God is reconciling all things in heaven and on earth. We are alienated not only from one another, but also from the land that sustains us. Our ecosystems are increasingly damaged, and human bodies are likewise degraded. Most of us have little understanding of how our energy is derived or our food is produced, and many of our current industrialized practices are both unhealthy for our bodies and unsustainable for the planet. Agriculturalist Fred Bahnson and theologian Norman Wirzba declare that in Christ, God reconciles all bodies into a peaceful, life-promoting relationship with one another. Because human beings are incarnated in material, bodily existence, we are necessarily interdependent with plants and animals, land and sea, heaven and earth. The good news is that redemption is cosmic, with implications for agriculture and ecology, from farm to dinner table. Bahnson and Wirzba describe communities that model cooperative practices of relational life, with local food production, eucharistic eating and delight in God's provision. Reconciling with the land is a rich framework for a new way of life. Read this book to start down the path to restoring shalom and experiencing Jesus' kingdom of shared abundance, where neighbors are fed and all receive enough.

2020 ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award Publishers Weekly starred review. Affluence, autonomy, safety, and power. These are the central values of the American dream. But are they compatible with Jesus' command to love our neighbor as ourselves? In essays grouped around these four values, D. L. Mayfield asks us to pay attention to the ways they shape our own choices, and the ways those choices affect our neighbors. Where did these values come from? How have they failed those on the edges of our society? And how can we disentangle ourselves from our culture's headlong pursuit of these values and live faithful lives of service to God and our neighbors?

What does it mean to engage in ethical, anti-racist pastoral care with women with mental illness, particularly if these women are residents of an inpatient psychiatric hospital? This book draws on interviews with eighteen chaplains in three psychiatric facilities to examine psychiatric chaplaincy with women in the context of a state psychiatric hospital. It combines the voices of the chaplains with the disciplines of Christian social ethics and feminist, womanist, and intercultural pastoral care to create Just Care, an approach to pastoral care that accounts for both personal and societal-systemic factors in its practice of ministry. Just Care proposes that pastoral care that addresses the entirety of the person necessitates a commitment to justice and an attention to cultural dynamics as foundational for ethical pastoral care. It argues that psychiatric pastoral care must honor the communal and individual nature of care-both the particularity of the caregiver and care seeker as well as intersections of culture, gender, race, and class.

With senseless violence occurring throughout society, people are suffering and communities are groaning. Fear and not knowing where to begin hold many back from doing anything at all. But is "doing something" really what is most needed? Marcia Owen and Samuel Wells come together to tell the story of a community's journey through four different dimensions of social engagement. After attempts to seek legislative solutions led nowhere, a religious coalition began holding prayer vigils for local victims of gun violence. It was then that Owen discovered the beauty of simply being present. Through her friendships with both victims and offenders, Owen learned that being present was precisely the opposite of violence--it was love. And to truly love others as God loves us meant living without enemies and taking small steps toward reconciliation. Owen and Wells offer deep insights into what it takes to overcome powerlessness, transcend fear and engage in radical acceptance in our dangerous world. Your view of ministry will be altered by this poignant tale of coming face-to-face with our God who loves boundlessly and has no enemies.

Immigration is a key concern in British society; however, the ethical implications of the issue are often overlooked. Produced by Theos, a leading Christian think tank, this collection of short essays explores the ethical issues surrounding immigration in a post-Brexit Britain with contributions from across the Christian and political spectrums. This timely collection considers the many issues surrounding immigration including economics, community, nationhood, sovereignty, and internationalism, and demonstrates the range of conclusions that can be drawn on this topic, with possible interventions from the Christian perspective. Insightful for policy-makers and politicians, as well as anyone looking for orientation on a complex subject, this book is also full of ethical questions and considerations for readers from any faith or background.

It s no secret that Christians can be ambivalent about music, both popular music and music in the church. In Resonate, author and Eternity Bible College professor Mark Beuving shows Christians how to better appreciate all kinds of music to the glory and pleasure of God. Beuving carefully examines music in the Bible and looks at the various and powerful ways in which music influences our world and our personal lives. He devotes the first section of the book to understanding music, both sacred and secular, exploring biblically why human beings make music and how it affects us. In the second section he highlights some of the many ways we engage with music, from writing songs to discussing artists with our neighbors to worshiping God with fellow believers. Wise and winsome, Beuving writes with an ear for recapturing the wonder of a beautiful part of God s creation. Readers will be inspired to contemplate more deeply and appreciate more fully God s good gift of music."

Could both Jews and Christians be blind to the truth?

Jonathan Bernis, host of the internationally popular television program Jewish Voice With Jonathan Bernis, unlocks a greater knowledge about the last days with this fascinating book, which explores questions such as:

• What crucial role does Israel play in the last days?

• Why is antisemitism on the rise worldwide, and what is at its root?

• What is the seed promise, and why is Satan so angry about it?

• What profound promise did God make to Abraham that applies to you today?

We are witnessing things today that the prophets of Israel longed to see. God is fulfilling His Word in our generation!

Is business just a way to make money? Or can the marketplace a venue for service to others? Scott B. Rae and Kenman L. Wong seek to explore this and other critical business issues from a uniquely Christian perspective, offering up a vision for work and service that is theologically grounded and practically oriented. Among the specific questions they address along the way are these: What implications does the Christian story have for the vision, mission or sense of purpose that shapes business engagement? What parts of business can be affirmed and practiced "as is" and what parts need to be rejected or transformed? What challenges exist as attempts are made to live out Christian ideals in a broken world characterized by tight margins, fierce competition and short-term investor pressures? How do Christian values inform specific functional areas of business such as the management of people, marketing and environmental sustainability? Business can be even more than an environment through which individual Christians grow in Christlikeness. In this book you'll discover how it can also be a means toward serving the common good. The Christian Worldview Integration Series, edited by J. P. Moreland and Francis J. Beckwith, seeks to promote a robust personal and conceptual integration of Christian faith and learning, with textbooks focused on disciplines such as education, psychology, literature, politics, science, communications, biology, philosophy, and history.

Share your faith and keep your friends. You want your non--believing friends to be brothers and sisters in Christ. But how do you talk about Jesus without driving them away? When do you talk? When do you stay quiet? In How Do We Talk with Skeptics?, Sam Chan shows you how to walk the tightrope by offering ten wise tips to keep the balance right. Listen well. Speak persuasively. Learn hospitality. Gently reveal the holes in your friend's worldview. Gain wisdom on when to speak and when to listen. With Chan's help, you can keep your friends while being a faithful witness for Christ. The Questions for Restless Minds series applies God's word to today's issues. Each short book faces tough questions honestly and clearly, so you can think wisely, act with conviction, and become more like Christ.

To communicate God??'s Word effectively in the twenty-first century, you need to know how to connect with and confront an audience of postmodern listeners. With this book, you???ll learn how to change your style of preaching without compromising the substance, take advantage of new opportunities provided by the cultural shift, and show an inattentive society the relevance of God??'s truth. "The world has gone through a major shift in thinking and communication into a postmodern mode, yet much preaching is still ???pre-modern??? and very out of touch. Graham Johnston has made a significant contribution in his book, showing how preaching can be thoroughly biblical, opening up the text of the Bible but also concerned with the openings in the minds of contemporary people." Leighton Ford, president, Leighton Ford Ministries "Communicating God??'s Word is more than just speaking the truth; it??'s being heard and understood as well. This book is designed to help Christian leaders better understand their listeners, so they can communicate biblical truths with effectiveness and clarity." Josh McDowell, author of Evidence That Demands a Verdict "Graham Johnston describes the water in which we exist. . . . Better still, he provides some workable leads on how to communicate the life-giving Word to men and women swimming in the currents of the twenty-first century." Haddon W. Robinson, author of Biblical Preaching "Johnston not only brings a shrewd analysis of the present changes in our culture, he also contributes from the perspective of a skilled practitioner. Such a combination is both rare and valuable." Martin Robinson, director of mission and theology, British and Foreign Bible Society "Foranyone desiring a ministry of impact in today??'s postmodern society, Graham Johnston has provided an understandable and useful focus." Howard G. Hendricks, chairman, Center for Christian Leadership, Dallas Theological Seminary

John Paul Lederach's work in the field of conciliation and mediation is internationally recognized. As founding Director of the Conflict Transformation Program and Institute of Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, he has provided consultation and direct mediation in a range of situations from the Miskito/Sandinista conflict in Nicaragua to Somalia, Northern Ireland, the Basque Country, and the Philippines. His influential 1997 book Building Peace has become a classic in the discipline. This new book represents his thinking and learning over the past several years. He explores the evolution of his understanding of peacebuilding by reflecting on his own experiences in the field. Peacebuilding, in his view, is both a learned skill and an art. Finding this art, he says, requires a worldview shift. Conflict professionals must envision their work as a creative act - an exercise of what Lederach terms the "moral imagination."

"I believe that the Bible speaks not merely to personal, family, and church issues, but to national, community, and governmental issues if we would take the time to listen." -James L. Garlow Conservative Christians admit that they do not speak out on political or cultural issues because they do not know how to support their beliefs from a biblical basis, according to a recent poll. Instead, they remain silent on critical issues like marriage, racism, and transgender issues because they feel uninformed and ill-equipped to defend their beliefs. New York Times bestselling author and pastor James L. Garlow offers the solution-a practical, biblical guide for the 21st century Christian. Well Versed: Biblical Answers to Today's Tough Issues (ISBN: 978-1-62157-550-4; $14.99; June 2016) informs and prepares readers to tackle the important issues of the day and engage with those around them in a loving, Scripturally-based manner. In Well Versed, readers will learn Biblical responses to: Religion in the Public Square - Purpose of Government, the First Amendment, and Political Correctness Family and Life Issues - Marriage, School Choice, Abortion, Sexual Orientation, and Healthcare Economics - Capitalism vs. Socialism, Taxes, Debt, Welfare, and Minimum Wage Law and Society - Judiciary, Hate Crimes, Social Justice, and Racism Foreign Policy and World Issues - National Defense, Immigration, Israel, the Environment, Islam, and Terrorism Political Participation - Media and Civil Disobedience

IVP Readers' Choice Award Stop outsourcing justice! Many local churches don't know what to do about justice. We tend to compartmentalize it as merely a strategy for outreach, and we often outsource it to parachurch justice ministries. While these organizations do good work, individual congregations are left disconnected from God's just purposes in the world. Adam Gustine calls the local church to be just and do justice. He provides a theological vision for our identity as a just people, where God's character and the pursuit of shalom infuses every aspect of our congregational DNA. As we grow in becoming just, the church becomes a prophetic alternative to the broken systems of the world and a parable of God's intentions for human flourishing and societal transformation. This renewed vision for the church leads us into cultivating a just life together-in community, discipleship, worship, and more-extending justice out into the world in concrete ways. Let's hold being and doing together, so we can become just, compassionate communities that restore shalom and bring hope to the world.

Our neighborhoods are literally making us sick. Buildings with mold trigger asthma and other respiratory conditions. Geographic lack of access to food and health care increases childhood mortality. Community violence traumatizes residents. Poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing, food insecurity, racial injustice, and oppression cause physical changes in the body, resulting in disease and death. But there is hope. Loving our neighbor includes creating social environments in which people can be healthy. While working in community redevelopment and treating uninsured families, Veronica Squires and Breanna Lathrop discovered that creating healthier neighborhoods requires a commitment to health equity. Jesus' ministry brought healing through dismantling systems of oppression and overturning social norms that prevented people from living healthy lives. We can do the same in our communities through addressing social determinants that facilitate healing in under-resourced neighborhoods. Everyone deserves the opportunity for good health. The decisions we make and actions we take can promote the health of our neighbors.

"America is a Christian nation." "All men are created equal." "We are the land of the free and the home of the brave." Except when we're not. These commonly held ideas break down in the light of hard realities, the study of Scripture, and faithful Christian witness. The president is not the Messiah, the Constitution is not the Bible, and the United States is not a city on a hill or the hope for the world. The proclaimed hope of America rings most hollow for Native peoples, people of color, the rural poor, and other communities pressed to the margins. Jonathan Walton exposes the cultural myths and misconceptions about America's identity. Focusing on its manipulation of Scripture and the person of Jesus, he redirects us to the true promises found in the gospel. Walton identifies how American ideology and way of life has become a false religion, and shows that orienting our lives around American nationalism is idolatry. Our cultural notions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are at odds with the call to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Ultimately, our place in America is distinct from our place in the family of Jesus. Discover how the kingdom of God offers true freedom and justice for all.

Please note this is a 'Palgrave to Order' title (PTO). Stock of this book requires shipment from an overseas supplier. It will be delivered to you within 12 weeks. In this groundbreaking history of the YMCA, David Setran details its critical role on American campuses, exploring how this popular organization worked to strengthen the Protestant piety of American collegians through Bible study, service, and prayer, as well as how the organization changed after World War I, alienating itself from churches, university administrators, and even the students themselves.

2011 Winner of the Book Awards Contest in the Discipline of Theology Presented by Alpha Sigma Nu The apostle Paul wrote that "All of you are one in Christ Jesus." Given Paul's vision of God's kingdom defined by the breakdown of all distinctions and relationships of domination-no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female-how do we make sense of ethnic particularity within the church's theological formulations? Racism and God-Talk explores the biblical and religious dimensions of North American racism while highlighting examples of resistance within the Christian religious tradition. Social historians have seldom analyzed the problematic of race from a primarily theological perspective. This volume undertakes a critical examination of explicitly theological and confessional perspectives for understanding and transforming North American racism. Rosario Rodriguez offers insights from Latino/a theology for broader scholarly and social discussions concerning racism, borders, and immigration. The first to analyze race and racism from a Latino/a theological perspective, the volume makes use of a broadened conceptualization of "mestizaje," or mutual cultural exchange, to challenge the church to recognize the effects of racial and ethnic particularity in all theological construction.

For more than two thousand years Christian expansion and proselytizing was couched in terms of "defending the faith." Until recently in the United States, much of that defense came in the form of reactions against the "liberal" influences channeled through big-corporate media such as popular music, Hollywood movies, and network and cable television. But the election of Ronald Reagan as a Hollywood President introduced Christian America to the tools of advertising and multimedia appeals to children and youth to win new believers to God's armies. "Christotainment" examines how Christian fundamentalism has realigned its armies to combat threats against it by employing the forces it once considered its chief enemies: the entertainment media, including movies, television, music, cartoons, theme parks, video games, and books. Invited contributors discuss the critical theoretical frameworks of top-selling devices within Christian pop culture and the appeal to masses of American souls through the blessed marriage of corporatism and the quest for pleasure.

Starting with a definition of political modernity from the perspective of its greatest trial - totalitarianism - this study asks the question how community is conceptualized in the contemporary Western philosophical discourse and in the Russian Orthodox intellectual tradition. Contemporary philosophical and theological approaches in Russia develop alternative perspectives on community and on the human subject. This study analyzes them historically and philosophically and compares them with liberal, postmodern and communitarian philosophies of community in the West.

This book offers a reassessment of the theology of F. D. Maurice (1805-72), one of the most significant theologians of the modern Church of England. It seeks to place Maurice's theology in the context of nineteenth-century conflicts over the social role of the Church, and over the truth of the Christian revelation. Maurice is known today mostly for his seminal role in the formation of Christian Socialism, and for his dismissal from his chair at King's College, London, over his denial of the doctrine of eternal punishment. Drawing on the whole range of Maurice's extensive published work, this book argues that his theology, and his social and educational activity, were held together above all by his commitment to a renewal of Anglican ecclesiology. At a time when, following the social upheavals of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, many of his contemporaries feared that the authority of the Christian Church -- and particularly of the Church of England -- was under threat, Maurice sought to reinvigorate his Church's sense of mission by emphasizing its national responsibility, and its theological inclusiveness. In the process, he pioneered a new appreciation of the diversity of Christian traditions that was to be of great importance for the Church of England's ecumenical commitment. He also sought to limit the damage of internal Church division, by promoting a view of the Church's comprehensiveness that acknowledged the complementary truth of convictions fiercely held by competing parties.

"Wait, Dad. Are we for them or against them?" Kent Annan was talking with his eight-year-old son about the immigrant and refugee crises around the world. His son's question, innocent enough in the moment, is writ large across our society today. How we answer it, Annan says, will reveal a lot about what kind of family, community, or country we want to be. In You Welcomed Me, Annan explores how fear and misunderstanding often motivate our responses to people in need, and invites us instead into stories of welcome-stories that lead us to see the current refugee and immigrant crisis in a new light. He lays out simple practices for a way forward: confessing what separates us, listening well, and partnering with, not patronizing, those in need. His stories draw us in, and his practices send us out prepared to cross social and cultural divides. In this wise, practical book, Annan invites us to answer his son's question with confident conviction: "We're for them"-and to explore with him the life-giving implications of that answer.

Technology is not neutral. From the plow to the printing press, technology has always shaped human life and informed our understanding of what it means to be human. And advances in modern technology, from computers to smartphones, have yielded tremendous benefits. But do these developments actually encourage human flourishing? Craig Gay raises concerns about the theological implications of modern technologies and of philosophical movements such as transhumanism. In response, he turns to a classical affirmation of the Christian faith: Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God, took on human flesh. By exploring the doctrine of the incarnation and what it means for our embodiment, Gay offers a course correction to the path of modern technology without asking us to unplug completely. Gay demonstrates that the doctrine of the incarnation is not neutral either. It presents an alternative vision for the future of humanity.

Christian women ages 20-40 who struggle with too much or too little emotion; women who identify as highly sensitive; women ministry leaders

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“All the Feels could turn your 2020 around!” —Crosswalk.com
Emotions—love them or hate them, we’ve all got them.

And we’ve all got to figure out what to do with them. But wait—can we do anything about our emotions? Can we learn how to identify, express, experience—and yes, sometimes wrangle—our feelings in order to live a vibrant, healthy, fruitful life for Jesus?

In All the Feels, author Elizabeth Laing Thompson uses her experiences as a big feeler to encourage and equip different kinds of feelers with the biblical perspectives, practical tools, and scriptural reservoir they need. As a woman who has lived every day of her life having All The Big Feelings All The Day Long, Elizabeth knows what it’s like to live life through our emotions—and how important it is to understand, take control of, and grow from those emotions. Whether you have a sensitive soul with more feelings than you know how to name, a logical personality that doesn’t quite know what to do with feelings, or a steady flow of emotions somewhere in the middle, All the Feels will help you

• discover your own God-designed “feelings style” and how it impacts your life and relationships,
• distinguish fact from feeling and figure out which feelings you can trust, and
• understand which emotional gifts God wants you to expand, explore, and enjoy.