Download or read book Post Christendom written by Stuart Murray and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-01-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western societies are experiencing a series of disorientating culture shifts. Uncertain where we are heading, observers use "post" words to signal that familiar landmarks are disappearing, but we cannot yet discern the shape of what is emerging. One of the most significant shifts, "post-Christendom," raises many questions about the mission and role of the church in this strange new world. What does it mean to be one of many minorities in a culture that the church no longer dominates? How do followers of Jesus engage in mission from the margins? What do we bring with us as precious resources from the fading Christendom era, and what do we lay down as baggage that will weigh us down on our journey into post-Christendom? Post-Christendom identifies the challenges and opportunities of this unsettling but exciting time. Stuart Murray presents an overview of the formation and development of the Christendom system, examines the legacies this has left, and highlights the questions that the Christian community needs to consider in this period of cultural transition.

Download or read book Post Christendom 2nd Edition written by Stuart Murray and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-30 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western societies are experiencing a series of disorientating culture shifts. Uncertain where we are heading, observers use "post" words to signal that familiar landmarks are disappearing, but we cannot yet discern the shape of what is emerging. One of the most significant shifts, "post-Christendom," raises many questions about the mission and role of the church in this strange new world. What does it mean to be one of many minorities in a culture that the church no longer dominates? How do followers of Jesus engage in mission from the margins? What do we bring with us as precious resources from the fading Christendom era, and what do we lay down as baggage that will weigh us down on our journey into post-Christendom? Post-Christendom identifies the challenges and opportunities of this unsettling but exciting time. In the second edition of this provocative and important book, Stuart Murray presents an overview of the formation and development of the Christendom system, examines the legacies this has left, and highlights the questions that the Christian community needs to consider in this period of cultural transition.

Download or read book The Rise of Western Christendom written by Peter Brown and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-12-18 with total page 741 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This tenth anniversary revised edition of the authoritative text on Christianity's first thousand years of history features a new preface, additional color images, and an updated bibliography. The essential general survey of medieval European Christendom, Brown's vivid prose charts the compelling and tumultuous rise of an institution that came to wield enormous religious and secular power. Clear and vivid history of Christianity's rise and its pivotal role in the making of Europe Written by the celebrated Princeton scholar who originated of the field of study known as 'late antiquity' Includes a fully updated bibliography and index

Download or read book Politics after Christendom written by David VanDrunen and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a millennium, beginning in the early Middle Ages, most Western Christians lived in societies that sought to be comprehensively Christian--ecclesiastically, economically, legally, and politically. That is to say, most Western Christians lived in Christendom. But in a gradual process beginning a few hundred years ago, Christendom weakened and finally crumbled. Today, most Christians in the world live in pluralistic political communities. And Christians themselves have very different opinions about what to make of the demise of Christendom and how to understand their status and responsibilities in a post-Christendom world. Politics After Christendom argues that Scripture leaves Christians well-equipped for living in a world such as this. Scripture gives no indication that Christians should strive to establish some version of Christendom. Instead, it prepares them to live in societies that are indifferent or hostile to Christianity, societies in which believers must live faithful lives as sojourners and exiles. Politics After Christendom explains what Scripture teaches about political community and about Christians' responsibilities within their own communities. As it pursues this task, Politics After Christendom makes use of several important theological ideas that Christian thinkers have developed over the centuries. These ideas include Augustine's Two-Cities concept, the Reformation Two-Kingdoms category, natural law, and a theology of the biblical covenants. Politics After Christendom brings these ideas together in a distinctive way to present a model for Christian political engagement. In doing so, it interacts with many important thinkers, including older theologians (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin), recent secular political theorists (e.g., Rawls, Hayek, and Dworkin), contemporary political-theologians (e.g., Hauerwas, O'Donovan, and Wolterstorff), and contemporary Christian cultural commentators (e.g., MacIntyre, Hunter, and Dreher). Part 1 presents a political theology through a careful study of the biblical story, giving special attention to the covenants God has established with his creation and how these covenants inform a proper view of political community. Part 1 argues that civil governments are legitimate but penultimate, and common but not neutral. It concludes that Christians should understand themselves as sojourners and exiles in their political communities. They ought to pursue justice, peace, and excellence in these communities, but remember that these communities are temporary and thus not confuse them with the everlasting kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians' ultimate citizenship is in this new-creation kingdom. Part 2 reflects on how the political theology developed in Part 1 provides Christians with a framework for thinking about perennial issues of political and legal theory. Part 2 does not set out a detailed public policy or promote a particular political ideology. Rather, it suggests how Christians might think about important social issues in a wise and theologically sound way, so that they might be better equipped to respond well to the specific controversies they face today. These issues include race, religious liberty, family, economics, justice, rights, authority, and civil resistance. After considering these matters, Part 2 concludes by reflecting on the classical liberal and conservative traditions, as well as recent challenges to them by nationalist and progressivist movements.

Download or read book Pilgrims and Priests written by Stefan Paas and published by SCM Press. This book was released on 2019-11-30 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does “missional” mean for small Christian communities in a deeply secular society? Leading missiologist Stefan Paas asks what missional spirituality could possibly mean for today’s local church. This fully revised new international edition will make this an important introduction to contemporary thinking on mission and the church.

Download or read book The Next Christendom written by Philip Jenkins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new and substantially expanded Third Edition, Philip Jenkins continues to illuminate the remarkable expansion of Christianity in the global South--in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Drawing upon the extensive new scholarship that has appeared on this topic in recent years, he asks how the new Christianity is likely to affect the poor, among whom it finds its most devoted adherents. How should we interpret the enormous success of prosperity churches across the Global South? Politically, what will be the impact of new Christian movements? Will Christianity contribute to liberating the poor, to give voices to the previously silent, or does it threaten only to bring new kinds of division and conflict? Does Christianity liberate women, or introduce new scriptural bases for subjection? Acclaim for previous editions of The Next Christendom: Named one of the Top Religion Books of 2002 by USA Today Named One of the Top Ten Religion Books of the Year by Booklist (2002) Winner of the Christianity Today Book Award in the category of "Christianity and Culture" (2002) "Jenkins is to be commended for reminding us, throughout the often gripping pages of this lively work...that the history of Christianity is the history of innovative--and unpredictable--adaptations." --The New York Times Book Review "This is a landmark book. Jenkin's thesis is comprehensively researched; his analysis is full of insight; and his projection of the future may indeed prove to be prophetic." --Baptist Times "A valuable and provocative look at the phenomenon widely ignored in the affluent North but likely to be of enormous importance in the century ahead.... The Next Christendom is chillingly realistic about the relationship between Christianity and Islam." --Russell Shaw, Crisis "If the times demand nothing less than a major rethinking of contemporary global history from a Christian perspective, The Next Christendom will be one of the significant landmarks pointing the way." --Mark Noll, Books & Culture

Download or read book Post Christendom written by Stuart Murray and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-01-10 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western societies are experiencing a series of disorientating culture shifts. Uncertain where we are heading, observers use “post” words to signal that familiar landmarks are disappearing, but we cannot yet discern the shape of what is emerging. One of the most significant shifts, “post-Christendom,” raises many questions about the mission and role of the church in this strange new world. What does it mean to be one of many minorities in a culture that the church no longer dominates? How do followers of Jesus engage in mission from the margins? What do we bring with us as precious resources from the fading Christendom era, and what do we lay down as baggage that will weigh us down on our journey into post-Christendom? Post-Christendom identifies the challenges and opportunities of this unsettling but exciting time. Stuart Murray presents an overview of the formation and development of the Christendom system, examines the legacies this has left, and highlights the questions that the Christian community needs to consider in this period of cultural transition.

Download or read book Evangelism after Pluralism written by Bryan Stone and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to evangelize ethically in a multicultural climate? Following his successful Evangelism after Christendom, Bryan Stone addresses reasons evangelism often fails and explains how it can become distorted as a Christian practice. Stone urges us to consider a new approach, arguing for evangelism as a work of imagination and a witness to beauty rather than a crass effort to compete for converts in pluralistic contexts. He shows that the way we lead our lives as Christians is the most meaningful tool of evangelism in today's rapidly changing world.

Download or read book Hell and Heaven in Narrative Perspective written by Andrew Perriman and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-09 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate about "hell" is always going to be a difficult one. This collection of essays from postost.net addresses important aspects of the current debate, arguing for a radical revision of the evangelical understanding not only of hell but also of heaven on the basis of a "narrative-historical" reading of the New Testament. Punishment and reward are part of the story of what was happening to the people of God as it passed through a long and painful transition from national Israel under the Law to a cosmopolitan, empire-wide community under Jesus. This approach forces us to rethink some traditional assumptions about who we are and where we are going. Through his blogging and books Andrew Perriman is pushing for a renewal of evangelical thought and practice in an increasingly post-Christian era.

Download or read book The Mystic Way of Evangelism written by Elaine A. Heath and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elaine Heath brings a fresh perspective to the theory and practice of evangelism by approaching it through contemplative spirituality. This thoroughly revised edition includes a new study guide. Praise for the First Edition Outreach Resource of the Year Award Winner "[Heath's] biographies of the mystics are inspiring, and her emphases on suffering and spiritual depth as the antidote to a prepackaged, method-obsessed, consumer-oriented evangelistic approach are refreshing."--Outreach

Download or read book A Vast Minority written by Stuart Murray and published by Paternoster. This book was released on 2022-01-14 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the past century the advance of secularism, the growth of other religious communities and the decline of the churches have combined to reduce the size and influence of the Christian community. Christians are now members of a minority religious community in a plural society. How is this diminished status to be understood in a global and historical context, within the purposes of God? What institutional changes are required? What psychological and emotional adjustments are needed in communities that have a corporate memory of majority status, privilege and influence? What hopes and expectations should be encouraged? What strategies should be adopted? A Vast Minority explores the challenges and opportunities we face. - Publisher

Download or read book After Mission Beyond Evangelicalism written by Najib George Awad and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-11-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After-Mission touches on on three questions.The first question is about self-perception and identity-formation strategies, and the various views that we have on the Protestants’ relation to their Arab Muslim Middle Eastern context. The second question, about the theological dimension, asks what kind of a theological discourse do the Protestants need to develop, and how do they need to re-form their own theological heritage, in such a manner that will allow them to heal the historical enmity and suspicion towards them from the Eastern Orthodox Christian community in the region? Finally, the third question touches on the Protestants’ future in the Arab Muslim Middle East by viewing this inquiry from a broader perspective that is related to all the Middle Eastern Christian communities’ presence and role in the Muslim-majority context. The question of identity formation, and the managing of difference without trapping it in the mud of ‘otherizing and self-otherizing’, will also be tackled, so that the theological dimension is integrated with the broader, multifaceted contextual one.

Download or read book Security after Christendom written by John Heathershaw and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2024-02-13 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in the wealthiest and most heavily defended world in history, so why do we feel so insecure? In a secular world, what does Christian theology have to say about this problem? Security after Christendom combines practical examples, social scientific research, and an ecumenical approach to political theology to answer these questions. It argues that Christendom was a plural phenomenon of imagined security communities of East and West whose unravelling continues to have implications for global politics today, as dramatically illustrated by Russia's war in Ukraine. While notions of a new Christendom are idolatrous and delusional, secular imaginaries of national security or the liberal international order are both destructive and unstable. True security--radical inclusion, nonviolent protection, and abundant provision--is an eschatological phenomenon, inaugurated by Christ. Security after Christendom is neither found in faithful government nor an exclusive church-as-polis approach but in relations of tension where the fallen powers are continuously confronted by prophetic practices. A post-Christendom community expresses its love for the world by seeking its security, providentially limiting the disorders of the secular age, and offering glimmers of a new earth.

Download or read book The Church in Exile written by Lee Beach and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2015-01-05 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The church in North America today lives in a post-Christian society. Lee Beach helps the people of God today to develop a hopeful and prophetic imagination, a theology responsive to its context, and an exilic identity marked by faithfulness to God's mission in the world.

Download or read book Salt Light and a City Second Edition written by Graham Joseph Hill and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Graham Hill's pioneering classic remains the seminal work on missional ecclesiology. The bestselling first edition redefined theology for the missional church. Hill builds biblical foundations in conversation with major theologians, including Sarah Coakley, John Zizioulas, Stanley Hauerwas, Miroslav Volf, and Jurgen Moltmann. In this major update, he offers new insights and provides fresh examples of missional churches. In the first edition, Hill interacted with twelve major theologians to build a missional ecclesiology. In this thoroughly updated edition, he interacts with sixteen major theologians from the Western world. This edition includes five new chapters and an expanded treatment on the key convictions of global missional theology. It also offers a new study guide that has been uploaded on an innovative website linked to this book. This expanded edition now becomes volume 1 in a series on missional ecclesiology. In volume 2, Hill will turn our attention to voices from the Majority World. Known for his groundbreaking approach to theology--theology for the global missional community--Hill shows how God is releasing his global church to mission, across all cultures and Christian traditions. This extensive update to Hill's influential work offers pioneering theology and practices that will continue to shape the global missional church for generations. Contributors: 1. Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI): The Church as Communion 2. Karl Rahner: The Church as Community of Witness 3. Hans Kung: The Church as Eschatological Community of Salvation 4. Catherine LaCugna: The Church as Trinitarian Community Eastern Orthodox 5. Thomas Hopko: The Church as Fullness of God 6. Vigen Guroian: The Church as Peculiar and Ethical Community 7. John Zizioulas: The Church as Eucharistic Communion 8. Frederica Matthews Greene: The Church as Praying and Transformed Community Protestant 9. Letty Russell: The Church as Household of Freedom 10. Jurgen Moltmann: The Church as Messianic and Relational Koinonia 11. John Webster: The Church as Communion of Saints 12. Dana L. Robert: The Church as Global and Missional People Free Church 13. John Howard Yoder: The Church as New, Redeemed Community 14. Barry Harvey: The Church as Altera Civitas 15. Miroslav Volf: The Church as Image of the Trinity 16. Reta Halteman Finger: The Church as World-Transforming Homes

Download or read book A Year of Biblical Womanhood written by Rachel Held Evans and published by Thomas Nelson Inc. This book was released on 2012 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller. With just the right mixture of humor and insight, compassion and incredulity, A Year of Biblical Womanhood is an exercise in scriptural exploration and spiritual contemplation. What does God truly expect of women, and is there really a prescription for biblical womanhood? Come along with Evans as she looks for answers in the rich heritage of biblical heroines, models of grace, and all-around women of valor. What is "biblical womanhood" . . . really? Strong-willed and independent, Rachel Held Evans couldn't sew a button on a blouse before she embarked on a radical life experiment--a year of biblical womanhood. Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible's instructions for women as literally as possible for a year. Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a "gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period. See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as "master" and "praises him at the city gate" with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women.

Download or read book Paul Among the Postliberals written by Douglas Harink and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2013-08-14 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is changing my mind on more themes...than any publication since Hans Frei's The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative." -George LIndbeck, Yale University "Harink brings several postliberal theologians - mainly Yoder and Hauerwas - into genuine conversation with the church's original apocalyptic theologian, the Apostle Paul. The engaging result is a call for the church to return to its true vocation as an uncompromising critic of the state's omnivorous appetite for our loayalties. But that is the vocation found in the politics of the cross, in which the suffering and victorious God has redemptively invaded the captive world, thus calling into being the community that Paul speaks of as 'the new creation.'... The attentive reader of Harink's book will come away, then, with an energized hope for the whole of humanity, a hope focused on the corporate, political nature of God's apocalyptic invasion in Christ." -J. Louis Martyn, Union Theological Seminary "Sets new standards for all who dare to aspire to theological engagement with Scripture." -Michael Cartwright, University of Indianapolis "Doug Harink has knocked a hole in the artificial wall separating the theological disciplines and has established a working coalition between two scholarly enterprises--the various 'new perspectives' that seek to supplant older reformational models of interpreting Paul, and the work of various theologians who seek to subvert the established theological strategy of accommodating the gospel to the canons and criteria of modernity...A unique and highly significant contribution." -Terence L. Donaldson, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto "One of the most creative and exciting books that I have read in years. Instead of decrying the gap between theology and biblical studies, ...Harink simply closes the gap by bringing together the best in recent biblical and theological studies. In its direct reading of the biblical text, this book represents a new stage in the development of postliberal theology." -Jonathan R. Wilson, Westmont College