Download or read book A History of Christianity written by Diarmaid MacCulloch and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2010 with total page 1065 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a prize-winning author, this book charts the course of Christianity from ancient history onwards.
Download or read book Material Christianity written by Colleen McDannell and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can the religious objects used by nineteenth- and twentieth-century Americans tell us about American Christianity? What is the relationship between the beliefs of the faithful and the landscapes they build? This lavishly illustrated book investigates the history and meaning of Christian material culture in America over the last 150 years. Drawing on a rich array of historical sources and on in-depth interviews with Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons, Colleen McDannell examines the relationship between religion and mass consumption. She describes examples of nineteenth-century religious practice: Victorians burying their dead in cultivated cemetery parks; Protestants producing and displaying elaborate family Bibles; Catholics writing for special water from Lourdes reputed to have miraculous powers. And she looks at today's Christians: Mormons wearing sacred underclothing as a reminder of their religious promises, Catholics debating the design of tasteful churches, and Protestants manufacturing, marketing, and using a vast array of prints, clothing, figurines, jewelry, and toys that some label "Jesus junk" but that others see as a witness to their faith. McDannell claims that previous studies of American Christianity have overemphasized the written, cognitive, and ethical dimensions of religion, presenting faith as a disembodied system of beliefs. She shifts attention from the church and the theological seminary to the workplace, home, cemetery, and Sunday school, highlighting a different Christianity--one in which average Christians experience the divine, the nature of death, the power of healing, and the meaning of community through interacting with a created world of devotional images, environments, and objects.
Download or read book Hipster Christianity written by Brett McCracken and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insider twentysomething Christian journalist Brett McCracken has grown up in the evangelical Christian subculture and observed the recent shift away from the "stained glass and steeples" old guard of traditional Christianity to a more unorthodox, stylized 21st-century church. This change raises a big issue for the church in our postmodern world: the question of cool. The question is whether or not Christianity can be, should be, or is, in fact, cool. This probing book is about an emerging category of Christians McCracken calls "Christian hipsters"--the unlikely fusion of the American obsessions with worldly "cool" and otherworldly religion--an analysis of what they're about, why they exist, and what it all means for Christianity and the church's relevancy and hipness in today's youth-oriented culture.
Download or read book The Case Against Christianity written by Michael Martin and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this systematic philosophical critique of the major tenets of Christianity, Michael Martin examines the semantic and epistemological bases of religious claims and beliefs. Beginning with a comparison and evaluation of the Apostles' Creed, the Niceno-Chalcedonian Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, Martin discusses the principal theological, historical, and eschatological assumptions of Christianity. These include the historicity of Jesus, the Incarnation, the Second Coming, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, Salvation through faith in Jesus, and Jesus as a model of ethical behavior. Until now, an adequately convincing criticism of Christianity did not exist. Martin's use of historical evidence, textual analysis, and interpretations by philosophers and theologians provides the strongest case made to date against the rational justification of Christian doctrines.
Download or read book Christianity and the Constitution written by John Eidsmoe and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 1995-08-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the writings of the founders and records of their conversations and activities, John Eidsmoe demonstrates the influence of Christianity on the political convictions of the founding fathers.
Download or read book The Case for Christianity Answer Book written by Lee Strobel and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2014-08-12 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Answers to the most-asked questions about Christian faith! The Case for Christianity Answer Book is a great book for both newer and seasoned Christians alike. The Q&A format lends itself to helping believers know how to effectively defend their faith. Perfect for those ready to consider Jesus, longtime believers, someone seeking the truth, or even a skeptic. This book is great for anyone looking for a handy reference. The Case for Christianity Answer Book provides succinct answers to real questions about Christianity. Strobel, a former atheist, uses his investigative journalism skills to dig deep into the Bible to provide compelling and concise answers about Christianity. In this answer book, bestselling author Lee Strobel offers biblically based answers to questions such as: Did God use evolution when He created the world? If God is loving, why is there so much suffering? Do the resurrection accounts in the four Gospels contradict each other? Can you have doubts and still be a Christian?
Download or read book Christians Against Christianity written by Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely and galvanizing work that examines how right-wing evangelical Christians have veered from an admirable faith to a pernicious, destructive ideology. Today’s right-wing Evangelical Christianity stands as the very antithesis of the message of Jesus Christ. In his new book, Christians Against Christianity, best-selling author and religious scholar Obery M. Hendricks Jr. challenges right-wing evangelicals on the terrain of their own religious claims, exposing the falsehoods, contradictions, and misuses of the Bible that are embedded in their rabid homophobia, their poorly veiled racism and demonizing of immigrants and Muslims, and their ungodly alliance with big business against the interests of American workers. He scathingly indicts the religious leaders who helped facilitate the rise of the notoriously unchristian Donald Trump, likening them to the “court jesters” and hypocritical priestly sycophants of bygone eras who unquestioningly supported their sovereigns’ every act, no matter how hateful or destructive to those they were supposed to serve. In the wake of the deadly insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol, Christians Against Christianity is a clarion call to stand up to the hypocrisy of the evangelical Right, as well as a guide for Christians to return their faith to the life-affirming message that Jesus brought and died for. What Hendricks offers is a provocative diagnosis, an urgent warning that right-wing evangelicals’ aspirations for Christian nationalist supremacy are a looming threat, not only to Christian decency but to democracy itself. What they offer to America is anything but good news.
Download or read book Christianity and the Transformation of the Book written by Anthony Grafton and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When early Christians began to study the Bible, and to write their own history and that of the Jews whom they claimed to supersede, they used scholarly methods invented by the librarians and literary critics of Hellenistic Alexandria. But Origen and Eusebius, two scholars of late Roman Caesarea, did far more. Both produced new kinds of books, in which parallel columns made possible critical comparisons previously unenvisioned, whether between biblical texts or between national histories. Eusebius went even farther, creating new research tools, new forms of history and polemic, and a new kind of library to support both research and book production. Christianity and the Transformation of the Book combines broad-gauged synthesis and close textual analysis to reconstruct the kinds of books and the ways of organizing scholarly inquiry and collaboration among the Christians of Caesarea, on the coast of Roman Palestine. The book explores the dialectical relationship between intellectual history and the history of the book, even as it expands our understanding of early Christian scholarship. Christianity and the Transformation of the Book attends to the social, religious, intellectual, and institutional contexts within which Origen and Eusebius worked, as well as the details of their scholarly practices--practices that, the authors argue, continued to define major sectors of Christian learning for almost two millennia and are, in many ways, still with us today.,
Download or read book Introducing World Christianity written by Charles E. Farhadian and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary introduction offers students a truly global overview of the worldwide spread and impact of Christianity. It is enriched throughout by detailed historic and ethnographic material, showing how broad themes within Christianity have been adopted and adapted by Christian denominations within each major region of the world. Provides a comprehensive overview of the spread and impact of world Christianity Contains studies from every major region of the world, including Africa, Asia, Latin America, the North Atlantic, and Oceania Brings together an international team of contributors from history, sociology, and anthropology, as well as religious studies Examines the significant social, cultural, and political transformations in contemporary societies brought about through the influence of Christianity Discusses Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox forms of the faith Features useful maps and illustrations Combines broader discussions with detailed regional analysis, creating an invaluable introduction to world Christianity
Download or read book Jesus Before Christianity written by Albert Nolan and published by David Philip Publishers. This book was released on 1986 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of this classic has been revised and its language made more gender-inclusive.
Download or read book Core Christianity written by Michael Horton and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What beliefs are core to the Christian faith? This book is here to help you understand the reason for your hope as a Christian so that you can see it with fresh sight and invite others into the conversation. A lot of Christians take their story—the narratives that give rise to their beliefs—for granted. They pray, go to church, perhaps even read their Bible. But they might be stuck if a stranger asked them to explain what they believe and why they believe it. Author, pastor, and theologian Mike Horton unpacks the essential and basic beliefs that all Christians share in a way that is easy to understand and applicable to our lives today. And in a way that will make you excited to be a Christian! Core Christianity covers topics like: Jesus as both fully God and fully man. The doctrine of the Trinity. The goodness of God despite a broken world. The ways God speaks. The meaning of salvation. What is the Christian calling? Includes discussion questions for individual or group use. This introduction to the basic doctrines of Christianity is perfect for those who are new to the faith, as well as those who have an interest in deepening their understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
Download or read book The Rise of Christianity written by Rodney Stark and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1997-05-09 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This "fresh, blunt, and highly persuasive account of how the West was won—for Jesus" (Newsweek) is now available in paperback. Stark's provocative report challenges conventional wisdom and finds that Christianity's astounding dominance of the Western world arose from its offer of a better, more secure way of life. "Compelling reading" (Library Journal) that is sure to "generate spirited argument" (Publishers Weekly), this account of Christianity's remarkable growth within the Roman Empire is the subject of much fanfare. "Anyone who has puzzled over Christianity's rise to dominance...must read it." says Yale University's Wayne A. Meeks, for The Rise of Christianity makes a compelling case for startling conclusions. Combining his expertise in social science with historical evidence, and his insight into contemporary religion's appeal, Stark finds that early Christianity attracted the privileged rather than the poor, that most early converts were women or marginalized Jews—and ultimately "that Christianity was a success because it proved those who joined it with a more appealing, more assuring, happier, and perhaps longer life" (Andrew M. Greeley, University of Chicago).
Download or read book After Jesus Before Christianity written by Erin Vearncombe and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination. Christianity has endured for more than two millennia and is practiced by billions worldwide today. Yet that longevity has created difficulties for scholars tracing the religion’s roots, distorting much of the historical investigation into the first two centuries of the Jesus movement. But what if Christianity died in the fourth or fifth centuries after it began? How would that change how historians see and understand its first two hundred years? Considering these questions, three Bible scholars from the Westar Institute summarize the work of the Christianity Seminar and its efforts to offer a new way of thinking about Christianity and its roots. Synthesizing the institute’s most recent scholarship—bringing together the many archaeological and textual discoveries over the last twenty years—they have found: There were multiple Jesus movements, not a singular one, before the fourth century There was nothing called Christianity until the third century There was much more flexibility and diversity within Jesus’s movement before it became centralized in Rome, not only regarding the Bible and religious doctrine, but also understandings of gender, sexuality and morality. Exciting and revolutionary, After Jesus Before Christianity provides fresh insights into the real history behind how the Jesus movement became Christianity. After Jesus Before Christianity includes more than a dozen black-and-white images throughout.
Download or read book More Christianity written by Dwight Longenecker and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one would dare to suggest that C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity is anything less than a brilliant explanation and defense of the Faith. But as robust, wise and ardent as it is, still it is incomplete. It begins our banquet at the table of the Lord, but doesn't take us all the way to the final course. That is what Dwight Longenecker's new book, More Christianity, does. It fills our plates with the fullness of the Christian Faith found only in the Catholic Church. Lest someone think Longenecker is presuming to piggyback or cash in on Lewis' work, or to set himself up as Lewis' successor, that is not the case. What he does--and does brilliantly--is present the doctrine of the Church with succinct explanations of topics that arise in Catholic/Protestant discussion: the Marian dogmas, the papacy, the Mass, purgatory, the communion of saints, the rosary and more. In Longenecker's skilled hands, More Christianity rounds out the meal so deliciously served up by Lewis in Mere Christianity.
Download or read book Christianity written by Howard Clark Kee and published by Macmillan College. This book was released on 1991 with total page 808 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by contributing scholars who are experts in specific facets of developing Christianity, this survey provides a well-rounded introduction to the history of Christianity and is ideal for anyone interested in the impact of Christianity of world culture down through history. It shows how Christianity emerged from its original Jewish context and developed into a worldwide religion, offering perceptive studies on how its origins and development were influenced by the changing social and cultural contexts in which the founders and leaders of this tradition lived and thought. Provides detailed evidence of the influence of Greco-Roman and Jewish religious concepts and religious movements on the origins of Christianity, considers the structuring of the church conceptually and organizationally in Europe, and discusses Christianity's spread and growth in America and throughout the world. Looks at the profound impact of the culture of the later Roman and medieval world on the development of Christian doctrine and intellectual traditions and helps readers understand the reasons for the divisions between Catholic and Protestant traditions.
Download or read book A New History of Early Christianity written by Charles Freeman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Tracing the astonishing transformation that the early Christian church underwent - from sporadic niches of Christian communities surviving in the wake of a horrific crucifixion to sanctioned alliance with the state - Charles Freeman shows how freedom of thought was curtailed by the development of the concept of faith. The imposition of 'correct belief' and an institutional framework that enforced orthodoxy were both consolidating and stifling. Uncovering the church's relationships with Judaism, Gnosticism, Greek philosophy and Greco-Roman society, Freeman offers dramatic new accounts of Paul, the resurrection, and the church fathers and emperors."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book How Christianity Transformed the World written by Sharon James and published by Christian Focus. This book was released on 2021-03-05 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people today would say that Christianity has done more harm than good to our world. Sharon James argues, however, in seeking to love their neighbour and reflect God's moral character the followers of Jesus have had a largely positive impact on our society. James takes a number of areas - education, healthcare, justice, human dignity - and traces the ways in which these benefits have spread with the gospel. Chapter Headings: Freedom Religious Liberty Justice Protecting Life The Dignity of Women Philanthropy Healthcare Education for All The Creation Mandate and the Value of Work History: The Triumph of Christ
