A choice lies before you: Either waste your life or live with risk. Either sit on the sidelines or get in the game. After all, life was no cakewalk for Jesus, and he didn't promise it would be any easier for his followers. We shouldn't be surprised by resistance and persecution. Yet most of us play it safe.
We pursue comfort. We spend ourselves to get more stuff. And we prefer to be entertained. We are all tempted by the idea of security, the possibility of a cozy Christianity with no hell at the end. But what kind of life is that really? It's a far cry from adventurous and abundant, from truly rich and really full, and it's certainly not the heights and the depths Jesus calls us to.
Discover in these pages a foundation for fearlessness. Hear God's promise to go with you into the unknown. And let Risk Is Right help you see the joys of a faith-filled and seriously rewarding life of Jesus-dependent abandon
Risk Is Right is a significantly expanded version of a chapter previously published in the book Don't Waste Your Life (chapter 5).

Few figures in history have defined their time as dramatically as Martin Luther. And few books have captured the spirit of such a figure as truly as this robust and eloquent life of Luther. A highly regarded historian and biographer and a gifted novelist and playwright, Richard Marius gives us a dazzling portrait of the German reformer--his inner compulsions, his struggle with himself and his God, the gestation of his theology, his relations with contemporaries, and his responses to opponents. Focusing in particular on the productive years 1516-1525, Marius' detailed account of Luther's writings yields a rich picture of the development of Luther's thought on the great questions that came to define the Reformation.

Marius follows Luther from his birth in Saxony in 1483, during the reign of Frederick III, through his schooling in Erfurt, his flight to an Augustinian monastery and ordination to the outbreak of his revolt against Rome in 1517, the Wittenberg years, his progress to Worms, his exile in the Wartburg, and his triumphant return to Wittenberg. Throughout, Marius pauses to acquaint us with pertinent issues: the question of authority in the church, the theology of penance, the timing of Luther's "Reformation breakthrough," the German peasantry in 1525, Muntzer's revolutionaries, the whys and hows of Luther's attack on Erasmus.

In this personal, occasionally irreverent, always humane reconstruction, Luther emerges as a skeptic who hated skepticism and whose titanic wrestling with the dilemma of the desire for faith and the omnipresence of doubt and fear became an augury for the development of the modern religious consciousness of the West. In all of this, he also represents tragedy, with the goodness of his works overmatched by their calamitous effects on religion and society. "

`Fundamentalism' is a label used often pejoratively of religious conservatism. Evangelicals are growing in number and power around the world and are frequently regarded as fundamentalist. This volume examines fundamentalism as a mentality which has greatly affected evangelicalism, but which some evangelicals now wish to leave behind.

Educated people have become bereft of sophisticated ways to develop their religious inclinations. A major reason for this is that theology has become vague and dull. In The Character of God, author Thomas E. Jenkins maintains that Protestant theology became boring by the late nineteenth century because the depictions of God as a character in theology became boring. He shows how in the early nineteenth century, American Protestant theologians downplayed biblical depictions of God's emotional complexity and refashioned his character according to their own notions, stressing emotional singularity. These notions came from many sources, but the major influences were the neoclassical and sentimental literary styles of characterization dominant at the time. The serene benevolence of neoclassicism and the tender sympathy of sentimentalism may have made God appealing in the mid-1800s, but by the end of the century, these styles had lost much of their cultural power and increasingly came to seem flat and vague. Despite this, both liberal and conservative theologians clung to these characterizations of God throughout the twentieth century.
Jenkins argues that a way out of this impasse can be found in romanticism, the literary style of characterization that supplanted neoclassicism and sentimentalism and dominated American literary culture throughout the twentieth century. Romanticism emphasized emotional complexity and resonated with biblical depictions of God. A few maverick religious writers-- such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, W. G. T. Shedd, and Horace Bushnell--did devise emotionally complex characterizations of God and in some cases drew directly from romanticism. But their strange andsometimes shocking depictions of God were largely forgotten in the twentieth century. s use "theological" as a pejorative term, implying that an argument is needlessly Jenkins urges a reassessment of their work and a greaterin understanding of the relationship between theology and literature. Recovering the lost literary power of American Protestantism, he claims, will make the character of God more compelling and help modern readers appreciate the peculiar power of the biblical characterization of God.

Human beings are born to search. From early infancy we begin crawling around searching for new things. When we find them, we pick them up, examine them, analyze them, name them and experiment with them. Sometimes, these experiments can be beneficial as we make "breakthrough" discoveries. There have been a huge number of these "breakthroughs" in electronics, medical science and engineering. Now, as a result, we know more and live longer and healthier lives. Sometimes, experiments go horribly wrong. Many people have experimented with drugs and alcohol in their lives resulting in failed marriages, physical and psychological damage and sometimes death. Yet, there is something inside each of us that is willing to take risks and experiment. The driving force is curiosity. Curiosity drives us to search. In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus says, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate, and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." I spent a few years walking down the broad road that leads to destruction. When I was seventeen, I began to sneak cans of beer from my mother's stash hidden under her bed. Soon afterwards, I began to smoke marijuana and then began cultivating it in our backyard. From there, I began experimenting with hashish, PCP, cocaine and LSD. From the time I turned eighteen, when I falsified my driver's license, there was always a fifth of Jose Cuervo Gold sitting in my bedroom. I spent countless nights frequenting night clubs while attending college. Ultimately, I began losing it psychologically. I became very paranoid and withdrawn and depressed. I remember walking into my room several times and literally hiding under the covers with a headset on listening to music. There was a period of time that I suffered from insomnia and ended up going on long walks at night while other people slept. On one of those nights, an LAPD officer grabbed me from behind without identifying himself. As I was yanked around by the shoulder, I used the momentum and threw a kick into the officer's chest driving him to the ground. His partner started drawing his gun as the officer I kicked pulled me down to the ground and into a choke hold. That earned me two years of probation. Another night, I heard a dachshund telling me that it wasn't her fault that she looked so ridiculously funny. One evening, I became particularly paranoid. I was certain that FBI officers were ready to break into my home and shoot me. I tossed and turned trying to fall asleep for hours. I was totally freaking out. It suddenly dawned on me. I couldn't continue on like this. I was physically, mentally and psychologically exhausted. I needed help badly. I finally asked Jesus to help me. I told him that I had really messed up my life and needed Him to help me. I asked him into my life and begged for his mercy and forgiveness. Finally, I had found the small gate and voluntarily walked through it and onto the narrow path. My life has never been the same. I have lived an abundant life now for 40 years. My wife and I have been married for over 30 years and we have raised four wonderful children. The purpose of this book is to help you in your search for a better life. Hopefully, you are curious enough to take the risk and spend some time experimenting with the concepts in this book. My ultimate goal is to help you find your way onto the narrow path. So, keep on reading and follow me to the gate that leads to the narrow way

What's working and not working in your congregation? You'll explore the factors that inspired and motivated changes to reverse decline as other congregations wrestled with the same issues you're facing: ministry to current members, ministry to the unchurched, worship, changing neighborhoods, and more.

Christians generally recognize the need to live a holy, or sanctified, life. But they differ on what sanctification is and how it is achieved. How does one achieve sanctification in this life? How much success in sanctification is possible? Is a crisis experience following one's conversion normal--or necessary? If so, what kind of experience, and how is it verified? Five Views on Sanctification--part of the Counterpoints series--brings together in one easy-to-understand volume five major Protestant views on sanctification: Wesleyan View - represented by Melvin E. Dieter Reformed View - represented by Anthony A. Hoekema Pentecostal View - represented by Stanley M. Horton Keswick View - represented by J. Robertson McQuilkin Augustinian-Dispensationalism View - represented by John F. Walvoord Writing from a solid evangelical stance, each author describes and defends his own understanding of the doctrine sanctification and then responds to the views of the other authors. The Counterpoints series presents a comparison and critique of scholarly views on topics important to Christians that are both fair-minded and respectful of the biblical text. Each volume is a one-stop reference that allows readers to evaluate the different positions on a specific issue and form their own, educated opinion.

How did John Calvin understand and depict God's relationship with humanity? Influential readings of Calvin have seen a dialectical divine-human opposition as fundamental to his thought. As a result, the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity in his understanding of the divine-human relationship has been largely overlooked. In this fresh consideration of Calvin's Christian vision, however, Philip Butin demonstrates Calvin's consistent and pervasive appeal to the Trinity as the basis, pattern, and dynamic of God's relationship with humanity. Butin examines the historical background, controversial context, and distinctive features of Calvin's Trinity doctrine. He then explores the trinitarian character of Calvin's doctrines concerning revelation, redemption, and human response to God. Finally, his consideration of Calvin's doctrines of the church, baptism, and the eucharist suggests the contextuality, comprehensiveness, and coherence of Calvin's trinitarian vision.

Mark A. Noll presents a fresh and accessible history of Protestantism from the era of Martin Luther to the present day. Beginning with the founding of Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Anabaptist churches in the sixteenth-century Reformation, he also considers the rise of other important Christian movements like Methodism and Pentecostalism. Focussing on worldwide developments, rather than just the familiar European and American histories, he considers the recent expansion of Protestant movements in Africa, China, India, and Latin America, emphasising the on-going and rapidly expanding story of Protestants worldwide. Noll examines the contributions from well-known figures including Martin Luther and John Calvin, along with many others, and explores why Protestant energies have flagged recently in the Western world yet expanded so dramatically elsewhere. Highlighting the key points of Protestant commonality including the message of Christian salvation, reliance on the Bible, and organization through personal initiative, he also explores the reasons for Protestantism's extraordinary diversity. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A well researched account of gospel blues that encompasses the broader cultural and religious histories of the African-American experience between the late 1890s and the 1930s. Harris skilfully contextualizes sacred and secular music styles within African-American religious history and significant social developments of the period.

An accessible and comprehensive introduction to the life and thought of the Swiss reformer and theologian, The book provides a clear discussion of the main themes in Zwingli's thought, setting his ideas in a historical context, and comparing them with those of other contemporary reformers such as Erasmus and Luther.

This thought-provoking study examines an apparent paradox in the history of American Protestant evangelical religion. Fervent believers who devoted themselves completely to the challenges of making a Christian life, who longed to know God's rapturous love, all too often languished in despair, feeling forsaken by God. Indeed, some individuals became obsessed by guilt, terror of damnation, and the idea that they had committed an unpardonable sin. Ironically, those most devoted to fostering the soul's maturation seemingly neglected the well-being of the psyche. Drawing upon many sources, including unpublished diaries, spiritual narratives, and case studies of patients treated in nineteenth-century asylums, Julius Rubin thoroughly explores religious melancholy - as a distinctive stance toward life, a grieving over the loss of God's love, and an obsession and psycho pathology associated with the spiritual itinerary of conversion. The varieties of this spiritual sickness include sinners who would fast unto death ("evangelical anorexia nervosa"), religious suicides, and those obsessed with unpardonable sin. From colonial Puritans like Michael Wigglesworth to contemporary evangelicals like Billy Graham, Rubin shows that religious melancholy has shaped the experience of self and identity for those who sought rebirth as children of God. Religious Melancholy and Protestant Experience in America offers a fresh and revealing look at a widely recognized phenomenon. It will be of interest to scholars and students of religious studies, American history, psychology, and sociology of religion.

Using a fresh reading of Barth's Church Dogmatics, Hunsinger advances a new interpretation of the Protestant theologian's work, and places it in relation to contemporary discussions of truth, justified belief, double agency, and religious pluralism.

At the time of his death in the autumn of 2017, Robert W. Jenson was arguably America's foremost theologian. Over the course of a career spanning more than five decades, much of Jenson's thought was dedicated to the theological description of how Scripture should be read-what has come to be called theological interpretation. In this rapidly expanding field of scholarship, Jenson has had an inordinate impact. Despite its importance, study of Jenson's theology of scriptural interpretation has lagged, due in large part to the longevity of his career and volume of his output. In this book, all of Jenson's writings on Scripture and its interpretation have been collected for the first time. Here readers will be able to see the evolution of Jenson's thought on this topic, as well as the scope and intensity of his late-period engagement with it. Where other twentieth-century thinkers rely on non-theological, secular methods of scriptural investigation, Jenson is willing to let go of "respectability" for the sake of a truly Christian theological interpretation. The result is a genuinely free, intellectually invigorating exercise in reading and theory from one of the greatest theologians in the last century.

This text defends a special focus on Jesus in theistic faith, whilst denying his divinity. Having limited the genuine choice in Christology to orthodoxy or unitarianism, it argues first for the prior improbability of an incarnation, examining and dismissing possible justifications.

This book is a handbook on the history of Protestantism in the United States. Part One will look at broad Protestant movements, including revivals, social movements, and the evangelical versus social gospel debate that has raged at least from the time of the Civil War until today. Included in this section are topics such as the Great Awakening, the Great Revival, Protestantism in the Civil War, the Temperance Movement, and the rise of the "New Evangelicalism." Part Two focuses on Protestant history through the prism of the Protestant denominations, including their (mostly) European roots. Denominations discussed include Anabaptists, Anglican (Episcopal) Church, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, the Pentecostal Movement, Presbyterians, and the United Church of Christ. Along the way, the book will also examine issues that bind most Protestants together, and issues that separate Protestants.

October 2017 marks five hundred years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg and launched the Protestant Reformation. At least, that's what the legend says. But with a figure like Martin Luther, who looms so large in the historical imagination, it's hard to separate the legend from the life, or even sometimes to separate assorted legends from each other. Over the centuries, Luther the man has given way to Luther the icon, a polished bronze figure on a pedestal. In A World Ablaze, Craig Harline introduces us to the flesh-and-blood Martin Luther. Harline tells the riveting story of the first crucial years of the accidental crusade that would make Luther a legendary figure. He didn't start out that way; Luther was a sometimes-cranky friar and professor who worried endlessly about the fate of his eternal soul. He sought answers in the Bible and the Church fathers, and what he found distressed him even more - the way many in the Church had come to understand salvation was profoundly wrong, thought Luther, putting millions of souls, not least his own, at risk of damnation. His ideas would pit him against numerous scholars, priests, bishops, princes, and the Pope, even as others adopted or adapted his cause, ultimately dividing the Church against itself. A World Ablaze is a tale not just of religious debate but of political intrigue, of shifting alliances and daring escapes, with Luther often narrowly avoiding capture, which might have led to execution. The conflict would eventually encompass the whole of Christendom and served as the crucible in which a new world was forged. The Luther we find in these pages is not a statue to be admired but a complex figure - brilliant and volatile, fretful and self-righteous, curious and stubborn. Harline brings out the immediacy, uncertainty, and drama of his story, giving readers a sense of what it felt like in the moment, when the ending was still very much in doubt. The result is a masterful recreation of a momentous turning point in the history of the world.

The Presbyterian church was first organized in Goshen in 1720, and the first settled minister arrived the follow year. This volume contains the earliest extant vital statistics from the records of the Orange County church, which probably drew members from

These title focus on conflict resolution, developing leaders, and building human resources.

Respected historian of science Ronald Numbers here examines one of the most influential, yet least examined, religious leaders of the mid-nineteenth century - Ellen G. White, the enigmatic visionary who founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Numbers scrutinizes White's life (1827-1915), from her teenage visions and testimonies to her extensive advice on health reform, which influenced the direction of the church she founded. This third edition features a new introduction and two key documents that shed further light on White - transcripts of the trial of Elder I. Dammon in 1845 and the proceedings of the secret Bible Conferences in 1919.

'...a masterly study.' Alister McGrath, Theological Book Review '...a splendid read.' J.J.Scarisbrick, TLS '...profound, witty...of immense value.' David Loades, History Today Historians have always known that the English Reformation was more than a simple change of religious belief and practice. It altered the political constitution and, according to Max Weber, the attitudes and motives which governed the getting and investment of wealth, facilitating the rise of capitalism and industrialisation. This book investigates further implications of the transformative religious changes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the nation, the town, the family, and for their culture.