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8108 кн.
Leaders of congregations want to foster change but how is rarely obvious. Some pursue top-down approaches while others think bottom-up. Either approach assumes some control by the leader, but effective leadership of change needs more than control; it requires influencing the ongoing change that is naturally occurring. In the organizational literature this matter is understood in terms of systems and more specifically complex adaptive systems or self-organizing systems. This literature has...
| Автор | Ronald D. Anderson |
The human spirit seems incapable of being stagnant, ever pushing the boundaries of knowledge and experience. We try to understand life through questions regarding our own existence, the nature of the universe, and the nature of God. The question of our collective heart is the external manifestation of an internal longing–a quest, if you will. This thirst to understand reality can be seen in superstructures that are scientific, social, political, and especially religious. When considering the...
| Автор | Lyman C.D. Kulathungam |
In Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary, theologian Stanley Hauerwas and political theorist Romand Coles reflect about possibilities and practices of radical democracy and radical ecclesia that take form in the textures of relational care for the radical ordinary. They seek to shift political and theological imaginations beyond the limits of contemporary political formations (such as global capitalism, the mega-state, and empire), which they argue are based upon both the denial and...
| Автор | Romand Coles |
Spiritually there is a great hunger today for contemplative and more satisfying experiences with God. Puritanism might seem to be an unlikely source for this, yet few groups in the history of Christian spirituality have written more extensively or wisely on the subject. Isaac Ambrose (1604-64), a relatively forgotten English Puritan, developed a theological foundation for the spiritual life based upon the Christian's intimate union with Christ, which the Puritans often called «spiritual...
| Автор | Tom Schwanda |
The Greek family of words characterizing the doctrine of «justification by faith» (as it is known in English) is most prominent in the writings of the Apostle Paul. It was this doctrine that lay at the heart of the sixteenth-century Reformation; Martin Luther and his followers considered it to be at the very center of the gospel. Protestants came to understand «justification» differently from the Catholic Church they had left. Instead of the Catholic «realist» view, in which God makes a sinner...
| Автор | Richard Kingsley Moore |
This book is about the names given to Jesus by those followers responsible for putting his words and deeds into writing-the earliest «Christian scribes.» In the first-century Mediterranean world, the first name of male person was his proper name. The second name indicated the family or clan to which he belonged, whereas the third name was an «honorary title» bestowed on him because of some achievement, good fortune, physical attribute, or «special excellence.» Honorary titles were...
| Автор | Yolanda Dreyer |
The Apostle Paul realized that he was an infant in the faith after his encounter with the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. He experienced what was required to become a member of Christ's body and to walk as a mature Christian. Therefore, he wanted to share these truths with the Ephesians and with us. What does he do? First, he presents doctrine regarding the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ, and God the Father. Then, he focuses on the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and...
| Автор | Robert B. Callahan Sr. |
Studying the New Testament requires a determination to encounter this collection of writings on its own terms. This classic introduction by Charles B. Puskas, revised with C. Michael Robbins, provides helpful guidance. Since the publication of the first edition, which was in print for twenty years, a host of new and diverse cultural, historical, social-scientific, socio-rhetorical, narrative, textual, and contextual studies has been examined. Attentive also to the positive reviews of the first...
| Автор | Charles B. Puskas |
Historical Jesus research remains trapped in the positivistic historiographical framework from which it emerged more than a hundred and fifty years ago. This is confirmed by the nested assumptions shared by the majority of researchers. These include the idea that a historical figure could not have been like the Gospel portrayals and consequently the Gospels have developed in a linear and layered fashion from the authentic kernels to the elaborated literary constructions as they are known today....
| Автор | Pieter F. Craffert |
"By them we have been carried away out of our own land, as into a Babylonian captivity, and despoiled of all our precious possessions." Martin Luther, 1520 "Their goal is our deracination, which is 'detachment from one's background (as from homeland, customs, traditions).' Thus women and other Elemental creatures on this planet are rendered homeless, cut off from knowledge of our Race's customs and traditions." Mary Daly, 1984 What is this land, this world of...
| Автор | Caryn D. Riswold |
No other book in the New Testament compares to John in its complexity of style and structure. So many factors confuse Johannine scholars, including the complexity of styles, repetition, duplication, and seemingly distracted structures that are difficult to discern. Sourcebook of the Structures and Styles in John 1-10 is designed to scrutinize the structures and styles in John 1-10, reading John according to John's way, with the following integrated points of view: First, this reading is...
| Автор | Sang-Hoon Kim |
The Apostle Paul, in exercising his ineffable wisdom, draws this magnificent letter to a close in an extraordinary manner. Certainly, he could have concluded it after telling the masters and servants how to treat one another. But, no, he did not. He proceeded to challenge them to become Christ's Ambassadors and to be proficient in this high calling, despite the daily obstacles, pressures, and temptations. What does Paul boldly state after having told Christ's followers, [t]hat we...
| Автор | Robert B. Callahan Sr. |
A leading scholar of ascetical studies, Richard Valantasis explores a variety of ascetical traditions ranging from the Greco-Roman philosophy of Musonius Rufus, the asceticism found in the Nag Hammadi Library and in certain Gnostic texts, the Gospel of Thomas, and other early Christian texts. This collection gathers historical and theoretical essays that develop a theory of asceticism that informs the analysis of historical texts and opens the way for postmodern ascetical studies. Wide-ranging...
| Автор | Richard Valantasis |
The book you now hold in your hands contains nearly everything the great American puritan Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) ever wrote on the book of Romans. It is collated into a verse-by-verse Bible commentary. Pastors, theologians, historians, and Bible study leaders will find a treasure of biblical insight along with practical application, as one of the great theologians of the Christian church expounds the book that Martin Luther called the «most important piece in the New Testament.» Jonathan...
| Автор | Группа авторов |
In 1984 Evangelicals for Social Action founder Ron Sider posed the questions, «What would happen if we in the Christian church developed a new nonviolent peacekeeping force ready to move into violent conflicts and stand peacefully between warring parties? . . . Everyone assumes that for the sake of peace it is moral and just for soldiers to get killed by the hundreds of thousands, even millions. Do we not have as much courage and faith as soldiers?» Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has been...
| Автор | Kathleen Kern |
Liturgical Elements for Reformed Worship is a series of four liturgical resources: three consisting of liturgical elements for Years A, B, and C, and a fourth, the first such resource to support the implementation of Year D: A Quadrennial Supplement to the Revised Common Lectionary (Cascade Books). Each volume consists of a Call to Worship, Opening Prayer, Call to Confession, Prayer of Confession, and Words of Assurance, with Years A-C including additional elements (A Prayer in Preparation for...
| Автор | Timothy Matthew Slemmons |
For the Souls of Black Folks examines the impact of black religious culture in shaping the ethical values and sociopolitical condition of U.S. blacks. The book reviews the nexus of theological traditions and historical factors that have formed black churches as environments where preachers serve as the moral compass for black churchgoers. For the Souls of Black Folks builds upon the work of sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, who highlighted the presence of a double consciousness in the collective...
| Автор | Cari Jackson |
A nineteen-year-old chemistry major at Rhodes College is selected to spend the summer after her freshman year doing research at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Instead, she finds herself a patient there, fighting a life-threatening form of pediatric cancer and suffering through a year of aggressive chemotherapy and surgery. Refusing to believe what many tell her–that the cancer was all part of «God's plan»–she finds solace in journaling and begins a discussion with her...
| Автор | Edward Hugh Henderson |
The Vitality of Liberation Theology argues for the ongoing necessity of a liberating theology in a world of endemic poverty and economic globalization. Although some have declared liberation theology's demise, or even its death, Nessan articulates the imperative and logic of it for a new generation. Latin American liberation theology burst forth as the most original and compelling theological movement from the developing world in the modern period. The story of the emergence and...
| Автор | Craig L. Nessan |
Everlasting hell and divine judgment, a lake of fire and brimstone–these mainstays of evangelical tradition have come under fire once again in recent decades. Would the God of love revealed by Jesus really consign the vast majority of humankind to a destiny of eternal, conscious torment? Is divine mercy bound by the demands of justice? How can anyone presume to know who is saved from the flames and who is not? Reacting to presumptions in like manner, others write off the fiery images of final...
| Автор | Brad Jersak |
Christian ministers working in congregations and with nonprofits seek to discern what it is that God has been doing and where it is that the «Spirit» might be leading them. In Living Spiritual Praxis Eric Kyle looks to address the lack of resources on the work and dynamics of Christian spiritual formation that actually develop a specific process for spiritual formation programs. Kyle strives to provide a guide for spiritual formation by using the «praxis-oriented» fields of action research and...
| Автор | Eric J. Kyle |
Paul proclaimed he was in prison because he was Christ's prisoner. Why? Because he proclaimed the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ uncompromisingly without fear of retribution. He served the living Christ and succumbed neither to the wiles of Satan nor to the demands of the secular world. He gives all the glory to God and in so doing proclaims: the grace of God; knowledge in the mystery of Christ, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles...
| Автор | Robert B. Callahan Sr. |
The Old Testament is an ancient collection of theological reflections on life with God that the church has claimed as authoritative Scripture. Whereas most introductory books march from Genesis to Malachi, this book engages four prominent themes across the breadth of the Old Testament canon: creation, covenant, cultus, and character. By taking this approach, Stevens is articulates key issues that impact the reading of the entire Old Testament. This engaging volume is intended for laypeople who...
| Автор | Marty E. Stevens |
In 1500 Christians knew that God gave them the church to shepherd believers toward salvation and that it was centered at Rome and ruled by a pope. Today, that church is but one of forty thousand Christian denominations, each with distinctive structures and doctrines. How did this happen? Then, as now, all aspects of the church–from its divine mission to its offices and operations, hierarchy, and bureaucracy–were of interest to theologians, thinkers, and troublemakers alike, but for ages there...
| Автор | Andrew Allan Chibi |