For most people, their 60s is a time to slow down and smell the roses. Not for Alvin and Jean Witten, however. Instead, they went to Mozambique to search for churches.

In relentless heat, by car and by motorbike, on foot, and bicycle, they delved into every corner of this vast country, negotiating swollen rivers and broken bridges, roads that could hardly be called roads, hair-raising overnight accommodations, meals that were hard to stomach, bureaucracy, corruption and incompetence, in order to hunt down and officially count the 1 300+ congregations known to exist there.

For five years they gave up their closeness to family, friends and creature comforts in pursuit of this mission, experiencing joy and pain, learning things about themselves along the way, and forging lifelong bonds.

The Language of Disenchantment explores how Protestant ideas about language influenced British colonial attitudes toward Hinduism and proposals for the reform of that tradition. Protestant literalism, mediated by a new textual economy of the printed book, inspired colonial critiques of Indian mythological, ritual, linguistic, and legal traditions. Central to these developments was the transposition of the Christian opposition between monotheism and polytheism or idolatry into the domain of language. Polemics against verbal idolatry - including the elevation of a scriptural canon over heathenish custom, the attack on the personifications of mythological language, and the critique of "vain repetitions" in prayers and magic spells - previously applied to Catholic and sectarian practices in Britain were now applied by colonialists to Indian linguistic practices. As a remedy for these diseases of language, the British attempted to standardize and codify Hindu traditions as a step toward both Anglicization and Christianization. The colonial understanding of a perfect language as the fulfillment of the monotheistic ideal echoed earlier Christian myths according to which the Gospel had replaced the obscure discourses of pagan oracles and Jewish ritual. By recovering the historical roots of the British re-ordering of South Asian discourses in Protestantism, Yelle challenges representations of colonialism, and of the modernity that it ushered in, as simply rational or secular.

Over the last four decades, evangelical scholars have shown growing interest in other religions and their differing theologies. The result has been consensus on some issues and controversy over others, as scholars seek answers to essential questions: How are we to think about and relate to other religions, be open to the Spirit, and at the same time remain evangelical and orthodox? Gerald R. McDermott and Harold A. Netland offer a map of the terrain, describe new territory, and warn of hazardous journeys taken by some writers in exploring these issues. This volume offers critiques of a variety of theologians and religious studies scholars, including evangelicals, but it also challenges evangelicals to move beyond parochial positions. It is both a manifesto and a research program, critically evaluating the last forty years of Christian treatments of religious others, and proposing a comprehensive direction for the future. It addresses issues relating to the religions in both systematic theology and missiology-taking up long-debated questions such as contextualization, salvation, revelation, the relationship between culture and religion, conversion, social action, and ecumenism. The book concludes with responses from four leading thinkers of African, Asian, and European backgrounds: Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Vinoth Ramachandra, Lamin Sanneh, and Christine Schirrmacher.

Robert Frykenberg's insightful study explores and enhances historical understandings of Christian communities, cultures, and institutions within the Indian world from their beginnings down to the present. As one out of several manifestations of a newly emerging World Christianity, in which Christians of a Post-Christian West are a minority, it has focused upon those trans-cultural interactions within Hindu and Muslim environments which have made Christians in this part of the world distinctive. It seeks to uncover various complexities in the proliferation of Christianity in its many forms and to examine processes by which Christian elements intermingled with indigenous cultures and which resulted in multiple identities, and also left imprints upon various cultures of India.
Thomas Christians believe that the Apostle Thomas came to India in 52 A.D./C.E., and that he left seven congregations to carry on the Mission of bringing the Gospel to India. In our day the impulse of this Mission is more alive than ever. Catholics, in three hierarchies, have become most numerous; and various Evangelicals/Protestant communities constitute the third great tradition. With the rise of Pentecostalism, a fourth great wave of Christian expansion in India has occurred. Starting with movements that began a century ago, there are now ten to fifteen times more missionaries than ever before, virtually all of them Indian. Needless to say, Christianity in India is profoundly Indian and Frykenberg provides a fascinating guide to its unique history and culture.

In recent years the term "religious pluralism" has come to be used not only in a descriptive sociological sense but also as theologically prescriptive. Within this new paradigm traditional Christian understandings of Christ, conversion, evangelism, and mission have been radically reinterpreted. The Recovery of Mission explores the pluralist paradigm through the work of three of its most influential Asian exponents - Stanley Samartha Aloysius Pieris, and Raimundo Panikkar - subjecting each to a theological and philosophical critique. On the basis of biblical, patristic, and contemporary theological writings Vinoth Ramachandra argues for the uniqueness and decisiveness of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Ramachandra seeks to show that many of the valid concerns of pluralist theologians can best be met by reappropriating the missionary thrust at the heart of the gospel. The book ends with suggestions, challenging to pluralists and conservatives alike, as to how the gospel needs to be communicated in a multi-faith world.

The astonishing growth of Christianity in the global South over the course of the twentieth century has sparked an equally rapid growth in studies of ''World Christianity, '' which have dismantled the notion that Christianity is a Western religion. What, then, are we to make of the waves of Western missionaries who have, for centuries, been evangelizing in the global South? Were they merely, as many have argued, agents of imperialism out to impose Western values? In An Unpredictable Gospel, Jay Case examines the efforts of American evangelical missionaries in light of this new scholarship. He argues that if they were agents of imperialism, they were poor ones. Western missionaries had a dismal record of converting non-Westerners to Christianity. The ministries that were most successful were those that empowered the local population and adapted to local cultures. In fact, influence often flowed the other way, with missionaries serving as conduits for ideas that shaped American evangelicalism. Case traces these currents and sheds new light on the relationship between Western and non-Western Christianities.

This study introduces its readers to the differing positions and methods developed by contemporary scholars in Pauline studies. By setting out these views, and the evidence on which they are based, it equips the reader to approach the study of Paul with an awareness of the range of current debate and a knowledge of the evidence and arguments they will encounter. After considering Paul's importance and influence, and the important sources for the study of Paul, the book examines: the earliest period of Christianity - from Jesus to Paul; Paul's life before and after his 'conversion'; his individual letters; the major elements of his theology; his attitude to Israel and the Jewish law; new approaches to the study of Paul, including social-scientific and feminist approaches; and Paul's legacy in the New Testament and beyond. Newly added for the third edition are sections on the interest in Paul's thought from philosophers such as Agamnen and Badiou, and Paul and sexuality. More generally the volume has been fully updated with respect to bibliography, and to presenting the latest debates surrounding Paul's thought in a manageable format - including those around Pauline anthropology, Paul and politics and the concept of righteousness. The helpful study questions at the end of each chapter have been revised, as have the reading lists.

Music in the California missions was a pluralistic combination of voices and instruments, of liturgy and spectacle, of styles and functions-and even of cultures-in a new blend that was non-existent before the Franciscan friars made their way to California beginning in 1769. This book explores the exquisite sacred music that flourished on the West Coast of America when it was under Spanish and Mexican rule; it delves into the historical, cultural, biographical, and stylistic aspects of California mission music during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The book explores how mellifluous plainchant, reverent hymns, spunky folkloric ditties, "classical" music in the style of Haydn, and even Native American drumming were interwoven into a tapestry of resonant beauty. Aspects of music terminology, performance practice, notation, theory, sacred song, hymns, the sequence, the mass, and pageantry are addressed. Russell draws upon hundreds of primary documents in California, Mexico, Madrid, Barcelona, London, and Mallorca, and it is through the melding together of this information from geographically separated places that he brings the mystery of California's mission music into sharper focus. In addition to extensive musical analysis, the book also examines such things as cultural context, style, scribal attribution, instructions to musicians, government questionnaires, invoices, the liturgy, architectural space where performances took place, spectacle, musical instruments, instrument construction, shipping records, travelers' accounts, letters, diaries, passenger lists, baptismal and burial records, and other primary source material. Within this book one finds considerablebiographical information about Junipero Serra, Juan Bautista Sancho, Narciso Duran, Florencio Ibanez, Pedro Cabot, Martin de Cruzelaegui, Ignacio de Jerusalem, and Francisco Javier Garcia Fajer. Furthermore, it contains five far-reaching appendices: a Catalogue of Mission Sources; Photos of Missions and Mission Manuscripts (with over 150 color facsimiles); Translations of Primary Texts; Music Editions (that are performance-ready); and an extensive Bibliography.

This is one of four projected volumes to emerge from a massive, Pew-funded study that sought to answer the question: What happens when a revivalist religion based on scriptural orthodoxy participates in the volatile politics of the Third World? Is the result a democratic politics of the ballot box, or is it more like an authoritarian politics of command from on high? Does the evangelical faith of the Bible hinder or promote a politics of the ballot box? 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. Three of the volumes focus on particular regions (Africa, Latin America and Asia). The fourth will address the broader question of evangelical Christianity and democracy in the global setting. The present volume considers the case of Asia. In his introduction, editor David Lumsdaine offers a historical overview of evangelicalism in the region, provides a theoretical framework for understanding evangelical impact on the global south, and summarizes the findings presented in the remainder of the book. Six individual case studies follow, focusing respectively on the situation in China, Western India, Northeast India, Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines. The contributors, mainly younger scholars based in Asia, bring first hand-knowledge to their chapters and employ both field and archival research to develop their data and analyses. The result is a groundbreaking work that will be indispensable to everyoneconcerned with the future of the region.

In the 1970s Hennie Keyter was an angry young man, fresh out of military service for the apartheid government of South Africa, unsure of his path in life and deeply uneasy about his faith. When God revealed to him that He had a purpose for him and a calling on his life, at first Hennie was not ready to hear it. When he finally accepted and understood his mission, a flame was lit in his heart that nothing could have extinguished.

But nothing could have prepared him either for the extraordinary spiritual journey he was about to embark on which would take him wherever God wanted him to go: from Malawi, "the warm heart of Africa", to Mozambique at the height of its civil war, where he was sentenced to death and faced a firing squad, from a less than welcoming beginning in Zanzibar, to the United Nations base at Lokichokio on the border between Kenya and Sudan (where on one trip he discovered that he had a price of US 10 000 on his head). Desiring only to do the will of God and to spread the Gospel, Hennie took up the challenge of taking the Gospel to many of the countries on the African continent and in the Middle East, building up leaders and planting churches in poverty stricken areas, lands devastated by years of conflict and deprivation, and war zones where soldiers seemed to have lost everything, even hope.

Through the bushfire of mass evangelism and his dedicated teams of volunteers, supported by the love and faith of his wife Rita and his children Anton and Mari, in His Call, My All: An African Drumbea, A Missionary's Heartbeat Hennie Keyter looks back at his life in the service of the Lord and forward to continuing His work for as long as God requires it of him.

The growth of Christianity in the global South and the fall of colonialism in the middle of the twentieth century caused a crisis in Christian missions, as many southern Christians spoke out about indignities they had suffered and many northern Christians retreated from the global South. American Christians soon began looking for a fresh start, a path forward that was neither isolationist nor domineering. Out of this dream the ''sister church'' model of mission was born. In this model, rather than Western churches sending representatives into the ''mission field,'' they set up congregation-to-congregation partnerships with churches in the global South. In Sister Churches Janel Bakker draws on extensive fieldwork and interviews with participants in these partnerships to explore the sister church movement and in particular its effects on American churches. Because Christianity is numerically and in many ways spiritually stronger in the global South than it is in the global North-while the imbalance in material resources runs in the opposite direction-both northern and southern Christians stand to gain. Challenging prevailing notions of friction between northern and southern Christians, Bakker argues that sister church relationships are marked by interconnectivity and collaboration.

The Method Has Changed, the Message Has Not. After twelve years of ministering to students on public campuses, Brian Barcelona's world turned upside down when public schools shut down in March 2020. He wondered if his ministry was over until two teenagers challenged him to minister using his smartphone and digital platforms--methods he had no idea how to use effectively. With passion and humility, Brian shares the incredible story of how God helped him go from reaching thousands of students locally to preaching to over five million globally each month. He gives practical tips and best practices from his and others' experiences on how you, too, can instantly reach more people than you ever thought possible, leading others in salvation, healing, deliverance and even baptisms digitally! Don't Scroll is the inspiring how-to manual for powerfully sharing the Gospel using the digital tools already in your hands, as well as the heart and language for what Jesus is doing in this generation. "I have seen firsthand the fruit of what this ministry does. I recommend anyone to read and live out what this book entails."--NICK VUJICIC, New York Times bestselling author "May this book open our eyes and break our hearts afresh for Generation Z and give us bold faith to believe for the Gospel to save millions."--BRIAN "HEAD" WELCH, New York Times bestselling author

In a post-9/11 world, Christian. Muslim. Friend. lays out a path toward authentic friendship between Christians and Muslims. Most similar books either teach Christians to evangelize Muslims or else downplay their Christian commitments. The author, who has lived and worked among and befriended Muslims for more than fifty years, offers readers a third way: holding onto the Christ-centered commitments of their faith while cultivating peaceful friendship with Muslims.