Download or read book Recovering Communion in a Violent World written by Christopher Grundy and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The act of breaking and eating a body in Holy Communion forms us over time. What if that’s not such a good thing? Recovering Communion in a Violent World provides an unblinking examination of the ritualized reenactment of the violence done to Jesus in Holy Communion, using insights from the fields of ritual studies and trauma theory. Then, drawing upon recent research in Christian origins, the book raises possibilities for sacramental meal practices that don’t ignore the death of Jesus but respond to it differently. Rather than colluding with systems of violence, these alternative practices respond to violence in our world by continuing to collaborate with the persistence and resilience of God, as well as with the realm of God still coming near. The result is a groundbreaking exploration that is both unflinching in its critique and passionate in its argument for the place of renewed Christian meal practices. In an era when world religions have come under greater scrutiny as sources of violence, this book asks readers to look squarely at the reenactment of violence that has come to narrowly define Holy Communion for so long and to imagine that more radical, resistant sacramental meal practices are possible.
Download or read book The Work of the People written by Marlea Gilbert and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006-12-31 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Worship is the work of the people of God. Patterns of worship shape how we pray and how we live. Despite its centrality to church life, worship is too often taken for granted as something a congregation experiences rather than collectively creates. The Work of the People simply and clearly explains the structure of worship, the actions and words we use in liturgy, the environment in which it all happens--in other words, what we are doing and why. This book will guide congregations in worshiping in a way that encourages participants' spiritual growth, welcomes new participants into faith, and sends people out as the body of Christ to transform the world. Respectful of local custom and the traditions and practices of the Church as a whole, The Work of the People will help worship leaders make the best use of their congregation's resources and clarify their choices about how they will worship together. Built around a basic service--gathering, service of the Word, Eucharist, and sending--this book is both theological and practical, and encourages all worshipers' active participation in Spirit-led worship of the God of all Creation.
Download or read book T T Clark Handbook of Sacraments and Sacramentality written by Martha Moore-Keish and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-29 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing readers to the contemporary field of sacramental theology, this volume covers the biblical and historical foundations, a survey of the state of the discipline, and a collection of constructive essays representing major themes, practices and approaches to sacraments and sacramentality in the contemporary world. The volume starts with a set of foundational essays that offer broad introduction to the field of sacramental theology from contemporary scholars, analysing a number of historical figures in order to illumine and inform contemporary sacramental theology. The second part of the volume is dedicated to a series of essays on sacramentality, and includes attention to elements of space, time, ritual action, music, and word, all as aspects of what Christians have termed “sacramental” reality. The third set of essays includes attention to each of the seven practices that have most commonly been termed “sacraments” in Christian traditions: baptism; eucharist/Lord's Supper; confirmation; confession, forgiveness and reconciliation; marriage; ordination; and anointing. The final part of this volume features scholars who are working on sacraments in conversation with contemporary academic disciplines: critical race theory, queer theory, comparative theology, and disability studies.
Download or read book Faith After Doubt written by Brian D. McLaren and published by St. Martin's Essentials. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of A New Kind of Christianity comes a bold proposal: only doubt can save the world and your faith. ONE of the Best Spiritual Books of 2021—Spirituality & Practice "Will help you live fuller and breathe easier..” —Glennon Doyle Sixty-five million adults in the U.S. have dropped out of active church attendance and about 2.7 million more are leaving every year. Faith After Doubt is for the millions of people around the world who feel that their faith is falling apart. Using his own story and the stories of a diverse group of struggling believers, Brian D. McLaren, a former pastor and now an author, speaker, and activist shows how old assumptions are being challenged in nearly every area of human life, not just theology and spirituality. He proposes a four-stage model of faith development in which questions and doubt are not the enemy of faith, but rather a portal to a more mature and fruitful kind of faith. The four stages—Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Harmony—offer a path forward that can help sincere and thoughtful people leave behind unnecessary baggage and intensify their commitment to what matters most.
Download or read book Meditation and Communion with God written by John Jefferson Davis and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2012-08-02 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Jefferson Davis summons the resources of traditional biblical meditation for a culture lost in the cloud. He establishes the trinitarian view of God's real presence in Scripture and then ushers readers through three successive stages of meditation--consummating in a method for deep assimilation of the Christian worldview.
Download or read book Retrieving Doctrine written by Oliver D. Crisp and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oliver Crisp offers a set of essays that analyze the significance and contribution of several great thinkers in the Reformed tradition, ranging from John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards to Karl Barth. Crisp explains how these thinkers navigated pressing theological issues and how contemporary readers can draw relevant insights from the tradition.
Download or read book Christ Baptism and the Lord s Supper written by Leonard J. Vander Zee and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2004-08-10 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leonard J. Vander Zee makes a compelling connection between Baptism and the Lord's Supper and the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God.
Download or read book Abundant Lives written by Amanda Udis-Kessler and published by The Pilgrim Press. This book was released on 2024-05-01 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the purpose of freedom, of rights, of justice, if those concepts are debated but do not tangibly contribute to human flourishing? Abundant Lives: A Progressive Christian Ethic of Flourishing invites sociologically informed engagement in human well-being, based on Jesus’ command to love God, our neighbors, ourselves, and our enemies. Author Amanda Udis-Kessler, PhD, provokes rich conversations so we might understand – and enact – the Kindom of God as a realm of human and planetary flourishing. A former sociology professor, Amanda Udis-Kessler (PhD, Boston College; certificate, Iliff School of Theology) is an author of academic and liturgical writings and composer of progressive sacred music.
Download or read book Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays written by Paul Kingsnorth and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative and urgent essay collection that asks how we can live with hope in “an age of ecocide” Paul Kingsnorth was once an activist—an ardent environmentalist. He fought against rampant development and the depredations of a corporate world that seemed hell-bent on ignoring a looming climate crisis in its relentless pursuit of profit. But as the environmental movement began to focus on “sustainability” rather than the defense of wild places for their own sake and as global conditions worsened, he grew disenchanted with the movement that he once embraced. He gave up what he saw as the false hope that residents of the First World would ever make the kind of sacrifices that might avert the severe consequences of climate change. Full of grief and fury as well as passionate, lyrical evocations of nature and the wild, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist gathers the wave-making essays that have charted the change in Kingsnorth’s thinking. In them he articulates a new vision that he calls “dark ecology,” which stands firmly in opposition to the belief that technology can save us, and he argues for a renewed balance between the human and nonhuman worlds. This iconoclastic, fearless, and ultimately hopeful book, which includes the much-discussed “Uncivilization” manifesto, asks hard questions about how we’ve lived and how we should live.
Download or read book Mark as Recovery Story written by John C. Mellon and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark as Recovery Story interprets the Gospel of Mark in terms of alcoholism and Twelve-Step recovery. Identifying numerous previously unrecognized ambiguities in the gospel's Greek text, John Mellon portrays Mark's mysterious "insider" audience as a fellowship of ex-inebriates turned waterdrinkers, alcoholics whose spirituality of powerlessness resembled that of Alcoholics Anonymous today. Mellon discovers in Mark, the most enigmatic of the Jesus narratives, genre features of the former drunkard's sobriety story, and he reconstructs the first-person story Jesus would have told on his return to Galilee, culminating in his Last Supper words about wine and his Gethsemane prayer for removal of the cup.
Download or read book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Revised Edition written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2021-01-11 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Guide to Navigate Evangelical Feminism In a society where gender roles are a hot-button topic, the church is not immune to the controversy. In fact, the church has wrestled with varying degrees of evangelical feminism for decades. As evangelical feminism has crept into the church, time-trusted resources like Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood help remind Christians of what the Bible has to say. In this edition of the award-winning best seller, more than 20 influential men and women such as John Piper, Wayne Grudem, D. A. Carson, and Elisabeth Elliot offer thought-provoking essays responding to the challenge egalitarianism poses to life in the church and in the home. Covering topics like role distinctions in the church, how biblical manhood and womanhood should work out in practice, and women in the history of the church, this helpful resource will help readers learn to orient their beliefs with God's unchanging word in an ever-changing culture.
Download or read book Bringing Theology to Life written by Darren C. Marks and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2009-09-20 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this engaging text Darren Marks provides a refreshing introduction to Christian faith that will be of special interest to university and seminary students. Innovative in his organization, Marks explores seven key doctrines and highlights the profound interconnections among them in a way that points us beyond the mere theological formulations to the living God of the Bible. Engaging academic discussions of the past and the present, Marks contextualizes these doctrines and shows their meaning for the day-to-day life of a faith community. Including illustrative narrative callouts and study questions, this book ultimately aims to inspire, illuminate and encourage Christians toward a vital and relevant life of worship, discipleship and mission.
Download or read book Worship Community and the Triune God of Grace written by James B. Torrance and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 1997-07-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Refuting the notion that the doctrine of the Trinity may be indispensable for the creed but remote from life and worship, James B. Torrance points us to the indispensable "who" of worship--the triune God of grace. He demonstrates why trinitarian theology is the very essence of Christian confession.
Download or read book For the Body written by Timothy C. Tennent and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at what it means to be created in the image of God and how our bodies serve as icons that illuminate God's purposes instead of ours. The human body is an amazing gift, yet today, many people downplay its importance and fail to understand what Christianity teaches about our bodies and their God-given purposes. Many people misunderstand how the body was designed, its role in relating to others; and we lack awareness of the dangers of objectifying the body, divorcing it from its intended purpose. Timothy Tennent covers topics like marriage, family, singleness, and friendship, and he looks at how the human body has been objectified in art and media today. For the Body offers a biblical framework for discipling people today in a Christian theology of the body. Tennent—theologian and president of Asbury Theological Seminary—explores the contours of a robust Christian vision of the body, human sexuality, and the variety of different ways we are called into relationships with others. This book will reveal a theological vision that: Informs our self-understanding of our own bodies. Examines how we treat others. Reevaluates how we engage today's controversial and difficult discussions on human sexuality with grace, wisdom, and confidence. For the Body is a call to a deeper understanding of our bodies and an invitation to recapture the wonder of this amazing gift.
Download or read book The Good Funeral written by Thomas G. Long and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Before long I began to understand that showing up, being there, helping in an otherwise helpless situation was made heroic by the same gravity I had sensed when I first stood in that embalming room as a boythe presence of the dead made the presence of the living more meaningful somehow, as if it involved a basic and intuitively human duty to witness." from Chapter 1, "How We Come to Be the Ones We Are" Two of the most authoritative voices on the funeral industry come together here in one volume to discuss the current state of the funeral. Through their different lensesone as a preacher and one as a funeral directorThomas G. Long and Thomas Lynch alternately discuss several challenges facing "the good funeral," including the commercial aspects that have led many to be suspicious of funeral directors, the sometimes tense relationship between pastors and funeral directors, the tendency of modern funerals to exclude the body from the service, and the rapid growth in cremation. The book features forewords from Patrick Lynch, President of the National Funeral Directors Association, and Barbara Brown Taylor, highly praised author and preacher. It is an essential resource for funeral directors, morticians, and pastors, and anyone else with an interest in current funeral practices.
Download or read book Re thinking Christianity written by Keith Ward and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Christian faith is often charged with being outmoded and anachronistic. A monolithic institution rooted in the past, many critics have claimed that it lacks the resources to adapt to modern society's needs and advances. In "Rethinking Christianity", Keith Ward argues persuasively that this view is not only uncharitable, but refuted by historical evidence. Mapping the evolution of six major beliefs, from the Hellenistic restatement to the challenged of evolutionary theory, Ward demonstrates that Christianity has always been expressed in constantly changing ways in response to new knowledge and understandings of the world. Controversial, liberal, and confronting the principal questions facing Christianity today, Ward uses this basis to support the construction of his own ground-breaking theology: a 'systematic theology' for the post-scientific age.
Download or read book The 6 Marks of Progressive Christian Worship Music written by Bryan J. Sirchio and published by Author House. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Something about the lyrics of many of the hit contemporary Christian worship songs is at best problematic for many clergy persons in mainline denominations. Sometimes the songs are downright offensive theologically to the pastor. Often the problem is rooted in a theological nuance or doctrine that the pastor does not embrace. Sometimes these contemporary worship songs use too many Christian buzz words or clichswords or phrases that the pastor deliberately avoids in every other aspect of the liturgy. Often the problem is that the new songs show no sensitivity at all to things like inclusive language or the theological challenges of doctrines like penal substitutionary atonement. Sometimes the pastors feel that most of these new songs lack substance, that theyre too sugary, too individualistic, and too other-worldly. Sometimes theres an emotional tone to this contemporary worship music that might work well in another kind of church but which just doesnt feel authentic in a traditional or mainline congregation. Now I would imagine that at least some of you began to glaze over a bit as you attempted to read those last few paragraphs. Or maybe you didnt fully understand some of the terms I just used. If so, dont worrythats why I wrote this book! If you have no idea what things like penal substitutionary atonement or inclusive language are about, this book will help you understand what these terms mean and why its important to your pastors for you to know your way around these issues and concepts a bit as you seek new songs to bring into the worship life of your congregation. And I promise--Ill do my best to use down-to-earth language that youll be able to easily understand without a seminary education!
