Readers will learn how to identify and defeat dream thieves - the people and circumstances that keep Christians from fulfilling their divine destiny A great book for those who are discouraged, tired, or burned out in their ministry or their walk with the Lord.

This book explores Mormon theology in new ways from a scholarly non-Mormon perspective. Bringing Jesus and Satan into relationship with Joseph Smith the founding prophet, Douglas Davies shows how the Mormon 'Plan of Salvation' can be equated with mainstream Christianity's doctrine of the Trinity as a driving force of the faith. Exploring how Jesus has been understood by Mormons, his many Mormon identities are described in this book: he is the Jehovah of the Bible, our Elder Brother and Father, probably also a husband, he visited the dead and is also the antagonist of Satan-Lucifer. This book offers a way into the Mormon 'problem of evil' understood as apostasy, from pre-mortal times to today. Three images reveal the wider problem of evil in Mormonism: Jesus' pre-mortal encounter with Lucifer in a heavenly council deciding on the Plan of Salvation, Jesus Christ's great suffering - engagement with evil in Gethsemane, and Joseph Smith's First Vision of the divine when he was almost destroyed by an evil force. Douglas Davies, well-known for his previous accounts of Mormon life and thought, shows how renewed Mormon interest in theological questions of belief can be understood against the background of Mormon church-organization and its growing presence on the world-stage of Christianity.

This book explores the ordinary beliefs and practices of Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians in relation to the Holy Spirit. It does this by means of a congregational study of a classical Pentecostal church in the UK, using participant observation, focus groups and documentary and media analysis. This approach develops a framework in which the narratives of informants can be interpreted. Focusing on specific areas of interest, such as conversion, healing, prayer or social action, each contribution from respondents is situated within the context of the congregation and interpreted by means of the broader Christian tradition. This book makes a unique contribution to scholarship by offering a rich and varied picture of contemporary Christians in the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions, enabling a greater understanding to be appreciated for both academic and ecclesial audiences.

This book argues that Christians have a stake in the sustainability and success of core cultural values of the West in general and America in particular. Steven M. Studebaker considers Western and American decline from a theological and, specifically, Pentecostal perspective. The volume proposes and develops a Pentecostal political theology that can be used to address and reframe Christian political identity in the United States. Studebaker asserts that American Christians are currently not properly engaged in preventing America's decline or halting the shifts in its core values. The problem, he suggests, is that American Christianity not only gives little thought to the state of the nation beyond a handful of moral issues like abortion, but its popular political theologies lead Christians to think of themselves more as aliens than as citizens. This book posits that the proposed Pentecostal political theology would help American Christians view themselves as citizens and better recognize their stake in the renewal of their nation. The foundation of this proposed political theology is a pneumatological narrative of renewal-a biblical narrative of the Spirit that begins with creation, proceeds through Incarnation and Pentecost, and culminates in the new creation and everlasting kingdom of God. This narrative provides the foundation for a political theology that speaks to the issues of Christian political identity and encourages Christian political participation.

On the surface, it appears that little has changed for Amish youth in the past decade: children learn to work hard early in life, they complete school by age fourteen or fifteen, and a year or two later they begin Rumspringa - that brief period during which they are free to date and explore the outside world before choosing whether to embrace a lifetime of Amish faith and culture. But the Internet and social media may be having a profound influence on significant numbers of the Youngie, according to Richard A. Stevick, who says that Amish teenagers are now exposed to a world that did not exist for them only a few years ago. Once hidden in physical mailboxes, announcements of weekend parties are now posted on Facebook. Today, thousands of Youngie in large Amish settlements are dedicated smartphone and Internet users, forcing them to navigate carefully between technology and religion. Updated photographs throughout this edition of Growing Up Amish include a screenshot from an Amish teenager's Facebook page. In the second edition of Growing Up Amish, Stevick draws on decades of experience working with and studying Amish adolescents across the United States to produce this well-rounded, definitive, and realistic view of contemporary Amish youth. Besides discussing the impact of smartphones and social media usage, he carefully examines work and leisure, rites of passage, the rise of supervised youth groups, courtship rituals, weddings, and the remarkable Amish retention rate. Finally, Stevick contemplates the potential of electronic media to significantly alter traditional Amish practices, culture, and staying power.

One dictionary definition of miracles is that they are 'remarkable and welcome events that seem impossible to explain'.But can they still happen today?Should we expect them? Jesus certainly encouraged his disciples to anticipate miraculous accompaniments to their proclamation of his good news. In Mark 16:17-18 he emphasizes five signs that 'will accompany those who believe' (v17). So if we accept that miracles do happen today How might we see more of the miraculous in the twenty-first century?How can they be experienced?Just what kind of faith is needed for them to happen?Are there hindrances that can stop them occurring and if so, what are they? Perhaps you need a personal miracle. Maybe it's a desire to help someone else receive one.

You might even be longing for both.

"Shakerism teaches God's immanence through the common life shared in Christ's mystical body." Like many religious seekers throughout the ages, they honor the revelation of God but cannot be bound up in an unchanging set of dogmas or creeds. Freeing themselves from domination by the state religion, Mother Ann Lee and her first followers in mid-18th-century England labored to encounter the godhead directly. They were blessed by spiritual gifts that showed them a way to live the heavenly life on Earth. The result of their efforts was the fashioning of a celibate communal life called the Christlife, wherein a person, after confessing all sin, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, can travel the path of regeneration into ever- increasing holiness. Pacifism, equality of the sexes, and withdrawal from the world are some of the ways the faith was put into practice. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Shakers contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on Shaker communities, industries, individual families, and important people. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Shakers.

On January 20, 1994 the worshippers at the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church began to feel the Holy Spirit move them. They began to laugh uncontrollably, collapse to the floor, stagger as if drunk. But what was truly startling in this occurrence-now commonly known as the Toronto Blessing-is that these manifestations keep appearing at the Toronto church and have sparked a worldwide charismatic revival. Visitors from around the world have come and started revivals in their home churches upon return. In Main Street Mystics, Margaret Poloma explains what is happening with this contemporary charismatic revival without explaining it away. From her unique position as both a scholar and a pilgrim, Poloma offers an intimate account of the movement while always attempting to understand it through the lenses of social science. She looks at Pentecostalism as a form of mysticism, but a mysticism that engages Pentecostals and charismatics in the everyday world. With its broad overview and up-close portraits, Main Street Mystics is essential for anyone wanting to understand the ever renewing movement of Pentecostalism.

With the Christian church in the west in decline, some churches are undergoing difficult transitions as they seek to become relevant, to both themselves and their surrounding cultures. Evangelicalism and the Emerging Church details an ethnographic study of a Vineyard congregation making sense of their Vineyard roots and their growing relationship with the self-proclaimed "emerging church" network. Through a rich account of congregational life and tensions, universal issues are raised such as relating to religious parentage, creating safe places for spirituality, Christian growth and maturity, communication with contemporary culture, and the challenges of identity reconstruction. This book is the first to conduct an academic study of a Vineyard congregation in the United Kingdom.

This book examines the evangelical Christian worship focusing primarily in the island-state of Grenada. The study is based upon the author's detailed study of Pentecostal communities in that island-state as well as her own background in Barbados. The study traces the development of Pentecostal religious communities from Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Wesleyan Methodist movement.

How does university turn students into who they become? Why are student evangelicals such a significant and controversial force at so many universities? In many countries, university has become the main Rite of Passage between the child and adult worlds. University can be enjoyable and fascinating but also life-changing and traumatic. And at the exact time when a student's identity is the most challenged and uncertain, student evangelical groups are highly organised on many university campuses to offer students a powerful identity so that the world makes sense once again. For some, these groups will protect them from the university's assault on their faith. For others, they will challenge and even change who they are. Meeting Jesus at University explores universities in six countries. Drawing upon detailed fieldwork, it examines the largest student evangelical group at each university in order to understand in depth the relationship between the student evangelical group and the university which it aims to convert. Meeting Jesus at University offers an original contribution to the discussion of Rites of Passage, examining what is experienced at university and how university breaks down and remoulds young people. It explores why student evangelicals are so active, particularly at Britain and America's most prestigious and identity-challenging institutions meaning that students at these places are the most likely to find themselves meeting Jesus at university.

A war hereo and successful young minister in Edinburgh during the 1920s, George MacLeod shocked his many admirers by taking a post in Govan, a poor and depressed area of Glasgow, and moving inexorably towards socialism and pacifism during the depression years. It was during this time that he embarked on the rebuilding of the ancient abbey on the Isle of Iona, taking with him unemployed craftsmen from the shipyards of the Clyde and trainee ministers, whom he persuaded to work as labourers. Out of this was the Iona Community.

It's time to Discover Your True Worth. Join Lindsay Roberts as she invites you to step into your God-given purpose and become all that He has called you to be. Before his death, Oral Roberts commissioned his daughter-in-law Lindsay with what he believed to be a mandate from God: Lindsay was called to help women discover who they are in Christ, establish them in their powerful identity in Him, and help them become the women God created them to be-women of true worth. Since that day, Lindsay has made it her mission to share that powerful message with women around the world. She believes that as women, we must discover who we are and what we're made of in order to move forward in all God wants us to become-in business, in the church, in our families, in our communities, and beyond. Within the pages of Discover Your True Worth, Lindsay will empower you to: Embrace God's grace to turn the pain of your past into the stepping stones of your future Welcome your God-given calling with confidence and courage Become a force for God and play a part in preparing His kingdom here on earth This book is for any woman who has ever feared, fallen, failed, prayed, hoped, loved, lost, been discouraged, risked a dream, or wondered if she matters. Are you ready to Discover Your True Worth? Praise for Discover Your True Worth: "I see the message in Discover Your True Worth as a similar handbook [to Woman, Thou Art Loosed], one that will guide women who are on the journey to becoming all that God created them to be and to making a difference in every facet of life and every sphere of influence." -Bishop T.D. Jakes, New York Times bestselling author "As a child of God, we must understand our worth. Lindsay encourages us to discover who we are, who we are made in the image of, and what our useful purpose is! So many of us, myself included, have struggled to find our place in the 'big scheme of things' because we get sidetracked by our failures and mistakes. We think there's no way God could use a broken vessel like me in His mighty work. That's what Lindsay shows us: His power is made perfect in our weakness, misfortunes, mistakes, and mishaps." -Miss Kay Robertson, matriarch of the Robertson family, author, speaker, flawed but favored

This book brings the theme of prayer into anthropological discussion. Across diverse significant ethnographic case studies, five anthropologists attend to prayers and how they are performed and seen to intervene in the social world. The studies include Pentecostals in Zambia, Charismatic Christians in Ghana, Protestants in Scotland, Eastern Orthodox Christians in Romania, and Catholics in Syria. Across these ethnographic cases, the book argues that focusing on the social life of prayer offers a significant way to engage with matters close to people. Prayers are a way to map affect and the affective relationships people hold in what they are oriented towards and care about. Taking its cue from Marcel Mauss, the book invites us to go beyond the individual and see how prayers always point to a broader social landscape of obligation and affective investment. Focusing on the social life of prayers, the book posits, accordingly entices a particular form of situated comparison of diverse Christian traditions that pushes the scholarly conversation on Christianity to consider central questions of agency, responsibility and subjectivity. Taking up prayer as the object of study, this book offers novel anthropological perspectives on Christian life and practice. The chapters in this book were originally published a special issue of Religion.

Wealth, Health, and Hope in African Christian Religion offers a portrait of how contending narratives of modernity in both church and society play out in Africa today through the agency of African Christian religion. It explores the identity and features of African Christian religion and the cultural forces driving the momentum of Christian expansion in Africa, as well as how these factors are shaping a new African social imagination, especially in providing answers to the most challenging questions about poverty, wealth, health, human, and cosmic flourishing. It offers the academy a good road map for interpreting African Christian religious beliefs and practices today and into the future.

Published in 1905: This book discusses Evangelism and Christianity.

When approaching the most public disagreement over predestination in the eighteenth century, the 'Free Grace' controversy between John Wesley and George Whitefield, the tendency can be to simply review the event as a row over the same old issues. This assumption pervades much of the scholarly literature that deals with early Methodism. Moreover, much of that same literature addresses the dispute from John Wesley's vantage point, often harbouring a bias towards his Evangelical Arminianism. Yet the question must be asked: was there more to the 'Free Grace' controversy than a simple rehashing of old arguments? This book answers this complex question by setting out the definitive account of the 'Free Grace' controversy in first decade of the Evangelical Revival (1739-49). Centred around the key players in the fracas, John Wesley and George Whitefield, it is a close analysis of the way in which the doctrine of predestination was instrumental in differentiating the early Methodist societies from one another. It recounts the controversy through the lens of doctrinal analysis and from two distinct perspectives: the propositional content of a given doctrine and how that doctrine exerts formative pressure upon the assenting individual(s). What emerges from this study is a clearer picture of the formative years of early Methodism and the vital role that doctrinal pronouncement played in giving a shape to early Methodist identity. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Methodism, Evangelicalism, Theology and Church History.

'Secularization' has been hotly debated since it was first subjected to critical attention in the mid-sixties by David Martin, before he sketched a 'General Theory' in 1969. 'On Secularization' presents David Martin's reassessment of the key issues: with particular regard to the special situation of religion in Western Europe, and questions in the global context including Pentecostalism in Latin America and Africa. Concluding with examinations of Pluralism, Christian Language, and Christianity and Politics, this book offers students and other readers of social theory and sociology of religion an invaluable reappraisal of Christianity and Secularization. It represents the most comprehensive sociology of contemporary Christianity, set in historical depth.

The purpose of this book is to provide valuable anthropological data on the identity construction of a rapidly growing Chinese Christian population in the United States. As more and more Chinese of different generations and varying cultural backgrounds practice evangelical Christianity, the meaning of Chinese American will change accordingly. The book provides significant linguistic data for a nascent but important area of anthropological research. The scope of the book encompasses Asian American homiletics, discourse analysis and prosody, types of sermons and roles of men and women in a diverse, multilingual church. Parallels between Confucianism and Christianity and the role of "gradual evangelism" in identity construction are discussed. These elements are contextualized within current sociocultural and economic spheres and address the implications of the "model minority" and Asian patriarchy. The book provides original linguistic data of sermons in Mandarin, Cantonese and English. The book posits that the Chinese of the Boston church have developed an ethno-Christian identity and this identity demonstrated through ethnically marked prosodic cues, unites the congregation in the ethnic church. This position challenges some current approaches to identity construction and the role of religion in immigrant communities.

How do urbanization and development intersect with religious dynamics to shape contemporary African cityscapes? To answer this timely question, contributors from across Europe, North America and Africa are brought together to explore mega-cities including Lagos, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam and Kinshasa as powerful venues for the creation and implementation of religious models of urbanization and development. This book interrogates how religious socio-spatial models and strategies engage with challenges of infrastructural development, urban social cohesion, inequalities and inclusion. Chapters explore how faith-based practices of urban and infrastructural development link moral subjectivities with individual and wider aspirations for modernization, change, deliverance and prosperity. The volume brings together ethnographically rich and theoretically grounded case studies of religious urbanization across the African continent. It advances discussions of the ambivalent role of urban religion in development and documents the complex, multifaceted socio-cultural and political dynamics associated with religious urbanization in Africa.

A major treatment of the early history of the Evangelical Movement in 18th century England, showing how Anglican evangelicalism was quite distinct from the Methodist revival under Wesley and Whitefield. A great contribution to the study of evangelicalism and the relationship between Anglicanism and Nonconformity.

After careful research and extensive interiviews, the authors have prepared this compelling and controversial portrait of the Mormon's organizational structure and economic empire-and the men who control both. Index.

This case study examines the history of the Netherlandic Mennonite community living in and around Hamburg after the Thirty Years War. Based on detailed archival research, it expands the scope of Radical Reformation studies to include the confessional age (c. 1550-1750). During this period Mennonites had to conform politically while trying to preserve many of the nonconformist ideals of their forebears, such as the refusal to baptize children, bear arms and swear solemn oaths. The research presented in Obedient Heretics will, therefore, be of interest to scholars of minority communities in addition to those concerned with the Reformation's legacy, confessionalization and confessional identity.