How can we develop and embody an ecclesiology, in contexts of urban marginality, that is radically receptive to the gifts and challenges of the agency of our non-Christian neighbours? Drawing on resources from political theologies, and in particular conversation with Graham Ward and Romand Coles, this book challenges our lazy understanding of receptivity, digging deep to uncover a rich theological seam which has the potential to radically alter how theologians think about what we draw from urban places. It offers a game changing liberative theology rooted not in the global south but from a position of self-critical privilege.

Religion today comes in many forms. The arrival of the twenty-first century brought with it a wave of religious tolerance and indifference unlike any before. As Christians struggle to unfold the truth tangled by modernity and postmodernity, many choose to radically and disrespectfully oppose other religions or passively accept their possible validity for the sake of tolerance. The effects of religious pluralism in our world today make it increasingly difficult for the life-giving message of Christ to reach the hearts of those who need to hear it. How should Christians attempt to tell the Gospel story in a world that believes no one religion is right? How should Christians live and speak in the crowded marketplace of world religions? With Cords of Love presents Christians with an introduction to religious pluralism and offers a sound, loving response drawn from the essential doctrinal features of the Wesleyan theological tradition. This thorough examination discusses the historical, philosophical, and cultural factors that have contributed to religious pluralism and explores the major responses currently embraced in some Christian circles. In addition to this historical overview, it also outlines ways the Church can bear a hopeful, effective, and intelligible witness for the message of Christ. Using Paul's response to the Athenians in the Book of Acts, With Cords of Love compels us to approach people from other religions with both respect and compassion, urging us to allow God to direct and guide our words and actions as we help to complete the work He's already begun in their hearts.

In these stormy times, voices from all fronts call for change. But what kind of revolution brings true freedom to both society and the human soul? Cultural observer Os Guinness explores the nature of revolutionary faith, contrasting between secular revolutions such as the French Revolution and the faith-led revolution of ancient Israel. He argues that the story of Exodus is the highest, richest, and deepest vision for freedom in human history. It serves as the master story of human freedom and provides the greatest sustained critique of the abuse of power. His contrast between "Paris" and "Sinai" offers a framework for discerning between two kinds of revolution and their different views of human nature, equality, and liberty. Drawing on the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, Guinness develops Exodus as the Magna Carta of humanity, with a constructive vision of a morally responsible society of independent free people who are covenanted to each other and to justice, peace, stability, and the common good of the community. This is the model from the past that charts our path to the future. "There are two revolutionary faiths bidding to take the world forward," Guinness writes. "There is no choice facing America and the West that is more urgent and consequential than the choice between Sinai and Paris. Will the coming generation return to faith in God and to humility, or continue to trust in the all sufficiency of Enlightenment reason, punditry, and technocracy? Will its politics be led by principles or by power?" While Guinness cannot predict our ultimate fate, he warns that we must recognize the crisis of our time and debate the issues openly. As individuals and as a people, we must choose between the revolutions, between faith in God and faith in Reason alone, between freedom and despotism, and between life and death.