|
Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Other Protestant & Nonconformist Churches > General
In June 1949 the Soviet state arrested seven farmers from the
village of Bila Tserkva. Not wealthy or powerful, the men were
unknown outside their community, and few had ever heard of their
small, isolated village on the southwestern border of Soviet
Ukraine. Nevertheless, the state decided they were dangerous
traitors who threatened to undermine public order, and a regional
court sentenced them to twenty-five years of imprisonment for
treason. In To Make a Village Soviet Emily Baran explores why a
powerful state singled out these individuals for removal from
society. Bila Tserkva had to become a space in which Soviet laws
and institutions reigned supreme, yet Sovietization was an
aspiration as much it was a reality. The arrested men belonged to a
small and misunderstood religious minority, the Jehovah's
Witnesses, and both Witnesses and their neighbours challenged the
government's attempts to fully integrate the village into socialist
society. Drawing from the case file and interviews with the
families of survivors, Baran argues that what happened in Bila
Tserkva demonstrates the sheer ambition of the state's plans for
the Sovietization of borderland communities. A compelling history,
To Make a Village Soviet looks to Bila Tserkva to explore the power
and the limits of state control - and the possibilities created by
communities that resist assimilation.
Shaker Fancy Goods tells the story of the Shaker Sisters of the
nineteenth and early twentieth century who responded to the
economic perils of the Industrial Revolution by inventing a
lucrative industry of their own-Fancy Goods, a Victorian term for
small adorned household objects made by women for women. Thanks to
their work ethic, business savvy, and creativity, the tireless
Shaker Sisters turned a seemingly modest trade into the economic
engine that sustained their communal way of life, just as the men
were abandoning the sect for worldly employment. Relying on
journals and church family records that give voice to the
plainspoken accounts of the sisters themselves, the book traces the
work they did to establish their principal revenue streams, from
designing the products, to producing them by hand (and later by
machine, when they could do so without compromising quality) to
bringing their handcrafts to market. Photographs, painstakingly
gathered over years of research from museums and private
collections, present the best examples of these fancy goods. Fancy
goods include the most modest and domestic of items, like the pen
wipes that the Sisters shaped into objects such as dolls, mittens,
and flowers; or the emeries, pincushions, and needle books lovingly
made back in an era when more than a minimal competency in sewing
was expected in women; to more substantial purchases like the
Dorothy cloaks that were in demand among fashionable women of the
world; or the heavy rib-knitted sweaters, cardigans, and pullovers
that became popular items among college boys and adventurous women.
To some Western evangelicals, the practices of Eastern Orthodoxy
seem mysterious and perhaps even unbiblical. Then again, from an
Orthodox perspective, evangelicals lack the spiritual roots
provided by centuries-old church traditions. Are the differences
between these two branches of Christianity so sharp that to shake
hands is to compromise the gospel itself? Or is there room for
agreement? Are Eastern Orthodoxy and evangelicalism at all
compatible? Yes, no, maybe---this book allows five leading
authorities to present their different views, have them critiqued
by their fellow authors, and respond to the critiques. Writing from
an Orthodox perspective with a strong appreciation for
evangelicalism, Bradley Nassif makes a case for compatibility.
Michael Horton and Vladimir Berzonsky take the opposite stance from
their respective evangelical and Orthodox backgrounds. And George
Hancock-Stefan (evangelical) and Edward Rommen (Orthodox) each
offer a qualified perhaps. The interactive Counterpoints forum is
ideal for comparing and contrasting the different positions to
understand the strengths and weaknesses of these two important
branches of Christianity and to form a personal conclusion
regarding their compatibility. The Counterpoints series provides a
forum for comparison and critique of different views on issues
important to Christians. Counterpoints books address two
categories: Church Life and Bible and Theology. Complete your
library with other books in the Counterpoints series."
This major textbook is a newly researched historical study of
Evangelical religion in its British cultural setting from its
inception in the time of John Wesley to charismatic renewal
today.
The Church of England, the Church of Scotland and the variety of
Nonconformist denominations and sects in England, Scotland and
Wales are discussed, but the book concentrates on the broad
patterns of change affecting all the churches. It shows the great
impact of the Evangelical movement on nineteenth-century Britain,
accounts for its resurgence since the Second World War and argues
that developments in the ideas and attitudes of the movement were
shaped most by changes in British culture.
The contemporary interest in the phenomenon of Fundamentalism,
especially in the United States, makes the book especially
timely.
In this fresh approach to Christian spirituality, John Driver shows
that the spirituality of the disciples and the early Christian
church included every dimension of life. Grounded in the example of
Jesus himself, this holistic approach to spirituality finds
expression in the visible witness of the Christian community, and
in the daily lives of faithful Christians who seek to embody
Christ's presence in the world in service to others. This approach
to Christian spirituality was recovered in a remarkable way by the
radical reformers of the sixteenth century - the Anabaptists - and
it continues to find expression among a wide variety of Christian
groups around the world today. Life Together in the Spirit will
inspire, challenge, and encourage you to experience the presence of
the Spirit in all of its dimensions. This edition, revised and
expanded with responses and reflections from church leaders and
scholars around the world, is the seventh publication in the
"Global Anabaptist-Mennonite Shelf of Literature," an initiative of
Mennonite World Conference. Contributors include Mvwala C.
Katshinga (Democratic Republic of Congo), Christina Asheervadam
(India), Rafael Zaracho (Paraguay), Hermann Woelke (Uruguay),
Paulus Pan (Taiwan), Patricia Uruena (Colombia), and Nellie
Mlotshwa (Zimbabwe).
Current facts about Mormonism *Over 11 million members. *Over
60,000 full-time missionaries---more than any other single
missionary-sending organization in the world. *More than 310,000
converts annually. *As many as eighty percent of converts come from
Protestant backgrounds. (In Mormon circles, the saying is, We
baptize a Baptist church every week. ) *Within fifteen years, the
numbers of missionaries and converts will roughly double. *Within
eighty years, with adherents exceeding 267 million, Mormonism could
become the first world-religion to arise since Islam. You may know
the statistics. What you probably don t know are the advances the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is making in
apologetics and academic respectability. With superb training,
Mormon scholars outclass many of their opponents. Arguments against
Mormon claims are increasingly refuted as outdated, misinformed, or
poorly argued. The New Mormon Challenge is a response to the
burgeoning challenge of scholarly Mormon apologetics. Written by a
team of respected Christian scholars, it is free of caricature,
sensationalism, and diatribe. The respectful tone and responsible,
rigorous, yet readable scholarship set this book in a class of its
own. The New Mormon Challenge recycles no previous material and
duplicates no one s efforts. Instead, responding to the best LDS
scholarship, it offers freshly researched and well-documented
rebuttals of Mormon truth claims. Most of the chapter topics have
never been addressed, and the criticisms and arguments are almost
entirely new. But The New Mormon Challenge does not merely
challenge Mormon beliefs; it offers the LDS Church and her members
ways to move forward. The New Mormon Challenge will help you
understand the intellectual appeal of Mormonism, and it will reveal
many of the fundamental weaknesses of the Mormon worldview. Whether
you are sharing the gospel with Mormons or are investigating
Mormonism for yourself, this book will help you accurately
understand Mormonism and see the superiority of the historic
Christian faith. Outstanding scholarship and sound methodology make
this an ideal textbook. The biblical, historical, scientific,
philosophical, and theological discussions are fascinating and will
appeal to Christians and Mormons alike. Exemplifying Christian
scholarship at its best, The New Mormon Challenge pioneers a new
genre of literature on Mormonism. The Editors Francis J. Beckwith
(Ph.D., Fordham University), Carl Mosser (Ph.D. candidate,
University of St. Andrews), and Paul Owen (Ph.D., University of
Edinburgh) are respected authorities on the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints and the authors of various books and
significant articles on Mormonism. Their individual biographies as
well as information on the book s contributors appear inside. With
contributors including such respected scholars as Craig L.
Blomberg, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and others, The New
Mormon Challenge is, as Richard Mouw states in his foreword, an
important event for both Protestant evangelicals and Mormons that
models to the evangelical community what it is like to engage in
respectful and meaningful exploration of a viewpoint with which we
disagree on key points. In recent years, Mormon scholars have
produced a body of literature that has been largely ignored by
evangelicals. This current volume takes a giant step forward in
correcting this oversight in a way that is both intellectually
vigorous, yet respectful. ---Ken Mulholland, President, Salt Lake
Theological Seminary Intellectually serious evangelical responses
to the faith of the Latter-day Saints have been depressingly rare.
This book represents a significant contribution to a conversation
that, really, has just begun. ---Daniel Peterson, Brigham Young
University; Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies
(FARMS) Finally we have a book from evangelicals in which the
authors have made"
From Sister Wives and Big Love to The Book of Mormon on Broadway,
Mormons and Mormonism are pervasive throughout American popular
media. In Latter-day Screens, Brenda R. Weber argues that mediated
Mormonism contests and reconfigures collective notions of gender,
sexuality, race, spirituality, capitalism, justice, and
individualism. Focusing on Mormonism as both a meme and an
analytic, Weber analyzes a wide range of contemporary media
produced by those within and those outside of the mainstream and
fundamentalist Mormon churches, from reality television to feature
films, from blogs to YouTube videos, and from novels to memoirs by
people who struggle to find agency and personhood in the shadow of
the church's teachings. The broad archive of mediated Mormonism
contains socially conservative values, often expressed through
neoliberal strategies tied to egalitarianism, meritocracy, and
self-actualization, but it also offers a passionate voice of
contrast on behalf of plurality and inclusion. In this, mediated
Mormonism and the conversations on social justice that it fosters
create the pathway toward an inclusive, feminist-friendly, and
queer-positive future for a broader culture that uses Mormonism as
a gauge to calibrate its own values.
A sweet and heartwarming Amish romance where no disaster can
conquer true love. Dairy farmer Abe Stoltzfus wants to propose to
Lavinia Fisher, the beautiful young woman he's been dating, but
being a traditional Amish man, he worries about how he can provide
for her. Farming can be uncertain enough with weather conditions,
crops not doing well, all manner of uncertainties. And after a bad
summer storm and a serious injury from a rooftop tumble, Abe wants
to wait until both he and his farm are back on their feet. Lavinia
is relieved when Abe survives the fall, yet it seems like it's only
the start of events that threaten their future together. But
Lavinia is not only a talented Amish crafter, she's also the
daughter of a farmer. She knows what the life of a farm wife is
like and remains optimistic things will turn around. And when Abe
continues to drag his feet, Lavinia makes him an interesting
proposal. Will Abe be able to resist it-and her?
The Sealed Portion-Another Testament of Jesus Christ is the second
part of the Book of Mormon, which millions of people throughout the
world accept as the word of God along with the Bible. Joseph Smith,
Jr. (1830), the founder of the Mormon faith, claimed to have
received gold plates from an angel of God named Moroni. When he
received the plates, Smith relates that 2/3 of them were sealed.
The angel Moroni commanded him not to break the seals, but to
translate only the portion of the plates that was unsealed. It was
prophesied that the sealed portion of the plates would one day be
given to the people of the world. Using two stones called the Urim
and Thummim, Joseph Smith translated the unsealed portion. Before
returning the plates to the angel Moroni, Joseph showed them to
several others. These men gave their personal testimony as
witnesses to the existence of the plates and to the truthfulness of
the Book of Mormon. Claiming to have received the same instructions
to translate the sealed portion of the gold plates, an obscure man,
once an active member of the LDS faith, who goes only by the name
of Christopher, has published the remaining sealed portion. Though
others have made similar claims before him, none has ever testified
that he received the Urim and Thummim that was prepared by God to
translate the plates, and none has made claim that he has received
the exact same gold plates that were in Joseph Smith's
possession-except for Christopher. This book is a result of that
translation. The Sealed Portion-The Final Testament of Jesus
Christ, written by Moroni, relates the vision seen by the Brother
of Jared. Within the pages, the entire history of mankind is
covered. It begins with the kingdom where the spirits of the
children of men were first created, and continues through until the
end of the millennium, when the earth will be restored to a state
similar to the garden of Eden, and the planets will be prepared as
the degrees of glory in the kingdom of God. The most accurate and
precise account ever given of the life of Christ is contained
within the pages, including his early years with his family, his
youth, baptism, marriages, mission, and death. Moroni explains the
atonement, the LDS temple endowment, and some of the hidden
symbolism of the book of Revelation. He recounts the prophets
Ubaid, Zarathustra, Antioch, Socrates, Sythipian, Mohammad, and
Joseph Smith, Jr., among others. The histories of the Egyptians,
Hittites, Babylonians, Romans, and Americans are also covered. Also
given is the in-depth and beautiful description of Jesus'
intercessory prayer among the Nephites and the Lamanites on the
American continent. Along with the translation of the sealed
portion, the first part of the gold plates that was translated by
Joseph Smith, Jr. and subsequently lost by his scribe, Martin
Harris, is also included in this extraordinary work. This part is
known as the Book of Lehi (the lost 116-page manuscript). The full
text of Joseph Smith's reported First Vision, in which he claims to
have been visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ, is also
included in the book. The reader is lead from blindness into the
light as he or she discovers the truths written within these pages.
This book offers an authoritative overview of the history of
evangelicalism as a global movement, from its origins in Europe and
North America in the first half of the eighteenth century to its
present-day dynamic growth in Africa, Asia, Latin America and
Oceania. Starting with a definition of the movement within the
context of the history of Protestantism, it follows the history of
evangelicalism from its early North Atlantic revivals to the great
expansion in the Victorian era, through to its fracturing and
reorientation in response to the stresses of modernity and total
war in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It
describes the movement's indigenization and expansion toward
becoming a multicentered and diverse movement at home in the
non-Western world that nevertheless retains continuity with its
historic roots. The book concludes with an analysis of contemporary
worldwide evangelicalism's current trajectory and the movement's
adaptability to changing historical and geographical circumstances.
Russell Jeung's spiritual memoir shares the difficult, often
joyful, and sometimes harrowing account of his life in East
Oakland's Murder Dubs neighborhood and of his Chinese-Hakka
history. On a journey to discover how the poor and exiled are
blessed, At Home in Exile is the story of his integration of social
activism and a stubborn evangelical faith. Holding English classes
in his apartment (which doubled as a food pantry for a local
church) for undocumented Latino neighbors and Cambodian refugees,
battling drug dealers who threatened him, exorcising a spirit
possessing a teen, and winning a landmark housing settlement
against slumlords with a gathering of his neighbors-Jeung's story
is, by turns, moving and inspiring, traumatic and exuberant. As
Jeung retraces the steps of his Chinese-Hakka family and his
refugee neighbors, weaving the two narratives together, he asks
difficult questions about longing and belonging, wealth and
poverty, and how living in exile can transform your faith: "Not
only did relocation into the inner city press me toward God, but it
made God's words more distinct and clear to me...As I read
Scriptures through the eyes of those around me-refugees and
aliens-God spoke loudly to me his words of hope and truth." With
humor, humility, and keen insight, he describes the suffering and
the sturdiness of those around him and of his family. He relates
the stories of forced relocation and institutional discrimination,
of violence and resistance, and of the persistence of Christ's love
for the poor.
This collection of essays by a team of evangelical scholars
explores the legacy of Carl F. H. Henry, a neglected giant of
twentieth-century evangelicalism-contending masterfully for Henry's
continued relevance in a changing world.
On September 25, 1890, the fourth Mormon prophet, Wilford Woodruff,
publicly instructed his followers to abandon polygamy. In doing so,
he initiated a process that would fundamentally alter the
Latter-day Saints and their faith. Trading the most integral
elements of their belief system for national acceptance, the
Mormons recreated themselves as model Americans. Mary Campbell
tells the story of this remarkable religious transformation in
Charles Ellis Johnson and the Erotic Mormon Image. One of the
church's favorite photographers, Johnson (1857 1926) spent the
1890s and early 1900s taking pictures of Mormonism's most revered
figures and sacred sites. At the same time, he did a brisk business
in mail-order erotica, shooting and selling stereoviews that he
referred to as his "spicy pictures of girls." Situating these
images and more within the religious, artistic, and legal culture
of turn-of-the-century America, Campbell reveals the unexpected
ways in which they worked in concert to bring the Saints back into
the nation's mainstream after the scandal of polygamy. ?Engaging,
interdisciplinary, and deeply researched, Charles Ellis Johnson and
the Erotic Mormon Image demonstrates the profound role that
pictures played in the creation of both the modern Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints and the modern American nation.
Jon Krakauer's literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles
of lives conducted at the outer limits. He now shifts his focus
from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief
within our own borders, taking readers inside isolated American
communities where some 40,000 Mormon Fundamentalists still practice
polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon
establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these
Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.
At the core of Krakauer's book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty,
who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless
woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched
account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a
multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion,
polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he
uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America's fastest growing religion,
and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious
belief.
Raised in a broken family and emotionally overlooked, Sherry Gore
grew up without a solid foundation, a prisoner of her own poor
choices, and at times without hope. A series of terrible mistakes
left her feeling wrecked and alone and a sudden tragedy threw
Sherry into an emotional tailspin too powerful to escape. Sherry
hangs by a thread, unable to see how she can go on living, until it
happens: on a morning of no particular significance, she walks into
a church and BAM the truth of Jesus' forgiving love shatters her
world and cleaves her life in two: She goes to bed stunned; she
wakes up a Christian. Unwilling to return to the darkness of her
former life, Sherry attacks her faith head on. Soon the life Sherry
Gore remakes for herself and her children as she seeks to follow
the teachings of the Bible features head coverings, simple dress,
and a focus on Jesus Christ. Only then does she realize, in a fit
of excitement, that there are others like her. They are called
Amish and Mennonite, and she realizes she has found her people. The
plain choice that Sherry makes is not easy - and life still brings
unexpected pain and heartache - but it changes everything for her,
as she becomes one of the few people on earth to have successfully
joined the Amish from the outside. She has found her place. And her
story proves that one can return from the darkest depths to the
purest light with the power of God.
|
|