How and why did the early church grow in the first four hundred years despite disincentives, harassment, and occasional persecution? In this unique historical study, veteran scholar Alan Kreider delivers the fruit of a lifetime of study as he tells the amazing story of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Challenging traditional understandings, Kreider contends the church grew because the virtue of patience was of central importance in the life and witness of the early Christians. They wrote about patience, not evangelism, and reflected on prayer, catechesis, and worship, yet the church grew--not by specific strategies but by patient ferment.

God created us with diverse cultural and individual backgrounds. He intended those differences for our corporate delight and blessing. But too often we let differences separate us from each other. In One New People Manuel Ortiz persuades us of the benefits in fellowship and outreach that we can experience by crossing racial, ethnic and cultural lines. He urges us not just to put aside our differences but to celebrate them and to embrace them--to use them in a way that draws us closer to each other and closer to God. To that end, he offers a variety of models for creating and sustaining a multiethnic church. You'll explore new possibilities by reading stories of those who have already reaped the benefits of multiethnic approaches to community and ministry. And you'll sort out which options are best for your situation by working through the questions for thought and discussion that are included throughout the book. Finally, you'll find here ideas and principles to guide you through the process of change and growth: improving communication, managing conflict, encouraging and training new leaders, and much more. Here is inspiration, guidance and time-tested models for broadening the ministry of your church to reflect the power of God not only to overcome our differences, but also to transform them into a source of strength and joy.

Using inside sources and extensive field reporting about the secretive, high-stakes world of international diplomacy, Vatican reporter Victor Gaetan takes readers to the Holy See to explicate Pope Francis's diplomacy, show why it works, and to offer readers a startling contrast to the dangerous inadequacies of recent U.S. international decisions.

The gospel really is the best news anyone will ever receive. So why do Christians shy away from talking about Jesus outside of church? And, when they do speak of Jesus, why do they often get a disinterested or scornful reponse? Mack Stiles offers a wealth of answers, ideas and stories in this heads-up, hands-on evangelism handbook. His creative strategies for reaching an ethnically, culturally, economically, educationally, geographically and ideologically diverse world with the best news ever are drawn directly from his own work as an evangelist in today's student world. In Speaking of Jesus he shows readers how to keep their eyes open for "divine appointments," how to approach others with a servant spirit, how to cross relational barriers, how to simply tell one's own story of faith, and how to answer questions with honesty and confidence. Speaking of Jesus may well be an Out of the Saltshaker for the 1990s and beyond. With contagious enthusiasm, Stiles stresses that evangelism isn't about exhibiting superhuman courage or perfecting specialized techniques or exercising extraordinary gifts. Instead, he shows that people of faith can use everyday situations and everyday language to pass on the simple--and simply wonderful--news about Jesus.

This book explores the vital, common, yet surprisingly often misunderstood and neglected vocation of people gifted to combine academic and priestly roles in church, church-related, and secular academic contexts. The works of those who unite priestly and academic functions into one vocation have been vital to the Church since its first-century foundations. The Church would have no practically informed theology or liturgy, and arguably no New Testament, if not for individuals who have been as gifted at researching, writing, and teaching as at conventional ministry skills like preaching and pastoral care. With a specific focus on Anglicanism as one useful lens, prominent voices from around the Anglican Communion reflect here on their experiences and expertise in academic-priestly vocation. Including contributions from the UK, USA, and Australia, this book makes a distinctive and timely offering to discussions that must surely continue.

This volume introduces the early Christian ideas of history and history writing and shows their value for developing Christian communities of the patristic era. It examines the ways early Christians related and transmitted their history: apologetics, martyrdom accounts, sacred biography, and the genre of church history proper. The book shows that exploring the lives and writings of both men and women of the ancient church helps readers understand how Christian identity is rooted in the faithful work of preceding generations. It also offers a corrective to the individualistic and ahistorical tendencies within contemporary Christianity.

This title was first published in 2002. This book presents a timely study of a neglected British Christian women's movement. Jenny Daggers charts the inception of the movement in the exciting times of the post-sixties decades, amid new currents generated in the British denominational churches, and the wider current of Women's Liberation. Focusing on Christian women's concern with the position of women in the church, this book identifies a core Christian women's theology which affirms a (rehabilitated) 'new Eve in Christ', and so contrasts with a concurrent paradigm shift taking shape in North American feminist theology. Daggers argues that this divergence is primarily due to the effect of the prolonged Church of England women's ordination debate upon the ethos of the British Christian women's movement.

How Baptism and the Eucharist Shaped Early Christian Understandings of Jesus Long before the Gospel writers put pen to papyrus, the earliest Christians participated in the powerful rituals of baptism and the Lord's Supper, which fundamentally shaped their understanding of God, Christ, and the world in which they lived. In this volume, a respected biblical scholar and teacher explores how cultural anthropology and ritual studies elucidate ancient texts. Charles Bobertz offers a liturgical reading of the Gospel of Mark, arguing that the Gospel is a narrative interpretation of early Christian ritual. This fresh, responsible, and creative proposal will benefit scholars, professors, and students. Its ecclesial and pastoral ramifications will also be of interest to church leaders and pastors.

Reforms and processes of change have become an increasingly pervasive characteristic of European Protestant churches in the last fifteen to twenty years. Driven by perceptions of crises, such as declining membership rates, dwindling finances, decreasing participation in church rituals, and less support of traditional church doctrine, but also changes of governance of religion more generally, many churches feel compelled to explore new forms of operations, activities, and organisational structures. What is the inner dynamic and nature of these processes? This book explores this question by applying perspectives from organisational studies and bringing them into dialogue with ecclesiological categories, seeking to provide a richer understanding of the field of processes of change in churches. Among the questions asked are: What are the implications - organisationally and ecclesiologically - of viewing reform as a church practice, and how does this relate to much more comprehensive waves of public sector reforms? How is church leadership configured and exercised, how is democratic leadership related to the authority of ordained ministry, and how does leadership take on new forms in the context of churches? And how do churches incorporate organisational practices of planned change and renewal, such as social entrepreneurship?

2015 Book Award for Excellence in Missiology, American Society of Missiology Named an Outstanding Mission Book of 2015, International Bulletin of Mission Research In 1900 many assumed the twentieth century would be a Christian century because Western "Christian empires" ruled most of the world. What happened instead is that Christianity in the West declined dramatically, the empires collapsed, and Christianity's center moved to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific. How did this happen so quickly? Respected scholar and teacher Scott Sunquist surveys the most recent century of Christian history, highlighting epochal changes in global Christianity. He also suggests lessons we can learn from this remarkable global Christian reversal. Ideal for an introduction to Christianity or a church history course, this book includes a foreword by Mark Noll.

Popular Apologist Corrects the Record on What Christianity Is All About The Christianity our culture rejects may not be true Christianity at all. So many people today believe they have to be good to be accepted by God, or that the Bible is just a list of do's and don'ts, or that God is far away and unapproachable. Instead of providing "proofs" about God and the Bible, in this book Alex provides a reason to want to know Jesus. By sharing his own story of the loneliness and alienation of his youth, Alex taps in to universal fears of rejection and loneliness. We all seek acceptance and purpose--and there's only one solution. Learn how to be anchored in the Truth and security that comes through Christ.

First published in 1973, this work demonstrates how the English churchmen of the nineteenth century moved from a firmly entrenched position in the old social hierarchy to a less definable and insecure position under the rule of the collectivist State run by a professional workforce. Dr Kitson Clark explores the many questions po

Part storybook, part textbook, part historical overview, Parade of Faith presents the history of Christianity in riveting fashion. Ruth Tucker adopts the metaphor of a parade, journey, or pilgrimage to explore the history of Christianity, which began as the Messiah marched out of the pages of the Old Testament and will end one day when "the saints go marching in" to the New Jerusalem. The book is divided into two chronological groupings: first, the advent of Christianity until the German and Swiss Reformations; second, the Anabaptist movement and Catholic Reformation until the present-day worldwide expansion of the church. Yet, ultimately the topic matter is not movements, dates, or a stream of facts, but instead people-people who still have stories to tell other Christians. And with a little help from clues to their own contexts, they can still speak clearly today. This book is laid out systematically to showcase the biographies of such prominent figures within their historical settings. The pages are peppered with sidebars, historical "what if" questions, explorations of relevant topics for today, personal reflections, illustrations, and lists for further reading. Parade of Faith is an excellent introduction for undergraduate students and interested lay readers.

Today, the images of Catholic priests and nuns marching in 1960s civil rights protests are iconic. Their cassocks and habits clothed the movement in sacred garments. But by the time of those protests Catholic Civil Rights activism already had a long history, one in which the religious leadership of the Church played, at best, a supporting role. Instead, it was laypeople, first African Americans and then, as they found white partners, black and white Catholics working together, who shaped the movement regular people who, in self-consciously Catholic ways, devoted their time, energy, and prayers to what they called "interracial justice," a vision of economic, social, religious, and civil equality. Karen J. Johnson tells the story of Catholic interracial activism from the bottom up through the lives of a group of women and men in Chicago who struggled with one another, their Church, and their city to try to live their Catholic faith in a new, and what they thought was more complete and true, way. Black activists found a handful of white laypeople, some of whom later became priests, who believed in their vision of a universal church in the segregated city. Together, they began to fight for interracial justice, all while knitted together in sometimes-contentious friendship as members of the Mystical Body of Christ. In the end, not only had Catholic activists lived out their faith as active participants in the long civil rights movement and learned how to cooperate, and indeed love, across racial lines, but they had changed the practice of Catholicism. They broke down the hierarchy that placed priests above the laity and crossed the parish boundaries that defined urban Catholicism. Chicago was a vital laboratory in what became a national story. One in Christ traces the development of Catholic interracial activism, revealing the ways religion and race combined both to enforce racial hierarchies and to tear them down, and demonstrating that we cannot understand race and civil rights in the North without accounting for religion.

The influence of religion on culture is as strong as ever, but the shape of that influence is unique in today's pluralistic society. In Christianity in the Modern World, Ambrose Mong examines critically themes of religious commitment and tolerance, attitudes towards other religions, and the sociological aspects of religion and inter-religious dialogue. He provides an overview of factors that challenge traditional religion, from the relationship between monotheistic and polytheistic beliefs to the history of tolerance and intolerance in the church and the future of secularism. Following the global ethics formulated by the late Hans Kung, Mong also engages with the dialogue between Jurgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger to provide an extensive defence of the importance of inter-religious dialogue, with particular relevance to multiple religious belonging in the Asian context. Scholars of world religions will find Mong's analysis compelling, while students will find his introduction to the historical dialectics underlying many of today's tensions illuminating.

A page of music is included for this hymn praising the saints who have gone before us and those we meet in our daily lives. Also includes brief biographies of six saints.

"An intimate, revealing and sometimes wrenching family memoir of the journalist and social advocate who is now being considered for canonization" (The New York Times), told with illuminating detail by her granddaughter. Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was a prominent Catholic, writer, social activist, and co-founder of a movement dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor. Her life has been documented through her own writings as well as the work of historians, theologians, and academics. What has been missing until now is a more personal account from the point of view of someone who knew her well. Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty is a frank and reflective, heartfelt and humorous portrayal written by her granddaughter, Kate Hennessy. Dorothy Day, writes Hennessy, is an unusual candidate for sainthood. Before her conversion, she lived what she called a "disorderly life," during which she had an abortion and then gave birth to a child out of wedlock. After her conversion, she was both an obedient servant and a rigorous challenger of the Church. She was a prolific writer whose books are still in print and widely read. Although compassionate, Hennessy shows Day to be driven, dogmatic, loving, as well as judgmental, in particular with her only daughter, Tamar. She was also full of humor and laughter and could light up any room she entered. An undisputed radical heroine, called "a saint for the occupy era" by The New Yorker, Day's story unfolds against a backdrop of New York City from the 1910s to the 1980s and world events spanning from World War I to Vietnam. This thoroughly researched and intimate biography provides a valuable and nuanced portrait of an undersung and provocative American woman. "Frankly," says actor and activist Martin Sheen, "it is a must-read."

For centuries the great religious buildings of Great Britain have inspired and fascinated pilgrims and visitors from around the world. The beauty and diversity of British ecclesiastical architecture is superbly captured in this guide to over 60 of Britain's finest cathedrals.This definitive guide contains over 130 magnificent colour photographs that capture the enduring appeal of these great monuments to the Christian tradition.Extended entries are included on Durham Cathedral, York Minster, Lincoln Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, St Paul's Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral, Glasgow Cathedral, St David's Cathedral. This definitive guide contains over 130 magnificent colour photographs that capture the enduring appeal of these great monuments to the Christian tradition. Extended entries are included on Durham Cathedral, York Minster, Lincoln Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, St Pauls Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral, Glasgow Cathedral, St Davids Cathedral.

America has passed a tipping point. A majority of Americans now say that truth is up to the individual and that ultimate truth cannot be known. Learning to "speak our own truths" was supposed to lead to dignity and harmony. Instead, our society struggles with unprecedented levels of social conflict, purposelessness, and loss of identity. And still, the "Truth versus truths" tension continues to grow. Is all hope lost? In this inspiring book, Dr. Jeff Myers tells the fascinating stories of Jesus-followers who lived for Truth and transformed their world in times of crisis. These inspiring figures led the way in human dignity, science, art, medicine, education, politics, justice, and even the idea of meaningful work. No matter what is going on around us, the truth is worth fighting for. If you long for a positive, restorative role in our own chaotic era, it's time to discover how truth changes everything.

In his last interview, the late Italian Cardinal and former Archbishop of Milan, Carlo Maria Martini, said the need for deep reform in the Catholic Church was urgent and long overdue because 'the Church is 200 years behind the times'. The reference to 200 years clearly points to the watershed in European life that the French Revolution and the Enlightenment became. Vatican II was one attempt to meet the challenge of relevance to our times. But its best efforts have been on ice since the late 1970s. Now a new opportunity arrives in the pontificate of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. And the movement he has initiated is evangelical in source and comprehensive in reach. But, as many observers have pointed out, it will not be lasting if it does not lead to sustainable structural change-to reform that accompanies renewal. In Tomorrow's Church Today, five highly qualified commentators focus on what lies ahead for the Church to be reformed if it is to meet the challenges of the 21st Century:* A theologian and historian (Massimo Faggioli) who targets how ministry and leadership can be reshaped authentically for our times* A reporter and analyst with 30 years experience of moves and machinations in the Etenrnal City (Robert Mickens)* A bishop with a lifetime of experience of ministering to the divorced and remarried and the benefit of legal and biblical scholarship to support his edited by Michael Kelly SJ approach (Geoffrey Robinson)* A biblical scholar who examines much of what's taken for granted in the governance of the Church and exposes where it is left wanting (Antony Campbell)* and A bishop whose forced 'resignation' exposes the deficiencies of a system of governance devoid of basics-due process and respect for natural rights. But the Catholic Church is not its clerics, scholars and commentators. It is the baptised. Geraldine Doogue is a celebrated Australian broadcaster and commentator whose Introduction speaks for and from the experience of the mass of Catholics.

Why do so many conservative politicians flock to the campuses of Liberty University, Wheaton College, and Bob Jones University? In Fundamentalist U: Keeping the Faith in American Higher Education, Adam Laats shows that these colleges have always been more than just schools; they have been vital intellectual citadels in America's culture wars. They have been unique institutions that have defined what it has meant to be an evangelical and reshaped the landscape of American higher education. In the twentieth century, when higher education sometimes seemed to focus on sports, science, and social excess, conservative evangelical schools offered a compelling alternative. On their campuses, evangelicals debated what it meant to be a creationist, a Christian, a proper American, all within the bounds of Biblical revelation. Instead of encouraging greater personal freedom and deeper pluralist values, conservative evangelical schools have thrived by imposing stricter rules on their students and faculty. If we hope to understand either American higher education or American evangelicalism, we need to understand this influential network of dissenting institutions. Plus, only by making sense of these schools can we make sense of America's continuing culture wars. After all, our culture wars aren't between one group of educated people and another group that has not been educated. Rather, the fight is usually fiercest between two groups that have been educated in very different ways.

An interfaith guide to planned giving. Planned gifts are typically the largest gifts received by a charity and can transform religious organizations and congregations to become more sustainable, impactful, and vibrant entities for decades to come. Encouraging planned gifts to congregations and religious organizations is essential at this time of tremendous generational wealth transfer; these gifts also provide an opportunity to enhance relationships between supporters and organizations. Many congregations and religious entities fear that they cannot raise these transformational gifts due to a lack of expertise among staff or volunteers, the limited financial resources of their constituents, or the simple discomfort of addressing ultimate issues with donors. Faithful Giving can help change those dynamics. The book is intentionally inclusive of Christian and other faith traditions by offering several case studies from a variety of Christian denominations and other religions, including Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and others.