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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches
Open the ancient door of an old church, says Ronald Blythe, and
framed in the silence is a house of words where everything has been
said: centuries of birth, marriage and death words, gossip, poetry,
philosophy, rant, eloquence, learning, nonsense, the language of
hymn writers and Bible translators - all of it spoken in one place.
This work contains words spoken by Ronald Blythe in the churches he
serves as a Reader in the Church of England, and as the local
writer expected to add his own distinctive voice. Originating as
addresses given at Matins or Evensong, they follow various paths
into old and new liturgies, literature and the local countryside.
They bring together the author's delight in language, his
recollections of farming, his recognition of friends and
neighbours, and the hopes he has found in faith.
This book is unique in recording the history of all the Protestant
churches in Ireland in the twentieth century, though with
particular focus on the two largest - the Presbyterian and the
Church of Ireland. It examines the changes and chances in those
churches during a turbulent period in Irish history, relating their
development to the wider social and political context. Their
structures and beliefs are examined, and their influence both in
Ireland and overseas is assessed.
This study describes the creation of the Primitive Baptist movement
and discusses the main outlines of their thought. It also weaves
the story of the Primitive Baptists with other developments in
American Christianity in the Early Republic.
Not every Christian needs to go to seminary, but there are certain teachings of the Bible that every Christian should know. Whether you're a relatively new believer in Jesus or a mature Christian looking for a better understanding of basics of the faith, Christian Beliefs is for you.
This readable guide to twenty basic Christian beliefs condenses Wayne Grudem's award-winning book Systematic Theology, prized by pastors and teachers everywhere. He and his son, pastor Elliot Grudem, have boiled down the essentials of theology for everyday Christians and made them both clear and applicable to life. Each brief chapter concludes with questions for personal review or group discussion.
In this revised and updated edition of Christian Beliefs, you will learn about:
- The Bible and its authority for our lives
- The characteristics of God
- The importance of prayer
- Angels and the reality of spiritual warfare
- What it means that we are created in the image of God
- What God has done for us in Christ
- The purpose of the church
- What will happen when Christ returns
- The biblical understanding of heaven
- And much more
Christian Beliefs is the ideal book for every Christian who wants a solid foundation for understanding the most basic and essential teachings of the Bible.
A contribution to the field of theological aesthetics, this book
explores the arts in and around the Pentecostal and charismatic
renewal movements. It proposes a pneumatological model for
creativity and the arts, and discusses different art forms from the
perspective of that model. Pentecostals and other charismatic
Christians have not sufficiently worked out matters of aesthetics,
or teased out the great religious possibilities of engaging with
the arts. With the flourishing of Pentecostal culture comes the
potential for an equally flourishing artistic life. As this book
demonstrates, renewal movements have participated in the arts but
have not systematized their findings in ways that express their
theological commitments-until now. The book examines how to
approach art in ways that are communal, dialogical, and
theologically cultivating.
The growth of Christianity in the global South is one of the most
important religious stories of the last decade. In no branch of
Christianity has that growth been more rapid than Pentecostalism.
There are over 100 million Pentecostals in Africa, and Pentecostal
practices infuse Catholic, Anglican, and Independent churches. In
the traditional Catholic stronghold of Latin America,
Pentecostalism now vies with Catholicism for the soul of the
continent. And the largest Pentecostsal church in the world, with
over 800,000 members, is in Seoul. In To the Ends of the Earth,
Allan Anderson offers a historical and theological examination of
the growth of global Pentecostalism. Examining such issues as
revivalism, healing, gender, worship, and globalization, Anderson
seeks to show how the growth of global Pentecostalism is changing
the face of Christianity as a whole.
This monograph tracks the development of the socio-economic stance
of early Mormonism, an American Millenarian Restorationist
movement, through the first fourteen years of the church's
existence, from its incorporation in the spring of 1830 in New
York, through Ohio and Missouri and Illinois, up to the lynching of
its prophet Joseph Smith Jr in the summer of 1844. Mormonism used a
new revelation, the Book of Mormon, and a new apostolically
inspired church organization to connect American antiquities to
covenant-theological salvation history. The innovative religious
strategy was coupled with a conservative socio-economic stance that
was supportive of technological innovation. This analysis of the
early Mormon church uses case studies focused on socio-economic
problems, such as wealth distribution, the financing of publication
projects, land trade and banking, and caring for the poor. In order
to correct for the agentive overtones of standard Mormon
historiography, both in its supportive and in its detractive
stance, the explanatory models of social time from Fernand
Braudel's classic work on the Mediterranean are transferred to and
applied in the nineteenth-century American context.
An examination of the role played by civil society in the
legitimization of South Africa's apartheid regime and its racial
policy. This book focuses on the interaction of dominant groups
within the Dutch Reformed Church and the South African state over
the development of race policy within the broader context of state
civil society relations. This allows a theoretical examination and
typology of the variety of state civil society relations.
Additionally, the particular case study demonstrates that civil
society's existence in and authoritarian situations can deter the
establishment of democracy when components of civil society
identify themselves with exclusive, ethnic interests.
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