In this frank and damning expose of the Teresa cult, Hitchens details the nature and limits of one woman's mission to help the world's poor. He probes the source of the heroic status bestowed upon an Albanian nun whose only declared wish was to serve God. He asks whether Mother Teresa's good works answered any higher purpose than the need of the world's privileged to see someone, somewhere, doing something for the Third World. He unmasks pseudo-miracles, questions Mother Teresa's fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex and reproduction, and reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords genial relations with dictators, corrupt tycoons and convicted frauds. Is Mother Teresa merely an essential salve to the conscience of the rich West, or an expert PR machine for the Catholic Church? In its caustic iconoclasm and unsparing wit, The Missionary Position showcases the devastating effect of Hitchens' writing at its polemical best.

Loving Our Neighbor provides practical advice for churches, businesses, civic organizations, school groups, and individuals who need seasoned guidance in making wise and compassionate decisions when approached for financial donations. Beth Templeton is a minister who clearly understands both the heart of the charitable organization and the need for focus and planning when it comes to helping those in need. She relies on twenty-five years of experience as a nonprofit executive at United Ministries to: -Provide an understanding of the Biblical call to help -Assist others in comprehending a life of poverty -Advise the different ways to aid those battling financial hardship -Illustrate how to organize a direct ministry for a church -Facilitate others in gaining a deeper understanding of the social and economic conditions that lead to poverty Templeton shares fresh insights, thought-provoking lessons, and timeless wisdom that exemplify an organized and compassionate process that includes various approaches designed to help others decide how, when, and whom to help in times of need. Loving Our Neighbor encourages building relationships with those who can benefit from assistance, ultimately enriching their lives in countless ways.

Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster is the most influential and historically significant sector of Christianity in Northern Ireland. It is often associated only with the controversial figure of Ian Paisley, but this book includes fresh analysis of a spectrum of Evangelical opinion. Covering the period from Partition in 1921 to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, Patrick Mitchel explores why and how Evangelical Christians are deeply divided over politics, national identity, and the current Peace Process. The result is an original and significant study that provides an invaluable guide to understanding both the past and contemporary mindset of Ulster Protestantism.

Catholic and Protestant missionaries followed their own, competing agendas rather than those of the colonial state. This volume unravels these agendas and challenges received wisdom on the histories of Rwanda and Burundi, as well as the colonial relationship between state and mission. The archives of the White Fathers Catholic missionary order in Rome and Paris are read alongside primary sources produced by the British Protestant Church Missionary Society to analyse their impact between 1900 and 1972 in Rwanda and Burundi. The colonial state was weaker than often assumed, and permeable by external radical influences. Denominational competition between Catholic and Protestant missionaries was a key motor of this radicalism. The colonial state in both kingdoms was a weak, reactive agent rather than a structuring form of power. This volume shows that missionaries were more committed and influential actors, but their inability to manage the mass demand for the education that they sought and delivered finally undermined the achievement of their aims. Missionaries and the Colonial State is a resource for historians of Christianity, Belgian Africa specialists, and scholars of colonialism.

A leading scholar offers an up-to-date articulation of the theological grounding of the missionary endeavor. Lalsangkima (Kima) Pachuau argues that theology of mission deals with God's work in and for the world, which is centered on salvation in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Pachuau brings a global perspective to mission theology, explains how theology of mission is related to theology as a discipline, and recognizes recent critiques of "missions," offering a compelling response rooted in the very nature of God.

The Divine Assignment: The Missiology of Wendell Clay Somerville is an analysis of the life, work, philosophy, and theology of Wendell Somerville. Somerville, an African American who made a substantial impact during a time of racial tension in the United States, led the work of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention for over fifty years and strove for a great global missions ministry. Learn and be enlightened as author and Executive Secretary-Treasurer for Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, David Emmanuel Goatley, takes you into the insights Wendell Somerville had about the missional church, his understanding of the missional life, and his missional strategy for the world. Read about the changing nature of global mission theory and practice from the beginning of WWII to the twenty-first century. "Through winnowing the sermons and reports of his venerable predecessor at the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, David Emmanuel Gostley offers a remarkable tribute to the missiology of Wendell Clay Somerville. Faithful in his interpretation and execution of the Great Commission, Somerville had global sensitivities that transcended any parochial understanding of the impact of the Black Church. Indeed, he believed God had entrusted the "Divine Assignment" (the privilege of proclaiming and living the Gospel for the whole world) to these who knew both oppression and the transforming power of Jesus Christ. The enduring witness and reach of the convention he served so long and so well gives testimony to his focused theology and implementation of mission. Goatley rightly discerns that there is great wisdom to be gleaned from his forebear and, in humility and appreciation, commends his prophetic missional practice." -Molly T. Marshall, Ph.D., President and Professor of Theology and Spiritual Formation, Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Shawnee Kansas

Ufipa, a labor reserve for Tanganyika, witnessed minimal colonial development. Instead, evangelization by White Fathers' Catholic missionaries began in the 1870s. By the 1950s, the missionaries had secured varying degrees of political, economic and social authority in the region, witnessed by the fact that the vast majority of Fipa had converted to Catholicism. Fipa Families examines how this happened from the Fipa perspective. Initially, employees of the mission sought to oversee the education and moral upbringing of at least one child from each family, substituting boarding school for the care relatives would otherwise have provided. A few mission parents even opted to forego the multiple benefits of grandchildren so a child could pursue the celibate path of a religious vocation. The opportunities of the Catholic Church complemented and competed with Fipa processes of social and biological reproduction, and Catholicism became part of the fabric of Fipa society because of, and despite, its resonance with Fipa culture. At the heart of both Fipa and missionary concerns were the processes of socialization (social reproduction) and biological reproduction, processes carried out within the context of the family. Written primarily for scholars and students of African colonial history, mission history, and family and childhood history, this study is based on a rich collection of oral and documentary sources. Working with this wealth of information, Smythe breaks new ground in placing African social and moral concerns parallel to those of missionaries, resurrecting the study of the family (rather than kinship, lineage, or clan) within African history, and demonstrating at the level of thefamily and village the ways in which ideas of socialization, reproduction, and education were challenged and re-created in the colonial context in Ufipa. Fipa Families examines the influence of Catholicism from the Fipa perspective. The opportunities offered by the Catholic Church both complemented and competed with Fipa processes of social and biological reproduction. Yet, at the heart of both Fipa and missionary concerns for cultural and religious perpetuation lay the processes of socialization (social reproduction) and biological reproduction--both processes carried out within the context of the family. It is with that context in mind that Smythe makes an argument based on resurrecting the study of the family within African history.

David Ofumbi is convinced biblically that, Christian faith covers the entire realm of human existence. There is no dichotomy between private life and public life, or spiritual life and secular life, or an individual and a community. In fact, the whole of human life is the visible expression of the invisible God. Therefore, respective indigenous cultures and the gospel must engage and impact each other. On the one hand, Christians in respective indigenous cultures engage and adapt the gospel to the deep-level meaning and the surface-level forms of their cultures; on the other hand, the gospel transforms respective cultures continuously. African understanding and practices of Christian faith ("Africa Christianity") in this respect is both the outcome of the reciprocal impact between respective indigenous cultures and the gospel and the basis of authentic Christian response to human needs ("Christian Community Transformation"). In the first two chapters, he identifies and discusses briefly the challenges and hopes that characterize local communities in East Africa. He also defines and discusses the phrases "African Christianity" and "Christian Community Transformation." David particularly highlights that the impact of African understandings and practices of Christianity on "Christian Community Transformation" strive: (1) to instill self-confidence in native peoples by enabling them to recover and reassert their true human identities, to restore their true self-dignity, and to build just relationships; (2) to encourage the development and the use of local resources; (3) to bolster robust and enabling faith community structures and proactive responses compatible with the African Christian/ human ethos; and (4) to galvanize global relevance and impact. David Ofumbi is the team leader of Leadership Development Initiative Africa (Leadia), an indigenous leadership development ministry based in Kampala, Uganda. Leadia envisions a community of competent Christian leaders transforming ordinary people into effective followers of Christ courageously transforming Africa. He is currently pursuing post graduate studies focusing on the reciprocal influence between followership and leadership.

For the fifteenth anniversary of its publication, this revised edition features a new introduction from the author on the state of the church and its "radical welcome" today, along with new reflections on how it continues to reshape the church. This book is at once a theological, inspirational, and practical guide for congregations that want to move beyond diversity and inclusion to present a vision for the church of the future: one where the gifts, voices, and power of marginalized groups bring new life to the mainline church. Based on two years of work and over 200 interviews with people in congregations all around the United States-in urban, suburban, and rural settings-it asks the question: How do we face our fears and welcome transformation in order to become God's radically welcoming people? Each chapter introduces a particular congregation and the challenges it faced, and lays out the theological underpinnings of tackling fears head-on to embrace change as a welcome part of community life. This new edition features essays from Michael B. Curry, Mark Bozzuti-Jones, Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, and Mark Richardson.

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.

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.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, native women preachers served and led nascent Protestant churches in much of Southern India. Even while allying with their missionary employers, they evolved their own mission theology and practices. This volume identifies what Telugu Biblewomen believed their mission to be and how they practiced it. It also examines the impact of Telugu culture and socio-political dynamics, such as caste, gender, and empire, on the theology and practices of the Telugu Biblewomen.

Though much has been written about Charles Finney, The Father of Modern Revivalism, most works have concentrated on his roles as an educator and political reformer. In this new study, Chesebrough examines the rhetorical skills and techniques that made Finney the first contemporary evangelist, one whose methods are still practiced today. A major force in many social reform movements of his time, most notably abolitionism, Finney introduced techniques to revivalist preaching that he used toward politically sophisticated ends. Chesebrough explores both his rhetoric and the effect it had on Finney's audiences, as well as the controversy this major figure often provoked.

Following a survey of Finney's life, with special attention given to those aspects pertaining to the development of his oratory, Chesebrough considers the themes of Finney's sermons and lectures on both religious and political subjects. A third section details the rhetorical devices he introduced and employed, and the volume concludes with three of Finney's actual sermons, which reveal the ways in which this speaker commanded the attention of his audiences.

This book explores the ways in which emotions were conceptualised and practised in Christian mission contexts from the 17th-20th centuries. The authors show how emotional practices such as prayer, tears, and Methodist 'shouting', and feelings such as pity, joy and frustration, shaped relationships between missionaries and prospective converts.