Since the onset of the global economic crisis, everyone has a view on how to fix capitalism - everyone, it seems, except the Church of England. Given the widespread diagnosis of moral malaise in the marketplace, one might have expected the established religion of the UK to provide more leadership. In spite of its quietness in recent public debate, the Church in fact has a lot to say on the matter. Eve Poole examines the formal views and actions of the Church of England in the run up to the financial crisis, as well as the arguments of leading Church of England bishops, academics and business people. She highlights the richness and distinctiveness of the arguments emanating from the Church with regard to capitalism and the market, but also points to some flaws, gaps and significant silences. Poole urges the Church to stand up and be counted in taking its proper place in re-shaping the global economy. She also offers theologians a new framework for engaging in public theology.
This book is an indispensable guide to the thorny issues in respect of morals and the market. Students and scholars of theology, as well as economists and business people concerned with the wider ethical repercussions of their work, will be excited to discover a unique and sagacious voice above the mud-slinging that has characterized the mainstream of contemporary comment on the credit crunch.

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.

Why should you join a church?

Becoming a member of a church is an important, and often neglected, part of the Christian life. Yet the trend these days is one of shunning the practice of organized religion and showing a distaste or fear of commitment, especially of institutions.

Jonathan Leeman addresses these issues with a straightforward explanation of what church membership is and why it's important. Giving the local church its proper due, Leeman has built a compelling case for committing to the local body.

Mirrors of Heaven or Worldly Theaters? Venetian Nunneries and Their Music explores the dynamic role of music performance and patronage in the convents of Venice and its lagoon from the sixteenth century to the fall of Venice around 1800. Examining sacred music performed by the nuns themselves and by professional musicians they employed, author Jonathan E. Glixon considers the nuns as collective patrons, of both musical performances by professionals in their external churches-primarily for the annual feast of the patron saint, a notable attraction for both Venetians and foreign visitors-and of musical instruments, namely organs and bells. The book explores the rituals and accompanying music for the transitions in a nun's life, most importantly the ceremonies through which she moved from the outside world to the cloister, as well as liturgical music within the cloister, performed by the nuns themselves, from chant to simple polyphony, and the rare occasions where more elaborate music can be documented. Also considered are the teaching of music to both nuns and girls resident in convents as boarding students, and entertainment-musical and theatrical-by and for the nuns. Mirrors of Heaven, the first large-scale study of its kind, contains richly detailed appendices featuring a calendar of musical events at Venetian nunneries, details on nunnery organs, lists of teachers, and inventories of musical and ceremonial books, both manuscript and printed. A companion website supplements the book's musical examples with editions of complete musical works, which are brought to life with accompanying audio files.

In an age when few people ventured beyond their place of birth, Andre Palmeiro left Portugal on a journey to the far side of the world. Bearing the title Father Visitor, he was entrusted with the daunting task of inspecting Jesuit missions spanning from Mozambique to Japan. A global history in the guise of a biography, The Visitor" tells the story of a theologian whose extraordinary travels bore witness to the fruitful contact and violent collision of East and West in the early modern era.

In India, Palmeiro was thrust into a controversy over the missionary tactics of Roberto Nobili, who insisted on dressing the part of an indigenous ascetic. Palmeiro walked across Southern India to inspect Nobili s mission, recording fascinating observations along the way. As the highest-ranking Jesuit in India, he also coordinated missions to the Mughal Emperors and the Ethiopian Christians, as well as the first European explorations of the East African interior and the highlands of Tibet.

Orders from Rome sent Palmeiro farther afield in 1626, to Macau, where he oversaw Jesuit affairs in East Asia. He played a crucial role in creating missions in Vietnam and seized the opportunity to visit the Chinese mission, trekking thousands of miles to Beijing as one of China s first Western tourists. When the Tokugawa Shogunate brutally cracked down on Christians in Japan where neither he nor any Westerner had power to intervene Palmeiro died from anxiety over the possibility that the last Jesuits still alive would apostatize under torture."

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.

LIVING IN GOD'S KINGDOM This book has been written to help people harmonize their lives with God, the Creator of the vast Kingdom called heaven and earth. The book starts with the creation story and walks you through the Fall of man in the Garden of Eden, with Satan lurking around to disrupt the lives of people today as he did to the first man, Adam. The victory of Jesus over Satan is aptly described. The book is directed to believers and other users for purposes of - Counseling and in preaching the Word of God. Understanding the tactics of Satan and his final end. Understanding spiritual warfare and building a prayerful life. Helping youths to discover the plan of God earlier in their lives. Helping backsliders to rediscover the love of God and connect back to God. Witnessing to agnostics and the unenlightened and re-directing them back to God. Helping everyone to be accountable to God. About the Author Joseph Agbi is a diligent Bible student, who through deep commitment has uncovered a lot of treasures in the Word of God. Evangelism and reaching the world with the Gospel is his passion. Guided by divine wisdom, knowledge and understanding (WKU), he combines his calling as a Bible Teacher with his secular practice as a Professional Engineer in Edmonton, Canada. He is the founder of "Christ Our Wisdom and Power Missions" (www.christwisdom.org), and has written many articles on various subjects of the Bible. Mr. Agbi has a Masters Degree in Structural Engineering from the University of Alberta and a Masters in Business Administration from University of Benin, Nigeria. He is married to Esther Agbi and they are blessed with two children, Deborah and David.

Religion in Tudor England offers readers the prose and the poetry, the theology and the spirituality, the prayers and the polemics, of one of the most important epochs in the making of modern Christianity. Beginning with King Henry VII, the Tudors' reign included the break with Rome and the rise of English Protestantism, a series of religiously inspired revolts, the burnings of nearly three hundred Protestants for heresy under Queen Mary, the executions of scores of Catholics for treason under Queen Elizabeth, and the emergence of the Puritan challenge to the Church of England. Moreover, the English Reformation coincided with the English Renaissance, and the foremost religious thinkers of the age, Catholic as well as Protestant, are also among the greatest of English prose stylists. The sources in this unique anthology, accidentals modernized and accompanied by careful notes and detailed historical, literary, and theological introductions, immerse readers in this world and allow them to explore comprehensively - for the first time - what was lost, what was transformed, and what was preserved in the English Reformation.

There is a huge disconnect between the official account of church demise and the death of faith peddled in political and media circles, and the vitality of churches in every corner of the country. Why do the pundits ignore what is happening? Sean Oliver-Dee counters that the ongoing health of the church is being ignored because it contradicts three myths that the 'new establishment' wants to assert: that the gradual death of religion is a good excuse to ignore the views of Christians; that encouraging Christianity to die will benefit society; and that scientific progress will necessarily cause the death of faith. The growth of the church runs contrary to all three assertions. It's time to challenge the myths.