A gripping story of how an entire family, deeply enmeshed in Mormonism for thirty years, found their way out and found faith in Jesus Christ. For thirty years, Lynn Wilder, once a tenured faculty member at Brigham Young University, and her family lived in, loved, and promoted the Mormon Church. Then their son Micah, serving his Mormon mission in Florida, had a revelation: God knew him personally. God loved him. And the Mormon Church did not offer the true gospel. Micah's conversion to Christ put the family in a tailspin. They wondered, Have we believed the wrong thing for decades? If we leave Mormonism, what does this mean for our safety, jobs, and relationships? Is Christianity all that different from Mormonism anyway? As Lynn tells her story of abandoning the deception of Mormonism to receive God's grace, she gives a rare look into Mormon culture, what it means to grow up Mormon, and why the contrasts between Mormonism and Christianity make all the difference in the world. Whether you are in the Mormon Church, are curious about Mormonism, or simply are looking for a gripping story, Unveiling Grace will strengthen your faith in the true God who loves you no matter what.

An examination of the views on capitalism of bishops, academics and business people in the Church of England. Highlighting the richness and distinctiveness of these arguments, it also points to flaws and gaps. Offering a new framework for public theology, Poole urges the Church to take its proper place in re-shaping the global economy.

By the time of the Calvinist Reformation, the cities of Holland had established a very long tradition of social provision for the poor in the civic community. Calvinists however intended to care for their own church members, who were by definition 'within the household of faith', through the deaconate, a confessional relief agency. This book examines the relationship between municipal and ecclesiastical relief agencies in the six chief cities of Holland - Dordrecht, Haarlem, Delft, Leiden, Amsterdam and Gouda - from the public establishment of the Reformed Church in 1572 to the aftermath of the Synod of Dort. The author argues that the conflict between charitable organizations reveal competing conceptions of Christian community that came to the fore as a result of the Dutch Reformation. This is the first comparative study of poor relief in Holland, which contributes to our understanding of the Reformation throughout Europe.

The world has changed, but will the church keep up? This seminal report from the Church of England evaluates the changing religious landscape and introduces exciting new forms of church that speak directly to their diverse mission contexts. The Archbishop of Canterbury's Council on Mission and Public Affairs collaborated to research and produce the Mission-Shaped Church report in 2004, and Seabury Books is the new North American Publisher.

This is a practical how-to guide introducing new, mission-shaped practices in a traditional parish setting. This book looks at the church's bread-and-butter activities -- worship, pastoral contacts, civic and public responsibilities, faith formation, administration and leadership -- and creatively points out how to reframe them with a focus on God's mission.

There seems to be no end to our fascination with the Amish, a religious minority that has both placed itself outside the mainstream of American culture and flourished within it. Yet most people know very little about the nuanced relationship the Amish have with society or their own communities. Drawing on more than twenty years of fieldwork and collaborative research, Steven M. Nolt's The Amish: A Concise Introduction is a compact but richly detailed portrait of Amish life. In fewer than 150 pages, readers will come away with a clear understanding of the complexities of these simple people. Writing in engaging and accessible language, Nolt explains how the Amish at once operate within modern America and stand very much apart from the world. Arguing that Amish life is shaped equally by internal and external social, political, and economic contexts, Nolt explores Amish identity as emerging from a complex cultural negotiation with modernity. He takes on much-hyped topics such as Rumspringa and reveals the distinctive Amish approach to technology. He also explains how Amish principles stand in contrast to contemporary American values, including rational efficiency, large-scale organization, and Western notions of individuality. Authoritative, informative, and illustrated, this guide provides a vivid introduction to a way of life many find fascinating but few truly understand.

This book explores popular support for the Church of England during a critical period, from the Stuart Restoration to the mid-eighteenth century, when Churchmen perceived themselves to be under attack from all sides. In many provincial parishes, the clergy also found themselves in dispute with their congregations. These incidents of dispute are the focus of a series of detailed case studies, drawn from the diocese of Salisbury, which help to bring the religion of the ordinary people to life, while placing local tensions in their broader national context. The period 1660-1740 provides important clues to the long-term decline in the popularity of the Church. Paradoxically, conflicts revealed not anticlericalism but a widely shared social consensus supporting the Anglican liturgy and clergy: the early eighteenth century witnessed a revival. Nevertheless, a defensive clergy turned inwards and proved too inflexible to respond to lay wishes for fuller participation in worship.

The spiritual exercise of making decrees finds its precedent in both Old and New Testaments--the practice means simply quoting God's promises back to him, "reminding" him of what he has said. This kind of prayer is one of the most vital forms of intercession. In fact, the practice of decreeing God's Word not only builds our faith but transforms our lives. In this powerful and enlightening book, bestselling author and entrepreneur Patricia King helps readers grasp the power of inspired and finely tuned prayer. King explains how to * find specific texts of Scripture for your need * counter problems with God's Word * speak truth into reality * understand the difference between confessing the Word, proclaiming the Word, and decreeing the Word * and more Join countless believers who love the Word of God and honor its authority through their prayers. Accept the challenge to pray the words of Scripture boldly--in God's timing, for his will and purposes.

This resource is a summary study of the eight life-enriching practices that are part of the series--prayer, Bible study, evangelism, community, worship and the sacraments, outreach, justice and others. Questions for discussion are included with each chapter.

The religion of Orange politics offers an in-depth anthropological account of the Orange Order in Scotland. Based on ethnographic research collected before, during, and after the Scottish independence referendum, Joseph Webster details how Scotland's largest Protestant-only fraternity shapes the lives of its members and the communities in which they live. Within this Masonic-inspired 'society with secrets', Scottish Orangemen learn how transform themselves and their fellow brethren into what they regard to be ideal British citizens. It is from this ethnographic context - framed by ritual initiations, loyalist marches, fraternal drinking, and constitutional campaigning - that the key questions of the book emerge: What is the relationship between fraternal love and sectarian hate? Can religiously motivated bigotry and exclusion be part of human experiences of 'The Good?' What does it mean to claim that one's religious community is utterly exceptional - a literal 'race apart'? -- .

The early Quaker movement was remarkable for its prolific use of the printing press. Carefully orchestrated by a handful of men and women who were the movement's leaders, printed tracts were an integral feature of the rapid spread of Quaker ideas in the 1650s. Drawing on very rich documentary evidence, this book examines how and why Quakers were able to make such effective use of print. As a crucial element in an extensive proselytising campaign, printed tracts enabled the emergence of the Quaker movement as a uniform, national phenomenon. The book explores the impressive organization underpinning Quaker pamphleteering and argues that the early movement should not be dismissed as a disillusioned spiritual remnant of the English Revolution, but was rather a purposeful campaign which sought, and achieved, effective dialogue with both the body politic and society at large.

Drawing on both Canadian and Japanese sources, this book investigates the life, work, and attitudes of Canadian Protestant missionaries in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (the three main constituent parts of the pre-1945 Japanese empire) from the arrival of the first Canadian missionary in East Asia in 1872 until 1931. Canadian missionaries made a significant contribution to the development of the Protestant movement in the Japanese Empire. Yet their influence also extended far beyond the Christian sphere. Through their educational, social, and medical work; their role in introducing new Western ideas and social pursuits; and their outspoken criticism of the brutalities of Japanese rule in colonial Korea and Taiwan, the activities of Canadian missionaries had an impact on many different facets of society and culture in the Japanese Empire. Missionaries residing in the Japanese Empire served as a link between citizens of Japan and Canada and acted as trusted interpreters of things Japanese to their home constituents.

The influx of Protestant missionaries from Britain to Japan, Korea and Taiwan was an integral part of the British presence in East Asia from 1865 to 1945. Ion draws on both British and Japanese sources to examine the life, work and attitudes of the British missionaries, women and men, who ventured far from their homeland to preach the gospel. He explores the role played by British Protestants as both Christian missionaries and informal ambassadors of their own country and civilization. Through their educational, social and medical work the missionaries helped introduce Western ideas and social pursuits which in turn affected different facets of society and culture in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The study illustrates how the British missionaries' intent to introduce Christianity was affected by the response of the East Asians to Western ideas.

In describing the high drama of the British missionary movement's pioneering days in the late nineteenth century to its persecution during the late 1930s, Ion casts light on a particular, yet important, aspect of the changing tides of Anglo-Japanese relations. This book will ably complement his previous study of Canadian missionaries in East Asia during the same period.

Chosen as one of the 15 outstanding books of 1993 for mission studies by the "International Bulletin of Missionary Research."

This book is an examination of the puritanism of a series of divines, including Dering, Cartwright, Whitaker and Chaderton, all of whom passed through the University of Cambridge between 1560 and 1600. Dr Lake gives a detailed analysis of their careers and opinions. The personal and ideological links between them are established and in the process some idea of the range of opinions current among puritan divines in this period is built up. The aim of the work is to arrive, through this process of comparison and juxtaposition, at the kernel of shared attitudes and beliefs that justify the inclusion of all these men within a coherent puritan tradition.

This study challenges critical assumptions about the role of religion in shaping women's experiences of authorship. Feminist critics have frequently been uncomfortable with the fact that conservative religious and political beliefs created opportunities for women to write with independent agency. The seventeenth-century Protestant women discussed in this book range across the religio-political and social spectrums and yet all display an affinity with modern feminist theologians. Rather than being victims of a patriarchal gender ideology, Lady Anne Sothwell, Anna Trapnel and Lucy Hutchinson, among others, were both active negotiators of gender and active participants in wider theological debates. By placing women's religious writing in a broad theological and socio-political context, Erica Longfellow challenges traditional critical assumptions about the role of gender in shaping religion and politics, and, alongside it, the role of women in defining gender and thus influencing religion and politics.

This book examines a neglected aspect of English social history - the operation of itinerant preachers during the period of political and social ferment at the turn of the nineteenth century. It investigates the nature of their popular brand of Christianity and considers their impact upon existing churches: both the threat apparently posed to the established Church of England and the consequences of their activity for the smaller Protestant bodies from which they arose. The particular strength of the book lies in the extensive use it makes of previously untapped local archives drawn from many English counties - records which include numerous parochial, legal, associational and congregational sources. This is a study of religion in transition which is set against the wider canvas of social change attendant upon the early Industrial Revolution and the political shock waves emanating from France.

This book presents the history of two religious sects successfully established in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, where it was illegal to participate in any faith other than the legally established congregationalism of the Puritan founders of the colony. Taking a comparative approach, the author examines the Quaker meeting in Salem and the Baptist church in Boston over more than a century. The work opens with the dramatic events surrounding dissenters' efforts to gain a foothold in the colony, and goes on to locate sectarians within their families and communities, and to examine their beliefs and the changing nature of the organizations they founded and their interactions with the larger community and its leaders. The work deals with the religiosity of lay colonists, finding that men and women responded to these sects differently. It also analyzes sociological theories of sectarian evolution, the politics of dissent, and changes in beliefs and practices.

Catholic thought and Lutheran thought are differently structured, embodying divergent conceptions of self and God. Failing to grasp the Lutheran paradigm, Catholics have wrenched Luther into an inappropriate framework. Roman/Lutheran ecumenism, culminating in the 'Joint Declaration' of 1999, attempts to reconcile incompatible systems, based on different philosophical presuppositions. Drawing on a wealth of material, both Continental and Anglo-Saxon, the author thinks through these structural questions within a historical context. But how - within a religion of revelation - can God be conceptualised as both foundational to the self and yet also as an 'other' with whom the self inter-relates? Kierkegaard is shown in a complex model to hold together strengths which historically have been exemplified by the two traditions. This is an important work in systematic theology which considers questions quite fundamental to Western religion. It should be of interest to theologians of all backgrounds and also to church historians.

From Barefoot to Bishop is a compelling story of faith, from being saved to being of service. This memoir will inspire church leaders and laity alike, and it will appeal to those with a passion to living a life with a mission. In November 1959, Ethnic tensions in the East African Nation of Rwanda ignited what would become the first wave of deadly organized masacres against the Tutsi in Rwanda and a precursor to the horrific Genocide of 1994 in which a million or more Rwandans were killed in a hundred days. But on that day in 1959, a five-year-old boy named Laurent Mbanda knew only three things: first, that the air was filled with smoke; second, that his father was missing; and third, that his frightened mother was telling him they had to run and hide. Soon, Mbanda would become one of tens of thousands of Rwandan children literally running for their lives, one of the many children who would grow up in refugee camps amid dire poverty and hunger. From one refugee camp to another in Burundi, Mbanda and his family faced deprivation and near-constant discrimination because of their refugee status. Despite bitter hardships and setbacks, Mbanda never lost his faith.

The last years of Henry VIII's life, 1539-47, have conventionally been seen as a time when the king persecuted Protestants. This book argues that Henry's policies were much more ambiguous; that he continued to give support to Protestantism and that many accordingly also remained loyal to him. It also examines why the Protestants eventually adopted a more radical, oppositional stance, and argues that English Protestantism's eventual identity was determined during these years.

By examining the minister who helped inspire the founding of the Harlem Unitarian Church Reverend Ethelred Brown, Floyd-Thomas offers a provocative examination of the religious and intellectual roots of Black humanist thought.

This book is the first systematic attempt to describe a coherent and comprehensive Anglican understanding of Church. Rather than focusing on one school of thought, Dr Locke unites under one ecclesiological umbrella the seemingly disparate views that have shaped Anglican reflections on Church. He does so by exploring three central historical developments: (1) the influence of Protestantism; (2) the Anglican defence of episcopacy; and (3) the development of the Anglican practice of authority. Dr Locke demonstrates how the interaction of these three historical influences laid the foundations of an Anglican understanding of Church that continues to guide and shape Anglican identity. He shows how this understanding of Church has shaped recent Anglican ecumenical dialogues with Reformed, Lutheran, Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. Drawing on the principle that dialogue with those who are different can lead to greater self-understanding and self-realization, Dr Locke demonstrates that Anglican self-identity rests on firmer ecclesiological foundations than is sometimes supposed.

How do Filipino Baptists who sing in English, quote from James Dobson, and download sermon illustrations from Alabama understand themselves, and their faith, as "local?" Comparing four congregations of Southern Baptists in the Philippines, Howell argues that Christianity "becomes" a local context as aspects of daily life are brought together with the obviously borrowed elements of the faith. This book moves away from the split of "global" and "local" to find out how Southern Baptists are able to create a "transcendent locality." Told in rich ethnographic detail, "Christianity in the Local Context" argues that Filipino Baptists are actively constructing themselves in terms of a global faith that they have made their own.