our existence–are Baptism and Eucharist. The first–the initiation rite–is about dissolving into God and His mercy and forgiveness. We enter into Him and the fullness of His Kingdom. We are overwhelmed by the waters and emerge a new creature. The second–the continuation rite–is about God dissolving into us. He enters us bringing the fullness of His Kingdom. We ingest God (depending upon your theology) in either image or fact and we emerge a new creature.
The poems that follow are about this «axis of consumption,» this «axis of dissolving» in our lives. We are swallowed up by God. We swallow up God.
In from the Wilderness
The stories of transgender people reach back to the beginnings of recorded history. At this particular point in time the psychiatric, medical, and secular worlds are beginning to appreciate the authenticity of Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual, and Queer people. Sadly, many Christian churches and denominations continue to oppress and vilify the LGTBQ community. This is the story of a transgender man who has been an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church since 1984 and has quietly served his congregations for twenty-eight years before sharing his story and spiritual journey with his congregation, denomination, and the world. This is the story of a Transgender man, a Christian, an ordained minister, a loving husband and father–a human being. It is his challenge to his denomination and to all Christians and spiritual seekers to consider the truth of gender identity and sexual orientation as God given gifts, to be celebrated and embraced among all other gifts.