Engagement with the Muslim world and Muslim people is inevitable for Christians. After all, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the United States. But what does the Qur'an really say about things like Jesus, war, and non-Muslims? What does the Bible say on these matters? If Christians are to engage in informed, loving conversation with their Muslim neighbors, they need to be equipped with more than the often-specious talking points they glean from the news or email forwards.
"Comparing the Qur'an and the Bible "offers readers an unprecedented collection of Scriptures and doctrines of both faiths presented side by side for easy study and comparison, covering such key issues as
Jesus
Abraham
creation
angels/jinn
jihad
the fall of humankind
predestination
ransom for sin/sacrifice
grace
rebirth
God/Allah
women
marriage and divorce
homosexuality
suicide
resurrection
judgment
Paradise
prayer
A brief explanation of each passage in the Qur'an and the Bible is given, as well as biblical answers to Islamic teaching. The book also motivates readers to have hearts for Muslims and seek to bring them to Christ, offering "door openers" to sharing the Good News. This indispensible collection will be treasured by anyone seeking to understand and engage their Muslim neighbors.

Formed in 1972, Jesus People USA is an evangelical Christian community that fundamentally transformed the American Christian music industry and the practice of American evangelicalism, which continues to evolve under its influence. In this fascinating ethnographic study, Shawn David Young replays not only the growth and influence of the group over the past three decades but also the left-leaning politics it developed that continue to serve as a catalyst for change. Jesus People USA established a still-thriving Christian commune in downtown Chicago and a ground-breaking music festival that redefined the American Christian rock industry. Rather than join "establishment" evangelicalism and participate in what would become the megachurch movement, this community adopted a modified socialism and embraced forms of activism commonly associated with the New Left. Today the ideological tolerance of Jesus People USA aligns them closer to liberalism than to the religious right, and Young studies the embodiment of this liminality and its challenge to mainstream evangelical belief. He suggests the survival of this group is linked to a growing disenchantment with the separation of public and private, individual and community, and finds echoes of this postmodern faith deep within the evangelical subculture.

What if you could find a way to share your faith in Jesus that feels natural, fits your personality, and ignites a fire in others? In this video-based evangelism training course (video streaming code included), author of Becoming a Contagious Christian Mark Mittelberg introduces five approaches to evangelism to help you determine which of them fit best with your unique gifts and personality: Friendship-Building Selfless-Serving Story-Sharing Reason-Giving Truth-Telling As disciples of Christ, we are called to share the gospel, but few of us are naturally comfortable with evangelism. We wrestle with a sense of insecurity, a lack of preparation, and the sense that reaching out to others might force us to act like someone we're not. And many of us feel guilty when we fail to use an opportunity to talk about our faith, lowering our confidence even further. Building upon popular personality-type methods, the Contagious Faith assessment will help you identify your primary style, along with any secondary styles you discover. You'll learn next steps for developing and deploying your natural approach to evangelism and work through interactive prompts to practice the methods Mark unpacks in the videos. The Contagious Faith Training Course can be used in small groups, classes, student ministries, and church-wide campaigns and has everything you need to participate, including: The guide itself-with discussion and personal reflection questions, prompts, video notes, and a leader's guide. The six-session teaching DVD. The Contagious Faith book An assessment quiz to help you determine your Contagious Faith style. The training videos also include short interviews with Mark and five individuals who speak and use each of the 5 faith-sharing styles so that you can see them in action. Streaming video access code included. Access code subject to expiration after 12/31/2027. Code may be redeemed only by the recipient of this package. Code may not be transferred or sold separately from this package. Internet connection required. Void where prohibited, taxed, or restricted by law. Additional offer details inside.

While spreading the gospel around the world through his signature crusades, internationally renowned evangelist Billy Graham maintained a visible and controversial presence in his native South, a region that underwent substantial political and economic change in the latter half of the twentieth century. In this period Graham was alternately a desegregating crusader in Alabama, Sunbelt booster in Atlanta, regional apologist in the national press, and southern strategist in the Nixon administration."Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South" considers the critical but underappreciated role of the noted evangelist in the creation of the modern American South. The region experienced two significant related shifts away from its status as what observers and critics called the "Solid South": the end of legalized Jim Crow and the end of Democratic Party dominance. Author Steven P. Miller treats Graham as a serious actor and a powerful symbol in this transition--an evangelist first and foremost, but also a profoundly political figure. In his roles as the nation's most visible evangelist, adviser to political leaders, and a regional spokesperson, Graham influenced many of the developments that drove celebrants and detractors alike to place the South at the vanguard of political, religious, and cultural trends. He forged a path on which white southern moderates could retreat from Jim Crow, while his evangelical critique of white supremacy portended the emergence of "color blind" rhetoric within mainstream conservatism. Through his involvement in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations, as well as his deep social ties in the South, the evangelist influenced the decades-long process of political realignment.Graham's public life sheds new light on recent southern history in all of its ambiguities, and his social and political ethics complicate conventional understandings of evangelical Christianity in postwar America. Miller's book seeks to reintroduce a familiar figure to the narrative of southern history and, in the process, examine the political and social transitions constitutive of the modern South.

Jesus gave his followers seven key practices: The Lord's Supper Reconciliation Proclaiming the gospel Being with the "least of these" Being with children Fivefold ministry gifting Kingdom prayer When we practice these disciplines, God becomes faithfully present to us, and we in turn become God's faithful presence to the world. Pastor and professor David Fitch shows how these seven practices can revolutionize the church's presence in our neighborhoods, transform our way of life in the world, and advance the kingdom. Our communities can be changed when they see us practicing our faith. Go and do.

The story of Corrie ten Boom has inspired millions of people all over the world. Jean Watson is a skillful author and presents Corrie's stirring life and challenging hope-filled message for young readers. The Watchmaker's Daughter traces the life of this outstanding Christian woman from her childhood in Haarlem, through her suffering in Nazi concentration camps, to her world-wide ministry to the handicapped and underprivileged.This exciting victorious book will allow you to meet this beloved woman and learn of God's wonderful provision and blessing through adversity.

William Porter combines a balanced and insightful look at end times events with a practical guide on how the certainty of Jesus' return should impact the way Christians live now. Talking about the end times can often seem confusing with so many different interpretations held by Christians. William Porter deftly examines the issues and events to provide a measured and biblical middle way through the subject. One thing is clear- Jesus is coming back as a conquering king. Porter believes that this might be much nearer than we think and asks the big question: How would we live our lives if we really believed that Jesus was coming soon? Porter invites us to be 'forerunners' preparing the world for Jesus' return by declaring to modern society that Jesus is coming again. Questions are included throughout the book to help think through how that practically impacts our lives and our evangelism. The Forerunner Cry enables readers to understand the biblical teachings on the end times, live a godly life, and be confident to pass on the message of the imminent return of Jesus.

As the church in the global south continues to grow at a rapid pace, the question of how to develop local theologies becomes more and more urgent. This book charts a path forward through exegetical, theological and cultural analysis by scholars who are wrestling with the issues in their own situations around the globe. The contents were developed under the auspices of the World Evangelical Alliance Theological Commission at the Oxford contextualization consultation. This book was published in partnership with the World Evangelical Alliance.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of British women left home to follow a call to the African mission field. Women's involvement in Protestant foreign missions during this time grew out of organized efforts to professionalize women's social services, to promote white women's distinct ability to emancipate "heathen" women, and to consolidate the religious framework of the British Empire. Motivated women could therefore pursue their vocation in a skilled, independent capacity, confident in the transformative power of the gospel and its institutional counterparts: the Christian home, school, and clinic.
Yet women's missions did not transplant British paradigms easily onto African soil. Instead, missionary women encountered competing forms of culture and knowledge that caused them to approach evangelism as a series of negotiations and to rethink preconceived notions of race, gender, and religion. The outcome was a feminized, collaborative framework of Christianity which fostered new opportunities for solidarity and authority among British and African women. So powerful were these individual encounters that they decentred collective representations of empire, patriarchy, progress, and "civilization." Missionaries accordingly focused their attentions not only on the overseas mission field, but on the British state and church as sites of regeneration, emancipation, and reform, attempting to build a corporate body around women's Christian authority that would ameliorate the trauma of imperialism and war.
Elizabeth Prevost looks at missionaries as the products as well as the agents of the globalization of Christianity, during a time of rapid change at the local, regional, and international level. Anglican women in Madagascar, Uganda, and the British metropole form the basis for this story. Using a rich and largely untapped base of archival and published sources, and encompassing a wide scope of geographical, social, political, and theological contexts, Prevost brings together the fine grain and the broad strokes of the global interconnections of Christianity and feminism.

Many a Westerner has had a cross-cultural experience of honor and shame. First there are those stuttering moments in the new social landscape. Then after missed cues and social bruises comes the revelation that this culture-indeed much of the world-runs on an honor-shame operating system. When Western individualism and its introspective conscience fails to engage cultural gears, how can we shift and navigate this alternate code? And might we even learn to see and speak the gospel differently if we did? In Ministering in Honor-Shame Cultures Jayson Georges and Mark Baker help us decode the cultural script of honor and shame. What's more, they assist us in reading the Bible anew through the lens of honor and shame, often with startling turns. And they offer thoughtful and practical guidance in ministry within honor-shame contexts. Apt stories, illuminating insights and ministry-tested wisdom complete this well-rounded guide to Christian ministry in honor-shame cultures.

Exploring how Christianity became a world religion, this brief history examines Christian missions and their relationship to the current globalization of Christianity.* A short and enlightening history of Christian missions: a phenomenon that many say reflects the single most important intercultural movement over a sustained period of human history* Offers a thematic overview that takes into account the political, cultural, social, and theological issues* Discusses the significance of missions to the globalization of Christianity, and broadens our understanding of Christianity as a multicultural world religion* Helps Western audiences understand the meaning of mission as a historical process* Contains several new maps that illustrate demographic shifts in world Christianity

The Reverend Howard Finster was twenty feet tall, suspended in darkness. Or so be appeared in the documentary film that introduced a teenaged Greg Bottoms to the renowned outsider artist whose death would inspire him, fourteen years later, to travel the country. Beginning in Georgia with a trip to Finster's famous Paradise Gardens, his journey - of which The Colorful Apocalypse is a masterly chronicle - is an unparalleled look at the lives and works of some of Finster's contemporaries: the self-taught evangelical artists whose beliefs and neuvres occupy the gray area between madness and Christian ecstasy. Bottoms draws us into the worlds of such figures as William Thomas Thompson, a handicapped ex-millionaire who painted a 300-foot version of the book of Revelation, Norbert Kox, an ex-member of the Outlaws biker gang who now paints apocalyptic visual parables; and Myrtice West, who began painting to express the revelatory visions she had after her daughter's brutal murder. Along the way, Bottoms weaves a powerful narrative, a work that is at once an enthralling travelogue, a series of revealing biographical portraits, and a profound meditation on the chaos of despair and the ways in which creativity can help order our lives.

This collection of essays is committed to the belief that evangelicalism continues to have the historical assets and intellectual (hermeneutical and theological) tools able to contribute to the global church. Evangelicalism possesses assets with explanatory power to address significant theological and cultural issues arising out of the churches in the Global South. Evangelical approaches to contextualization and biblical studies can produce valuable fruit. Therefore in May 2008 over a dozen evangelical scholars (Chinese and Western) from the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan, came together to address issues of Christian and evangelical identity. The Inter-Cultural Theological Conversation was titled Beyond Our Past: Bible, Cultural Identity, and the Global Evangelical Movement. This collection of papers from the conference demonstrates the value of the careful balancing of judicious appropriation of the social sciences and thorough biblical inquiry. Questions of evangelical identity in China and around the world are addressed from the disciplines of history, biblical studies, and systematic theology/contextualization.

Eine Anthropologie fur die Pastoralpsychologie stellt ein Desiderat dar, das in der Entwicklung dieser Disziplin offen geblieben ist. Dieses Buch gibt Antwort auf die Suche nach einer anthropologischen Grundlegung mit einer eigenen Konstellation: Die organistische Philosophie Alfred North Whiteheads wird mit der analytischen Psychologie Carl Gustav Jungs und einzelnen Aussagen theologischer Anthropologie Pierre Teilhard de Chardins und Karl Rahners in Verbindung gebracht. So entsteht eine Prozessanthropologie, die thematische Gegenuberstellungen zu Konturen dieser Anthropologie fuhrt und zu Optionen fur die tiefenpsychologische Ausrichtung der Pastoralpsychologie kommt.

2018 WORLD Magazine Book of the Year - Accessible Theology 2018 ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award Publishers Weekly starred review We live in a distracted, secular age. These two trends define life in Western society today. We are increasingly addicted to habits-and devices-that distract and "buffer" us from substantive reflection and deep engagement with the world. And we live in what Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor calls "a secular age"-an age in which all beliefs are equally viable and real transcendence is less and less plausible. Drawing on Taylor's work, Alan Noble describes how these realities shape our thinking and affect our daily lives. Too often Christians have acquiesced to these trends, and the result has been a church that struggles to disrupt the ingrained patterns of people's lives. But the gospel of Jesus is inherently disruptive: like a plow, it breaks up the hardened surface to expose the fertile earth below. In this book Noble lays out individual, ecclesial, and cultural practices that disrupt our society's deep-rooted assumptions and point beyond them to the transcendent grace and beauty of Jesus. Disruptive Witness casts a new vision for the evangelical imagination, calling us away from abstraction and cliche to a more faithful embodiment of the gospel for our day.

Throughout the history of the Christian church, two narratives have constantly clashed: the imperial logic of Babel that builds towers and borders to seize control, versus the logic of Pentecost that empowers "glocal" missionaries of the kingdom life. To what extent are Westernized Christians today ready for the church of the Pentecost narrative? Are they equipped to do ministry in different cultural modes and to handle disruption and perplexity? What are Christians to make of the Holy Spirit's occasional encounters with cultures and religions of the Americas before the European conquest? Oscar Garcia-Johnson explores a new grammar for the study of theology and mission in global Christianity, especially in Latin America and the Latinx "third spaces" in North America. With an interdisciplinary, "transoccidental," and narrative approach, Spirit Outside the Gate offers a constructive theology of mission for the church in global contexts. Building on the familiar missiological metaphor of "outside the gate" established by Orlando Costas, Garcia-Johnson moves to recover important elements in ancestral traditions of the Americas, with an eye to discerning pneumatological continuity between the pre-Columbian and post-Columbian communities. He calls for a "rerouting of theology"-a realization that theology cannot make its home in Christendom but is a global creation that must come home to a church without borders. In this volume Garcia-Johnson considers pneumatological insights into de/postcolonial studies traces independent epistemic contributions of the American Global South shows how American indigenous, Afro-Latinx, and immigrant communities provide resources for a decolonial pneumatology describes four transformations the American church must undergo to break free from colonial, modernist, and monocultural structures Spirit Outside the Gate opens a path for a pneumatological missiology that can help the church act as a witness to the gospel message in a postmodern, postcolonial, and post-Christendom world. Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.

Revealing the impact of diasporic Scots on church and society in South Africa and beyondUtilising a large trove of primary source documents, this book presents a trans-generational narrative of the influence and role played by diasporic Scots and some of their descendants in the religious and political lives of Dutch/Afrikaner people in British colonial southern Africa. It demonstrates how this Scottish religious culture helped to develop a complicated counter-narrative to what would become the mainstream discourse of Afrikaner Christian nationalism in the early 20th century. Retief Muller provides new perspectives on the ways in which the historical changeover from British Imperial rule to apartheid South Africa was both contradicted and facilitated by the influence and legacies of Scottish religious emissaries, and considers the backlash to the Scots-Afrikaner tradition from the side of Afrikaner Christian nationalist opponents.

This book is a study of the process of conversion among the Germanic peoples from the third to eleventh centuries. The intention is twofold: firstly, to examine previous scholarship on conversion and to develop a model of conversion appropriate to the Germanic peoples; and secondly, to produce a comparative study of six Germanic conversions.

Chapter 1 reviews the existing models of conversion developed by scholars in a number of fields, principally psychology, anthropology and religious studies, and develops an alternative model. Chapters 2-7 are case studies which apply this model to the conversions of the Goths, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, continental Saxons, Scandinavians and Icelanders. The final chapter presents in summary form the insights from the case studies.

More than ever, North America is being flooded by people from all around the world, many of them here illegally. How should the church respond to these sojourners among us? In Strangers Next Door professor of evangelism and church planting J. D. Payne introduces the phenomenon of migrations of peoples to Western nations and explores how the church should respond in light of the mission of God. As we understand and embrace the fact that the least-reached people groups now reside in (and continue to migrate to) Western countries, churches have unprecedented opportunites to freely share the gospel with them. This book includes practical guidelines for doing crosscultural missions and developing a global strategy of mission. It also highlights examples of churches and organizations attempting to reach, partner with, and send migrants to minister to their people. Discover how you can reach out to the strangers next door by welcoming them into God's family.

The various media genres involving evangelical performance may seem tangential but are in fact significant and influential cultural products employing sophisticated tactics to reach large audiences of firm believers, extreme skeptics, and those in between. Sensational Devotion examines contemporary Passion plays, biblical theme parks, Holy Land recreations, creationist museums, and megachurches in order to understand how they serve their evangelical believer-users while also shaping larger cultural and national dialogues. The book examines how performative media support specific theologies and core beliefs by creating sensual, live experiences for those who use them. Because they often appear in accessible, familiar forms (such as theme parks) and employ pop culture motifs, a wide range of people-including those hostile toward Christianity or religion generally-are often willing to "try out" these genres, even if only for curiosity's sake. This familiarity not only helps these genres achieve their goals, but it also enables them to contribute to public dialogue about the role of religious faith in America. The book demonstrates the unique ways in which these genres, which certainly reflect religious belief, also simultaneously make religious belief. Jill Stevenson explores evangelical performance across a range of media and sites, including film, television, theater, tourist attractions, museums, and places of worship. Using historical research coupled with firsthand experiences at the evangelical venues, Stevenson not only critically examines these spaces and events within their specific religious, cultural, and national contexts, but also places them within a longer devotional tradition in order to suggest how they cultivate religious belief by generating vivid, sensual, affectively oriented, and individualized experiences. Stevenson shows how the genres analyzed function through a distinctive dramaturgy that assumes certain interpretations of representation, realism, enactment, spectatorship, and presence, in order to achieve particular aesthetic, ideological, and experiential effects. The performances don't simply represent theological concepts and depict biblical stories, but confront users with vivid, sensual, and rhythmic experiences designed to foster embodied beliefs that will respond to specific devotional needs and desires. Employing cognitive theory and theories of affect, the author demonstrates how these performative forms effectively foster the personal and experiential aspects of American evangelicalism, thereby reinforcing core theological tenets by means of the believer-user's body. Sensational Devotion contributes to existing scholarship on American evangelicalism and evangelical Christian media, especially work that examines performance. The analysis builds upon existing work on performance and cognition, as well as theories of affect. The author also draws connections between contemporary Protestant forms and medieval affective culture, thereby contributing to scholarship on medieval culture and medievalism. Finally, this book responds to the growing public interest in evangelical Christianity and evangelical media generally.

La question ecologique inquiete les ecologistes et les climato-septiques. Sans se confondre, avec eux, le theologien Augustin Kalamba propose a travers ce livre une " ecologie theo-logique ". Fondee sur la cosmologie du salut d'Adolphe Gesche et l'ecologie integrale du pape Francois, elle est un projet spirituel d'ordre superieur qui, partant d'une approche phenomenologique de la crise ecologique, reaffirme la responsabilite de " l'homme-parlant-de-Dieu-dans-la-foi " dans le projet du salut du cosmos. L'homme est invite a redecouvrir l'identite eco-theologique du monde comme " creation " et " maison commune " afin de le cultiver, labourer, proteger, et sauve-garder avec gratitude et dans la serenite qui vient de la foi en un Dieu Createur du ciel et de la terre, de l'univers visible et invisible.

What's so big about small groups? With proven results in drawing people into community and helping them grow to maturity in Christ, small groups have established themselves as a crucial ministry of the church to its members and its mission field. But whether leading a small group, coaching small group leaders or implementing a churchwide ministry, you need vision, knowledge and skill to minister effectively through small groups. Jeffrey Arnold knows the pressures of small group ministry, but he has also seen the power of small groups in many ministry settings. In this revised edition of The Big Book on Small Groups, he breaks down small groups so that you can see them from all angles. The first four chapters focus on the structure and benefits of a small group ministry. Further chapters explore the basics of Christian community--prayer, worship, Bible study, outreach and mission, as well as how to multiply groups. Resources for further reading, ideas for coaches and trainers, and curriculum to photocopy for small group sessions are also included. A constant companion throughout your small group ministry, The Big Book on Small Groups will give you the basics to get you going--and the support and nurture you need to make small groups effective as a strategy for outreach and discipleship.

Christ has ascended. Yet his work continues. Much has been made of a "missional" view of the church in recent theological literature, but largely overlooked in this discussion has been the contribution that T. F. Torrance, the late Church of Scotland minister and theologian, can make to this discussion. Addressing this lacuna, theologian and pastor Joseph Sherrard considers how Torrance's theology can inform the church's understanding of its ministry and mission-in particular, his appeal to the church's participation in the ascended Christ's threefold office as king, prophet, and priest. Through the ministry of the church, Christ is still at work. Featuring new monographs with cutting-edge research, New Explorations in Theology provides a platform for constructive, creative work in the areas of systematic, historical, philosophical, biblical, and practical theology.

The Missionary, the Catechist and the Hunter examines the role of Protestantism in the Danish colonisation of Greenland and shows how the process of colonisation entails a process of subjectification where the identity of indigenous population is transformed. The figure of the hunter, commonly regarded as quintessential Inuit figure, is traced back to the efforts of the Greenlandic intelligentsia to distance themselves from the hunting lifestyle by producing an abstract hunter identity in Greenlandic literature.