Download or read book Angels Worms and Bogeys written by Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2010-01-05 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From their theological and devotional writings to their social and ecclesial practices, the fathers and mothers of Pietism boldly declared the ethical spirit of the Christian faith. This seventeenth-century renewal movement inspired a simple Christian ethic by connecting Christian character with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. They sought to cultivate these virtues by reading Scripture together, empowering the common priesthood of believers, and engaging in social and ecclesial reform toward the end of spreading the gospel. Pietism brought together faith and life, Word and deed, and piety and social reform in effort to get back to the basic belief in the power of God's Word to engender faith and to transform human life. This book celebrates Pietism's contribution by telling the stories of three early figures--Philipp Jakob Spener, Johanna Eleonora Petersen, and August Hermann Francke--as they attended to issues of class, gender, poverty, and education through the lens of scripture. In addition to clarifying what historians call "one of the least understood movements in the history of Christianity," this book challenges a religious culture that juxtaposes faith and social action, and it rehabilitates the Pietist heritage and its central role in the birth of Evangelicalism.

Download or read book Reclaiming Pietism written by Roger E. Olson and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical movement known as Pietism emphasized the response of faith and inward transformation as crucial aspects of conversion to Christ. Unfortunately, Pietism today is often equated with a holier-than-thou spiritual attitude, religious legalism, or withdrawal from involvement in society. In this book Roger Olson and Christian Collins Winn argue that classical, historical Pietism is an influential stream in evangelical Christianity and that it must be recovered as a resource for evangelical renewal. They challenge misconceptions of Pietism by describing the origins, development, and main themes of the historical movement and the spiritual-theological ethos stemming from it. The book also explores Pietism s influence on contemporary Christian theologians and spiritual leaders such as Richard Foster and Stanley Grenz. Watch a 2015 interview with the authors of this book here:

Download or read book The Pietist Option written by Christopher Gehrz and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The time has come for Pietism to revitalize Christianity in America. Historian Christopher Gehrz and pastor Mark Pattie argue that the spirit of Pietism, with its emphasis on our walk with Jesus and its vibrant hope for a better future, holds great promise for the church today. Modeled after Philipp Spener's Pia Desideria, this concise and winsome volume introduces Pietism to a new generation.

Download or read book The Devout Life written by Roger Helland and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-10-06 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The church in the Western world is largely faltering in its spiritual and missional vitality. There's a crisis of piety--or the devout life--heartfelt devotion to Christ and his cause. The Pietist movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries grew into a revolutionary torrent of spiritual renewal that influenced the Moravians, the Methodists, the great awakenings, and global evangelicalism as we know it today. The Devout Life explores and expands on ten key features of Pietism to plunge the depths of spiritual renewal for today.

Download or read book The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education written by Christopher Gehrz and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together leading scholars associated with Bethel University, this volume presents a distinctively Pietist approach to Christian higher education, which emphasizes the transformation of the whole person for service to God and neighbor.

Download or read book Reading Kierkegaard I written by Paul Martens and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-01-20 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his posthumously published Journals and Papers, Kierkegaard boldly claimed, "Oh, once I am dead, Fear and Trembling alone will be enough for an imperishable name as an author. Then it will be read, translated into foreign languages as well. The reader will almost shrink from the frightful pathos in the book." Certainly, Fear and Trembling has been translated into foreign languages, and its fame has ensured Kierkegaard's place in the pantheon of Western philosophy. Today, however, most shrink from the book not because of its frightful pathos but because of its fearsome impenetrability. In this first volume of a Reading Kierkegaard miniseries, Martens carefully unfolds the form and content of Kierkegaard's celebrated pseudonymous text, guiding and inviting the reader to embrace the challenge of wrestling with it to the end. Throughout, Martens demonstrates that Fear and Trembling is not merely a book that contains frightful pathos; it is also an entree into Kierkegaard's vibrant and polyphonic corpus that is nearly as restless as the faith it commends.

Download or read book Forgiveness written by Anthony Bash and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-05-11 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many endorse the idea of personal forgiveness without fully understanding its complexity and subtlety. This book is a careful and detailed theological exploration of personal forgiveness. It sets forgiveness in its ancient and biblical context, as well as drawing on contemporary debates among philosophers, psychological therapists, and international relations theorists. Forgiveness is written in a clear, accessible style for both the specialist and the non-specialist, and even the most difficult issues are clearly explained and their significance explored. Anthony Bash seeks to restore forgiveness to the center of Christian doctrine and practice, and to defend its place in personal and public life.

Download or read book Reading 1 Corinthians written by J. Brian Tucker and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-08-23 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Corinthians offers readers a window into the social life and setting of an early Christ-movement congregation. The Apostle Paul's practical guidance to the Corinthians living in a Roman colony overlaps with many contemporary concerns: identity, leadership, sexuality, gender, diversity, worship, theology, and economics. All too often, however, the letter is read in an individualistic and supersessionistic way. Furthermore, parts of the letter are lifted out of their original context and applied in ways foreign to that setting. This book reads the letter through the lens of social identity theory, a leading social scientific method for understanding the New Testament. This reading strategy is supported by a post-supersessionist perspective in which the church is not thought to replace Israel as God's people. The aim of this book is to introduce non-specialists to this fascinating letter in a way that highlights the current research into the social context of Corinth. It offers relevant discussion questions and an identity-critical reading of 1 Corinthians that shows Paul's interest in three key themes: identity, ethics, and ethos.

Download or read book The Canaanites written by Mary Ellen Buck and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-10-30 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term Canaanite will be familiar to anyone who has even the most casual familiarity with the Bible. Outside of the terminology for Israel itself, the Canaanites are the most common ethnic group found in the Bible. They are positioned as the foil of the nation of Israel, and the land of Canaan is depicted as the promised allotment of Abraham and his descendants. The terms Canaan and Canaanites are even evoked in modern political discourse, indicating that their importance extends into the present. With such prominent positioning, it is important to gain a more complete and historically accurate perspective of the Canaanites, their land, history, and rich cultural heritage. So, who were the Canaanites? Where did they live, what did they believe, what do we know about their culture and history, and why do they feature so prominently in the biblical narratives? In this volume, Mary Buck uses original textual and archaeological evidence to answer to these questions. The book follows the history of the Canaanites from their humble origins in the third millennium BCE to the rise of their massive fortified city-states of the Bronze Age, through until their disappearance from the pages of history in the Roman period, only to find their legacy in the politics of the modern Middle East.

Download or read book Healthy Human Life written by James K. Bruckner and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2012-06-18 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Health is God's original created intent: whole persons, healthy relationships, a thriving environment, and ongoing interaction with himself. In the Bible, human health is body-based, community-based, and deeply integrated in a relationship with God's creating Spirit. The Pentateuch, prophets, writings, Gospels, and epistles all are deeply, if not primarily, concerned with the ongoing and ultimate health of God's good creation. Scripture also has a wide perspective on the disruption of human health. It deals with the human tendency to violence, corruption, and self-destructive behaviors. The recently renewed interest in health, vitality, and spirituality of all kinds has led to this articulation of a biblical spirituality in relation to human health. Surprisingly, when we look for spirituality in the Bible, we find real and embodied relationships. Everyone is for health and for the restoration of health. But what are health and healing? How does the Bible describe or define them? Here is the result of ten years of conversations with health care professionals in a master's course on biblical perspectives on health and healing. The biblical witness can transform the way we practice the healing arts. This book provides a biblical foundation for health and its restoration.

Download or read book Approaching Job written by Andrew Zack Lewis and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-03-08 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book of Job has captivated readers for centuries, yet its sprawling dialogues set beside its seemingly simple narrative have also puzzled those who have attempted to understand the ancient book. In this accessible companion, Approaching Job guides pastors, seminarians, and other students of Job through the characters, themes, critical issues, and key passages of one of the greatest pieces of ancient literature. Approaching Job concludes with theological and ethical implications of the biblical book of Job that should generate plenty of discussion in college courses, Bible studies, and even among laypersons attracted to a story of an innocent man who lost everything and struggled to understand why.

Download or read book A Companion to Philemon written by Lewis Brogdon and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When is the last time you heard a sermon, Bible study, or even read the Letter to Philemon? For some the answer is "recently" but for too many the answer is "it has been a long time" or worse yet "never." Why is it that Philemon, though included in the Christian canon, is not read and studied as a text with theological depth that is helpful for serious study and preaching? In A Companion to Philemon, Lewis Brogdon insists that a part of the reason is the interpretation that Paul is sending a thieving runaway slave back to his good master. This interpretation is not only problematic, it is also theologically limiting and offers the church very little to reflect on as we face mammoth issues of inclusion and fellowship such as racism, sexism, and classism. A Companion to Philemon challenges the church to reimagine the interpretation of Philemon by focusing on the role exclusion had in the events that led to his departure from Philemon. Using the issue of exclusion, Brogdon takes the interpretation of Philemon in new directions that not only invite the church to read Philemon but also challenge us to examine both our understanding and practice of Christian fellowship today.

Download or read book Martin Luther as He Lived and Breathed written by Robert Kolb and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Luther’s oft-recounted life made a profound impact on his contemporaries. Some revered him; some hated him. This volume provides a brief narrative of the unfolding events that took place from his birth to a young entrepreneurial family through his turbulent career as university professor and public figure to his death while on a mission to reconcile a feuding princely family. Following parts of this narrative come “interviews” with friends and foes of his time, taken from a variety of sixteenth-century sources that present this dominating reformer and the passions that possessed both those who found him to be God’s end-time prophet and those who hated all that he stood for because they believed it was destroying their world.

Download or read book Understanding Pannenberg written by Anthony C. Thiselton and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-06-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wolfhart Pannenberg has forever changed the face of twentieth-century theology. His book on Christology constituted a turning-point away from Bultmann’s existentialist theology, and convincingly vindicated belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus and its importance for theology. His numerous other works, especially his Systematic Theology, Theological Anthropology, and Theology and the Philosophy of Science, show both depth of learning and an unsurpassed and enviable range of interests. This book aims to explain the vast scope of Pannenberg’s thought, his understanding of the sovereignty and majesty of the God as the God of all reality (not only Israel and the church), who also revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Jesus is not simply the pre-resurrection Jesus of many Gospel narratives, but the raised and exalted Christ of the whole New Testament. Pannenberg shines a light on the centrality of futurity, and of the whole of reality in God’s purposes. Meaning becomes clear in the light of the whole, as his hermeneutics explains. He expounds the role of God as Trinity and the Holy Spirit. His vision of God and the whole world is breath-taking, and often heartening and practical.

Download or read book Christianity and Politics written by C. C. Pecknold and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2010-08-06 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is not simply for rhetorical flourish that politicians so regularly invoke God's blessings on the country. It is because the relatively new form of power we call the nation-state arose out of a Western political imagination steeped in Christianity. In this brief guide to the history of Christianity and politics, Pecknold shows how early Christianity reshaped the Western political imagination with its new theological claims about eschatological time, participation, and communion with God and neighbor. The ancient view of the Church as the "mystical body of Christ" is singled out in particular as the author traces shifts in its use and meaning throughout the early, medieval, and modern periods-shifts in how we understand the nature of the person, community and the moral conscience that would give birth to a new relationship between Christianity and politics. While we have many accounts of this narrative from either political or ecclesiastical history, we have few that avoid the artificial separation of the two. This book fills that gap and presents a readable, concise, and thought-provoking introduction to what is at stake in the contentious relationship between Christianity and politics.

Download or read book Phenomenology written by Donald Wallenfang and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-09-13 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is phenomenology? That is precisely the question this book seeks to answer. In an age of information overload, complex topics must be simplified to make them accessible to a wider audience. Phenomenology: A Basic Introduction in the Light of Jesus Christ not only presents the basic building blocks of phenomenology, it also gives body to voice by putting abstract ideas in contact with the Word made flesh, Jesus of Nazareth. In five manageable chapters, Donald Wallenfang introduces major themes such as the natural attitude, givenness, interpretation, paradox, and ethics. Each subject is considered in how it applies to daily life and relates to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Several biblical scenes are tapped to harvest their sweet nectars of meaning through phenomenology. At its limit, philosophy gives way to the revelatory rationality of theology as expressed by Jesus the phenomenologist.

Download or read book Reading John written by Christopher W. Skinner and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-04-03 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gospel of John is often found at the center of discussions about the Bible and its relation to Christian theology. It is difficult to quantify the impact John's Gospel has had on both the historical development of Christian doctrine and the various expressions of Christian devotion. All too often, however, readers have failed to understand the Gospel as an autonomous text with its own unique story to tell. More often than not, the Gospel of John is swept into a reading approach that either conflates or attempts to harmonize with other accounts of Jesus' life. This book emphasizes the uniqueness of John's story of Jesus and attempts to provide readers with a road map for appreciating the historical context and literary features of the text. The aim of this book is to help others become better, more perceptive readers of the Gospel of John, with an ability to trace the rhetoric of the narrative from beginning to end. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }