This book offers a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich study of the intersections of contemporary Christianity and youth culture, focusing on evangelical engagements with punk, hip hop, surfing, and skateboarding. Ibrahim Abraham draws on interviews and fieldwork with dozens of musicians and sports enthusiasts in the USA, UK, Australia, and South Africa, and the analysis of evangelical subcultural media including music, film, and extreme sports Bibles. Evangelical Youth Culture: Alternative Music and Extreme Sports Subcultures makes innovative use of multiple theories of youth cultures and subcultures from sociology and cultural studies, and introduces the "serious leisure perspective" to the study of religion, youth, and popular culture. Engaging with the experiences of Pentecostal punks, surfing missionaries, township rappers, and skateboarding youth pastors, this book makes an original contribution to the sociology of religion, youth studies, and the study of religion and popular culture.

Stories of contemporary exorcisms are largely met with ridicule, or even hostility. Sean McCloud argues, however, that there are important themes to consider within these narratives of seemingly well-adjusted people-who attend school, go shopping, and watch movies-who also happen to fight demons. American Possessions examines Third Wave evangelical spiritual warfare, a late twentieth-, early twenty-first century movement of evangelicals focused on banishing demons from human bodies, material objects, land, regions, political parties, and nation states. While Third Wave beliefs may seem far removed from what many scholars view as mainstream religious practice in America, McCloud argues that the movement provides an ideal case study for identifying some of the most prescient tropes within the contemporary American religious landscape; namely "the consumerist," "the haunted," and "the therapeutic." Drawing on interviews, television shows, documentaries, websites, and dozens of spiritual warfare handbooks, McCloud examines Third Wave practices such deliverance rituals (a uniquely Protestant form of exorcism), spiritual housekeeping (the removal of demons from everyday objects), and spiritual mapping (searching for the demonic in the physical landscape). Demons, he shows, are the central fact of life in the Third Wave imagination. McCloud provides the first book-length study of this influential movement, highlighting the important ways that it reflects and diverts from the larger, neo-liberal culture from which it originates.

In this important new volume, Arand, Kolb, and Nestingen bring the fruit of an entire generation of scholarship to bear on these documents, making it an essential and up-to-date class text. The Lutheran Confessions places the documents solidly within their political, social, ecclesiastical and theological contexts, relating them to the world in which they took place. Though the book is not a theology of the Confessions, readers will clearly understand the issues at stake in the narratives, both in their own time, and in ours.

Scholars have labeled the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormonism as it is better known, both the American Religion, and the next world faith. The Mormon saga includes early persecution, conflict, and pioneer resilience, against a backdrop of revolutionary religious, social, and economic practices. The greatest colonizing force in American history, Mormonism has outgrown its 19th-century isolation and theocratic roots to become one of the most prosperous and respected Christian communities in the country. This book examines the history of the movement, and considers carefully the reasons behind a perennial discord with American culture--and the American government--that only waned in the early decades of the 20th century. Givens also considers the range of Mormon doctrines--both familiar and peculiar--and overviews the background and content of the unique canon of Mormon scripture. The Latter-day Saint Experience in America examines all aspects the how Mormons live, work, and worship. The book discusses: Mormon worship and Church organization; The intellectual and artistic heritage of the Latter-day Saints; Official Church teachings across a span of contemporary issues, from feminism to race to the environment; The tensions and future directions of the modern Church. Abundant appendices include a glossary of Mormonism, a timeline, a comparison with other Christian creeds, biographical sketches of Mormon luminaries, and an annotated bibliography useful for further study.

Short Description: Many Christians reject the consensus of contemporary science about the age of the universe, the implications of genetics, and so on. This book presents interviews with 15 eminent scientists who discuss the compatibility of their Christian faith and their mainstream scientific commitments. Features John Polkinghorne, Alister McGrath, John Lennox, Francis Collins, and John Houghton. A collection of exclusive interviews in which 15 eminent scientists talk about their science and their Christian faith. In this collection of interviews, scientists show how Bible-believing Christianity is compatible with contemporary scientific thinking. Christians do not have to choose, they say, between big bang and the Bible. Genesis and genetics can go together. In this book, big questions of the past, the present and the future are asked and answered; the physical impacts and moral implications of climate change are investigated and the intricacies of human DNA and the morality of genetic engineering are unravelled. Physicists, immunologists, astrophysicists, biochemists and mathematicians discuss what it means for humankind to be made in the image of God and how Christians can translate the gospel for our science-savvy society.

In his provocative book offers a revisionist history of the trans-denominational initiatives of English evangelicals from 1965 to 2000. 'Based on inside knowledge as well as telling statistics and sound sociological method Rob Warner's study of English evangelicals in the late 20th century tells a masterly though sobering tale of an era of evangelical entrepreneurs who had great success in gather- ing together the evangelical clans but suffered from a seeming in- ability to separate reality from hype, or what Dr Warner calls 'vision inflation'. The book is a must for every serious Evangelical leader as well as seasoned sociological scholars.' Professor Andrew Walker, King's College, London.

The thesis of this study is that Christian Science was a manifestation of the unrest gripping the United States after the Civil War. The age in which the movement flowered was, at once, sordid and gilded, commercial and optimistic. The stormy way through which the new religion passed was, in a sense, the road upon which all new ideas and schemes are tried. Mrs. Eddy's vision was subjected to reasoned and irrational scrutiny for 40 years. In truth, Christian Science belonged only tenuously to a modern era. It reflected the prevailing optimism, progressivism, utopianism, and feminism of the Gilded Age but did not illuminate the stage with a unique light of its own.

Apostolic networks link congregations together through personal relationships. They center around apostolic figures who have the ability to mobilize resources, make rapid decisions, and utilize charismatic gifts. Networks of churches organized in this way can respond to postmodernity and cultural innovation. This book takes the story of the emergence of apostolic networks in Britain from the visionary work of Arthur Wallis through the charismatic renewal into the full-fledged Restoration Movement of the 1980s. It covers the events of the 1990s, including the Toronto Blessing, and contains fresh information based upon interviews with leading players and new survey data as well as reanalysis of historical documents.

The question of the reality of Cathars and other heresies is debated in this provocative collection. Cathars have long been regarded as posing the most organised challenge to orthodox Catholicism in the medieval West, even as a "counter-Church" to orthodoxy in southern France and northern Italy. Their beliefs, understood to be inspired by Balkan dualism, are often seen as the most radical among medieval heresies. However, recent work has fiercely challenged this paradigm, arguing instead that "Catharism" is a construct, mis-named and mis-represented by generations of scholars, and its supposedly radical views were a fantastical projection of the fears of orthodox commentators. This volume brings together a wide range of views from some of the most distinguished internationalscholars in the field, in order to address the debate directly while also opening up new areas for research. Focussing on dualism and anti-materialist beliefs in southern France, Italy and the Balkans, it considers a number of crucial issues. These include: what constitutes popular belief; how (and to what extent) societies of the past were based on the persecution of dissidents; and whether heresy can be seen as an invention of orthodoxy. At the same time, the essays shed new light on some key aspects of the political, cultural, religious and economic relationships between the Balkans and more western regions of Europe in the Middle Ages. Antonio Sennis is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at University College London Contributors: John H. Arnold, Peter Biller, Caterina Bruschi, David d'Avray, Joerg Feuchter, Bernard Hamilton, R.I. Moore, Mark Gregory Pegg, Rebecca Rist, Lucy J. Sackville, Antonio Sennis, Claire Taylor, Julien Thery-Astruc, Yuri Stoyanov

In an era where church attendance has reached an all-time low, recent polling has shown that Americans are becoming less formally religious and more promiscuous in their religious commitments. Within both mainline and evangelical Christianity in America, it is common to hear of secularizing pressures and increasing competition from nonreligious sources. Yet there is a kind of religious institution that has enjoyed great popularity over the past thirty years: the evangelical megachurch. Evangelical megachurches not only continue to grow in number, but also in cultural, political, and economic influence. To appreciate their appeal is to understand not only how they are innovating, but more crucially, where their innovation is taking place. In this groundbreaking and interdisciplinary study, Justin G. Wilford argues that the success of the megachurch is hinged upon its use of space: its location on the postsuburban fringe of large cities, its fragmented, dispersed structure, and its focus on individualized spaces of intimacy such as small group meetings in homes, which help to interpret suburban life as religiously meaningful and create a sense of belonging. Based on original fieldwork at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, one of the largest and most influential megachurches in America, Sacred Subdivisions explains how evangelical megachurches thrive by transforming mundane secular spaces into arenas of religious significance.