Islamist movements seeking power today are faced with difficult choices regarding strategy, ranging from armed struggle to electoral efforts. An emerging alternative consists of a rethinking of Islamist politics, where the goal of a "totally Islamic" polity would be abandoned in favor of some form of Islamic-oriented society. In this reformulation, Islamist politics would function as a pressure group to make society more Islamic, reinforcing the walls of semi-separate internal communities and reinterpreting Islam in more liberal ways. The September 11, 2001 terror attack on the United States, however, demonstrates that the radical approach remains attractive to many Islamists. Addressing these issues, the contributors look at the countries where Islamist movements have been most important. Case studies of revolutionary and reformist groups are followed by chapters discussing future alternatives for Islamist politics, presenting arguments both advocating and critical of a potential liberal, reformist, interest-group Islamism.

Before Queen Anne's reign had even begun, rival factions in both Church and State were jostling for position in her court. Attempting to follow a moderate course, the new monarch and her advisors had to be constantly wary of the attempts of extremists on both sides to gain the upper hand. The result was a see-saw period of alternating influence that has fascinated historians and political commentators. In this engaging new study, Barry Levis shows that although both parties claimed to be in support of the Church, their real aim was advancing their respective political positions. Uniting close analysis of Queen Anne's changing policies towards dissenters, occasional conformity and church appointments with studies of the careers of several prominent churchmen and politicians, Levis paints a gripping picture of competing religious values and political ambitions. Most significantly, he shows that, far from being restricted to the church and political elites, these conflicts were to have a cascading influence on the division of the country long after the Queen's reign ended.

Parsons and Leas have created an important tool for congregational leaders in this application of systems theory to evaluating a congregation s life and readiness for change. Church leaders can explore the forces at work and examine the systemic implications in seven key areas: strategy, process, pastoral and lay leadership, authority, relatedness, and learning. The Manual provides an overview of systems theory, complete instructions for administering and scoring the Congregational Systems Inventory (CSI), and guidance for interpreting and explaining the inventory results using sample scores. Be sure to order some packs of the CSI along with this valuable resource."

The field of ecclesiology is rapidly expanding as new material, theories, methods, and approaches are being explored. This raises important and challenging questions concerning ecclesiology as an academic discipline. This book takes the reader into the trenches of ecclesiological research where the actual work of reading, writing, interpreting, and analysing is being done. Ecclesiology is dealt with as a systematic, empirical, historical, and liturgical discipline. Essays explore theology in South Africa as shaped by apartheid, liturgical theology, the diaconate in an ecumenical context, Free Church preachership, suburban ecclesial identity, medieval church practices, liturgical texts, church floor plans, and ecclesiology as a gendered discipline. Ecclesiology in the Trenches is a book for anyone who is interested and involved in ecclesiological research.

Most of us would rather have a root canal than ask for money. Raising support is one of the most difficult challenges facing Christians in ministry. Fears of rejection, concerns about biblical validity, feelings of not being deserving, anxiety about limited resources can all block us from obtaining the means to fulfill our calling. This book both affirms that God uses the Christian community to send us into ministry and demystifies the process. This down-to-earth handbook offers a clear, biblical perspective gives step-by-step instructions on how to assemble the tools unique to each person's support-raising task helps you know what range of gift to ask of a potential donor outlines the how-tos of holding a home promotional event tells the four predictors of church support is aware of the diverse ethnic contexts of today's new mission candidates includes a chapter by a woman for women on their unique challenges in support raising shows how to build a base in a strong church when you don't have one explains exactly why people do and don't give The relational strategy in this book has proven valuable for those who serve Christ on campus, in the city or in other special ministries at home or abroad. It is not necessarily the quickest approach to raising money, but it is the most lasting and fulfilling for those who give and receive.

The Christian Community is a unique church organisation in the modern world. It values the rhythm and ritual of the sacraments (such as baptism and holy communion), and has re-established them in a form which tries to meet the deepest needs of searching souls. At the same time, it proclaims the right of individuals to form their own beliefs, rather than what the church tells them. It therefore offers something quite particular and vital for the future of Christianity. This book looks back to the founding of The Christian Community in 1922, following inspiration from Rudolf Steiner, and especially its beginnings in English-speaking countries. It includes accounts of the key personalities who brought the organisation into existence, such as Friedrich Rittelmeyer and Emil Bock, as well as the priests and leaders who pioneered it in Britain, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, including Alfred Heidenreich, Oliver Matthews, Verner Hegg, Heinz Maurer, Julian Sleigh, Eileen Hersey, Michael Tapp and many more.

What is the relationship between evangelical Christianity and democracy in America? In Good News for Common Goods, sociologist Wes Markofski explores how multicultural evangelicals across the United States are addressing race, poverty, inequality, politics, and religious and cultural difference in America's increasingly plural and polarized public arena. Based on extensive original research on multicultural evangelicals active in faith-based community organizing, community development, political advocacy, and public service organizations across the country-including over 90 in-depth interviews with racially diverse evangelical and non-evangelical activists, community leaders, and neighborhood residents-Markofski shows how the varieties of public religion practiced by evangelical Christians are not always bad news for non-evangelicals, people of color, and those advancing ethical democracy in the United States. Markofski argues that multicultural evangelicals can and do work with others across race, class, religious, and political lines to achieve common good solutions to public problems, and that they can do so without abandoning their own distinctive convictions and identities or demanding that others do so. Just as ethical democracy calls for a more reflexive evangelicalism, it also calls for a more reflexive secularism and progressivism.

So You re on the Search Committee focuses on the experience of pastoral search committees and the unique role that laity in most denominations play in this crucial process. Because a change of pastors is, as Alban Institute founder Loren Mead puts it, a critical moment of ministry, participation as a member of a search committee is a big investment with tremendous rewards, both for the congregation as well as for the individual. Authors Ketcham and Hahn find that the pastoral search process presents both search committee members and the congregation as a whole with limitless opportunities for growth and faith development. They offer insightful reflections on the deeper issues of congregational identity and transformation that search committees will find themselves wrestling with, as well as raise warnings about some of the obstacles committee members can expect to encounter in the search process. So You re on the Search Committee began as a conversation between Celia Allison Hahn, former editor-in-chief at the Alban Institute, and Bunty Ketcham, a consultant with considerable experience serving on search committees. First published in 1985, this new edition retains the original book s interview format and includes significant updates and revisions based on new learnings and experiences with congregations going through pastoral transition."

Studying church history is like learning your genealogy, with ample helpings of family recipes, scandalous disputes, inspiring heroes, quirky uncles and scrapbooks of photos thrown in. Someone needs to point out what's important and remind you of the facts as you learn to tell the story on your own. The Pocket Dictionary of Church History is designed to help students identify the people, places, events, movements and ideas that checker the story of the church through the ages. Among the three-hundred-plus definitions you'll find terms, from ad fontes to via media leaders and theologians, from Abelard to Zwingli "isms," from Arminianism to Unitarianism places and events, from the Azusa Street Mission to the White Horse Inn councils, from Nicaea to Vatican II Here is an indispensable glossary, the perfect companion to your study and reading of church history.

Open source software makes the basic program instructions available for anyone to see and edit. An 'open source church, ' likewise, is one in which the basic functions of mission and ministry are open to anyone. Members feel free to pursue their callings from God that are consistent with what God has called the congregation to be and do. But what does 'open source church' look like? In Open Source Church: Making Room for the Wisdom of All, Landon Whitsitt argues that Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that anyone can see and edit, might be the most instructive model available to help congregations develop leaders and structures that can meet the challenges presented by our changing world. Its success depends, he demonstrates, not on the views of select experts but on the collective wisdom of crowds. Then, turning to the work of James Surowiecki in The Wisdom of Crowds, he explores the idea that the body of Christ itself--when it is intentionally diverse, encourages independence of thought, values decentralization, and effectively captures and aggregates the group's collective wisdom--is an open source church. Together, these phenomena show us what an 'open source church' looks like. It is the body of Christ at its best.

At once a travel guide and a vision for the future, this series is good news for the Episcopal Church at a time of fast and furious demographic and social change. It analyzes the present plight of the church and sketches a positive way forward, sprouting from the seeds of change those transformative practices already at work renewing the church. What church models can help point us toward transformation? What are the essential tools? What will give us strength, direction, and purpose to the journey?

Each volume of the series will: Explain why a changed vision is essential Give robust theological and biblical foundations Offer a guide to best practices and positive trends in churches large and small Describe the necessary tools for change Imagine how transformation will look

For most Episcopalians, stewardship is synonymous with pledge drives, budgets, and capital campaigns, but the Bible is clear that God wants more than our tithes and offerings. Looking to its scriptural roots in 1 Chronicles, Luke-Acts, and the letters of Paul, as well as St. Francis third way, Robertson offers a vision of holistic stewardship for the whole church, holistic because it can t be separated from evangelism, outreach, scripture study, and ministry to the newcomer. It does not involve strong-arm tactics, only a willingness to risk changing existing structures and ideas in order to enrich the faith community and strengthen connections to the neighboring world.

"Transforming Stewardship" delivers both good and bad news about Episcopalians and stewardship. "Robertson" provides essential models and spiritual practices in order to transform the church s outmoded attitudes toward stewardship and wealth into a broader context of faith."

In this profound yet practical book, Mary Sellon and Daniel Smith make the case that the health of churches and synagogues depends on congregations learning how to live out love in "right relationships." The authors distill what they have learned from other researchers as well as their work with dozens of pastors and congregations. This how-to lays out theory, story, tools, and exercises that will help congregations and their leaders learn how to build and maintain the loving relationships that provide the medium for God s transforming work"

This first-ever interdisciplinary study of woman as prophet shows that, in these troubling times, ordinary women-especially Christian women-need to function as prophets by proclaiming, in word and deed, the indispensability of lovingly seeking the welfare of others. More specifically, social science shows that the person-centered love prophesied by women prophets is able to meet interpersonal challenges within the home and world, while philosophy and theology establish that women are able to excel as prophets due to the virtuous dispositions inculcated by femininity, the choice to be caring, a God-centered spirituality, and a pro-life humanitarian/personalist feminism that welcomes male collaborators. Facilitating the ability of Christian women to prophesy love are Baptismal graces, Thomistic virtues, and a much needed prophetic Marian ecclesiology based on what John Paul II calls the "prophetism of femininity." These interdisciplinary findings provide an essential resource for educators and students of humanity, the theology of women, and evangelization. These findings emerge, first, from an investigation into the cognitive and ontological underpinnings of what John Paul II called the "feminine genius." A second set of findings emerges from exploring the prophetic dimensions of the feminine genius, secular feminism's need to adopt the insights of Christianity, and the ability of femininity's prophetism to recast both femininity and feminism as Marian prophecies. A third set of findings arises from analyzing the spirituality of women prophets within the Christian tradition by considering the conditions necessary for prophesying, explicating requisite Thomistic virtues, and delving into the spirituality of Hildegard, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, and Teresa of Avila. A fourth set of findings arises from innovative studies of polarization, secularization, lust, romantic love, the conditions whereby mothers with careers can flourish, and the ability of nuns to combat racism in a small Midwestern town. Overall, these interdisciplinary investigations explicate the theology of women and show that women who prophesy love, either in the order of grace or nature, can help heal lives, families, and culture.

Ever wonder why some people never return after their first visit? Why some join but you rarely see them? Or why others become active participants in your church family's life and worship? Discover how your congregation can meet growth challenges. Based on Alban Institute research, The Inviting Church includes a self-study design for assessing assimilation processes and analyzing visitors' perceptions.

An introduction to the preaching of John Calvin, showing how his preaching style developed out of the medieval tradition of preaching. The book covers Calvin's general theological rationale for preaching, his practice of preaching in Geneva, the progress of his preaching and the method and message of the sermons and their form and style. The author shows how his sermons and style influenced those of later preachers, particularly in the English language.

What is the right way to worship? Right worship does not require a return to the identical forms found in the early church or later in Rome or after that in Westminster. What it calls for is a faithful response today to the God of our salvation in light of those biblically ordered and historically informed patterns. In this study Robbie Castleman uncovers the fundamental shape of worship. What she finds--outlined in Scripture, enacted in Israel, refocused in the New Testament community, guarded by the apostolic fathers, and recovered in the Reformation--is a grand narrative of redemption offering order and meaning to all worshiping communities down to the present day.

A two-volume study in the strategy of Christian evangelism as developed by two of its greatest exponents, set in the framework of biographical studies. Volume I covers the life and thought of Blaise Pascal, while Volume II covers the life and thought of Soren Kierkegaard, each volume standing in their own right as scholarly contributions to the literature of their respective subjects. Although far separated in time and tradition, Pascal and Kierkegaard both insisted that self-complacent humanity needs first to be disturbed, and then comforted, by the Gospel. Most of the book is occupied by a thorough review of the lives and works of the two men, in such a way as to ring out their significant place in the spiritual history of modern Europe. But the author's purpose throughout is not merely biographical. He goes on to compare the conception and execution of their evangelistic tasks in a way which brings out the remarkable consensus between them; and in an epilogue he draws conclusions relating this historical study to the tasks and methods of modern evangelism.

On fire for God-a sweeping history of puritanism in England and America Begun in the mid-sixteenth century by Protestant nonconformists keen to reform England's church and society while saving their own souls, the puritan movement was a major catalyst in the great cultural changes that transformed the early modern world. Providing a uniquely broad transatlantic perspective, this groundbreaking volume traces puritanism's tumultuous history from its initial attempts to reshape the Church of England to its establishment of godly republics in both England and America and its demise at the end of the seventeenth century. Shedding new light on puritans whose impact was far-reaching as well as on those who left only limited traces behind them, Michael Winship delineates puritanism's triumphs and tribulations and shows how the puritan project of creating reformed churches working closely with intolerant godly governments evolved and broke down over time in response to changing geographical, political, and religious exigencies.

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.

From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, this book traces the political intrigue and inner workings of the Catholic Church. Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this book is about the church's accumulation of wealth and its byzantine entanglements with financial markets across the world. Told through 200 years of prelates, bishops, cardinals, and the Popes who oversee it all, Gerald Posner uncovers an eyebrow-raising account of money and power in perhaps the most influential organization in the history of the world. God's Bankershas it all: a rare expose and an astounding saga marked by poisoned business titans, murdered prosecutors, mysterious deaths of private investigators, and questionable suicides; a carnival of characters from Popes and cardinals, financiers and mobsters, kings and prime ministers; and a set of moral and political circumstances that clarify not only the church's aims and ambitions, but reflect the larger dilemmas of the world's more recent history. And Posner even looks to the future to surmise if Pope Frances can succeed where all his predecessors failed: to overcome the resistance to change in the Vatican's Machiavellian inner court and to rein in the excesses of its seemingly uncontrollable financial quagmire. Part thriller, part financial tell-all, this book shows with extraordinary precision how the Vatican has evolved from a foundation of faith to a corporation of extreme wealth and power.

An instant New York Times bestseller, from the author of Crusaders, that finally tells the real story of the Knights Templar-"Seldom does one find serious scholarship so easy to read." (The Times, Book of the Year) A faltering war in the middle east. A band of elite warriors determined to fight to the death to protect Christianity's holiest sites. A global financial network unaccountable to any government. A sinister plot founded on a web of lies... In 1119, a small band of knights seeking a purpose in the violent aftermath of the First Crusade set up a new religious order in Jerusalem, which was now in Christian hands. These were the first Knights Templar, elite warriors who swore vows of poverty and chastity and promised to protect Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Over the next 200 years, the Templars would become the most powerful network of the medieval world, speerheading the crusades, pionerring new forms of finance and warfare and deciding the fate of kings. Then, on October 13, 1307, hundreds of brothers were arrested, imprisoned and tortured and the order was disbanded among lurid accusations of sexual misconduct and heresy. But were they heretics or victims of a ruthlessly repressive state? Dan Jones goes back to the sources to bring their dramatic tale, so relevant to our own times, to life in a book that is at once authoritative and compulsively readable.