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.

'Dan Southerland guio a su congregacion hacia la renovacion, la salud y el crecimiento mediante un brillante proceso de transicion paso a paso Si usted es un pastor o lider clave de una iglesia establecida, este manual lo ayudara a implementar los principios de una iglesia con proposito Este libro es para estudiarlo, no para leerlo solamente.' Rick Warren 'Tuve el privilegio de ser uno de los pastores de una iglesia que navego con exito los mares de la transicion. En los ultimos nueve anos, tuvimos nueve transiciones grandes, la asistencia se multiplico siete veces y plantamos dieciseis misiones. Estoy convencido de que Dios nos permitio aprender sobre la transicion para poder contarle a otros lideres de iglesias lo aprendido.' Dan Southerland"

A 16th century Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci was the founder of the Catholic Mission in China and one of the most famous missionaries of all time. A pioneer in bringing Christianity to China, Ricci spent twenty eight years in the country, in which time he crossed the cultural divides between China and the West by immersing himself in the language and culture of his hosts. Even 400 years later, he is still one of the best known westerners in China, celebrated for introducing western scientific and religious ideas to China and for explaining Chinese culture to Europe.
The first critical biography of Ricci to use all relevant sources, both Chinese and Western, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City tells the story of a remarkable life that bridged Counter-Reformation Catholic Europe and China under the Ming dynasty. Hsia follows the life of Ricci from his childhood in Macerata, through his education in Rome, to his sojourn in Portuguese India, before the start of his long journey of self-discovery and cultural encounter in the Ming realm. Along the way, we glimpse the workings of the Portuguese maritime empire in Asia, the mission of the Society of Jesus, and life in the European enclave of Macau on the Chinese coast, as well as invaluable sketches of Ricci's fellow Jesuits and portraits of the Chinese mandarins who formed networks indispensible for Ricci's success.
Examining a range of new sources, Hsia offers important new insights into Ricci's long period of trial and frustration in Guangdong province, where he first appeared in the persona of a foreign Buddhist monk, before the crucial move to Nanchang in 1595 that led to his sustained intellectual conversation with a leading Confucian scholar and subsequent synthesis of Christianity and Confucianism in propagating the Gospels in China. With his expertise in cartography, mathematics and astronomy, Ricci quickly won recognition, especially after he had settled in Nanjing in 1598, the southern capital of the Ming dynasty. As his reputation and friendships grew, Ricci launched into a sharp polemic against Buddhism, while his career found its crowning achievement in the imperial capital of Beijing, leaving behind a life, work, and legacy that is still very much alive today.

Jesus is present here and now, Christians have always affirmed. But how are we to understand his present activity in a challenging, post-Christian context? In what ways is he at work in our congregational worship, pastoral care, preaching-and even our board meetings? At a time when many feel uncertain about the future of the church, What Is Jesus Doing? brings together leading thinkers in pastoral theology, homiletics, liturgical theology, and missiology in a compelling resource for pastors and theologians. Emphasizing the reality of Jesus both as the resurrected, ascended Christ and as present and active today, the contributors consider how to recognize the divine presence and join in what God is already doing in all areas of church ministry. Contributors include: David Fergusson Dwight J. Zscheile Scott J. Hagley Craig Barnes Roger Owens Anthony B. Robinson Will Willimon Andrew Root John D. Witvliet Nicholas Wolterstorff Angela Dienhart Hancock Trygve D. Johnson With deep theological reflection, personal stories, and practical suggestions, this interdisciplinary conversation invites leaders to remember that the church is first of all God's project, not ours-and that this truth should fill us with hope.

David Brainerd is simultaneously one of the most enigmatic and recognizable figures in American religious history. Born in 1718 and known for his missionary work among the Indians (as well as for being expelled from Yale), Brainerd and the story of his life entered the realm of legend almost immediately upon his death at the age of twenty-nine.
Much of his reputation is based on the picture of Brainerd constructed by Jonathan Edwards in his best-selling Life of David Brainerd. This new biography seeks to restore Brainerd to the context of the culture in which he lived. Combining archival research with the most recent scholarship on the Great Awakening and Indian missions, John A. Grigg argues that Brainerd was shaped by two formative experiences. On the one hand, he was the child of a prosperous, well-respected Connecticut family that was part of the political and social establishment. On the other, he was a participant in one of the more fundamental challenges to that establishment-the religious revivals of the 1740s. Brainerd's work among the Indians, Grigg argues, was a way to combine the sense of order and tradition inherited from his family with his radical experiences in the revival movement. Moving beyond biography, Grigg also examines how the myth of Brainerd came to be. He argues that both Edwards and John Wesley crafted their versions of Brainerd's life in order to address specific problems in their own churches, and he examines how subsequent generations of evangelicals utilized Brainerd for their own purposes.
The Lives of David Brainerd is the first truly scholarly biography of Brainerd, drawing on everything from town records and published sermons to hand-written fragments to tell the story not only of his life, but of his legend. The David Brainerd who emerges from this work is a man who is both familiar and remarkably new.

In her first year as a missionary to a small group of native women in the Ecuadorian Jungle, Elisabeth Elliot faced physical and spiritual trials. In These Strange Ashes, Elliot captures the mysteries and stark realities surrounding the colorful and primitive world in which she ministered. More than just a recounting of her early days, this is a beautifully crafted and deeply personal reflection on the important questions of life and a remarkable testimony to an authentic Christian commitment.

Although a minority of the Asian population, Protestants in Asia are a fast-growing group. What are the political implications of this evangelical Christianity? In some cases, religion has enabled poor and marginalized people to gain greater prosperity, self-confidence and civic skills, and more open-minded and democratic societies. But does religion have the kind of cultural currency needed to generate political changes in governments such as China's? Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia provides six case studies on 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. The result is a groundbreaking work, indispensable to everyone concerned with the future of the region.
Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia is one of four volumes in the series Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in the Global South and grew from a 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? At a time when the global-political impact of another revivalist and scriptural religion - Islam - fuels debate, these volumes offer an unusual comparative perspective.

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.

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.

The Religious Right came to prominence in the early 1980s, but it was born during the early Cold War. Evangelical leaders like Billy Graham, driven by a fierce opposition to communism, led evangelicals out of the political wilderness they'd inhabited since the Scopes trial and into a much more active engagement with the important issues of the day. How did the conservative evangelical culture move into the political mainstream? Angela Lahr seeks to answer this important question. She shows how evangelicals, who had felt marginalized by American culture, drew upon their eschatological belief in the Second Coming of Christ and a subsequent glorious millennium to find common cause with more mainstream Americans who also feared a a 'soon-coming end, ' albeit from nuclear war.
In the early postwar climate of nuclear fear and anticommunism, the apocalyptic eschatology of premillennial dispensationalism embraced by many evangelicals meshed very well with the "secular apocalyptic" mood of a society equally terrified of the Bomb and of communism. She argues that the development of the bomb, the creation of the state of Israel, and the Cuban Missile Crisis combined with evangelical end-times theology to shape conservative evangelical political identity and to influence secular views. Millennial beliefs influenced evangelical interpretation of these events, repeatedly energized evangelical efforts, and helped evangelicals view themselves and be viewed by others as a vital and legitimate segment of American culture, even when it raised its voice in sharp criticism of aspects of that culture. Conservative Protestants were able to take advantage of this situation to carve out a new space for theirsubculture within the national arena. The greater legitimacy that evangelicals gained in the early Cold War provided the foundation of a power-base in the national political culture that the religious right would draw on in the late seventies and early eighties. The result, she demonstrates, was the alliance of religious and political conservatives that holds power today.

Craig Greenfield lives life a little crazier than most people. He comes from New Zealand but he has lived in some of the most broken (and beautiful) places in the world, including the drug ruled Downtown Eastside inner city of Vancouver, Canada and the slums of Cambodia. Convinced that Jesus places love for the poor and the pursuit of justice as central, Craig Greenfield has sought to follow in Christ's footsteps by living among people at the edges of society for the last fifteen years. His quest to follow this Subversive Jesus has taken Craig and his young family around the world and back again. This is the story of how Jesus led them to the margins: initiating the Pirates of Justice flash mobs, sharing their home with detoxing crack-addicts, welcoming homeless panhandlers and prostituted women to the dinner table, and ultimately sparking a movement to reach the world's most vulnerable children. Craig's story is a radical and potentially controversial critique of the status quo too often found in our own lives and even in our churches, but it also offers an inspirational and hopeful vision of another way. While readers may not relocate to a slum or start dining with drug addicts, they will certainly come to view their lives and ministry through a fresh lens, reconsidering how they are uniquely called by Jesus to subversively love the poor and break down systems of injustice in their own sphere of influence.

Professional church planter Patrick Lai provides an in-depth reference for tentmakers--business-as-mission practitioners operating in regions of great antagonism to the Christian message. Those who are unfamiliar with the world of tentmaking will find valuable information to introduce them to the concept and to help in getting started. Designed to be a manual, Tentmaking is more than just an overview of questions and issues. This work will serve as an in-depth reference for existing tentmakers. This thoroughly researched collection is the result of interviews from over 450 people serving in the 10/40 window. It provides a unique viewpoint on missions, sharing proven, workable alternatives to conventional missionary life. Tentmaking provides an important and much needed resource to this specialized area of world missions.

From Cannibals to Christ-Followers--A True Story In 1962, Don and Carol Richardson risked their lives to share the gospel with the Sawi people of New Guinea. Peace Child tells their unforgettable story of living among these headhunters and cannibals, who valued treachery through fattening victims with friendship before the slaughter. God gave Don and Carol the key to the Sawi hearts via a redemptive analogy from their own mythology. The "peace child" became the secret to unlocking a value system that had existed through generations. This analogy became a stepping-stone by which the gospel came into the Sawi culture and started both a spiritual and a social revolution from within. With an epilogue updating how the gospel has impacted the Sawi people, this missionary classic will inspire a new generation of readers who need to hear this remarkable story and the lessons it teaches us about communicating Christ in a meaningful way to those around us.

2020 Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year ("Also Recommended," Cross-Cultural and Missional) In our globalized world, ideas are constantly being exchanged between people of different cultural backgrounds. But educators often struggle to adapt to the contexts of diverse learners. Some focus so much on content delivery that they overlook crosscultural barriers to effective teaching. Educator and missiologist James Plueddemann offers field-tested insights for teaching across cultural differences. He unpacks how different cultural dynamics may inhibit learning and offers a framework for integrating conceptual ideas into practical experience. He provides a model of teaching as pilgrimage, where the aim is not merely the mastery of information but the use of knowledge to foster the development of the pilgrim learner. Plueddemann's crosscultural experience shows how teachers can make connections between content and context, bridging truth and life. Those who teach in educational institutions, mission organizations, churches, and other ministries will find insights here for transformational crosscultural learning.

Our culture is obsessed with lifestyle. Magazines and websites tell us what to wear, how to get fit, what to drive, and how to love. Everyone wants to tell us how to live our lives. Jesus didn't leave us a lifestyle magazine; he sat down on a mountainside and began to teach. In this engaging book, Nicky Gumbel examines Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and the radical alternative it presents to our modern lifestyle. Simple, memorable, and profound, Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount are as relevant and as challenging today as they were 2,000 years ago. Nicky's reflections on the Sermon on the Mount are shared with his familiar mix of humor and wisdom, and presents the life that Jesus and the wants us to live. This is an excellent resource for those who have just completed Alpha.

Get your children interested in mission by using this excellent Sunday School resource book. 'This gets inside the lives of people from another culture. An essential resource for launching children into the adventure of missions. Prepare for take off!' Stephen Nichols, All Souls. 'If you are teaching 7-11 year olds you need this book. Let the children taste new cultures and meet colourful characters. A creative blend of facts, games, crafts and ideas. User friendly and flexible. Easy to adapt to fit the needs of your group. Ideal for dipping into or using week by week. All you need for a five-minute slot or a two hour session. 'Cor! Cool!' Shona Clements, age 11

Elenktik ist die Lehre vom Gewissen des Menschen in seinem jeweiligen kulturellen und religisen Kontext. Das individuelle Gewissen, das die Basis der emotionalen Intelligenz des Menschen bildet, stellt eine der elementarsten Bedingungen dar, ohne die er nicht fhig ist, mit anderen zusammen in einer funktionsfhigen Gemeinschaft zu leben. Nur ein angemessen geformtes Gewissen verleiht dem Menschen den Status eines sozialen Wesens. Davon handelt dieses Buch. Es stellt nicht nur dar, in welch unterschiedlicher Weise Menschen Verste gegen ethische Normen als Snde" werten und welche Rolle ihre Kultur oder gesellschaftliche Schicht dabei spielt, sondern geht auch der Frage nach, was hinter Amoklufen, Ehrenmorden und religisem Fanatismus steckt, ob Gewissensbisse" als Schuld, Scham oder Angst empfunden werden, wie verschiedene Prgungen des Gewissens zum Frieden mit sich selbst und dem eigenen gesellschaftlichen Umfeld fhren, und was unter diesen Bedingungen Bue" und Vergebung" bedeuten. Ausfhrlich kommt zur Sprache, welche Autoritten fr ein individuelles Gewissen Bedeutung haben, und in welcher Weise ethische Normen Einfluss auf das Verstehen von Recht" und Ehre" in einer Gesellschaft nehmen. Der Autor bezieht ethnologische, psychologische, soziologische, pdagogische, theologische und viele andere Gesichtspunkte in seine berlegungen ein und entwirft somit eine umfassende Theorie des Gewissens, mit deren Hilfe besonders auch das Europern oft so unverstndliche Verhalten von Menschen aus anderen Gesellschaftsordnungen, beispielsweise von Asylbewerbern, erklrt und verstanden werden kann.

Why doesn't God answer my prayers? If God is so powerful, why does evil exist? And if He is so good, why do we suffer?

Nonbelievers, and even Christians, are often troubled by questions about suffering, doubt, failure, and unanswered prayer. Yet careful, compassionate answers are hard to find, in part because evangelicals have not taken the life of the mind seriously enough. The intellectual currents of our day are just too strong for simplistic responses.

In Hard Questions, Real Answers, William Lane Craig doesn't offer trite phrases or pat answers-he offers honest insights gained from a life of study and ministry. Readers in the midst of doubt and confusion will find real answers to these perplexing questions and learn to stand on the only sure foundation for hope-God Himself. This expanded new edition includes chapters on abortion and homosexuality to help readers know how to think about these volatile social issues.