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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches > Other Protestant & Nonconformist Churches
This book offers a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich
study of the intersections of contemporary Christianity and youth
culture, focusing on evangelical engagements with punk, hip hop,
surfing, and skateboarding. Ibrahim Abraham draws on interviews and
fieldwork with dozens of musicians and sports enthusiasts in the
USA, UK, Australia, and South Africa, and the analysis of
evangelical subcultural media including music, film, and extreme
sports Bibles. Evangelical Youth Culture: Alternative Music and
Extreme Sports Subcultures makes innovative use of multiple
theories of youth cultures and subcultures from sociology and
cultural studies, and introduces the "serious leisure perspective"
to the study of religion, youth, and popular culture. Engaging with
the experiences of Pentecostal punks, surfing missionaries,
township rappers, and skateboarding youth pastors, this book makes
an original contribution to the sociology of religion, youth
studies, and the study of religion and popular culture.
Stories of contemporary exorcisms are largely met with ridicule, or
even hostility. Sean McCloud argues, however, that there are
important themes to consider within these narratives of seemingly
well-adjusted people-who attend school, go shopping, and watch
movies-who also happen to fight demons. American Possessions
examines Third Wave evangelical spiritual warfare, a late
twentieth-, early twenty-first century movement of evangelicals
focused on banishing demons from human bodies, material objects,
land, regions, political parties, and nation states. While Third
Wave beliefs may seem far removed from what many scholars view as
mainstream religious practice in America, McCloud argues that the
movement provides an ideal case study for identifying some of the
most prescient tropes within the contemporary American religious
landscape; namely "the consumerist," "the haunted," and "the
therapeutic." Drawing on interviews, television shows,
documentaries, websites, and dozens of spiritual warfare handbooks,
McCloud examines Third Wave practices such deliverance rituals (a
uniquely Protestant form of exorcism), spiritual housekeeping (the
removal of demons from everyday objects), and spiritual mapping
(searching for the demonic in the physical landscape). Demons, he
shows, are the central fact of life in the Third Wave imagination.
McCloud provides the first book-length study of this influential
movement, highlighting the important ways that it reflects and
diverts from the larger, neo-liberal culture from which it
originates.
It can be hard for us to admit we are dissatisfied with our spiritual life. That we are in a place where going to church is not yielding the victory we desire. A place where we pray things like, “God, I will never do that again,” yet find ourselves doing it again and again.
If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are in fact a new creation. How would you like to start really experiencing that new life? Once you do, you will discover a world of unlimited spiritual possibilities.
Being a Christian is a mystery in which Christ lives in us through a radical transformation of our spiritual DNA. We have a relationship with the living Jesus that changes every dynamic of our life. And we are given our own access code, which is the Word of God. This is how we enter into the benefits and features of our new life.
What you need in order to overcome sin, sickness, poverty, and defeatism is to become conscious of, and intimate with, the indwelling Christ. Once you do, you will never again be manipulated by fear and insecurity. You won’t be caught in a vicious cycle of striving for God’s love and acceptance. You will be confident in your new identity, which will empower you to live the supernatural life God intends for you. You will operate in revelation knowledge, wisdom, spiritual understanding, and miracles. The bondage of sin, shame, and condemnation will be released by the power of the Holy Spirit. Demons won't be able to oppress you because you will have an overwhelming consciousness of God’s love.
Samuel Rees Howells, A Life of Intercession: The Legacy of Prayer
and Spiritual Warfare of an Intercessor by Richard A. Maton, Paul
Backholer and Mathew Backholer. Hardback and paperback edtions have
39 black and white photos interspersed throughout the book.
Rees Howells, a powerful intercessor, taught his son Samuel the
principles of intercession and commissioned him some weeks before
his death, stating, "Whatever you do, stand and maintain these
intercessions." For the next fifty-four years, Samuel Rees Howells
exercised a powerful intercessory ministry as he focused prayer on
gospel liberty, in order for the good news of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ to be given to every creature.
With the mantle of intercession weighing heavily upon him, Samuel
spent decades participating with others in their own countries, in
profound spiritual struggles that shook world events and shaped
history for God's glory Discover how Samuel was led by the Holy
Spirit to exercise authority over the principalities and powers,
and to 'pray through' until God's purposes were fulfilled in many
lethal world conflicts. Learn how God still intervenes in world
history, from the Korean War to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and from
the Six-Day War to the fall of the Soviet Union
Beginning in the days of Rees Howells, this book continues this
powerful story of intercession and traces its effectual legacy into
the twenty-first century. Filled with principles of intercession,
faith and spiritual warfare, this book provides a fascinating
insight into what is possible when the Holy Spirit finds an
individual, who will stand in the gap and become a channel for His
intercession. Ezekiel 22:30, Romans 8:26-27, Ephesians 6:12.
Richard A. Maton worked under Samuel's ministry for forty-seven
years and provides us with an eyewitness account of Samuel's life
of intercession. Richard is married to Kristine who joined Rees
Howells' Bible College in 1936 and prayed alongside him. Together
Richard and Kristine spent more than 120 years at the College
Why, when traditionally organized religious groups are seeing
declining membership and participation, are networks of independent
churches growing so explosively? Drawing on in-depth interviews
with leaders and participants, The Rise of Network Christianity
explains the social forces behind the fastest growing form of
Christianity in the U.S., which Brad Christerson and Richard Flory
have labeled "Independent Network Christianity" (INC). This form of
Christianity emphasizes aggressive engagement with the
supernatural, including healing, direct prophecies from God,
engaging in "spiritual warfare" against demonic spirits, and social
transformation. Christerson and Flory argue that large-scale social
changes since the 1970s, including globalization and the digital
revolution have given competitive advantages to religious groups
organized by networks rather than traditionally organized
congregations and denominations. Network forms of church governance
allow for experimentation with controversial supernatural
practices, innovative finances and marketing, and a highly
participatory, unorthodox, and experiential faith, which is
attractive in today's unstable religious marketplace. Christerson
and Flory argue that as more religious groups imitate this type of
governance, religious belief and practice will become more
experimental, more oriented around practice than belief, more
shaped by the individual religious "consumer" and that authority
will become more highly concentrated in the hands of individuals
rather than institutions.
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