Drawing on their experiences as fathers, eleven men share what they have learned about parenting, living a Christian life, and the relationship between the two. As fathers to children ranging in age from the very young to adults, contributors reflect on some of their joys and successes as fathers but also on their questions, concerns, mistakes, sorrows, and hopes–for themselves and for their children. They invite all parents to reflect on and learn from their own parenting experiences. This kind of reflection fosters wisdom, perspective, and, in solidarity with other parents, gratitude, confidence, and hope in the parenting life.
William Carey, often dubbed «The Father of Modern Missions,» and Adoniram Judson, America's first intercontinental missionary, were pioneers whose missions overlapped in chronology, geography, and purpose. However, rarely are they both featured in the same volume or compared and contrasted. Here we have unique material by some of the world's leading experts on these two giants of missionary history, with perspectives on these men in ways never seen before. Especially relevant to this current age of World Christianity are the perspectives from India and Burma, the lands which received these men for their missionary enterprise.
This book contains fifteen essays originally presented at a conference on evangelical Christianity and global peacemaking held at Georgetown University in September 2012, together with a critical analysis of the collection by the editor, David P. Gushee. The essays fall into two categories: the first four essays primarily engage theoretical issues in the ethics of war and peace, considering pacifism, just war, and just peacemaking approaches, all in contemporary US context. The other eleven essays offer glimpses into current evangelical peacemaking efforts being undertaken by individuals, congregations, parachurch organizations, and global evangelical bodies. The collection as a whole gives considerable attention to Christian-Muslim relations and offers a number of extraordinary accounts of evangelical peacemaking with Muslims and efforts to engage Islam as a living religious tradition. The concluding essay suggests that while evangelical peace and war thinking cannot escape the paradoxes and challenges that have always bedeviled Christian theorizing about war, contemporary evangelical peacemaking efforts reflect substantial progress in implementing the radical love of Jesus Christ in some of the most challenging contexts and conflicts in our world today.
The prosperity gospel is very influential in Africa, in Pentecostal churches, and in Reformed churches. But what is the prosperity gospel? Where did it originate? Is it biblically sound? How should we evaluate the prosperity gospel? Does it represent a wrong way of looking for health and wealth, or can we learn something from it? In this book the authors provide an analysis from different perspectives on the highly debated topic of the prosperity gospel. It is intended to be accessible and helpful both to academic colleagues and to ordinary ministers. Most of the authors are lecturers at Justo Mwale Theological University College in Lusaka (Zambia). Together with Prof. L. Togarasei from the University of Botswana, they use their theological skills to examine and assess this important topic from an African and Reformed perspective. The articles in this book will help anyone who wants to deeply explore and evaluate the intriguing phenomenon of the prosperity gospel in Africa.
What does the good life mean in a «backward» place? As communist regimes denigrated widespread unemployment and consumer excess in Western countries, socialist Eastern European states simultaneously legitimized their power through their apparent ability to satisfy consumers' needs. Moving beyond binaries of production and consumption, the essays collected here examine the lessons consumption studies can offer about ethnic and national identity and the role of economic expertise in shaping consumer behavior. From Polish VCRs to Ukrainian fashion boutiques, tropical fruits in the GDR to cinemas in Belgrade, The Socialist Good Life explores what consumption means in a worker state where communist ideology emphasizes collective needs over individual pleasures.
What does an understanding of Jewish history contribute to the study of the Mediterranean, and what can Mediterranean studies contribute to our knowledge of Jewish history? Jews and the Mediterranean considers the historical potency and uniqueness of what happens when Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews meet in the Mediterranean region. By focusing on the specificity of the Jewish experience, the essays gathered in this volume emphasize human agency and culture over the length of Mediterranean history. This collection draws attention to what made Jewish people distinctive and warns against facile notions of Mediterranean connectivity, diversity, fluidity, and hybridity, presenting a new assessment of the Jewish experience in the Mediterranean.
This comprehensive manual is aimed especially at oblates and associates of Benedictine communities, those who regularly spend retreats or quiet days in Benedictine centres and all those who want to order their life to be more in tune with Benedictine spirituality.
The book contains: the text of the Rule of St Benedict; an introduction to the essentials of Benedictine spirituality; a simple daily office and other Benedictine prayers; a «who's who» introducing us to 100 Benedictine saints and followers; a guide to living the Rule in the world and community and a tour of the Benedictine family worldwide.
Many notable authors have contributed to this volume which is designed to last a lifetime. They include Esther de Waal, Columba Stewart, Kathleen Norris and Patrick Barry.
All countries, regions and institutions are ultimately built on a degree of consensus, on a collective commitment to a concept, belief or value system. This consensus is continuously rephrased and reinvented through a narrative of cohesion and challenged by expressions of discontent and discord. The history of the Low Countries is characterised by both a striving for consensus and eruptions of discord, both internally and from external challenges. This interdisciplinary volume explores consensus and discord in a Low Countries context along broad cultural, linguistic and historical lines. Disciplines represented include early-modern and contemporary history; art history; film; literature; and translation scholars from both the Low Countries and beyond.