Churches are increasingly exploring the potential of diaconal ministry to help them serve wider society in the contemporary context. Those involved in this ministry seek to forge improved connections between churches and the wider communities in which they are located. However, the role of those ordained to be deacons is diverse, challenging and often controversial, both within and outside the Church.

This book explores how deacons within the Methodist Church in Britain have understood their own ministry and sought to address these challenges. It draws on innovative research undertaken with the Methodist Diaconal Order over two years. Key questions and implications for practice are provided to help those wishing to reflect further on this ministry.

This book makes a significant contribution to the ecumenical debate on diaconal ministry. It offers much that will be of interest to all those seeking to reflect on, understand, engage in or work with those involved in this ministry in their own contexts."

The second of three volumes devoted to Wesley s theological writings contains two major sets of material. The first set (edited by Paul Chilcote) contains writings throughout Wesley s ministry devoted to defense of the doctrine of Christian perfection, including "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection." The second set (edited by Kenneth Collins) collects Wesley s various treatises focused on predestination and related issues, often in direct debate with Calvinist writers, including "Predestination Calmly Considered."

By utilizing the contributions of a variety of scholars - theologians, historians, and biblical scholars - this book makes the complex and sometimes disparate Anabaptist movement more easily accessible. It does this by outlining Anabaptism's early history during the Reformation of the sixteenth century, its varied and distinctive theological convictions, and its ongoing challenges to and influence on contemporary Christianity. T&T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism comprises four sections: 1) Origins, 2) Doctrine, 3) Influences on Anabaptism, and 4) Contemporary Anabaptism and Relationship to Others. The volume concludes with a chapter on how contemporary Anabaptists interact with the wider Church in all its variety. While some of the authorities within the volume will disagree even with one another regarding Anabaptist origins, emphases on doctrine, and influence in the contemporary world, such differences represent the diversity that constitutes the history of this movement.

God, as depicted in popular evangelical literature, is loving and friendly, described in heartfelt, often saccharine prose evocative of nostalgia, comfortable domesticity, and familial love. This emotional appeal is a widely-adopted strategy of the writers most popular among American evangelicals, including such high-profile pastors as Max Lucado, Rick Warren, and Joel Osteen. Todd M. Brenneman offers an in-depth examination of this previously unexplored aspect of American evangelical identity: sentimentality, which aims to produce an emotional response by appealing to readers' notions of familial relationships, superimposed on their relationship with God. Brenneman argues that evangelicals use sentimentality to establish authority in the public sphere-authority that is, by its emotional nature, unassailable by rational investigation. Evangelicals also deploy sentimentality to try to bring about change in society, though, as Brenneman shows, the sentimental focus on individual emotion and experience can undermine the evangelical agenda. Sentimentality not only allows evangelicals to sidestep intellectual questioning, but sets the stage for doctrinal change as well as weakening the evangelical vision of transforming society into the kingdom of God.

Grieving, Brooding, and Transforming: The Spirit, The Bible, and Gender is a collection of scholarly essays by Pentecostal women. It explores troubling biblical texts, as well as those of contemporary church life, in regards to the portrayal of women. The authors seek to identify the presence and work of the Spirit that is often hidden within the contours of these texts. A Pentecostal feminist hermeneutic desires to move beyond suspicion into the deeper terrain of the Spirit's mission of grieving, brooding, and transforming a broken world. The essays point to the purposes of God toward justice and the healing of creation.

Exploring one of the most controversial figures in recent evangelical theology, this book thoroughly examines core features of Stanley J. Grenz's Trinitarian vision.