Play Nice in Your Sandbox at Church equips readers with the knowledge and skills needed to help their church members stay focused on their mission, rather than get sidetracked with their interpersonal squabbles. The PLAY and NICE in the title are capitalized because they are acronyms. PLAY represents a four-step model to prevent conflict when possible, and NICE gives a four-step model to resolve differences with others. Play Nice in Your Sandbox at Church is divided into two major portions covering eight sections. The first four sections comprise the PLAY chapters, where readers learn how to prevent needless trivial matters from escalating into situations they neither want nor need. In sections five through eight, readers gain the knowledge and skill to help them resolve significant differences they are bound to have with others from time-to-time. Within Play Nice in Your Sandbox at Church, there is a CHAPTER CHALLENGE at the end of each chapter to help readers implement the information they've learned throughout.

Humans are lovers, and yet a good deal of pedagogical theory, Christian or otherwise, assumes an anthropology at odds with human nature, fixed in a model of humans as "thinking things". Turning to Augustine, or at least Augustine in conversation with Aquinas, Martin Heidegger, the overlooked Jesuit thinker Bernard Lonergan, and the important contemporary Charles Taylor, this book provides a normative vision for Christian higher education. A phenomenological reappropriation of human subjectivity reveals an authentic order to love, even when damaged by sin, and loves, made authentic by grace, allow the intellectually, morally, and religiously converted person to attain an integral unity. Properly understanding the integral relation between love and the fullness of human life overcomes the split between intellectual and moral formation, allowing transformed subjects -authentic lovers - to live, seek, and work towards the values of a certain kind of cosmopolitanism. Christian universities exist to make cosmopolitans, properly understood, namely, those persons capable of living authentically. In other words, this text gives a full-orbed account of human flourishing, rooted in a phenomenological account of the human as basis for the mission of the university.

What does it mean to believe in the church? What is the relationship between the church we believe in and the church we experience? Is there an invisible church that is different from the visible? This book is an argument for an ecclesiology of the visible. The only church, the real church, is a concrete reality made up of people, just like any other fellowship. What distinguishes it as church is the presence of the triune God among those who gather in the name of Jesus, making it a sign and anticipation of the fellowship of the kingdom of God. From this premise Dr. Hegstad analyzes such issues as the relationship between church and world, mission and diakoni, church as fellowship and organization, ministries in the church, worship, and the unity of the church, as well as discussing the relationship between a sociological and a theological understanding of the church.

This book is a theological reflection on the broken state of faith within the Catholic Church in Ireland following more than two decades of revelations about institutional and child sexual abuse and the Church's now acknowledged failure to respond to the abuse in an appropriate way. The result has been broken lives, broken faith and a broken church. While the book has a theological purpose, it employs a see-judge-act methodology in attempting to come to terms with a very complex problem. Following a broad introduction, the first section sets out to listen to the voices of the victims. The second section consists of an interdisciplinary academic analysis, with significant input from psychology and also from history and social studies. The final section of the book engages in theology, seeking to place us in a Kairos moment that might allow us to look beyond our broken faith. This, however, requires an analysis of the theological misunderstandings that led to the aberration of clericalism, the resulting abuse of power and the wider malaise within the Church. St Paul is suggested as a "mentor", as we seek to restore trust and rebuild the Church in a radically new way. The book ultimately seeks a renewal of our broken faith, searching for trajectories towards healing and wholeness, truth and reconciliation.

This book attempts to develop a theological response to the suffering of people in Myanmar (Burma). For this purpose, a Burmese word Ludu is used to indicate the common people and a Buddhist term Dukkha will be employed to refer to their suffering. We can see the Ludu as a dukkha-ridden people in Myanmar context. Why do they suffer? Is their suffering the root cause of sin or the consequence of kamma - one's deed, word or thought? As a Buddhist-dominated country, how do Buddhists respond their suffering? What about Christian minority's response to this harsh situation? Can the Ludu, both Christians and Buddhists, see how God is revealed in the midst of their suffering? In terms of suffering under oppression, Minjung (people/mass) in the Korean context is somewhat similar to the situation of the Ludu in Myanmar. In the 1970s, Minjung theology emerged during the era of military dictatorship in South Korea. How can Minjung theology be relevant for evolving a Ludu theology in Myanmar?

Part of a major doctrinal tract of the Hutterites of the sixteenth century, this early Anabaptist document gives Biblical references for Christian nonviolence. Concerning the Sword is the fourth article of the Article Book, a major doctrinal document of the Hutterites of the sixteenth century. Its author is not named but was probably the Hutterian bishop Peter Walpot (1521-1578). The book deals with the following five articles: (1) Concerning true baptism (and how infant baptism contradicts it); (2) Concerning the Lord's Supper (and how the sacrament of the priests is against it); (3) Concerning the true surrender (Gelassenheit) and Christian community of goods; (4) That Christians should not go to war nor should they use sword or violence nor secular litigation; (5) Concerning divorce between believers and unbelievers. The book is not a theological treatise, but rather, like all Anabaptist doctrinal writings, a collection of biblical texts topically arranged to prove the position of the church with regard to the question at issue. The title of the larger edition, A Beautiful and Pleasant Little Book Concerning the Main Articles of our Faith, is quite colorless; more to the point is the title used in the Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren: The Five Articles of the Greatest Conflict Between Us and the World. It does not pretend to contain a complete system of Anabaptist thought but only a collection of those points and their arguments that distinguish the Brethren from the "world" and justify their particular stand. The Article Book must have been widely known in its time. Catholics as well as Lutheran polemics against it are known.

While Protestant Christians made up only a small percentage of China's overall population during the Republican period, they were heavily represented among the urban elite. Protestant influence was exercised through churches, hospitals, and schools, and reached beyond these institutions into organizations such as the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) and YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association). The YMCA's city associations drew their membership from the urban elite and were especially influential within the modern sectors of urban society. Chinese Protestant leaders adapted the social message and practice of Christianity to the conditions of the republican era. Key to this effort was their belief that Christianity could save China - that is, that Christianity could be more than a religion focused on saving individuals, but could also save a people, a society, and a nation. Saving the Nation recounts the history of the Protestant elite beginning with their participation in social reform campaigns in the early twentieth century, continuing through their contribution to the resistance against Japanese imperialism, and ending with Protestant support for a social revolution. The story Thomas Reilly tells is one about the Chinese Protestant elite and the faith they adopted and adapted, Social Christianity. But it is also a broader story about the Chinese people and their struggle to strengthen and renew their nation - to build a New China.

A new way to follow Jesus that draws on old ways of following him. Prominent progressive writer, speaker, and minister Robin Meyers proposes that the best way for the faithful to recapture the spirit of the early Christian church is to recognize that Jesus-following was - and must be again - subversive in the best sense of the word because the gospel taken seriously turns the world upside down. No matter how the church may organize itself or worship, the defining characteristic of the church of the future will be its Jesus-inspired countercultural witness.

This work treats of the Phenomenology of Mary and the Church as persons of faith in relation to the Wojtilian phenomenology of the human being as an acting person. According to John Paul II, Mary is an ideal person in/for the Church, and the Church, as a personal communion, has Her as a mirror and concrete evidence of the Church's call, being and mission. As far as the vocation of the Church is concerned, it will always be far from complete if it is studied, proclaimed or believed in without placing Mary as part of the unavoidable persons and personality in its unfolding. Mary and the Church are related in the mystery of the Church as personal subjects of faith. They owe their being and vocation to the Trinity and have a direct connection with Judaism. Christ is the centre of this relationship and this goes on to highlight ecumenism and also the place of the laity and women in the life of the Church.

In this book, Frances Courtney Kneupper examines the apocalyptic prophecies of the late medieval Empire, which even within the sensational genre of eschatological prophecy stand out for their bitter and violent nature. In addition to depicting the savage chastisement of the clergy and the forcible restructuring of the Church, these prophecies also infuse the apocalyptic narrative with explicitly German elements-in fact, German speakers are frequently cast as the agents of these stirring events in which the clergy suffer tribulations and the Church hierarchy is torn down. These prophecies were widely circulated throughout late medieval German-speaking Europe. Kneupper explores their significance for members of the Empire from 1380 to 1480, arguing that increased literacy, the development of strong urban centers, the drive for reform, and a connection to the imperial crown were behind their popularity. Offering detailed accounts of the most significant prophecies, Kneupper shows how they fit into currents of thought and sentiment in the late medieval Empire. In particular, she considers the relationships of German prophecy to contemporary discourses on Church reform and political identity. She finds that eschatological thought was considered neither marginal nor heretical, but was embraced by a significant, orthodox population of German laypeople and clerics, demonstrating the importance of popular eschatological thought to the development of a self-conscious, reform-minded, German-identified Empire on the Eve of the Reformation.

After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, Orthodox Christians in Estonia and Latvia had to rethink their place in society and reorganise the local Orthodox Church. The Church was challenged both by the new political circumstances and by societal antagonism. In both cases, the local ecclesiastic authorities considered themselves independent from the Patriarchate of Moscow, although in very different fashions. This study uses primarily periodicals and other published sources from the period between 1917 and 1940 to shed light on the internal discussions in the respective Orthodox Churches on issues of authority, identity, and history. This includes creating adequate structures for the Church, reforming liturgical elements and emphasising the positive role of Orthodox Christianity in Estonian and Latvian history.

Between the seventh and eleventh centuries, Christian worship on the Iberian Peninsula was structured by rituals of great theological and musical richness, known as the Old Hispanic (or Mozarabic) rite. Much of this liturgy was produced during a seventh-century cultural and educational program aimed at creating a society unified in the Nicene faith, built on twin pillars of church and kingdom. Led by Isidore of Seville and subsequent generations of bishops, this cultural renewal effort began with a project of clerical education, facilitated through a distinctive culture of textual production. Rebecca Maloy's Songs of Sacrifice argues that liturgical music-both texts and melodies-played a central role in the cultural renewal of early Medieval Iberia, with a chant repertory that was carefully designed to promote the goals of this cultural renewal. Through extensive reworking of the Old Testament, the creators of the chant texts fashioned scripture in ways designed to teach biblical exegesis, linking both to patristic traditions-distilled through the works of Isidore of Seville and other Iberian bishops-and to Visigothic anti-Jewish discourse. Through musical rhetoric, the melodies shaped the delivery of the texts to underline these messages. In these ways, the chants worked toward the formation of individual Christian souls and a communal Nicene identity. Examining the crucial influence of these chants, Songs of Sacrifice addresses a plethora of long-debated issues in musicology, history, and liturgical studies, and reveals the potential for Old Hispanic chant to shed light on fundamental questions about how early chant repertories were formed, why their creators selected particular passages of scripture, and why they set them to certain kinds of music.

There has been substantial church growth in Britain between 1980 and 2010. This is the controversial conclusion from the international team of scholars, who have drawn on interdisciplinary studies and the latest research from across the UK. Such church growth is seen to be on a large scale, is multi-ethnic and can be found across a wide range of social and geographical contexts. It is happening inside mainline denominations but especially in specific regions such as London, in newer churches and amongst ethnic minorities. Church Growth in Britain provides a forceful critique of the notion of secularisation which dominates much of academia and the media - and which conditions the thinking of many churches and church leaders. This book demonstrates that, whilst decline is happening in some parts of the church, this needs to be balanced by recognition of the vitality of large swathes of the Christian church in Britain. Rebalancing the debate in this way requires wholesale change in our understanding of contemporary British Christianity.

There has been substantial church growth in Britain between 1980 and 2010. This is the controversial conclusion from the international team of scholars, who have drawn on interdisciplinary studies and the latest research from across the UK. Such church growth is seen to be on a large scale, is multi-ethnic and can be found across a wide range of social and geographical contexts. It is happening inside mainline denominations but especially in specific regions such as London, in newer churches and amongst ethnic minorities. Church Growth in Britain provides a forceful critique of the notion of secularisation which dominates much of academia and the media - and which conditions the thinking of many churches and church leaders. This book demonstrates that, whilst decline is happening in some parts of the church, this needs to be balanced by recognition of the vitality of large swathes of the Christian church in Britain. Rebalancing the debate in this way requires wholesale change in our understanding of contemporary British Christianity.

Seeking to dynamically alter the way that theologians, ecclesiologists, students of religion and ministers look at the relationship between church and society, this book takes religion, politics and society as basic categories and explores how oft-overlooked issues are in fact highly significant for the shaping of theological and ecclesiological horizons. The Ecclesial Canopy is not, however, simply about reading meanings into religion, politics and society. Rather, it sets out to faithfully interpret much of the material that surrounds us, yet is often taken for granted or unnoticed. Paying close and patient attention to beliefs, language, artefacts, rituals, practices and other material - all of which are constitutive for ecclesial life and theological identity - this book offers an invitation of engagement to the scholar or minister. The Ecclesial Canopy makes a significant and important contribution to the field of pastoral and practical theology. Building on the concepts of implicit and invisible religion, Martyn Percy offers a fresh and original interpretative 'take' on contemporary society, appealing to clergy, laity, scholars and all those working in the field of theory and reflective practice in practical and pastoral theology.

Seeking to dynamically alter the way that theologians, ecclesiologists, students of religion and ministers look at the relationship between church and society, this book takes religion, politics and society as basic categories and explores how oft-overlooked issues are in fact highly significant for the shaping of theological and ecclesiological horizons. The Ecclesial Canopy is not, however, simply about reading meanings into religion, politics and society. Rather, it sets out to faithfully interpret much of the material that surrounds us, yet is often taken for granted or unnoticed. Paying close and patient attention to beliefs, language, artefacts, rituals, practices and other material - all of which are constitutive for ecclesial life and theological identity - this book offers an invitation of engagement to the scholar or minister. The Ecclesial Canopy makes a significant and important contribution to the field of pastoral and practical theology. Building on the concepts of implicit and invisible religion, Martyn Percy offers a fresh and original interpretative 'take' on contemporary society, appealing to clergy, laity, scholars and all those working in the field of theory and reflective practice in practical and pastoral theology.

In every generation, the Christian church must interpret and restate its bedrock beliefs, answering the challenges and concerns of the day. This accessible overview walks readers through centuries of creeds, councils, catechisms, and confessions---not with a dry focus on dates and places, but with an emphasis on the living tradition of Christian belief and why it matters for our lives today. As a part of the KNOW series, Know the Creeds and Councils is designed for personal study or classroom use, but also for small groups and Sunday schools wanting to more deeply understand the foundations of the faith. Each chapter covers a key statement of faith and includes a discussion of its historical context, a simple explanation of the statement s content and key points, reflections on contemporary and ongoing relevance, and discussion questions."

Anglican Church Policy, Eighteenth Century Conflict, and the American Episcopate examines how leaders in the Church of England sought to reorganize the colonial church by installing one or two resident bishops at critical moments in the late 1740s, the early 1760s, and the mid 1770s when the British government moved to bring the colonies into closer economic and political alignment with England. Examining Anglican attempts to install bishops into the American colonies within the context of the Anglo-American world provides insight into the difficulties British political and ecclesiastical authorities had in organizing the management of the colonies more efficiently. Although the Church of England sustained wide influence over the population, the failure of the Anglicans' proposal to install bishops into the colonies was symptomatic of the declining influence of the Church on eighteenth century politics. Differing views over political and ecclesiastical authority between the colonists and the Anglicans, and the possibility religious conflict might have on elections, concerned British authorities enough not to act on the Anglicans' proposals for resident bishops for the colonies. The failure also highlights how eighteenth century British government increasingly focused on the political and economic administration of the expanded British Empire rather than its religious administration.

The Principle of Subsidiarity in Catholic Social Thought: Implications for Social Justice and Civil Society in Nigeria provides a theoretical and practical framework for a just vision of society. It focuses on how support for individuals and social groups in Nigeria can foster the building of their communities through the practice of social justice. Social justice will ensure the building of trust across ethnic lines, challenge corruption, encourage accountability and servant leadership, protect minority tribes from larger ones, and promote grassroots self-help tribal, communal, religious, and non-governmental associations as agents of positive social change and development. These dynamics interact within a healthy federal structure that respects its constituent parts for the common good. This volume is recommended as a graduate text for courses in theology, religious education, and social philosophy, and for all interested in promoting the common good.

Africa is a continent of striking contrasts, with remarkable diversity and beauty of landscape and peoples. At present, it is a region where the Christian faith shows unprecedented growth and vitality. Yet it is also a place of unparalleled suffering. African believers must grapple with the awesome transformation presence of Christ and the frequently devastating conditions in which he appears. Their efforts to reconcile this seeming incongruity have initiated important theological discussions that have resonated around the globe. This book provides an ideal introduction to the wealth of African theologies and the major questions they raise. Topics range from biblical interpretation to spirituality and ethics, from Pentecostalism and African Instituted Churches to evil and suffering, from feminist theory to Christian identity and ethnicity. The broad range of reflections includes seminal essays by prominent theologians as well as new material written specifically for this volume. All the contributions have been shaped to be accessible at an introductory level. Study questions at the end of each chapter are designed to stimulate original thought to allow the reader to reflect personally on contemporary ideas and participate in discussion.

Karl Barth never paid particular attention to the religions of the world. In fact he has often been stereotyped as the prime exponent of an exclusivist attitude toward other religions because of his belief that salvation comes through Christ alone. However a close analysis of his work suggests that it defies the rigid typology of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism so often used in inter-religious debate and instead allows for the possibility of discerning God's presence in the other Abrahamic faiths. This book asserts that a case can be made on the basis of Barth's theology for promoting a democratic society which respects freedom and difference. It shows how this argument can be extended to accommodate religious pluralism. Other faith groups can contribute to a just society and interact in ways which are theologically fruitful for the Church's own life. In particular, this book demonstrates how Barth's theology can help Christians relate to Muslims by showing that God's grace is at work in places it is not expected - beyond the boundaries of the Church. The Church can be addressed through the presence and voice of the other. In today's context this includes address through the presence and voice of Islam.

Despite famously small numbers, Christians have had a distinctive presence in modern Japan, particularly for their witness on behalf of democracy and religious freedom. A translation of Ken'i to Fukuju: Kindai Nihon ni okeru Roma-sho Jusan-sho (2003), Authority and Obedience is "a personal pre-history" of the postwar generation of Japanese Christian intellectuals deeply committed to democracy. Using Japanese Christians' commentary on Paul's injunction in Romans 13: 1-7, the counsel to "let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God...", Miyata offers an intellectual history of how Japanese Christians understood the emperor-focused modern state from the time of the first Protestant missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century through the climax and demise of fascism during the Pacific War. Stressing verse 5's admonition to "conscience" as the reason for obedience, Miyata provides a clear and political perspective grounded in his lifelong engagement with German political thought and theology, particularly that of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as he calls for a conscientious citizenry in his modern society. Showing both Christians' complicity with the state and the empire - including the formation of a unified church, the Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan - and their attitude toward Christians in Asia, and the complexity of the critical voices of Christians like Uchimura Kanzo, Kashiwagi Gien, Nanbara Shigeru, and many others less well known - Miyata's work aims not at exposing cultural particularity but at showing how the modern Japanese Christian experience can give meaning to a theology and a political theory of how to live within the "freedom of religious belief".