Download or read book Encountering World Religions written by Irving Hexham and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The diversity of the world's religions has come to the West, but believers are often ill-equipped for any kind of serious engagement with non-Christians. In Encountering World Religions, professor and author Irving Hexham introduces all the world's major religious traditions in a brief and understandable way. Hexham outlines key beliefs and practices in each religion, while also providing guidance on how to think critically about them from the standpoint of Christian theology. African, yogic, and Abrahamic traditions are all covered. Accessible and clear, Encountering World Religions will provide formal and lay students alike with a useful Christian introduction to the major faiths of our world.

Download or read book Holman Bible Dictionary written by Trent C. Butler and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 1991 with total page 1498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Bible dictionary is an essential resource for anyone who studies the Bible?

Download or read book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God written by Brian Zahnd and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pastor Brian Zahnd began "to question the theology of a wrathful God who delights in punishing sinners, and has started to explore the real nature of Jesus and His Father. The book isn’t only an interesting look at the context of some modern theological ideas; it’s also offers some profound insight into God’s love and eternal plan." —Relevant Magazine (Named one of the Top 10 Books of 2017) God is wrath? Or God is Love? In his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Puritan revivalist Jonathan Edwards shaped predominating American theology with a vision of God as angry, violent, and retributive. Three centuries later, Brian Zahnd was both mesmerized and terrified by Edwards’s wrathful God. Haunted by fear that crippled his relationship with God, Zahnd spent years praying for a divine experience of hell. What Zahnd experienced instead was the Father’s love—revealed perfectly through Jesus Christ—for all prodigal sons and daughters. In Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, Zahnd asks important questions like: Is seeing God primarily as wrathful towards sinners true or biblical? Is fearing God a normal expected behavior? And where might the natural implications of this theological framework lead us? Thoughtfully wrestling with subjects like Old Testament genocide, the crucifixion of Jesus, eternal punishment in hell, and the final judgment in Revelation, Zanhd maintains that the summit of divine revelation for sinners is not God is wrath, but God is love.

Download or read book Beyond Retribution written by Christopher D. Marshall and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently a growing number of Christians have actively promoted the concept of "restorative justice" and attempted to develop programs for dealing with crime based on restorative principles. But is this approach truly consistent with the teaching of Scripture? To date, very little has been done to test this claim. Beyond Retribution fills a gap by plumbing the New Testament on the topics of crime, justice, and punishment. Christopher Marshall first explores the problems involved in applying ethical teachings from the New Testament to mainstream society. He then surveys the extent to which the New Testament addresses criminal justice issues, looking in particular at the concept of the justice of God in the teachings of Paul and Jesus. He also examines the topic of punishment, reviewing the debate in social thinking over the ethics and purpose of punishment -- including capital punishment -- and he advocates a new concept of "restorative punishment." The result of this engaging work is a biblically based challenge to imitate the way of Christ in dealing with both victims and offenders. - Publisher

Download or read book Post mortem Divine Retribution written by Angukali Rotokha and published by Langham Publishing. This book was released on 2023-05-31 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While a Christian understanding of divine judgement tends to focus on the afterlife, the Hebrew Bible is far more concerned with divine retribution as something experienced in this life. Yet if the same God enacts both, should there not be significant continuity between biblical accounts of divine retribution, whether experienced in this world or the hereafter? In this study, Dr. Angukali Rotokha provides an overview of Old Testament and Second Temple sources that express conceptions of post-mortem judgement. Alongside these passages, she examines the perspective on judgement presented in Deuteronomy, with its orientation towards divine retribution as experienced on this side of death. She explores Deuteronomy’s varying emphases on the impersonal, anthropocentric, theocentric, and limited aspects of divine retribution, as well as the relevance of these conceptions to the descriptions of post-mortem judgement found in Isaiah, Daniel, 1 Enoch, and 2 Maccabees. In clarifying points of continuity and discontinuity between earthly and post-mortem divine retribution, she provides a foundation for deeper insight into the Judeo-Christian understanding of both God’s judgement and God’s grace.

Download or read book Richard Rohr written by Chase, Joelle and published by Orbis Books. This book was released on 2018 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawn from the many books, writings, and interviews by Richard Rohr, one of the most popular spiritual writers today, this collections introduces many of the teachings for which he has become known, all organized around the central theme of Love.

Download or read book How the Bible Actually Works written by Peter Enns and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controversial evangelical Bible scholar, popular blogger and podcast host of The Bible for Normal People, and author of The Bible Tells Me So and The Sin of Certainty explains that the Bible is not an instruction manual or rule book but a powerful learning tool that nurtures our spiritual growth by refusing to provide us with easy answers but instead forces us to acquire wisdom. For many Christians, the Bible is a how-to manual filled with literal truths about belief that must be strictly followed. But the Bible is not static, Peter Enns argues. It does not hold easy answers to the perplexing questions and issues that confront us in our daily lives. Rather, the Bible is a dynamic instrument for study that not only offers an abundance of insights but provokes us to find our own answers to spiritual questions, cultivating God’s wisdom within us. “The Bible becomes a confusing mess when we expect it to function as a rulebook for faith. But when we allow the Bible to determine our expectations, we see that Wisdom, not answers, is the Bible’s true subject matter,” writes Enns. This distinction, he points out, is important because when we come to the Bible expecting it to be a textbook intended by God to give us unwavering certainty about our faith, we are actually creating problems for ourselves. The Bible, in other words, really isn’t the problem; having the wrong expectation is what interferes with our reading. Rather than considering the Bible as an ancient book weighed down with problems, flaws, and contradictions that must be defended by modern readers, Enns offers a vision of the holy scriptures as an inspired and empowering resource to help us better understand how to live as a person of faith today. How the Bible Actually Works makes clear that there is no one right way to read the Bible. Moving us beyond the damaging idea that “being right” is the most important measure of faith, Enns’s freeing approach to Bible study helps us to instead focus on pursuing enlightenment and building our relationship with God—which is exactly what the Bible was designed to do.

Download or read book The Wise Advocate written by Art Kleiner and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leadership is the habit of making good choices. Even in difficult and uncertain circumstances, the most effective leaders focus their attention and overcome entrenched patterns of behavior to push an organization to new heights of success. This capability is no fluke: the latest research on the brain shows that we can pinpoint the mental activity associated with it—and cultivate it for our benefit. In this book, Art Kleiner, a strategy expert; Jeffrey Schwartz, a research psychiatrist; and Josie Thomson, an executive coach, give a transformative explanation of how cutting-edge neuroscience can help business leaders set a course toward better management. Mapping the functions of a manager onto established patterns of mental activity, they identify crucial brain circuits and their parallels in organizational culture. Strategic leaders, they show, play the role of wise advocates: able to go beyond day-to-day transactional behavior to a longer-term, broader perspective that articulates their organization’s deeper purpose. True leaders can play this influencer role in an organization because they have cultivated similar self-reflective habits in their own minds. Providing a powerful guide to decision strategies and their consequences, The Wise Advocate helps managers find their own inner voice and then make that voice ring out loud and clear, with a four-step program for practice and catalytic implications for management strategy, executive education, and business results.

Download or read book The Problem of God Yesterday and Today written by John Courtney Murray and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1964-01-01 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an urbane and persuasive tract for our time, the distinguished Catholic theologian combines a comprehensive metaphysics with a sensitivity to contemporary existentialist thought. Father Murray traces the “problem of God” from its origins in the Old Testament, through its development in the Christian Fathers and the definitive statement by Aquinas, to its denial by modern materialism. Students and nonspecialist intellectuals may both benefit by the book, which illuminates the problem of development of doctrine that is now, even more than in the days of Newman, a fundamental issue between Roman Catholic and Protestant, theologians and nonspecialst intellectuals alike will find the subject of vital interest. As a challenge to the ecumenical dialogue, the question is raised whether, in the course of its development through different phases, the problem of God has come back to its original position. Father Murray is Ordinary professor of theology at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. St. Thomas More Lectures, 1. "A gem of a book—lucid, illuminating, brilliantly written. A fine contribution to the current Catholic theological renaissance."—Paul Weiss.

Download or read book The Skeletons in God s Closet written by Joshua Ryan Butler and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can a loving God send people to hell? Isn’t it arrogant to believe Jesus is the only way to God? What is up with holy war in the Old Testament? Many of us fear God has some skeletons in the closet. Hell, judgment, and holy war are hot topics for the Christian faith that have a way of igniting fierce debate far and wide. These hard questions leave many wondering whether God is really good and can truly be trusted. The Skeletons in God's Closet confronts our popular caricatures of these difficult topics with the beauty and power of the real thing. Josh Butler reveals that these subjects are consistent with, rather than contradictory to, the goodness of God. He explores Scripture to reveal the plotlines that make sense of these tough topics in light of God’s goodness. From fresh angles, Josh deals powerfully with such difficult passages as: The Lake of Fire Lazarus and the Rich Man The Slaughter of Canaanites in the Old Testament Ultimately, The Skeletons in God's Close uses our toughest questions to provoke paradigm shifts in how we understand our faith as a whole. It pulls the “skeletons out of God’s closet” to reveal they were never really skeletons at all.

Download or read book The Love That Is God written by Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “God is love is the radical claim of Christianity,” writes Frederick Bauerschmidt at the beginning of this little meditation on the essentials of Christian faith. In a rich yet accessible style reminiscent of C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton, Bauerschmidt breathes life back into that claim, drawing from Scripture, great Christian and non-Christian writers of the past, and his own lived experience to show just how countercultural and subversive Christianity is actually meant to be. Eschewing the abstract and dogmatic in favor of the relational and inviting, he offers something for everyone, from lifelong churchgoers and students of religion to the growing population of “nones” among younger generations who are increasingly seeking spiritual fulfillment outside of institutional Christianity. With further reading suggestions (both scriptural and nonscriptural) at the end of each chapter, The Love That Is God is the perfect starting point of a spiritual journey into deeper relationship with God. Michael Ramsey Prize (2023)

Download or read book When God Wanted to Destroy the Chosen People written by Gili Kugler and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to narratives in the Bible the threats of the people’s end come from various sources, but the most significant threat comes, as learned from the Pentateuch, from God himself. What is the theological meaning of this tradition? In what circumstances did it evolve? How did it stand alongside other theological and socio-political concepts known to the ancient authors and their diverse audience? The book employs a diachronic method that explores the stages of the tradition’s formation and development, revealing the authors’ exegetical purposes and ploys, and tracing the historical realities of their time. The book proposes that the motif of the threat of destruction existed in various forms prior to the creation of the stories recorded in the final text of the Pentateuch. The inclusion of the motif within specific literary contexts attenuated the concept of destruction by presenting it as a phenomenon of specific moments in the past. Nevertheless, the threat was resurrected repeatedly by various authors, for use as a precedent or a justification for present affliction.

Download or read book God of Becoming and Relationship written by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, DHL and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You no longer have to choose between what you know and what you believe—an accessible introduction to a theological game-changer. "I wrote this book for you if you want to be able to locate your life in a single, encompassing story, one that includes everything from the first moment the universe began until yesterday, a narrative that embraces deepest personal meaning, a yearning to love and be loved, a quest for social justice and compassion." —from the Introduction Much of what you were told you should believe when you were younger forces you to choose between your spirit and your intellect, between science and religion, between morality and dogma: unchanging laws of nature vs. miracles that sound magical; a good God vs. the tragedies that strike all living creatures; a God who knows the future absolutely vs. an open future that you help to shape through your choices. This fascinating introduction to Process Theology from a Jewish perspective shows that these are false choices. Inspiring speaker, spiritual leader and philosopher Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson presents an overview of what Process Theology is and what it can mean for your spiritual life. He explains how Process Theology can break you free from the strictures of ancient Greek and medieval European philosophy, allowing you to see all creation not as this or that, us or them, but as related patterns of energy through which we connect to everything. Armed with Process insights and tools, you can break free from outdated religious dichotomies and affirm that your religiosity, your spirit, your mind and your ethics all strengthen and refine each other.

Download or read book God Can t written by Thomas Jay Oord and published by SacraSage Press. This book was released on 2019-01-05 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hurting people ask heart-felt questions about God and suffering. Some "answers" they receive appeal to mystery: “God’s ways are not our ways”. Some answers say God allows evil for a greater purpose. Some say evil is God's punishment. The usual answers fail. They don't support the truth that God loves everyone all the time. God Can't gives a believable answer to why a good and powerful God doesn't prevent evil. Author Thomas Jay Oord says God’s love is inherently uncontrolling. God loves everyone and everything, so God can't control anyone or anything. This means God cannot prevent evil singlehandedly. God can’t stop evildoers, whether human, animal, organism, or inanimate objects and forces. In God Can't, Oord gives a plausible reason why some are healed, but many others are not. God always works to heal everyone, but sometimes our bodies, organisms, or other creatures do not cooperate with God's healing work. Or the conditions of creation are not right for the healing God wants to do. Some people think God causes or allows suffering to teach us lessons or build our character. God Can't disagrees. Oord says God squeezes good from the evil God didn’t want in the first place. God uses pain and suffering without willing or even allowing it. Most people think God can overcome evil singlehandedly. In God Can't, Oord says God needs cooperation for love to reign now and later. This leads to a better view of the afterlife called “relentless love.” It rejects traditional ideas of heaven, hell, and annihilation. Relentless love holds to the possibility all creatures and all creation will respond to God’s love. God Can't is written in understandable language. As a world-renown theologian, Thomas Jay Oord brings credibility to the book’s radical ideas. He explains these ideas through true stories, illustrations, and scripture. God Can't is for those who want answers to tragedy, abuse, and other evils that make sense! What They're Saying... “If conventional notions of God make less and less sense to you, you’ll find Thomas Jay Oord’s new book a breath of fresh air. Simply put, “God Can’t” presents an understanding of God that thoughtful, ethical people can believe in.” -- Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration "I did not want this book to end. I wish Dr. Oord had written it 100 years ago, or 1000 years ago... To find your understanding of life and your love for God renewed, read this book." -- Dr. Karen Strand Winslow, Ph.D., Biblical and Jewish Studies Professor of Bible, Azusa Pacific University "As a clinical psychologist working with people in trauma, I owe Thomas Jay Oord an enormous debt of gratitude for recasting the so-called problem of evil in terms that are conceptually satisfying, theologically consistent, and pastorally liberating.” -- Dr Roger Bretherton- Principal Lecturer at the University of Lincoln (UK), Chair of the British Association of Christians in Psychology “Victims of trauma sometimes hear theological responses that imply their suffering is somehow “God’s will." A more careful theological reflection on the nature of the power of a God who is love can help. Oord gives us a clear and compelling alternative in this profoundly insightful and admirably concrete and accessible book.” -- Dr. Anna Case-Winters, Professor of Theology at McCormick Theological Seminary “I know of no book that speaks to suffering with the depth of theological sophistication and psychological sensitivity as God Can’t. This book is a rare combination of depth and accessibility, truly written for the wounded. I recommend it to my students, parishioners, and therapy clients.” -- Dr. Brad D. Strawn, Professor of the Integration of Psychology and Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary

Download or read book A Farewell to Mars written by Brian Zahnd and published by David C Cook. This book was released on 2014-06-01 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We know Jesus the Savior, but have we met Jesus, Prince of Peace? When did we accept vengeance as an acceptable part of the Christian life? How did violence and power seep into our understanding of faith and grace? For those troubled by this trend toward the sword, perhaps there is a better way. What if the message of Jesus differs radically differs from the drumbeats of war we hear all around us? Using his own journey from war crier to peacemaker and his in-depth study of peace in the scriptures, author and pastor Brian Zahnd reintroduces us to the gospel of Peace.

Download or read book Jesus written by Bart D. Ehrman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-09-23 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly accessible discussion, Bart Ehrman examines the most recent textual and archaeological sources for the life of Jesus, along with the history of first-century Palestine, drawing a fascinating portrait of the man and his teachings. Ehrman shows us what historians have long known about the Gospels and the man who stands behind them. Through a careful evaluation of the New Testament (and other surviving sources, including the more recently discovered Gospels of Thomas and Peter), Ehrman proposes that Jesus can be best understood as an apocalyptic prophet--a man convinced that the world would end dramatically within the lifetime of his apostles and that a new kingdom would be created on earth. According to Ehrman, Jesus' belief in a coming apocalypse and his expectation of an utter reversal in the world's social organization not only underscores the radicalism of his teachings but also sheds light on both the appeal of his message to society's outcasts and the threat he posed to Jerusalem's established leadership.

Download or read book Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity written by Gary B. Ferngren and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2016-08 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on New Testament studies and recent scholarship on the expansion of the Christian church, Gary B. Ferngren presents a comprehensive historical account of medicine and medical philanthropy in the first five centuries of the Christian era. Ferngren first describes how early Christians understood disease. He examines the relationship of early Christian medicine to the natural and supernatural modes of healing found in the Bible. Despite biblical accounts of demonic possession and miraculous healing, Ferngren argues that early Christians generally accepted naturalistic assumptions about disease and cared for the sick with medical knowledge gleaned from the Greeks and Romans. Ferngren also explores the origins of medical philanthropy in the early Christian church. Rather than viewing illness as punishment for sins, early Christians believed that the sick deserved both medical assistance and compassion. Even as they were being persecuted, Christians cared for the sick within and outside of their community. Their long experience in medical charity led to the creation of the first hospitals, a singular Christian contribution to health care. "A succinct, thoughtful, well-written, and carefully argued assessment of Christian involvement with medical matters in the first five centuries of the common era . . . It is to Ferngren's credit that he has opened questions and explored them so astutely. This fine work looks forward as well as backward; it invites fuller reflection of the many senses in which medicine and religion intersect and merits wide readership."—Journal of the American Medical Association "In this superb work of historical and conceptual scholarship, Ferngren unfolds for the reader a cultural milieu of healing practices during the early centuries of Christianity."—Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith "Readable and widely researched . . . an important book for mission studies and American Catholic movements, the book posits the question of what can take its place in today's challenging religious culture."—Missiology: An International Review Gary B. Ferngren is a professor of history at Oregon State University and a professor of the history of medicine at First Moscow State Medical University. He is the author of Medicine and Religion: A Historical Introduction and the editor of Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction.