Download or read book The Unsaved Christian written by Dean Inserra and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What to do when they say they’re Christian but don’t know Jesus Whether it’s the Christmas and Easter Christians or the faithful church attenders whose hearts are cold toward the Lord, we’ve all encountered cultural Christians. They’d check the Christian box on a survey, they’re fine with church, but the truth is, they’re far from God. So how do we bring Jesus to this overlooked mission field? The Unsaved Christian equips you to confront cultural Christianity with honesty, compassion, and grace, whether you’re doing it from the pulpit or the pews. This practical guide will: show you how to recognize cultural Christianity teach you how to overcome the barriers that get in the way give you easy-to-understand advice about VBS, holiday services, reaching “good people,” and more! If you’ve ever felt stuck or unsure how to minister to someone who identifies as Christian but still needs Jesus, this book is for you.
Download or read book Christ and Culture written by H. Richard Niebuhr and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1956-09-05 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 50th-anniversary edition, with a new foreword by the distinguished historian Martin E. Marty, who regards this book as one of the most vital books of our time, as well as an introduction by the author never before included in the book, and a new preface by James Gustafson, the premier Christian ethicist who is considered Niebuhr’s contemporary successor, poses the challenge of being true to Christ in a materialistic age to an entirely new generation of Christian readers.
Download or read book Making Christian History written by Michael Hollerich and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known as the “Father of Church History,” Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and the leading Christian scholar of his day. His Ecclesiastical History is an irreplaceable chronicle of Christianity’s early development, from its origin in Judaism, through two and a half centuries of illegality and occasional persecution, to a new era of tolerance and favor under the Emperor Constantine. In this book, Michael J. Hollerich recovers the reception of this text across time. As he shows, Eusebius adapted classical historical writing for a new “nation,” the Christians, with a distinctive theo-political vision. Eusebius’s text left its mark on Christian historical writing from late antiquity to the early modern period—across linguistic, cultural, political, and religious boundaries—until its encounter with modern historicism and postmodernism. Making Christian History demonstrates Eusebius’s vast influence throughout history, not simply in shaping Christian culture but also when falling under scrutiny as that culture has been reevaluated, reformed, and resisted over the past 1,700 years.
Download or read book Cultural Christians in the Early Church written by Nadya Williams and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2023-11-14 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the middle of the third century CE, one North African bishop wrote a treatise for the women of his church, exhorting them to resist such culturally normalized yet immodest behaviors in their cosmopolitan Roman city as mixed public bathing in the nude, and wearing excessive amounts of jewelry and makeup. The treatise appears even more striking, once we realize that the scandalous virgins to whom it was addressed were single women who had dedicated their virginity to Christ. Stories like this one challenge the general assumption among Christians today that the earliest Christians were zealous converts who were much more counterculturally devoted to their faith than typical church-goers today. Too often Christians today think of cultural Christianity as a modern concept, and one most likely to occur in areas where Christianity is the majority culture, such as the American "Bible Belt." The story that this book presents, refutes both of these assumptions. Cultural Christians in the Early Church, which aims to be both historical and practical, argues that cultural Christians were the rule, rather than the exception, in the early church. Using different categories of sins as its organizing principle, the book considers the challenge of culture to the earliest converts to Christianity, as they struggled to live on mission in the Greco-Roman cultural milieu of the Roman Empire. These believers blurred and pushed the boundaries of what it meant to be a saint or sinner from the first to the fifth centuries CE, and their stories provide the opportunity to get to know the regular people in the early churches. At the same time, their stories provide a fresh perspective for considering the difficult timeless questions that stubbornly persist in our own world and churches: when is it a sin to eat or not eat a particular food? Are women inherently more sinful than men? And why is Christian nationalism a problem and, at times, a sin? Ultimately, recognizing that cultural sins were always a part of the story of the church and its people is a message that is both a source of comfort and a call to action in our pursuit of sanctification today.
Download or read book Destroyer of the Gods written by Larry W. Hurtado and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Silly," "stupid," "irrational," "simple." "Wicked," "hateful," "obstinate," "anti-social." "Extravagant," "perverse." The Roman world rendered harsh judgments upon early Christianity--including branding Christianity "new." Novelty was no Roman religious virtue. Nevertheless, as Larry W. Hurtado shows in Destroyer of the gods, Christianity thrived despite its new and distinctive features and opposition to them. Unlike nearly all other religious groups, Christianity utterly rejected the traditional gods of the Roman world. Christianity also offered a new and different kind of religious identity, one not based on ethnicity. Christianity was distinctively a "bookish" religion, with the production, copying, distribution, and reading of texts as central to its faith, even preferring a distinctive book-form, the codex. Christianity insisted that its adherents behave differently: unlike the simple ritual observances characteristic of the pagan religious environment, embracing Christian faith meant a behavioral transformation, with particular and novel ethical demands for men. Unquestionably, to the Roman world, Christianity was both new and different, and, to a good many, it threatened social and religious conventions of the day. In the rejection of the gods and in the centrality of texts, early Christianity obviously reflected commitments inherited from its Jewish origins. But these particular features were no longer identified with Jewish ethnicity and early Christianity quickly became aggressively trans-ethnic--a novel kind of religious movement. Its ethical teaching, too, bore some resemblance to the philosophers of the day, yet in contrast with these great teachers and their small circles of dedicated students, early Christianity laid its hard demands upon all adherents from the moment of conversion, producing a novel social project. Christianity's novelty was no badge of honor. Called atheists and suspected of political subversion, Christians earned Roman disdain and suspicion in equal amounts. Yet, as Destroyer of the gods demonstrates, in an irony of history the very features of early Christianity that rendered it distinctive and objectionable in Roman eyes have now become so commonplace in Western culture as to go unnoticed. Christianity helped destroy one world and create another.
Download or read book Introducing Cultural Anthropology written by Brian M. Howell and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of culture in human experience? This concise yet solid introduction to cultural anthropology helps readers explore and understand this crucial issue from a Christian perspective. Now revised and updated throughout, this new edition of a successful textbook covers standard cultural anthropology topics with special attention given to cultural relativism, evolution, and missions. It also includes a new chapter on medical anthropology. Plentiful figures, photos, and sidebars are sprinkled throughout the text, and updated ancillary support materials and teaching aids are available through Baker Academic's Textbook eSources.
Download or read book Food and Faith in Christian Culture written by Ken Albala and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-27 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without a uniform dietary code, Christians around the world used food in strikingly different ways, developing widely divergent practices that spread, nurtured, and strengthened their religious beliefs and communities. Featuring never-before published essays, this anthology follows the intersection of food and faith from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century, charting the complex relationship among religious eating habits and politics, culture, and social structure. Theoretically rich and full of engaging portraits, essays consider the rise of food buying and consumerism in the fourteenth century, the Reformation ideology of fasting and its resulting sanctions against sumptuous eating, the gender and racial politics of sacramental food production in colonial America, and the struggle to define "enlightened" Lenten dietary restrictions in early modern France. Essays on the nineteenth century explore the religious implications of wheat growing and breadmaking among New Zealand's Maori population and the revival of the Agape meal, or love feast, among American brethren in Christ Church. Twentieth-century topics include the metaphysical significance of vegetarianism, the function of diet in Greek Orthodoxy, American Christian weight loss programs, and the practice of silent eating rituals among English Benedictine monks. Two introductory essays detail the key themes tying these essays together and survey food's role in developing and disseminating the teachings of Christianity, not to mention providing a tangible experience of faith.
Download or read book Every Square Inch written by Bruce Riley Ashford and published by Lexham Press. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jesus is Lord over everything. So his lordship should shape every aspect of life. But what impact does faith really have on our day-today existence? And how should we, as Christians, interact with the culture? In Every Square Inch, Bruce Ashford skillfully navigates such questions. Drawing on sources like Abraham Kuyper, C.S. Lewis, and Francis Schaeffer, he shows how our faith is relevant to all dimensions of culture. The gospel informs everything we do. We cannot maintain the artificial distinction between "sacred" and "secular." We must proclaim Jesus with our lips and promote him with our lives, no matter what cultural contexts we may find ourselves in.
Download or read book Christ and Culture Revisited written by D. A. Carson and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Called to live in the world, but not to be of it, Christians must maintain a balancing act that becomes more precarious the further our culture departs from its Judeo-Christian roots. How should members of the church interact with such a culture, especially as deeply enmeshed as most of us have become? In this award-winning book -- now in paperback and with a new preface -- D. A. Carson applies his masterful touch to that problem. After exploring the classic typology of H. Richard Niebuhr with its five Christ-culture options, Carson offers an even more comprehensive paradigm for informing the Christian worldview. More than just theoretical, Christ and Culture Revisited is a practical guide for helping Christians untangle current messy debates about living in the world.
Download or read book Backgrounds of Early Christianity written by Everett Ferguson and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New to this expanded & updated edition are revisions of Ferguson's original material, updated bibliographies, & a fresh dicussion of first century social life, the Dead Sea Scrolls & much else.
Download or read book Christianity in Contemporary China written by Francis Khek Gee Lim and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christianity is one of the fastest growing religions in China. Despite its long history in China and its significant indigenization or intertwinement with Chinese society and culture, Christianity continues to generate suspicion among political elites and intense debates among broader communities within China. This unique book applies socio-cultural methods in the study of contemporary Christianity. Through a wide range of empirical analyses of the complex and highly diverse experience of Christianity in contemporary China, it examines the fraught processes by which various forms and practices of Christianity interact with the Chinese social, political and cultural spheres. Contributions by top scholars in the field are structured in the following sections: Enchantment, Nation and History, Civil Society, and Negotiating Boundaries. This book offers a major contribution to the field and provides a timely, wide-ranging assessment of Christianity in Contemporary China.
Download or read book Christianity Book Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity written by Dirk Rohmann and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-07-25 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.
Download or read book Before You Lose Your Faith written by Ivan Mesa and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Medieval Christianity written by Kevin Madigan and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new narrative history of medieval Christianity, spanning from A.D. 500 to 1500, focuses on the role of women in Christianity; the relationships among Christians, Jews and Muslims; the experience of ordinary parishioners; the adventure of asceticism, devotion and worship; and instruction through drama, architecture and art.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies written by Susan Ashbrook Harvey and published by Oxford Handbooks Online. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 1049 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an introduction to the academic study of early Christianity (c. 100-600 AD) and examines the vast geographical area impacted by the early church, in Western and Eastern late antiquity. --from publisher description.
Download or read book The Mosaic of Christian Belief written by Roger E. Olson and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2016-03-21 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this second edition of Roger E. Olson's classic work, he thematically traces the contours of Christian belief down through the ages, revealing a pattern of both unity and diversity. He finds a consensus of teaching that is both unitive and able to incorporate a faithful diversity when not forced into the molds of false either-or alternatives.
Download or read book In the Shadow of the Temple written by Oskar Skarsaune and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2008-10-28 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oskar Skarsaune gives us a new look into the development of the early church and its practice by showing us the evidence of interaction between the early Christians and rabbinic Judaism. He offers numerous fascinating episodes and glimpses into this untold story.
