Over the last four decades, evangelical scholars have shown growing interest in other religions and their differing theologies. The result has been consensus on some issues and controversy over others, as scholars seek answers to essential questions: How are we to think about and relate to other religions, be open to the Spirit, and at the same time remain evangelical and orthodox? Gerald R. McDermott and Harold A. Netland offer a map of the terrain, describe new territory, and warn of hazardous journeys taken by some writers in exploring these issues. This volume offers critiques of a variety of theologians and religious studies scholars, including evangelicals, but it also challenges evangelicals to move beyond parochial positions. It is both a manifesto and a research program, critically evaluating the last forty years of Christian treatments of religious others, and proposing a comprehensive direction for the future. It addresses issues relating to the religions in both systematic theology and missiology-taking up long-debated questions such as contextualization, salvation, revelation, the relationship between culture and religion, conversion, social action, and ecumenism. The book concludes with responses from four leading thinkers of African, Asian, and European backgrounds: Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Vinoth Ramachandra, Lamin Sanneh, and Christine Schirrmacher.

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 Arguments against Mormon claims are increasingly refuted as outdated, misinformed, or poorly argued.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"

Evangelicals are increasingly turning their attention toward issues such as the environment, international human rights, economic development, racial reconciliation, and urban renewal. This marks an expansion of the social agenda advanced by the Religious Right over the past few decades. For outsiders to evangelical culture, this trend complicates simplistic stereotypes. For insiders, it brings contention over what "true" evangelicalism means today. The New Evangelical Social Engagement brings together an impressive interdisciplinary team of scholars to map this new religious terrain and spell out its significance. The volume's introduction describes the broad outlines of this "new evangelicalism." The editors identify its key elements, trace its historical lineage, account for the recent changes taking place within evangelicalism, and highlight the implications of these changes for politics, civic engagement, and American religion. Part One of the book discusses important groups and trends: emerging evangelicals, the New Monastics, an emphasis on social justice, Catholic influences, gender dynamics and the desire to rehabilitate the evangelical identity, and evangelical attitudes toward the new social agenda. Part Two focuses on specific issues: the environment, racial reconciliation, abortion, international human rights, and global poverty. Part Three contains reflections on the new evangelical social engagement by three leading scholars in the fields of American religious history, sociology of religion, and Christian ethics.

Jeremy Kroeker is a Mennonite with a motorcycle. When his seemingly unflinching faith in a Christian worldview begins to shift, Kroeker hops on his bike to seek answers from another perspective. After shipping his ride to Europe, Kroeker discovers that the machine wobbles back and forth worse than his own opinions about spirituality. Still, he caries on, oscillating through Europe--Germany, Austria, Croatia, Albania--and into the Middle East - Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and, ultimately, Iran. It is there, in the theocratic nation of Iran, that Kroeker finds himself on a forbidden visit to a holy Muslim Shrine. Once inside, invisible hands reach into his chest and rip from his heart a sincere prayer, his first in many years. And God hears that prayer. For before Kroeker can escape Iran, God steals into his hotel room one night to threaten him with death. At least, that's one way to look at it. In the end, Kroeker comes to accept uncertainty. What does he really know anyway? He may always fear a God that he can't explain. Perhaps if he keeps riding, one of these days God will speak clearly. And that frightens him, too.

Just as a growing interest in millennialism at the turn of this century has rejuvenated religious debate and questions concerning the fate of the world, so did Mormonism develop from millennial enthusiasm early in the nineteenth century. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and a provocative, even controversial figure in history, declared that he had been given the authority to restore the true church in the latter days. The primary source of Smith's latter-day revelation is The Book of Mormon, and to fully understand his role as the founder of the Mormon faith, one must also understand The Book of Mormon and how it came to be. Unfortunately, the literature about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon is permeated with contradiction and controversy. In the first edition of this impressive work, David Persuitte provided a significant amount of revealing biographical information about Smith that resolved many of the controversies concerning his character. He also presented an extensive comparative analysis positing that the probable conceptual source for The Book of Mormon was a book entitled View of the Hebrews; or the Tribes of Israel in America, which was written by an early New England minister named Ethan Smith. Now in an expanded and revised second edition incorporating many new findings relating to the origin of The Book of Mormon, Mr. Persuittes book continues to shed much new light on the path Joseph Smith took toward founding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

To Hutterites and members of other pacifist sects, serving the military in any way goes against the biblical commandment "thou shalt not kill" and Jesus' admonition to turn the other cheek when confronted with violence. Pacifists in Chains tells the story of four young men - Joseph Hofer, Michael Hofer, David Hofer, and Jacob Wipf - who followed these beliefs and refused to perform military service in World War I. The men paid a steep price for their resistance, imprisoned in Alcatraz and Fort Leavenworth, where the two youngest died. The Hutterites buried the men as martyrs, citing mistreatment. Using archival material, letters from the four men and others imprisoned during the war, and interviews with their descendants, Duane C. S. Stoltzfus explores the tension between a country preparing to enter into a world war and a people whose history of martyrdom for their pacifist beliefs goes back to their sixteenth-century Reformation beginnings.

British Christian leader John Stott was one of the most influential figures of the evangelical movement during the second half of the twentieth century. Called the pope of evangelicalism by many, he helped to shape a global religious movement that grew rapidly during his career. He preached to thousands on six continents. Millions bought his books and listened to his sermons. In 2005, Time included him in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Alister Chapman chronicles Stott's rise to global Christian stardom. The story begins in England with an exploration of Stott's conversion and education, then his ministry to students, his work at All Souls Langham Place, London, and his attempts to increase evangelical influence in the Church of England. By the mid-1970s, Stott had an international presence, leading the evangelical Lausanne movement that attracted evangelicals from almost every country in the world. Chapman recounts how Stott challenged evangelicals' habitual conservatism and anti-intellectualism, showing his role in a movement that was as dysfunctional as it was dynamic.
Godly Ambition is the first scholarly biography of Stott. Based on extensive examination of his personal papers, it is a critical yet sympathetic account of a gifted and determined man who did all he could to further God's kingdom and who became a Christian luminary in the process.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The Sound of Gravel is Ruth Wariner's unforgettable and deeply moving story of growing up in a polygamist Mormon doomsday community. The thirty-ninth of her father's forty-one children, Ruth is raised on a farm in the hills of Mexico, where polygamy is practiced without fear of legal persecution. There, Ruth's family lives in a home without indoor plumbing or electricity and attends a church where preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world. In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States, where her mother collects welfare and her father works a variety of odd jobs. Ruth comes to love the time she spends in the States, realising that perhaps the belief system into which she was born is not the one for her. As she enters her teen years, she becomes a victim of abuse in a community in which opposition toward men is tantamount to arguing with God. Finally, and only after devastating tragedy, Ruth finds an opportunity to escape. Recounted from the innocent and hopeful perspective of a child, The Sound of Gravel is the remarkable true story of a girl forced to define a place for herself within a community of misguided believers. This is a gripping tale of triumph, courage, resilience, and love.

How might our worship recapture and reflect the enchanted world of God's nearness in Jesus Christ? In this first volume in IVP Academic's Dynamics of Christian Worship series, John D. Rempel offers a vision for this kind of transformative worship. A theologian and minister in the Mennonite Church, Rempel considers the role of the sacraments and ritual within the Free Church tradition. While the Free Churches rightly sought to cleanse the church of the abuses of sacramentalism, in that process they also set aside some of the church's historic practices and the theology behind them, which ultimately impoverished their worship. In response to this liturgically thin space, Rempel appeals to the incarnation of Christ, whose taking on of flesh can help us perceive the sacramental nature of our faith and worship. By embracing life-giving and peacemaking practices, the worship of not only the Free Church tradition but of the whole body of Christ might be transformed and become enchanted once again. The Dynamics of Christian Worship series draws from a wide range of worshiping contexts and denominational backgrounds to unpack the many dynamics of Christian worship-including prayer, reading the Bible, preaching, baptism, the Lord's Supper, music, visual art, architecture, and more-to deepen both the theology and practice of Christian worship for the life of the church.

The Mennonite writers of this book (which preceded Continuing the Journey, vol. 2, ACRS Memoirs Series) were Depression-era babies who amid experiencing World War II, the Korean, Vietnam, and the Cold wars, helped Eastern Mennonite College (now University) and North American Mennonites develop more global perspectives and commitments. Authors include Esther K. Augsburger, Myron S. Augsburger, Titus W. Bender, James R. Bomberger, Gerald R. Brunk, Ray Gingerich, Samuel L. Horst, Albert N. Keim, C. Norman Kraus, Nancy V. Lee, Harold D. Lehman, John R. Martin, Paul Peachey, Calvin W. Redekop, Calvin E. Shenk. "Life is a mystery, and the best memoirs reflect that mystery. Good lives are those which bring hope and courage in the midst of that mystery. This book reflects that struggle," says Albert N. Keim, in the Introduction This volume, a Cascadia republication of the original Anabaptist Center for Religion and Society edition, is copublished with ACRS as well as Herald Press. It should be of interest to historians, students, libraries; anyone interested in Mennonite-related memoirs offering fresh ways of seeing; Eastern Mennonite University alumni, students, and staff.

Mormon founder Joseph Smith is one of the most controversial figures of nineteenth-century American history, and a virtually inexhaustible subject for analysis. In this volume, fifteen scholars offer essays on how to interpret and understand Smith and his legacy. Including essays by both Mormons and non-Mormons, this wide-ranging collection is the only available survey of contemporary scholarly opinion on the extraordinary man who started one of the fastest growing religious traditions in the modern world.

"The is one of the most illuminating updates on the current state of Mormonism that I have ever seen. It brings Mormonism's unstable, changeable truth clearly into view, and provides a convincing warning against the most polytheistic religion ever offered to the modern world." - Dr. Gleason Archer, Professor of Old Testament and Semitics at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Mark Twain once derided the Book of Mormon as "chloroform in print." Long and complicated, written in the language of the King James version of the Bible, it boggles the minds of many. Yet it is unquestionably one of the most influential books ever written. With over 140 million copies in print, it is a central text of one of the largest and fastest-growing faiths in the world. And, Grant Hardy shows, it's far from the coma-inducing doorstop caricatured by Twain.
In Understanding the Book of Mormon, Hardy offers the first comprehensive analysis of the work's narrative structure in its 180 year history. Unlike virtually all other recent world scriptures, the Book of Mormon presents itself as an integrated narrative rather than a series of doctrinal expositions, moral injunctions, or devotional hymns. Hardy takes readers through its characters, events, and ideas, as he explores the story and its messages. He identifies the book's literary techniques, such as characterization, embedded documents, allusions, and parallel narratives. Whether Joseph Smith is regarded as author or translator, it's noteworthy that he never speaks in his own voice; rather, he mediates nearly everything through the narrators Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni. Hardy shows how each has a distinctive voice, and all are woven into an integral whole.
As with any scripture, the contending views of the Book of Mormon can seem irreconcilable. For believers, it is an actual historical document, transmitted from ancient America. For nonbelievers, it is the work of a nineteenth-century farmer from upstate New York. Hardy transcends this intractable conflict by offering a literary approach, one appropriate to both history and fiction. Regardless of whether readers are interested in American history, literature, comparative religion, or even salvation, he writes, the book can best be read if we examine the text on its own terms.

In People of Paradox, Terryl Givens traces the rise and development of Mormon culture from the days of Joseph Smith in upstate New York, through Brigham Young's founding of the Territory of Deseret on the shores of Great Salt Lake, to the spread of the Latter-Day Saints around the globe.
Throughout the last century and a half, Givens notes, distinctive traditions have emerged among the Latter-Day Saints, shaped by dynamic tensions--or paradoxes--that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Here is a religion shaped by a rigid authoritarian hierarchy and radical individualism; by prophetic certainty and a celebration of learning and intellectual investigation; by existence in exile and a yearning for integration and acceptance by the larger world. Givens divides Mormon history into two periods, separated by the renunciation of polygamy in 1890. In each, he explores the life of the mind, the emphasis on education, the importance of architecture and urban planning (so apparent in Salt Lake City and Mormon temples around the world), and Mormon accomplishments in music and dance, theater, film, literature, and the visual arts. He situates such cultural practices in the context of the society of the larger nation and, in more recent years, the world. Today, he observes, only fourteen percent of Mormon believers live in the United States.
Mormonism has never been more prominent in public life. But there is a rich inner life beneath the public surface, one deftly captured in this sympathetic, nuanced account by a leading authority on Mormon history and thought.

Book Synopsis: This awe-inspiring book is a tribute to the perseverance of the human spirit. A House for the Most High is a groundbreaking work from beginning to end with its faithful and comprehensive documentation of the Nauvoo Temple's conception. The behind-the-scenes stories of those determined Saints involved in the great struggle to raise the sacred edifice bring a new appreciation to all readers. McBride's painstaking research now gives us access to valuable first-hand accounts that are drawn straight from the newspaper articles, private diaries, journals, and letters of the steadfast participants. The opening of this volume gives the reader an extraordinary window into the early temple-building labors of the besieged Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the development of what would become temple-related doctrines in the decade prior to the Nauvoo era, and the 1839 advent of the Saints in Illinois. The main body of this fascinating history covers the significant years, starting from 1840, when this temple was first considered, to the temple's early destruction by a devastating natural disaster. A well-thought-out conclusion completes the epic by telling of the repurchase of the temple lot by the Church in 1937, the lot's excavation in 1962, and the grand announcement in 1999 that the temple would indeed be rebuilt. Also included are an astonishing appendix containing rare and fascinating eyewitness descriptions of the temple and a bibliography of all major source materials. Mormons and non-Mormons alike will discover, within the pages of this book, a true sense of wonder and gratitude for a determined people whose sole desire was to build a sacred and holy temple for the worship of their God. Praise for A House for the Most High: "McBride has basically taken every imaginable contemporary textual source related to the Nauvoo Temple and has linked them together chronologically with an easily flowing narrative. A House for the Most High is a treasure trove of primary source material and is an enjoyable read at the same time. --Stanley J. Thayne, BYU Studies "This excellent book . . . will be a standard work on the Nauvoo Temple among the Mountain Saints for many years to come. . . . It is unquestionably an excellent book in many ways and for many reasons." --William Shepard, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. "In a truly crowded field of Nauvoo scholarship, A House for the Most High demonstrates the viability of new research on Mormon Nauvoo. In competition with coffee-table books on the Nauvoo Temple, McBride shows balance, fairness, and thoroughness unsurpassed by these other works. Interested readers and historians of Mormonism's early period will find McBride's book a helpful reference work for years to come." --David Howlett, Journal of Mormon History About the Author: Matthew McBride is the Manager of Online Development at Deseret Book Company and was a major contributor to the GospeLink series of electronic library products. He has written for both the Ensign and the Journal of Mormon History and is an obsessive reader. He and his wife Mary are the proud parents of four children and live in American Fork, Utah.

A sensitive and realistic look at the spiritual life and practices of the Amish

This second book by the authors of the award-winning "Amish Grace" sheds further light on the Amish, this time on their faith, spirituality, and spiritual practices. They interpret the distinctive practices of the Amish way of life and spirituality in their cultural context and explore their applicability for the wider world. Using a holistic perspective, the book tells the story of Amish religious experience in the words of the Amish themselves. Due to their long-standing friendships and relationships with Amish people, this author team may be the only set of interpreters able to provide an outsider-insider perspective.Provides a behind-the-scenes examination of Amish spiritual life Shows how the Amish practices can be applied to the wider world Written by authors with unprecedented access to the Amish community

Written in a lively and engaging style, "The Amish Way" holds appeal for anyone who has wanted to know more about the inner workings of the Amish way of life.

On February 28, 1993, the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) launched a major assault against a small religious community in central Texas. One hundred agents, armed with automatic and semi-automatic weapons, invaded the compound, purportedly to carry out a single search-and-arrest warrant. The raid went badly; four agents were killed, and by the end of the day the settlement was surrounded by armoured tanks and combat helicopters. After a 51-day standoff, the United States Justice Department approved a plan to use CS gas against those barricaded inside. Whether by accident or plan, tanks carrying the CS gas caused the compound to explode in fire, killing all 74 men, women and children inside. Could the tragedy have been prevented? Was it necessary for the BATF agents to do what they did? What could have been done differently? This text offers a wide-ranging analysis of events surrounding Waco. Contributors seek to explore all facets of the confrontation in an attempt to understand one of the most confusing government actions in American history. The book begins with the history of the Branch Davidians and the story of its leader, David Koresh. Chapters show how the Davidians came to trouble authorities, why the group was labelled a "cult," and how authorities used unsubstantiated allegations of child abuse to strengthen their case against the sect. The media's role is examined next in essays that consider the effect on coverage of lack of time and resources, the orchestration of public relations by government officials, the restricted access to the site or to evidence, and the ideologies of the journalists themselves. Several contributors then explore the relation of violence to religion, comparing Waco to Jonestown. Finally, the role played by "experts" and "consultants" in defining such conflicts is explored by two contributors who had active roles as scholarly experts during and after the siege. The legal and consitutional implications of the government's actions are also analyzed.

What were the beliefs of the Branch Davidians? This is the first full scholarly account of their history. Kenneth G. C. Newport argues that, far from being an act of unfathomable religious insanity, the calamitous fire at Waco in 1993 was the culmination of a long theological and historical tradition that goes back many decades. The Branch Davidians under David Koresh were an eschatologically confident community that had long expected that the American government, whom they identified as the Lamb-like Beast of the book of Revelation, would one day arrive to seek to destroy God's remnant people. The end result, the fire, must be seen in this context.

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.

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.

CHRIST FOR UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS is an engaging and thoughtful inquiry into Christianity for Unitarian Universalists and other spiritual seekers - including sceptics, non-religious people, liberal Christians and those who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious." The book has several purposes. The first is to present Christ in an understandable and compelling way to the increasing number of people who do not consider themselves Christian. The second is to present liberal and progressive Christians with the non-dogmatic way that Unitarian Universalists have viewed Christ through the Bible and personal experience. And the third is to promote active dialogue between non-Christians and the nearly 80% of Americans who identify themselves as Christian. CHRIST FOR UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS addresses frank questions with integrity and intellectual honesty, yet, also, presents a sincere and genuine sense of love as embodied in Jesus that is so heartfelt, so unconditional and so revolutionary that it will take your breath away.

Get the facts on temples, tithing, missions, and caffeine
Mormon doctrines, rituals, and history, demystified at last
Mormonism, or the LDS Church, is one of the world's fastest growing religions. But unless you were raised a Mormon, you probably don't have a clear picture of LDS beliefs and practices. Covering everything from Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon to tithing and family home evening, this friendly guide will get you up to speed in no time.
Discover:
* How the LDS Church differs from other Christian churches
* What Mormons believe
* What happens in Mormon temples and meetinghouses
* The history of the LDS Church
* LDS debates on race, women, and polygamy

The Moravian Church became widely known and respected for its 'missions to the heathen', achieving a high reputation among the pious and with government. This study looks at its connections with evangelical networks, and its indirect role in the great debate on the slave trade, as well as the operations of Moravian missionaries in the field. The Moravians' decision, in 1764, to expand and publicise their foreign missions (largely to the British colonies) coincided with the development of relations between their British leaders and evangelicals from various denominations, among whom were those who went on to found, in the last decade of the century, the major societies which were the cornerstone of the modern missionary movement. These men were profoundly influenced by the Moravian Church's apparent progress, unique among Protestants, in making 'real' Christians among the heathen overseas, and this led to the adoption of Moravian missionary methods by the new societies. Dr Mason draws on a wide range of primary documents to demonstrate the influences of the Moravian Church on the missionary awakening in England and its contribution to the movement.