Download or read book Return to the Fountainhead of the Faith Explore World Ideologies Church History Christianity s Jewish Roots Second Revised Edition written by Shelley Wood Gauld and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illustrated book explores three vital subjects seldom broached from the pulpit: * WORLD IDEOLOGIES: The uniqueness of the Christian message becomes self-evident when viewed in the context of fourteen major world ideologies. * CHURCH HISTORY: An overview of the convoluted history of the Church enables us to come to terms with our Western cultural heritage and face the future with greater confidence. * CHRISTIANITY'S JEWISH ROOTS: Like a magnificent tapestry, the Hebrew tradition delights the senses, feeds the soul, and shines with a compelling ancient beauty. This book provides numerous rejuvenating insights into the New Testament's bedrock "Jewishness." Original line drawings, charts and maps help illuminate fascinating correlations between New Testament principles and the history, worship, customs, calendar, and language of the Jews. "This is not dry academicism, but a work of art that touches both head and heart." Rev. Frank Lenihan, Montana USA: Bridges for Peace

Download or read book Foundations of Christianity Routledge Revivals written by Karl Kautsky and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-09 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1925, Karl Kautsky presents a Marxist history of Christianity and Christian society. Divided into four key sections, the book begins by considering the personality of Jesus as portrayed within Pagan and Christian sources and highlighting the Church’s difficulty in presenting a unified and concurrent image of Jesus and interpretation of His words. Next, Kautsky analyses the structure of Roman society, with particular emphasis on the slave-holding system, the Roman State and the historiography of the period. In the third section, an early history of the Jewish people is presented, whilst the final section discusses the beginnings of Christianity and the social struggles present within early Christian society. This is a fascinating reissue, which will be of particular interest to students of Church History, Christian theology and the various interpretations of Jesus.

Download or read book Christianity and the Wider Ecumenism written by Peter C. Phan and published by Paragon House Publishers. This book was released on 1990 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How has Christian tradition developed its understanding of the problem of salvation for non-Christians? How do the Christian churches appraise the spiritual values of those other religions whose members collectively make up the majority of mankind? Christianity and the Wider Ecumenism explores the growing shift from efforts toward unity within Christianity to broader, more far-reaching attempts at greater harmony among world religions (the "wider ecumenism"). Editor Peter Phan traces the trend back to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) but notes that, in the last ten years or so, the movement has become pronounced. in addition to Vatican II, the World Council of Churches has established a Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and ideologies. Also, the growing number of courses on campus in comparative religions testifies to the critical importance of interfaith studies and dialogue in our religiously plural world. Despite resistance by some Christians to this new trend, there is a willingness on the part of others to support the "wider ecumenism," even to abandon any claim to Christ's/Christianity's uniqueness, definitiveness, absoluteness, and superiority. They rightly point to the need for faith in God as Absolute Mystery, to Christian praxis in favor of justice and freedom, and to the enormous historical suffering and conflicts, caused by the myth of Christian uniqueness. They add that we live today in a world village in which dialogue with other religionists and societies, as full equals, is imperative, perhaps for our very survival. Not mere contact but active cooperation and mutual understanding is required now more than ever to deal with urgent global issues involving mass poverty and starvation, religious fanaticism, the threat to the environment, and the omnipresent danger of nuclear destruction. These problems are far too important to be left to governments. The essays in this volume are the Product of fifty leading scholars, from across the Christian spectrum, seeking to clarify and to affirm the immense significance of interreligious dialogue for Christianity in our new planetary society.

Download or read book The Egalitarian Spirit of Christianity written by Stephen Strehle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion no longer plays a dominant role in the everyday consciousness of modern Western society. Few people recognize the underlying role of religious beliefs and practices in their life choices. Stephen Strehle shows the significance and ongoing influence of religion in contemporary life by revealing the sacred roots of modern political ideas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He discusses the role of the church in government, probing into the sources of democratic, federal, and egalitarian ideas on the continent of Europe during the Reformation. The separation of church and state in America and the diminished power of the Church of England were the culmination of secular forces evolving since the Enlightenment. This secular view of life represents the basic mentality of the culture and the government in general; yet there is much to contradict it. The last half of the twentieth century witnessed a surge of grassroots movements from all sides of the political/religious spectrum. These included the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the Moral Majority of the 1980s, both of which provided an effective challenge to a simple separation of the two realms. Strehle explores some of the most cherished political ideals of modern society, including equality and democracy, liberty and natural rights, progress and capitalism, federalism and mixed government. He does not dismiss the vital contribution of other possible sources of inspiration from the world of religion or undermine the well-established place of “secular” sources. But he does show that certain ideas associated with the religious community have left an indelible mark upon significant aspects of the emerging American landscape.

Download or read book A History of Christian Thought Volume III written by Dr. Justo L. Gonzalez and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A treatment of the evolution of Christian thought from the birth of Christ, to the Apostles, to the early church, to the great flowering of Christianity across the world. The final volume begins with the towering theological leaders of the Protestant Reformation and traces the development of Christian thought through its encounter with modernity. Volume #2 9781426721915 Volume #1 9781426721892

Download or read book Liberty in the Things of God written by Robert Louis Wilken and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the leading historians of Christianity comes this sweeping reassessment of religious freedom, from the church fathers to John Locke In the ancient world Christian apologists wrote in defense of their right to practice their faith in the cities of the Roman Empire. They argued that religious faith is an inward disposition of the mind and heart and cannot be coerced by external force, laying a foundation on which later generations would build. Chronicling the history of the struggle for religious freedom from the early Christian movement through the seventeenth century, Robert Louis Wilken shows that the origins of religious freedom and liberty of conscience are religious, not political, in origin. They took form before the Enlightenment through the labors of men and women of faith who believed there could be no justice in society without liberty in the things of God. This provocative book, drawing on writings from the early Church as well as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, reminds us of how “the meditations of the past were fitted to affairs of a later day.”

Download or read book Christians in the American Empire written by Vincent D. Rougeau and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2008-11-06 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges the argument that the United States is a Christian nation, and that the American founding and the American Constitution can be linked to a Christian understanding of the state and society. Vincent Rougeau argues that the United States has become an economic empire of consumer citizens, led by elites who seek to secure American political and economic dominance around the world. Freedom and democracy for the oppressed are the public themes put forward to justify this dominance, but the driving force behind American hegemony is the need to sustain economic growth and maintain social peace in the United States. --from publisher description.

Download or read book A Global Church History written by Steven D. Cone and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did the Christian Church originate, what journeys has it taken over two millennia, and how did it come to exist in its present, myriad forms? The answers to these questions form a tapestry of history that reaches from first century Palestine to the ends of the earth. This volume tells this rich story from an ecumenical perspective, drawing on both Eastern and Western historic sources in exploring the rise of Eastern Orthodoxy; the church across Asia, Africa, and the Americas; and the reformations of the Western Church; including the diversity of contemporary voices. The work benefits from many pedagogical features: - boxed text sections identifying central figures and points of debate - study questions for each chapter - chapter summaries - maps --charts --index Supplemented by over 400 illustrations, this book embraces the universality of historic and current Christianity, creating a single and comprehensive volume for students of Church history and systematic theology.

Download or read book Faith and History A Comparison of Christian and Modern Views of History written by Reinhold Niebuhr and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FAITH AND HISTORY A COMPARISON OF CHRISTIAN AND MODERN VIEWS OF HISTORY by REINHOLD NIEBUHR. PREFACE: THE theme of this volume was first presented as the Lyman Beecher Lectures On Preaching at the Yale Divinity School in 1945. Some of the same lectures were given, by arrange ment, under the Warrack Lectureship On Preaching at the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen in Scotland in the winter of 1947. Some of the chapters were used as the basis of lectures given under the Olaf Petri Foundation of the University of Uppsala in Sweden. I sought to develop various portions of a general theme in these various lectureships. In this volume I have drawn these lectures into a more comprehensive study of the total problem of the relation of the Christian faith to modern conceptions of history. While the total work, therefore, bares little resemblance to the lectures, it does contain consideration of the specific problems which were dealt with in the lectures. I shall not seek to identify this material by chapters as I subjected the whole to reorganization. Two of these lectureships usually deal with the art of preaching, though not a few of the actual lectures have been concerned with the preachers message. Since I had no special competence in the art of homiletics I thought it wise to devote the lectures to a definition of the apologetic task of the Christian pulpit in the unique spiritual climate of our day. Since several of the Beecher lecturers in the past half-century sought to accommodate the Christian message to the prevailing evolutionary optimism of the nineteenth and early twen tieth centuries, I thought it might be particularly appropriate to consider the spiritual situation in a period in which this evolutionary optimism is in the process of decay. This volume is written on the basis of the faith that the Gospel of Christ is true for men of every age and that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. It is, nevertheless, the task of the pulpit to relate the ageless Gospel to the special problems of each age. In doing so, however, there is always a temptation to capitulate to the characteristic prejudices of an age. The preaching of the Gospel was not immune to this temptation in the past centuries. The real alternative to the Christian faith elaborated by modern secular culture was the idea that history is itself Christ, which is to say that historical development is redemp tive. Typical modern theology accommodated itself to this secular scheme of redemption much too readily. Meanwhile the experiences of contemporary man have refuted the modern faith in the redemp tive character of history itself. This refutation has given the Christian faith, as presented in the Bible, a new relevance. It is not the thesis of this new volume that this new relevance could establish the truth of the Christian Gospel in the mind of modern man. The truth of the Christian faith must, in fact, be apprehended in any age by repentance and faith. It is, therefore, not made acceptable by rational validation in the first instance. It is important, nevertheless, for the preacher of the Gospel to understand, and come to terms with, the characteristic credos of his age. It is important in our age to understand how the spiritual com placency of a culture which believed in redemption through history is now on the edge of despair.

Download or read book The Ninety Sixth Thesis written by Brian A. Bompiani and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five hundred years ago Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses or grievances to the door of the All Saints' Church of Wittenberg and condemned the Catholic Church's teaching of indulgences as nothing but a scheme to raise money for the church. It is a supreme irony of history that, five hundred years later, it is now a subset of the Protestant Church that is defrauding the faithful. The Catholic Church's teaching of indulgences and the evangelical movement's teaching of tithing-to-be-blessed are substantially the same and lead to the same result: In both cases, the church walks away with a bag of money and the Christian walks away with a bag full of empty promises. This book explains why I am losing faith in the church, but finding faith in Christ. The reason for this is that I began finding answers to some of the most elusive questions about God. Something is preventing God from doing all the good that he would otherwise want to do. But here is the problem. How can God have limitations? If he has limitations, then he must not be divine. However, there is one thing that could prevent a good, all-powerful God from doing all the good that he would otherwise want to do that would not detract at all from his omnipotence. What this is and how it holds the key to unlocking some of the most perplexing mysteries of God is explained in this book.

Download or read book The Christian Church written by Hans Schwarz and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With thoroughness and clarity, Hans Schwarz presents a historical and systematic understanding of the church - its worship and piety, its traditions and doctrines, its forms and structures. This skilled assessment outlines the impact of the church today and analyzes its prospects for the future.

Download or read book The Forgotten Creed written by Stephen J. Patterson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long before the followers of Jesus declared him to be the Son of God, Jesus taught his followers that they too were the children of God. This ancient creed, now all but forgotten, is recorded still within the folds of a letter of Paul the Apostle. Paul did not create this creed, nor did he fully embrace it, but he quoted it and thus preserved it for a time when it might become important once again. This ancient creed said nothing about God or Christ or salvation. Its claims were about the whole human race: there is no race, there is no class, there is no gender. This is the story of that first, forgotten creed, and the world of its begetting, a world in which foreigners were feared, slaves were human chattel, and men questioned whether women were really human after all. Into this world the followers of Jesus proclaimed: "You are all children of God. There is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male and female, for you are all one." Where did this remarkable statement of human solidarity come from, and what, finally, happened to it? How did Christianity become a Gentile religion that despised Jews, condoned slavery as the will of God, and championed patriarchy? Christian theologians would one day argue about the nature of Christ, the being of God, and the mechanics of salvation. But before this, in the days when Jesus was still fresh in the memory of those who knew him, the argument was a different one: how can human beings overcome the ways by which we divide ourselves one from another? Is solidarity possible beyond race, class, and gender?

Download or read book The Index written by Francis Ellingwood Abbot and published by . This book was released on 1880 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Growth of the Christian Church a Search for Faith Form and Freedom AD 30 2000 written by Robert I. Letellier and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The subject is historical and follows the development of the Church--the great movements of faith and the people that have shaped the worldwide mission over two millennia. Christianity came into being (c. 30 AD) when the Apostles received the power of the Holy Spirit to preach the resurrection and Gospel of Christ (Acts 1--2). Jesus had placed the Jewish idea of the Kingdom of God at the centre of his teaching but gave the idea a new spiritual and universal meaning (Matthew 28:16-20). He taught that God is present wherever individuals enter into the relationship of love which God is seeking to initiate with them. Throughout the ages the Catholic Church spread the Gospel, and sustained Christian communities, bringing light and hope into the lives of men and women in the darkest times of their history, playing a key role in the development of society with the founding of hospitals and institutions of education, retraining the political ambitions of monarchs. Despite emerging differences of interpretation in matters of theology and practice, and the invention of new ways of being Christian at the Reformation, belief in Jesus Christ and his Gospel has grown and spread throughout the world, beginning with the Age of Discovery. In the 20th century the Church began to reconsider its ideological traditions and to participate in the ecumenical movement, with a resurgence of scholarship, a new attitude to the witness of the Church in the world, expounded at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Christianity has moulded the shape of Western civilization and has been carried by missionaries to nearly all the countries of the world.

Download or read book Above All Earthly Pow rs written by David F. Wells and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this prophetic call to the evangelical church, Wells stresses that Christians need to confess Christ as the center in a society lacking a center, as the sovereign in a world seemingly ruled by chance, and as the one who can give meaning in a nihilistic culture.

Download or read book A Glorious Institution written by Stanford Murrell and published by . This book was released on 2018-09-29 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part One: When the Church Was Young A.D. 33-754 focuses on the early growth of the Christian Church, developing from a small assembly of believers in Jerusalem to become a vast spiritual kingdom touching the lives of millions in many lands. Under the influence of Church Fathers and councils, carefully worded creeds guided the core doctrines of Christianity. The saints were persecuted at the hands of Jews and then Gentiles, but the Church miraculously survived to fulfill the Great Commission for its day. Part Two: The Church in the Middle Ages A.D. 754-1517 traces the days of Charlemagne to the dawn of the Reformation. Popes and Emperors maneuvered for church power, bringing division into East and West, control by civil governments, and great wealth. The Crusades brought contact with the rich civilizations of the East. New ways of thinking swept in the Renaissance. Pagan culture mixed with Christian truth, resulting in new persecution from within and urgent cry for reform. Part Three: The Reformation and Its Aftermath 1517-1648 observes the tremendous upheaval when brave men were transforming the spiritual Church into conformity with God's inerrant Word, in deliberate departure from the traditions of men. We see Luther's increasing conviction in Germany, then Zwingli, Calvin, and Farel in Switzerland-at great personal cost. We see the spreading flame of reformation come to France, the Netherlands, Scotland, and England, including incredible struggle for supremacy between popes, monarchs, and ideas. We see the rise of different Protestant denominations as men struggled to understand the clear teachings of Scripture. In Part Four: The Church in the Modern Age 1648-present, we see the difficulty men have when given freedom to study the Scriptures, to avoid false doctrines springing out of pride and greed. Nevertheless, "our God reigns "-there were Great Awakenings as the Holy Spirit revived true Christianity repeatedly and brought evangelical missions movements worldwide. Though it faces real challenges, the Church Triumphant continues to grow as a blessing to the world.

Download or read book The Contemporary Church and the Early Church written by Paul A. Hartog and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2010-02-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As "evangelicals" face future challenges, many are turning back to the ancient church for inspiration. But these ancient-future approaches remain diverse and sometimes even at odds with one another. This volume demonstrates and analyzes the complexity of such contemporary church-early church engagements. Six scholars share diverse insights from the Patristic period, including lessons on evangelism and discipleship, community formation and maintenance, use of the "rule of faith," the preaching of social ethics, responses to cultural opposition, and Christological development. The volume closes with two critical responses, from confessional Lutheran and Baptist perspectives. These collected essays will remind contemporary readers of the importance of a reflective and responsible ressourcement of Patristic wisdom. With contributions from: Rex D. Butler Francis X. Gumerlock Bryan M. Litfin Brian J. Matz W. Brian Shelton Edward Smither Glen L. Thompson