Chris's text tells the story of post-quake Haiti through interviews with Haitian citizens and aid managers. Each interview adds a layer to our understanding of the suffering of the people and of the heroic efforts to ameliorate that suffering. The narrative is set in the context of the country's history and the Haitian government's effort to repair and rebuild their nation. Paul's photographs capture images not only of individuals struggling to survive, but also of the innate dignity and generosity that arises in the midst of the struggle. A study guide to facilitate use by church study groups will be available.
• Third book in a humanitarian trilogy that includes Where Mercy Fails: Darfur’s Struggle to Survive and Rubble Nation: Haiti’s Pain, Haiti’s Promise • Combines dramatic photojournalism and compelling narrative to give a voice and a face to the global issue of hunger • Includes authors’ interview and discussion guide for group use This dramatic work of photojournalism and powerful storytelling describes how the “battle to end hunger” is being won, bit by bit, in places like Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States, through the compassionate work of grass-roots communities of faith involved in anti-hunger efforts. For individuals, study groups, and participants in local and nation-wide anti-hunger programs.
Chris's text tells the story of post-quake Haiti through interviews with Haitian citizens and aid managers. Each interview adds a layer to our understanding of the suffering of the people and of the heroic efforts to ameliorate that suffering. The narrative is set in the context of the country's history and the Haitian government's effort to repair and rebuild their nation. Paul's photographs capture images not only of individuals struggling to survive, but also of the innate dignity and generosity that arises in the midst of the struggle. A study guide to facilitate use by church study groups will be available.
Every workday millions of Christians enter the marketplace. Whether as sales associates or engineers, auto mechanics or executives, Christians are called to serve God in the workplace. But most need help integrating faith and work. How can you be salt and light on the job? Where can you turn for help in developing a biblical and satisfying view ...
Pentecostals and Nonviolence explores how a distinctly Pentecostal-charismatic peace witness might be reinvigorated and sustained in the twenty-first century. To do so, the book examines the nature of the early Pentecostal commitment to nonviolence, and investigates the possibilities that might emerge from Pentecostals and Anabaptists entering into conversation and worship with each other. Contributors engage the arguments surrounding the heritage of Pentecostal pacifism in the United States and then move toward exploring nonviolence and peacemaking as crucial for contemporary Christianity as a whole. Ranging from theology, testimony, and pastoral ministry to interchurch relations, activism, and protest, this diverse collection of essays challenge and invite the whole church to the task of peacemaking while exploring the distinctive, and often neglected, contributions from the Pentecostal-charismatic tradition.
American Baptists emerged from the Civil War as a divided group. Slavery, landmarkism, and other issues sundered Baptists into regional clusters who held more or less to the same larger doctrinal sentiments. As the century progressed, influences from Europe further altered the landscape. A new way to view the Bible--more human, less divine--began to shape Baptist thought. Moreover, Darwinian evolutionism altered the way religion was studied. Religion, like humanity itself, was progressing. Conservative Baptists--proto fundamentalists--objected to these alterations. Baptist bodies had a new enemy--theological liberalism. The schools were at the center of the story in the earliest days as professors, many of whom studied abroad, returned to the United States with progressive ideas that were passed on to their students. Soon these ideas were being presented at denominational gatherings or published in denomination papers and books. Baptists agitated over the new views, with some professors losing their jobs when they strayed too far from historic Baptists commitments. By 1920, the Northern Baptists, in particular, broke out into an all-out war over theology that came to be called "The Fundamentalist-Modernist" controversy. This is the fifty-year history behind that controversy.
The last two centuries have witnessed profound changes in the nature of public consciousness. Nowhere has this been more true than in India, especially in relation to changing cultures of public life and religious tradition in South India. Essays in this collection attempt to explore the intricacies of what is perhaps the single most complex socio-religious environment in the world. The essays consider the evolution of the notion of Hinduism as a distinct and singular separate religion; the relationship between this kind of formulation and various European or western influences in India; and differences which the formation of this idea and its acceptance have made upon wider public consciousness. Each essay also considers certain general issues - such as the passing along of religious authority from one generation to the next, and the rise of disputes over matters both ideological (or doctrinal) and institutional, disputes that are fundamental to the traditions concerned and yet have unmistakable cross-cultural references.
Starting in 1884 with the arrival of the first resident Protestant missionary in Korea and ending with the expulsion of missionaries from the peninsula by the Japanese colonial government in 1942, Balancing Communities examines how the competing demands of communal identities and memberships shaped the early history of Protestantism in Korea. In so doing, the author challenges the conventional history of Korean Protestantism in terms of its relationship to the (South) Korean nation-state. Conversion to Christianity granted Koreans membership in a faith-based organization that, at least in theory, transcended national and political boundaries. As a result, Korean Christians possessed dual membership in a transnational religious community and an earthly political state. Some strove to harmonize these two associations. Others privileged one membership over the other. Regardless, the potential for conflict was always present. Balancing competing demands was not simply a Korean issue. Missionaries also struggled to reconcile their national allegiances, political identities, and religious partnerships with both Korean Christian leaders and government officials. Improperly calibrated communal demands produced conflict and instability among missionaries, Korean Christians, and the state. These demands led to struggles for control over social institutions such as hospitals and schools, incited schisms and debates over church membership, and challenged state power and social patterns. When they were balanced differently, these demands could lead to surprisingly stable and long-lasting relations. The price of this stability, however, was often the perpetuation of inequality, for the language of community masked the hierarchy of power embedded in these associations. Scholars of both Korea and World Christianity have identified South Korea as a prime example of the “successful” spread of Christianity outside Euro-America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Paul S. Cha interrogates the construction of Korean Protestantism and successfully argues that frameworks anchored to nationalism or the nation-state fail to capture the complexities of this religion’s history in Korea and the relationships that formed among Korean Christians, missionaries, and government officials, especially during the colonial period.
Apologetics authority Paul Copan tackles popular sayings that often leave Christians speechless, such as "All religions lead to God," "Who are you to judge others?" or "Jesus was just another great religious leader." He provides readers with thoughtful explanations of anti-Christian slogans and brief answers to help them continue their conversations with non-Christians. In addition, Copan answers questions about the unevangelized. Study questions for group or individual use are included.
Two of the largest minority groups in modern Japan—Koreans, who emigrated to the metropole as colonial subjects, and a social minority with historical antecedents known as the Burakumin—share a history of discrimination and marginalization that spans the decades of the nation’s modern transformation, from the relatively liberal decade of the 1920s, through the militarism and nationalism of the 1930s, to the empire’s demise in 1945. Through an analysis of the stereotypes of Koreans and Burakumin that were constructed in tandem with Japan’s modernization and imperial expansion, Jeffrey Paul Bayliss explores the historical processes that cast both groups as the antithesis of the emerging image of the proper Japanese citizen/subject. This study provides new insights into the majority prejudices, social and political movements, and state policies that influenced not only their perceived positions as “others” on the margins of the Japanese empire, but also the minorities’ views of themselves, their place in the nation, and the often strained relations between the two groups.
Presents an encyclopedia of religion and politics in America including short biographies of important political and religious figures like Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer, and synopses of religious entities like the Branch Davidians and the Episcopal church as well as important court cases of relevancy like Epperson et al. v. Arkansas having to do with evolution.
Two Vermonts establishes a little-known fact about Vermont: that the state's fascination with tourism as a savior for a suffering economy is more than a century old, and that this interest in tourism has always been dogged by controversy. Through this lens, the book is poised to take its place as the standard work on Vermont in the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. Searls examines the origins of Vermont's contemporary identity and some reasons why that identity ("Who is a Vermonter?") is to this day so hotly contested. Searls divides nineteenth-century Vermonters into conceptually "uphill," or rural/parochial, and "downhill," or urban/cosmopolitan, elements. These two groups, he says, negotiated modernity in distinct and contrary ways. The dissonance between their opposing tactical approaches to progress and change belied the pastoral ideal that contemporary urban Americans had come to associate with the romantic notion of "Vermont." Downhill Vermonters, espousing a vision of a mutually reinforcing relationship between tradition and progress, unilaterally endeavored to foster the pastoral ideal as a means of stimulating economic development. The hostile uphill resistance to this strategy engendered intense social conflict over issues including education, religion, and prohibition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The story of Vermont's vigorous nineteenth-century quest for a unified identity bears witness to the stirring and convoluted forging of today's "Vermont." Searls's engaging exploration of this period of Vermont's history advances our understanding of the political, economic, and cultural transformation of all of rural America as industrial capitalism and modernity revolutionized the United States between 1865 and 1910. By the late Progressive Era, Vermont's reputation was rooted in the national yearning to keep society civil, personal, and meaningful in a world growing more informal, bureaucratic, and difficult to navigate. The fundamental ideological differences among Vermont communities are indicative of how elusive and frustrating efforts to balance progress and tradition were in the context of effectively negotiating capitalist transformation in contemporary America.
John Wesley's impact on Methodist theology and practice is well established, but there are many other early figures who shaped Methodism just as thoroughly. Quest for Love Divine explores the contributions of Charles Wesley by exploring the impact of his lyrics on methodist worship, and the importance of lyrical theology in the founding of Methodism. Chilcote also examines the contributions of early Methodist women such as Dorothy Fisher, Mary Taft and Sarah Crosby, exploring how the Wesley brothers and their community sought to inhabit 'faith working by love leading to holiness of heart and life'. In his collection of essays, Chilcote explores the salient themes of Wesleyan theology and practice, and reflects on its legacy, in the Wesley's time and in ours. By focussing on the nature of their discipleship and the centrality of 'love divine', Chilcote brings Wesleyan theology into sharp and practical focus.
America has provided a platform for countless migrant peoples who have, in turn, contributed to the nation’s landscape as a multicultural land of opportunity. Still, the waves of assimilation can obscure the distinctive customs and beliefs of immigrants, many feeling coerced to conform to American attitudes towards race, the economy, and politics. Others, inundated with American media, consumerism, and secularity, have forgotten those aspects about their family heritage that make them unique. Drawing from Palma’s background as an Italian American evangelical, Embracing Our Roots considers the significance of rediscovering our ancestral history in a society where many are forced to repress, ignore, or reject their heritage. A nation of immigrants, every American is, in some sense, an “ethnic” American and stands to gain from considering how the people and places they come from make them unique. In addition to using genealogy databases and social networks, Palma maintains the rich value of thumbing through the family archives, hearty conversations with loved ones, and building one’s family tree. This book is for scholars and laypersons alike with interest in the themes of biblical living, faith-based traditions, food culture, immigration, social class, race, family dynamics, and mental health.
Addresses the experience of Jesuit missionaries, teachers and writers along the peripheries of the Habsburg lands, which stretched to Moldavia, Ukraine, Serbia and Wallachia, and which were continually torn with ethnic tensions. The time scale of the study is from the "high tide" of the Society (often labeled "the first multinational corporation") in the fourth decade of the seventeenth century, until its suppression in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV. The book examines several of the communities situated along the periphery and the records that they left behind about their interactions with the local populations. It constructs a vivid picture of Jesuit life on the frontier that is built up in mosaic fashion and livened by compelling anecdotes. The Jesuits of Royal Hungary exercised a baroque expression modeled after the larger western cities of the Habsburg lands, which was a fragile splendor in part defined by the need to defend Catholicism from the hostility of Orthodox, Lutherans, Calvinists, and others.
Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400–1948 offers an inclusive vision of South Africa's past. Drawing largely from original sources, Paul Landau presents a history of the politics of the country's people, from the time of their early settlements in the elevated heartlands, through the colonial era, to the dawn of Apartheid. A practical tradition of mobilization, alliance, and amalgamation persisted, mutated, and occasionally vanished from view; it survived against the odds in several forms, in tribalisms, Christian assemblies, and other, seemingly hybrid movements; and it continues today. Landau treats southern Africa broadly, concentrating increasingly on the southern Highveld and ultimately focusing on a transnational movement called the 'Samuelites'. He shows how people's politics in South Africa were suppressed and transformed, but never entirely eliminated.
This book seeks a more comprehensive understanding and appreciation for the Letter to the Hebrews by examining it from the viewpoint of its prominent theme of worship. It aims to demonstrate the topic of worship in all of its rich and varied dimensions provides the major concern and thrust that embraces Hebrews from start to finish. The author of Hebrews encourages his audience to hold on to the letter he has written to them as "the word of the encouragement" (Heb 13:22). In a very carefully concerted and masterfully artistic way, the letter persistently encourages the members of its audience with regard to their worship. Indeed, Hebrews was intended to be presented orally in a public performance as a liturgical or homiletic letter, an act of worship in itself, heard by its audience gathered together as a worshiping assembly. Hebrews exhorts the members of its audience not only with regard to their liturgical worship in which they engage during their communal gatherings, but also with regard to their ethical or moral worship in which they engage by the way they conduct themselves outside of their communal gatherings. This close examination of Hebrews through the lens of worship is intended to inform and enrich the worship of Christians today. Hebrews presents important and unique points about worship not found in any other New Testament writing. The goal is to illustrate and illuminate these points for the benefit of those who desire to deepen their worship as Christians by deepening their understanding of the magnificent literary masterpiece that the poetically lively letter to the Hebrews articulates for all Christians.
Jeffrey Harvey is realising his dream – an ambitious project to use the icebergs of Antarctica to overcome drought in Africa. But his past is catching up with him. Love, deception, intrigue, and murder have followed him all his adult life, and now they come together to create a world where the difference between friends and foes is a matter of circumstance. To some, Harvey is a visionary, to others a liability. His passionate, but complex, girlfriend, Anna, strives to protect him from the dangers he brings on himself, while she struggles with her own identity. The stakes become higher than either can imagine.
In Latin America, evangelical Protestantism poses an increasing challenge to Catholicism's long-established religious hegemony. At the same time, the region is among the most generally democratic outside the West, despite often being labeled as 'underdeveloped.' Scholars disagree whether Latin American Protestantism, as a fast-growing and predominantly lower-class phenomenon, will encourage a political culture that is repressive and authoritarian, or if it will have democratizing effects. Drawing from a range of sources, Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Latin America provides case studies of five countries: Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. The contributors, mainly scholars based in Latin America, bring first hand-knowledge to their chapters. The result is a groundbreaking work that explores the relationship between Latin American evangelicalism and politics, its influences, manifestations, and prospects for the future. Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Latin America is one of four volumes in the series Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in the Global South, which seeks to answer the question: What happens when a revivalist religion based on scriptural orthodoxy participates in the volatile politics of the Third World? At a time when the global-political impact of another revivalist and scriptural religion - Islam - fuels vexed debate among analysts the world over, these volumes offer an unusual comparative perspective on a critical issue: the often combustible interaction of resurgent religion and the developing world's unstable politics.
As the pressures of globalization are crushing local traditions, millions of uprooted people are buying into a new American salvation product. This fundamentalist Christianity, a fusion of American popular religion and politics, is one of the most significant cultural influences exported from the United States. With illuminating case studies based on extensive field research, Exporting the American Gospel demonstrates how Christian fundamentalism has taken hold in many nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The modern era includes a two-fold tradition of radical suspicion--the suspicion that politicians corrupt morality, and that politics is corrupted by theology. However, such a view has been challenged in recent theological thought which seeks to move beyond such suspicion to recover a constructive role for political theology. By pursuing a critical comparison of the political theologies of John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan, The present work shows how post-Christendom Protestant political theology has attempted to move beyond suspicion without putting forward some hidden attempt to reassert a contemporary version of Christendom. O'Donovan's political theology, written from within the British Anglican tradition, Is a bold project in which he attempts to push back the horizons of commonplace secularist politics and open it up theologically, a move that he believes will offer crucial resources for thinking about justice And The common good. A related response is presented by Yoder, who, As an American Mennonite, represents Anabaptism. From this more marginal ecclesial location, Yoder's thought stands both as a challenge to regnant liberal notions of the relation of church and state, and as an important interlocutor for O'Donovan's political theology. Yoder argues that political theology entails a particular kind of focus on the church, where the very shape of the church in the world is a public witness For The world, and not first of all a withdrawal from the world. The critical comparison brings to view areas of significant convergence and divergence in understandings of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament. O'Donovan and Yoder's respective interpretations of Christendom are also fundamentally divergent, As are their views on the legitimacy of the use of force by government, clearly seen in O'Donovan's support of Just War Tradition and Yoder's promotion of Messianic Pacifism.
Vivid, dramatic portraits of Muslims in America in the years after 9/11, as they define themselves in a religious subculture torn between moderation and extremism There are as many as six million Muslims in the United States today. Islam (together with Christianity and Judaism) is now an American faith, and the challenges Muslims face as they reconcile their intense and demanding faith with our chaotic and permissive society are recognizable to all of us. From West Virginia to northern Idaho, American Islam takes readers into Muslim homes, mosques, and private gatherings to introduce a population of striking variety. The central characters range from a charismatic black imam schooled in the militancy of the Nation of Islam to the daughter of an Indian immigrant family whose feminist views divided her father's mosque in West Virginia. Here are lives in conflict, reflecting in different ways the turmoil affecting the religion worldwide. An intricate mixture of ideologies and cultures, American Muslims include immigrants and native born, black and white converts, those who are well integrated into the larger society and those who are alienated and extreme in their political views. Even as many American Muslims succeed in material terms and enrich our society, Islam is enmeshed in controversy in the United States, as thousands of American Muslims have been investigated and interrogated in the wake of 9/11. American Islam is an intimate and vivid group portrait of American Muslims in a time of turmoil and promise.
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