These collected essays examine the roles of women in their churches and communities, the implication of those roles for African American culture, and the tensions and stereotypes that shape societal responses to these roles. Gilkes examines the ways black women and their experience shape the culture and consciousness of the black religious experience, and reflects on some of the crises and conflicts that attend this experience.

It is widely recognized that American culture is both exceptionally religious and exceptionally violent. Americans participate in religious communities in high numbers, yet American citizens also own guns at rates far beyond those of citizens in other industrialized nations. Since 9/11, United States scholars have understandably discussed religious violence in terms of terrorist acts, a focus that follows United States policy. Yet, according to Jon Pahl, to identify religious violence only with terrorism fails to address the long history of American violence rooted in religion throughout the country's history. In essence, Americans have found ways to consider blessed some very brutal attitudes and behaviors both domestically and globally.

In Empire of Sacrifice, Pahl explains how both of these distinctive features of American culture work together by exploring how constructions along the lines of age, race, and gender have operated to centralize cultural power across American civil or cultural religions in ways that don't always appear to be "religious" at all. Pahl traces the development of these forms of systemic violence throughout American history, using evidence from popular culture, including movies such as Rebel without a Cause and Reefer Madness and works of literature such as The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and The Handmaid's Tale, to illuminate historical events. Throughout, Pahl focuses an intense light on the complex and durable interactions between religion and violence in American history, from Puritan Boston to George W. Bush's Baghdad.

Antoinette Bosco's heart was crushed when Shadow Clark murdered her son John and his wife Nancy. In time her grief transformed into forgiveness. Toni felt that to want one more unnatural death would be wrong. "I could say that the 18-year -old who ended the lives of my children with an 8mm semiautomatic must be punished for life but I could not say, kill this killer". Toni chose mercy over vengeance, and again her life changed forever.

Today she is widely known as an opponent of capital punishment in this the only modern Western nation that retains executions. In telling her dramatic journey she presents compelling arguments why the death penalty does not work and is morally wrong. She also shares unforgettable true stories form parents such as Dominick Dunne who suffered through similar experiences but also learned to choose love over fear.

Choosing Mercy is timely, gut-honest, and inspiring. It may not change some people's minds but it will begin to change their hearts.

As society becomes more culturally diverse and globally connected, churches and seminaries are rapidly changing. And as the church changes, preaching must change too. Crossover Preaching proposes a way forward through conversation with the "dean of the nation's black preachers," Gardner C. Taylor, senior pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. In this richly interdisciplinary study, Jared E. Alcantara argues that an analysis of Taylor's preaching reveals an improvisational-intercultural approach that recovers his contemporary significance and equips US churches and seminary classrooms for the future. Alcantara argues that preachers and homileticians need to develop intercultural and improvisational proficiencies to reach an increasingly intercultural church. Crossover Preaching equips them with concrete practices designed to help them cultivate these competencies and thus communicate effectively in a changing world.

What is the place of religious belief in modern culture? Recent years have seen cataclysmic chab=nges in society, yet, far from being banished from today's world, religion is assuming a new significance. Clashing Symbols has become recognised as the most accessible and authoritative introduction to a crucial area in religious studies: the relationship between faith and culture.

Your battle against porn isn’t about porn. It’s about hope.

Pornography may seem inescapable, but God can free us from its destructive power. The gospel replaces the dehumanizing lies of pornography with this surprising truth: God created us as royalty. How then can we reclaim our God-given identity to take a stand against―and ultimately starve―the predatory porn industry?

In The Death of Porn, Ray Ortlund writes six personal letters, as from a father to his son. Ideal for individuals and small groups, it will give hope to men who have been misled by porn into devaluing themselves and others. Through Scripture and personal stories, Ortlund assures readers that God loves them the most tenderly in their moments of deepest shame.

The Death of Porn inspires men to come together in new ways to fight the injustice of porn and build a world of nobility for every man and woman―for the sake of future generations.

Culture affects how we make disciples. We often unconsciously bring our own cultural assumptions into ministry and mission, not realizing that how we think and operate is not necessarily the best or only way to do things. In today's global environment, disciplemaking requires the cultural humility and flexibility to adapt between different cultural approaches. Charles Davis, former director of TEAM, provides a framework for missional disciplemaking across diverse cultural contexts. He shows how we can recalibrate our ministry efforts, like adjusting sound levels on a mixer board, to accommodate different cultural assumptions. With on-the-ground stories from a lifetime of mission experience, Davis navigates such tensions as knowledge and behavior, individualism and collectivism, and truth and works to help Christian workers minister more effectively. Ministry teams, church planters, pastors and missionaries working interculturally at home or overseas can be part of God's movement of making disciples. Discover how the body of Christ grows in the unity and diversity of the global church.

Against the background of impending and then actual war, the discussions of the Moot focused on the roles of moral choice and the Christian community. The Moot was the study and discussion group set up by J.H. Oldham (1874-1969) following the 1937 Oxford Conference on 'Church, Community and State'. Its purpose was to continue, in an informal, confidential but serious way, exploration of the relation between church and society and the realisation of Christian ethics in the public sphere. The Moot met twice or three times a year from 1938 to 1947 (21 times in all) and was convened by Oldham with the conscious intention of responding to the grave crisis that was felt to be facing western society in Britain no less than on the continent of Europe. Overall some 35 people attended the Moot at one time or another, but its core comprised a small number of regular members who were representative of the highest levels in theology, social science and public affairs. In addition to Oldham himself they included John Baillie, T.S. Eliot, H.A. Hodges, Eleonora Iredale, Adolf Lowe, Karl Mannheim, Walter Moberly, John Middleton Murry and Alec Vidler. Other participants included Kathleen Bliss, Fred Clarke, Christopher Dawson, H.H. Farmer, Hector Hetherington, Walter Oakshott and Gilbert Shaw, while notables such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Melville Chaning-Pearce, Donald Mackinnon, Philip Mairet, Lesslie Newbigin, William Paton, Frank Pakenham (later Lord Longford), Michael Polanyi and Oliver Tomkins made occasional 'guest appearances'. Against the background of impending and then actual war, the discussions in the Moot repeatedly focused on the 'planned' nature of modern society and therewith the roles (if any) within it of moral choice and the Christian community.