In this pioneer study, Ion investigates the experience of the Canadians who were part of the Protestant missionary movement in the Japanese Empire. He sheds new light on the dramatic challenges faced by foreign missionaries and Japanese Christians alike in what was the watershed period in the religious history of twentieth-century East Asia.

"The Cross in the Dark Valley" delivers significant lessons for Christian and missionary movements in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe which even now have to contend with oppression from authoritarian regimes and with hostility.

This new book by A. Hamish Ion, written with objectivity and scholarly competence, will be of interest to all scholars of Japanese-Canadian relations and missionary studies as well as to general historians.

In a WWII POW camp the dying Olympic runner, Eric Liddell, gave Steve his running shoes and challenged him to pray for the Japanese. But how could he?

Steve and his classmates at the Chefoo school in China--for the most part the children of missionaries--were interned in 1942. Resentment of the Japanese, particularly the brutal prison guards, became a way of life. Eric Liddell, by then a missionary and fellow internee, and a hero to the boy, charged him with an impossible challenge--pray for his enemies. But was it really possible to pray for the men who stood guard over them with guns?

Painfully, reluctantly, Steve began to pray and as he continued to pray, his heart was profoundly changed. At the end of the war the China Inland Mission (now OMF International) was seeking young men willing to go to Japan. Steve trained, packed, and went. Thus began Steve's lifelong love of Japan. Over the years he would tussle with a culture where courtesy wins over truth; where suicide is an honorable choice; where to be foreign is to be forever alien. Time after time he would encounter miracles of healing, provision, and protection as God looked after him, his wife, Evelyn, and their growing family. In a resistant culture--that at the time had been recently bombed by the Christian nation of America--he would see many come to Christ. This is the story of how a boy's grudging prayers were remarkably answered.

The study is an intellectual and comparative history of French, Spanish, and English missions to the native peoples of America in the seventeenth century, c. 1610-1690. It shows that missions are ideal case studies to properly understand the relationship between religion and politics in early modern Catholic and Calvinist thought. The book aims to analyse the intellectual roots of fundamental ideas in Catholic and Calvinist missionary writings-among others idolatry, conversion, civility, and police-by examining the classical, Augustinian, neo-thomist, reformed Protestant, and contemporary European influences on their writings. Missionaries' insistence on the necessity of reform, emphasising an experiential, practical vision of Christianity, led them to elaborate conversion strategies that encompassed not only religious, but also political and social changes. It was at the margins of empire that the essentials of Calvinist and Catholic soteriologies and political thought could be enacted and crystallised. By a careful analysis of these missiologies, the study thus argues that missionaries' common strategies-habituation, segregation, social and political regulations-stem from a shared intellectual heritage, classical, humanist, and above all concerned with the Erasmian ideal of a reformation of manners.

The Problem of God explores answers to the most difficult questions raised against Christianity. A skeptic who became a Christian and then a pastor, author Mark Clark grew up in an atheistic home. After his father's death, he began a skeptical search for truth through the fields of science, philosophy, and history, eventually finding answers in the last place he expected: Christianity. In a winsome, persuasive, and humble voice, The Problem of God responds to the top ten interrogations people bring against God, and Christianity, including: Does God even exist in the first place? What do we do with Christianity's violent history? Is Jesus just another myth? Can the Bible be trusted? Why should we believe in Hell anymore today? Each chapter answers the specific challenge using a mix of theology, philosophy, and science. Filled with compelling stories and anecdotes, The Problem of God presents an organized and easy-to-understand range of apologetics, focused on both convincing the skeptic and informing the Christian. The book concluding with Christianity's most audacious assertion: how should we respond to Jesus' claim that he is God and the only way to salvation.

This book examines the life of Catholic religious teaching brothers across the English-speaking world, especially during the religious order heyday period of 1891-1965. Its central theme is that the commitment of teaching brothers was first and foremost to their religious life and that teaching was always in accord with, and where necessary took second place to, that religious life. Related themes are also examined: how teaching brothers were constructed by the Catholic Church as being different from lay people; recruitment to the life; the socialization process; the process of education in brothers' schools; the influence of the Second Vatican Council; child abuse; and what the future holds.

The gospel is for every tribe, tongue, and nation (Revelation 7:9), but there is no single biblical or theological model for the relationship between the gospel and these diverse cultures. Indeed, every suggested approach carries its own range of philosophical and theological commitments that all too often remain unexamined. Contextualization is fraught with challenges-yet wrestling with questions of context is essential for how we understand mission, theology, and the embodiment of the Christian faith. German missiology has engaged these questions in a variety of ways that can both inform and critique Anglo-American traditions. In this compilation and analysis, John Flett and Henning Wrogemann translate and comment on a core thread of German missiological works, explaining both their historical and current significance. Drawn from journals and books across a century of academic discourse, these classic writings trace developments from Gustav Warneck, the father of contemporary missiology, through key thinkers such as Karl Hartenstein, who coined the term missio Dei, down to twenty-first century discussions of intercultural hermeneutics. Along the way they reveal advances, mistakes, and changing definitions as German missiologists interacted with the cultural and political realities of their time. This longitudinal study, showcasing many texts available in English for the first time, tackles the history and dynamics of contextualization head-on and sheds new light on the state of missiology today. We are reminded, Flett and Wrogemann argue, that we must keep working to honor difference within the worldwide Christian community as necessary to the fullness of our being in Christ. 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.

An exploration of the many faces of televangelism in our world today, including Christian, Islamic and Hindu. The collection analyses the correspondences and major differences between global and local televangelism, focusing on the main individuals involved in televangelism, their practices and the social and cultural impact of their ministries.

Missionary Discourse examines missionary writings from India and southern Africa to explore colonial discourses about race, religion, gender and culture. The book is organised around three themes: family, sickness and violence, which were key areas of missionary concern, and important axes around which colonial difference was forged.

Investigating Vatican II is a collection of Fr. Jared Wicks' recent articles on Vatican II, and presents the Second Vatican Council as an event to which theologians contributed in major ways and from which Catholic theology can gain enormous insights. Taken as a whole, the articles take the reader into the theological dynamics of Vatican II at key moments in the Council's historical unfolding. Wicks promotes a contemporary re-reception of Vatican II's theologically profound documents, especially as they featured God's incarnate and saving Word, laid down principles of Catholic ecumenical engagement, and articulated the church's turn to the modern world with a new "face" of respect and dedication to service. From the original motivations of Pope John XXIII in convoking the Council, Investigating Vatican II goes on to highlight the profound insights offered by theologians who served behind the scenes as Council experts. In its chapters, the book moves through the Council's working periods, drawing on the published and non-published records, with attention to the Council's dramas, crises, and breakthroughs. It brings to light the bases of Pope Francis's call for synodality in a listening church, while highlighting Vatican II's mandate to all of prayerful biblical reading, for fostering a vibrant "joy in the Gospel."

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.

In 1794 a group of Russian Orthodox missionaries landed on Kodiak Island, Alaska, with the intent of preaching to the native Americans, baptizing those who would accept the Christian life and developing for them both academic and agricultural schools. Of this initial effort there survived one monk, Father Herman, who lived among the Aleut people for forty some years and earned the loving nickname of Apa, or "grandfather." Father Herman had a fiery temperament and was often heatedly involved with local authorities concerning the rights of the local natives, who were constantly violated by explorers and foreign authorities. Father Herman's gentle admonition, sense of humor, strict asceticism and care for the physical needs of the natives left a memorable legacy.

In this charming volume, author and illustrator Dorrie Papademetriou captures the divine spark that shone in the monk Herman and reflects it across the pages. The world of Apa and the Aleuts comes alive in illustrations of northern lights, Kodiak bears, giant cabbages and angel's wings. Best of all, readers are warmed by the words of this human heart aflame with divine love.

This is the first truly global study of the Society of Jesus's early missions. Up to now historians have treated the early-modern Catholic missionary project as a disjointed collection of regional missions rather than as a single world-encompassing example of religious globalization. Luke Clossey shows how the vast distances separating missions led to logistical problems of transportation and communication incompatible with traditional views of the Society as a tightly centralized military machine. In fact, connections unmediated by Rome sprung up between the missions throughout the seventeenth century. He follows trails of personnel, money, relics and information between missions in seventeenth-century China, Germany and Mexico, and explores how Jesuits understood space and time and visualized universal mission and salvation. This pioneering study demonstrates that a global perspective is essential to understanding the Jesuits and will be required reading for historians of Catholicism and the early-modern world.

"In the early twentieth century, missionary expositions were a central event in the religious life of many Americans. They also converged with the research agenda of anthropology, which was then defined by museum work. This thoughtfully researched book brings the untold history of the World in Boston of 1911 to light. Extraordinary in terms of content, geographic scope, and attendance, "America's First Great Missionary Exposition" was conceived on the model of world's fairs, and grew out of an established tradition of missionary exhibitions. This compelling history reveals how the material culture of missions shaped domestic interactions with evangelism, Christianity, and the consumption of ethnological knowledge"--

Evangelicalism, a vibrant and growing expression of historic Christian orthodoxy, is already one of the largest and most geographically diverse global religious movements. This Companion, first published in 2007, offers an articulation of evangelical theology that is both faithful to historic evangelical convictions and in dialogue with contemporary intellectual contexts and concerns. In addition to original and creative essays on central Christian doctrines such as Christ, the Trinity, and Justification, it breaks new ground by offering evangelical reflections on issues such as gender, race, culture, and world religions. This volume also moves beyond the confines of Anglo-American perspectives to offer separate essays exploring evangelical theology in African, Asian, and Latin American contexts. The contributors to this volume form an unrivalled list of many of today's most eminent evangelical theologians and important emerging voices.

This book examines the life of George Strachan (1572 1635), early 17th-century Scottish Humanist scholar, Orientalist and traveller. Drawing on a wealth of newly discovered archival material to offer new insights into Strachan's life and work, it also utilises recent scholarship on the relationship between the cultures and religions of East and West. Tom McInally explains the voyages that the Catholic exile took to many of the Catholic courts of Europe as a scholar and spy before turning eastwards to embark upon a 22-year journey around the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires. By becoming fully literate in Arabic and Farsi, Strachan was able to gain a unique knowledge of Eastern societies. His collection of Arabic and Farsi texts on Islam, philosophy and humanities which he translated and sent to Europe for the advancement of European knowledge of Islam and Islamic societies became Strachan's real intellectual legacy

Walker's impressive study is the first to link Harris's background to the nature of his teachings and to discuss the dynamics of his movement's development. Harris not only articulated the confusion and desires of his followers but also created new aspirations by helping them see what they could achieve in their own society and in their relations with Europeans. Harris is the only evangelist in the history of the African continent to bring such numbers to Christianity.
Originally published in 1983.
A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Evangelicalism contributed to the great transformation of ideas in the modern world. This book represents a pioneering study of discussions within the evangelical movements from Central Europe to the American colonies about what constituted evangelical identity and of the basis of the fraternity among evangelical leaders of strikingly different backgrounds. Through a global study of the major figures and movements in the early Evangelical world, W. R. Ward aims to show that down through the eighteenth century the evangelical elite had coherent answers to the general intellectual problems of their day and that piety as well as the enlightenment was a significant motor of intellectual change. However, as the century wore on the evangelicals lost the ability to state a broad intellectual setting for their case, and when they entered on their period of greatest social influence in the nineteenth century their former cohesion disintegrated into acute partisan wrangling.

This book offers the first complete overview of the intellectual history of one of the most significant contemporary cultural trends -- the apocalyptic expectations of European and American evangelicals -- in an account that guides readers into the origins, its evolution, and its revolutionary potential in the modern world.

Going on a short-term missions trip can be a life- and faith-transforming experience. It can enrich the way we view the world. It can cause us to rely on God more fully. It's an opportunity to develop deep relationships with our team and the people we serve. A short-term missions experience can also involve weeks of physical and spiritual challenges. An unprepared team can wreak havoc on each other and the people they intend to serve. To get the most out of a missions trip, we need to go prepared. Whether we're going on our own or with a team, the keys to preparation are here in this workbook. In this ten-week course, you will find a concise summary of crosscultural principles help in facing spiritual warfare tips on avoiding a tourist mentality spiritual preparation through individual or group Bible study questions for individual reflection and group discussion This revised and expanded edition includes updated content throughout and new chapters on facing risks, fears, and suffering, and making the most of the trip after returning home. If you are planning to go on a short-term missions trip, don't leave home without working through this book!

The world has changed, but will the church keep up? This seminal report from the Church of England evaluates the changing religious landscape and introduces exciting new forms of church that speak directly to their diverse mission contexts. The Archbishop of Canterbury's Council on Mission and Public Affairs collaborated to research and produce the Mission-Shaped Church report in 2004, and Seabury Books is the new North American Publisher.

This is a practical how-to guide introducing new, mission-shaped practices in a traditional parish setting. This book looks at the church's bread-and-butter activities -- worship, pastoral contacts, civic and public responsibilities, faith formation, administration and leadership -- and creatively points out how to reframe them with a focus on God's mission.

Features & Benefits- Notable insights into the life of one of the world's greatest healing evangelists as expressed first-hand from his various writings.- Edge-of-the-seat adventures that would seem unreal were they not acts of God - Short accounts for quick reading in a compact, travel-size book.

Be Equipped to Prepare and Deliver Engaging, Biblical, and Effective Topical Sermons Sooner or later, every preacher will come upon a situation where they need to preach a topical sermon. Yet few are taught to preach topically. Even preachers who are gifted in expositing the Scriptures may struggle to deliver a topical sermon that is engaging, culturally relevant, and true to the biblical text. Worse, many pastors worry these messages undermine confidence in the Bible or its authority, leading to a human-centered rather than a God-focused sermon. But that doesn't have to be the case. In Topical Preaching in a Complex World, Sam Chan and Malcolm Gill answer these objections and chart a path for how preachers can deliver faithful and effective topical messages. First, they address the biblical, theological, and cultural reasons pastors should add topical sermons to their preaching repertoire. Then, they introduce a straightforward, four-fold approach for preaching a topical message and answer important questions like these: How do you approach a topic with the proper interpretative lens? How can you speak to two or more audiences with the same sermon? What should you consider theologically, culturally, and pastorally in your preparation? How do you trace the topic back to Christ? How can you better connect with your audience? Best of all, they help readers craft a message that says something people truly need (and want) to hear! Filled with wit, humor, and wisdom from decades of preaching, this book will equip preachers, pastors, ministry leaders, and students to preach relevant, biblical, and engaging topical sermons. Author Sam Chan says, "Just over a decade ago, I was asked by an organization to speak at their end-of-year dinner. They wanted me to address the topic of being a Christian single, but I had no idea how to prepare and deliver a topical talk. When the night arrived, I preached an old three-point expository sermon and merely changed the ending to include some application on singleness. At best, I got some polite comments afterwards. At worst, people's looks indicated that my biblical talk had little relevance for them. They could not have been less fooled by my disingenuous workaround. I went home vowing never to repeat that poor performance. I felt like the unfaithful servant who had not adequately used what talents had been given to him. As a result, I have dedicated the last decade of my preaching ministry to overcoming and mastering the art of topical preaching. This book is a product of that journey." X