Popular Apologist Corrects the Record on What Christianity Is All About The Christianity our culture rejects may not be true Christianity at all. So many people today believe they have to be good to be accepted by God, or that the Bible is just a list of do's and don'ts, or that God is far away and unapproachable. Instead of providing "proofs" about God and the Bible, in this book Alex provides a reason to want to know Jesus. By sharing his own story of the loneliness and alienation of his youth, Alex taps in to universal fears of rejection and loneliness. We all seek acceptance and purpose--and there's only one solution. Learn how to be anchored in the Truth and security that comes through Christ.

"This book is extremely valuable. Shupe et al. have done an excellent job...highly recommended; it is a must-read."--"Criminal Justice Review"

""Bad Pastors" raises all the good questions and provides many hypothetical answers, and for these reasons alone it should be read by all sociologists of religion with an interest in wrongdoings."
--"Sociology of Religion"

Child-molesting priests, embezzled church treasures, philandering ministers and rabbis, even church-endorsed pyramid schemes that defraud gullible parishioners of millions of dollars: for the past decade, clergy misconduct has seemed continually to be in the news.

Is there something about religious organizations that fosters such misbehavior? Bad Pastors presents a range of new perspectives and solidly grounded data on pastoral abuse, investigating sexual misconduct, financial improprieties, and political and personal abuse of authority. Rather than focusing on individuals who misbehave, the volume investigates whether the foundation for clergy malfeasance is inherent in religious organizations themselves, stemming from hierarchies of power in which trusted leaders have the ability to define reality, control behavior, and even offer or withhold the promise of immortality. Arguing that such phenomena arise out of organizational structures, the contributors do not focus on one particular religion, but rather treat these incidents from an interfaith perspective.

Bad Pastors moves beyond individual case studies to consider a broad range of issues surrounding clergy misconduct, from violence against women to the role of charisma and abuse of power in new religious movements. Highlighting similarities between otherforms of abuse, such as domestic violence, the volume helps us to conceptualize and understand clergy misconduct in new ways.

Ninguna institucion ha cubierto mas siglos y mas continentes que la iglesia cristiana. Su historia dramatica es de derramamiento de sangre y paz, corrupcion y pobreza. Aqui el doctor Hurlbut vuelve a contar esta historia con un estilo objetivo, conciso y claro, haciendo enfasis en el espiritu de la iglesia, su crecimiento y maduracion, y las causas que condujeron a los acontecimientos historicos y su influencia resultante. Preciso, al dia, y presentado en forma vivida, Historia de la Iglesia Cristiana, de Hurlbut, cubre los seis periodos generales de la historia de la iglesia desde el ano 30 d. C. hasta el dia de hoy. En esta edicion revisada despues de la muerte del doctor Hurlbut, se ha anadido una seccion de conclusion que abarca el periodo desde el fallecimiento del autor hasta la actualidad para darnos un vistazo completo y facil de entender acerca de la iglesia cristiana. Disenado para dos publicos, este libro contiene bosquejos y referencias en los margenes para ayudar al estudiante y al maestro, junto con una narracion continua y numerosas ilustraciones para el lector general. Es ideal para utilizarlo en la Escuela Dominical, ya que al final del libro se incluyen bosquejos sugeridos y preguntas de repaso para cada capitulo."

Ties into the 30th anniversary and so will receive a great deal of support and coverage from New Wine (and hopefully the Christian press more generally)

In Righteous Gentiles: Religion, Identity, and Myth in John Hagee's Christians United for Israel, Sean Durbin offers a critical analysis of America's largest Pro-Israel organization, Christians United for Israel, along with its critics and collaborators. Although many observers focus on Christian Zionism's influence on American foreign policy, or whether or not Christian Zionism is 'truly' religious, Righteous Gentiles takes a different approach. Through his creative and critical analysis of Christian Zionists' rhetoric and mythmaking strategies, Durbin demonstrates how they represent their identities and political activities as authentically religious. At the same time, Durbin examines the role that Jews and the state of Israel play as vehicles or empty signifiers through which Christian Zionist truth claims are represented as manifestly real.

In 1934, during the Nazi regime in Germany, members of the Confessing Church issued the Declaration of Barmen, which reaffirmed their primary loyalty to the word of God. With their action, they established a legacy for future generations to follow in similar situations.This volume examines the historical, political, and theological context of the creation of the Barmen Declaration, as it constituted an act of theological and political resistance against tyranny, terror, and fascism. The work of the Barmen Declaration demonstrated clearly and powerfully the "this-worldly" ethical and political salience of religion and theology to empower witness, resistance, and solidarity. Containing contributions from an inclusive array of renowned scholars, the volume unfolds the lasting legacy and continued relevance of Barmen.

How should Christians live in an age of empire? As the city of Ephesus prepares for a religious festival in honor of the emperor Domitian, a Christian landowner feels increasing pressure from the city's leaders to participate. Can he perform his civic duties and remain faithful to his Lord? Or has the time come for a costly choice? In this historical novel, biblical scholar David deSilva brings to life such compelling struggles faced by the early Christians. Their insistence on the absolute lordship of their own singular deity brought them into conflict not only with the myriad religious cults of the day, but with all the crushing power of the empire itself. Meticulously researched and supplemented by historical images and explanatory sidebars, A Week in the Life of Ephesus poses anew the timeless question of Christianity and empire. Here is a vividly imaginative portrait of the Roman empire in all its beauty and might-and hanging over it, the looming sky of apocalypse.

When Paul III was elected in 1534, hopes arose across Christendom that this pope would at last reform and reunite the Church. During his fifteen-year reign, though, Paul's engagement with reform was complex and contentious. A work of cultural history, this book explores how cultural narratives of honour and tradition, including how honour played out in politics, significantly constrained Pope Paul and his chosen reformers in framing strategies for change. Indeed, the reformers' programme would have undermined the culture of honour and weakened Rome's capacity to ward off current threats of invasion. The study makes a provocative case that Paul called the Council of Trent to contain reform rather than promote it. Nevertheless, Paul and the Council did sow seeds of reform that eventually became central to the Counter-Reformation. This book thus sheds new light on a pope whose relationship to reform has long been regarded as an enigma.

From the footpaths of our cities to the chat rooms of the Internet, people are connecting today as never before. As the planet shrinks through the multiple forces of immigration, travel, electronic communication and more fluid employment patterns, we will find ourselves increasingly forced into contact with those who are significantly different from ourselves. Sadly however, the stranger is often a threat to be resisted rather than a friend to be embraced. In this context of in-your-face diversity, it is time to revisit the heart of the New Testament, with its claim that in Jesus Christ a new quality of human relationship is possible. In his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul claims that Christians are a new kind of people, part of a new community: a 'new humanity' in Christ (Ephesians 2:15). We exist not in isolation, but in relationship. 'Dynamic Diversity' contends that all Christian congregations everywhere are called to be bridging places, centres of reconciliation, where the major diversities separating human beings are overcome through the presence of God's Holy Spirit. Bruce Milne presents a biblical model for today and tomorrow where the diversities of gender, generation, ethnicity, colour and socio-economic status present exciting and challenging opportunities to demonstrate practical oneness. When this happens, churches become wonderfully alive. In Christ we can be one people, one new humanity, one life.

The Reformation was a time of tremendous upheaval, renewal, and vitality in the life of the church. The challenge to maintain and develop faithful Christian belief and practice in the midst of great disruption was reflected in the theology of the sixteenth century. In this volume, which serves as a companion to IVP Academic's Reformation Commentary on Scripture, theologian and church historian Gerald L. Bray immerses readers in the world of Reformation theology. He introduces the range of theological debates as Catholics and Protestants from a diversity of traditions-Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Anabaptist-disputed the essentials of the faith, from the authority of Scripture and the nature of salvation to the definition of the church, the efficacy of the sacraments, and the place of good works in the Christian life. Readers will find that understanding how the Reformers engaged in the theological discipline can aid us in doing theology today.

History has long viewed French Protestants as Calvinists. Refusing to Kiss the Slipper re-examines the Reformation in francophone Europe, presenting for the first time the perspective of John Calvin's evangelical enemies and revealing that the French Reformation was more complex and colorful than previously recognized. Michael Bruening brings together a cast of Calvin's opponents from various French-speaking territories to show that opposition to Calvinism was stronger and better organized than has been recognized. He examines individual opponents, such as Pierre Caroli, Jerome Bolsec, Sebastian Castellio, Charles Du Moulin, and Jean Morely, but more importantly, he explores the anti-Calvinist networks that developed around such individuals. Each group had its own origins and agenda, but all agreed that Calvin's claim to absolute religious authority too closely echoed the religious sovereignty of the pope. These oft-neglected opponents refused to offer such obeisance-to kiss the papal slipper-arguing instead for open discussion of controversial doctrines. They believed Calvin's self-appointed leadership undermined the bedrock principle of the Reformation that the faithful be allowed to challenge religious authorities. This book shows that the challenge posed by these groups shaped the way the Calvinists themselves developed their reform strategies. Bruening's work demonstrates that the breadth and strength of the anti-Calvinist networks requires us to abandon the traditional assumption that Huguenots and other francophone Protestants were universally Calvinist.

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.

Thomas Green examines the Scottish Reformation from a new perspective - the legal system and lawyers. For the leading lawyers of the day, the Scottish Reformation presented a constitutional and jurisdictional crisis of the first order. In the face of such a challenge moderate judges, lawyers and officers of state sought to restore order in a time of revolution by retaining much of the medieval legacy of Catholic law and order in Scotland. Green covers the Wars of the Congregation, the Reformation Parliament, the legitimacy of the Scottish government from 1558 to 1561, the courts of the early Church of Scotland and the legal significance of Mary Stewart's personal reign. He also considers neglected aspects of the Reformation, including the roles of the Court of Session and of the Court of the Commissaries of Edinburgh.

For centuries the great religious buildings of Great Britain have inspired and fascinated pilgrims and visitors from around the world. The beauty and diversity of British ecclesiastical architecture is superbly captured in this guide to over 60 of Britain's finest cathedrals.This definitive guide contains over 130 magnificent colour photographs that capture the enduring appeal of these great monuments to the Christian tradition.Extended entries are included on Durham Cathedral, York Minster, Lincoln Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, St Paul's Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral, Glasgow Cathedral, St David's Cathedral. This definitive guide contains over 130 magnificent colour photographs that capture the enduring appeal of these great monuments to the Christian tradition. Extended entries are included on Durham Cathedral, York Minster, Lincoln Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, St Pauls Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral, Glasgow Cathedral, St Davids Cathedral.

This elegant Bible edition honors the beauty and richness of the New King James Version in a convenient portable size with essential study tools and traditional red-letter text for the Words of Christ. The New King James Version in the Sovereign Collection reflects the legacy and majesty of the King James Version Bible produced more than 400 years ago, but in language updated for today. This beautiful Bible, which contains design flourishes that pay tribute to the Bible produced in 1611, comes in a convenient portable size with essential study tools and traditional red-letter text for the Words of Christ. The Sovereign Collection continues Thomas Nelson's long history and stewardship publishing Bibles, featuring elegant letter illustrations leading into each chapter combined with clear and readable Comfort Print (R), connects you to the legacy of faith, and inspires your time in the Word to be enjoyable and fruitful. Features include: Line-matched classic 2-column format for a comfortable reading experience Book introductions provide a concise overview of the background and historical context of the book about to be read Words of Christ in red help you quickly identify Jesus' teachings and statements Extensive end-of-page cross references allow you to find related passages quickly and easily Translation notes provide a look into the thinking of the translators with alternative translations that could have been used and textual notes about manuscript variations Presentation page to personalize this special gift by recording a memory or a note Concordance for looking up a word's occurrences throughout the Bible Full-color maps show a visual representation of Israel and other biblical locations for better context Two satin ribbon markers for you to easily navigate and keep track of where you were reading Gilded page edges help protect the edge of the page and provide a polished look Durable and flexible Smyth-sewn binding so the Bible will lay flat in your hand or on a desk Easy-to-read 9.5-point NKJV Comfort Print (R)

La lectura de esta interesante obra le proporcionara todo el material que necesita para saber como realizar en cualquier lugar del mundo lo mismo que el Espiritu Santo ha logrado en Seul a traves del autor."

Opus Dei is perhaps one of the most controversial religious organisations of our time. For many years there was little information about its history and development. More recently attempts have been made to make its structure and organisation are now much more transparent. For some, however, the organisation is seen as a powerful and shadowy institution with wealth, influence and many dark secrets. This revealing book aims to find out the truth behind the myths and the speculation, and examines the faces and personalities behind its institution. This book presents a global perspective of the Opus Dei that considers its influence on a worldwide scale and reveals the truth behind this powerful institution.

Does God exist? What is the nature of evil, and where does it come from? Are humans free? Responsible? Immortal? Does it matter? Saints, Heretics and Atheists offers a historical introduction to fundamental questions in the philosophy of religion. Ranging from ancient times to the twentieth century, it is divided into twenty-five succinct, chronological chapters. Individual chapters discuss philosophies from history's greatest thinkers including Plato, Augustine, al-Ghazali, Aquinas, Margarite Porte, Spinoza, Hume, Mary Shepherd, and Nietzche. The book closes with an exploration of William James's defense of the right to believe, possible limitations of that right, and the nature of philosophical progress. Based on lectures from a popular course taught in the Program for General Education at Harvard University for over a decade, Saints, Heretics, and Atheists invites readers along for a journey that is unique in its sweeping historical approach to the philosophy of religion and the balance it strikes between traditional, non-traditional, and atheistic standpoints with respect to religion in the western tradition.

Child sexual abuse by clergy within the Roman Catholic Church has emerged as a social and political discourse over the last three decades. The analysis here specifically focuses on the establishment, conduct, and outcomes of the extensive public inquiries of Australia, although inquiries in other jurisdictions are also discussed. Unlike criminal or civil processes, although they may be inquisitory in nature, public inquiries emerge from a specifically political context and are a tool of governance embedded in a larger context of governmentality. Understanding the broader political and cultural contexts of public inquiries is important, then, in understanding their value and effectiveness as justice processes - especially for victims of CSA by clergy. What is interesting about public inquiry is that it situates victims of CSA by clergy outside of criminal and civil justice processes and recognises a different politicised relationship between victims as citizens, the state, and Catholic institutions where abuse has occurred. At the cutting edge of disciplinary and methodological understandings of the interconnections between the church, state and families, his book explores the dynamics of the emergence and politicisation of victims of CSA by clergy, their expressions of resistance and the legitimisation of their voice in public and political spheres.

Contains fascinating facts:

-From the life of Jesus to the Gutenberg Bible
- From Augustine to the Reformation
- From the spread of Christianity to the spread of Islam
- From the King James Version Bible to the Dead Sea Scrolls Available as a wall chart or a pamphlet. Wall chart size: 19" x 26." Pamphlet has 14 panels and fits inside a Bible cover 81/2" x 51/2" Pamphlet unfolds to 38 inches long! Pamphlets come shrinkwrapped in packages of 10, so please order pamphlets in multiples of 10 (10, 20, 30, etc.).

This innovative book aims to create a 'poetics of Church' and a 'religious imaginary' as alternatives to more institutional and conventional ways of thinking and of being 'Church'. Structured as a spiritual and literary journey, the work moves from models of the institutional Catholic Church into more radical and ambiguous textual spaces, which the author creates by bringing together an unorthodox group of thinkers referred to as 'poet-companions': the 16th-century founder of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius of Loyola, the French thinkers Gaston Bachelard and Helene Cixous, the French poet Yves Bonnefoy, and the English playwright Dennis Potter. Inspired especially by the reading and writing practices of Cixous, the author attempts to exemplify Cixous' notion of ecriture feminine-'feminine writing'-that suggests new ways of seeing and relating. The project's uniting of Ignatian spirituality with postmodern thinking and its concern with creating new theological, literary and spiritual spaces for women both coincide and contrast with Pope Francis's pastoral and reformist tendencies, which have neglected to adequately address the marginalisation of women in the Church. As Francis has called for 'a theology of women', of which there are, of course, many to draw from, this volume will be a timely contribution with a unique interdisciplinary approach.