In the late nineteenth century, a small community of Native Hawaiian Mormons established a settlement in heart of The Great Basin, in Utah. The community was named Iosepa, after the prophet and sixth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph F. Smith. The inhabitants of Iosepa struggled against racism, the ravages of leprosy, and economic depression, by the early years of the twentieth century emerging as a modern, model community based on ranching, farming, and an unwavering commitment to religious ideals. Yet barely thirty years after its founding the town was abandoned, nearly all of its inhabitants returning to Hawaii. Years later, Native Hawaiian students at nearby Brigham Young University, descendants of the original settlers, worked to clean the graves of Iosepa and erect a monument to memorialize the settlers. Remembering Iosepa connects the story of this unique community with the earliest Native Hawaiian migrants to western North America and the vibrant and growing community of Pacific Islanders in the Great Basin today. It traces the origins and growth of the community in the tumultuous years of colonial expansion into the Hawaiian islands, as well as its relationship to white Mormons, the church leadership, and the Hawaiian government. In the broadest sense, Mathew Kester seeks to explain the meeting of Mormons and Hawaiians in the American West and to examine the creative adaptations and misunderstandings that grew out of that encounter.

Since World War II, historians have analysed a phenomenon of "white flight" plaguing the urban areas of the northern United States. One of the most interesting cases of "white flight" occurred in the Chicago neighborhoods of Englewood and Roseland, where seven entire church congregations from one denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, left the city in the 1960s and 1970s and relocated their churches to nearby suburbs. In Shades of White Flight, sociologist Mark T. Mulder investigates the migration of these Chicago church members, revealing how these churches not only failed to inhibit white flight, but actually facilitated the congregations' departure. Using a wealth of both archival and interview data, Mulder sheds light on the forces that shaped these midwestern neighborhoods and shows that, surprisingly, evangelical religion fostered both segregation as well as the decline of urban stability. Indeed, the Roseland and Englewood stories show how religion - often used to foster community and social connectedness - can sometimes help to disintegrate neighborhoods. Mulder describes how the Dutch CRC formed an insular social circle that focused on the local church and Christian school - instead of the local park or square or market - as the center point of the community. Rather than embrace the larger community, the CRC subculture sheltered themselves and their families within these two places. Thus it became relatively easy - when black families moved into the neighborhood - to sell the church and school and relocate in the suburbs. This is especially true because, in these congregations, authority rested at the local church level and in fact they owned the buildings themselves. Revealing how a dominant form of evangelical church polity - congregationalism - functioned within the larger phenomenon of white flight, Shades of White Flight lends new insights into the role of religion and how it can affect social change, not always for the better.

Many scholars and church leaders believe that music and worship style are essential in stimulating diversity in congregations. Gerardo Marti draws on interviews with more than 170 congregational leaders and parishioners, as well as his experiences participating in worship services in a wide variety of Protestant, multiracial Southern Californian churches, to present this insightful study of the role of music in creating congregational diversity.
Worship across the Racial Divide offers a surprising conclusion: that there is no single style of worship or music that determines the likelihood of achieving a multiracial church. Far more important are the complex of practices of the worshipping community in the production and absorption of music. Multiracial churches successfully diversify by stimulating unobtrusive means of interracial and interethnic relations; in fact, preparation for music apart from worship gatherings proves to be just as important as its performance during services. Marti shows that aside from and even in spite of the varying beliefs of attendees and church leaders, diversity happens because music and worship create practical spaces where cross-racial bonds are formed.
This groundbreaking book sheds light on how race affects worship in multiracial churches. It will allow a new understanding of the dynamics of such churches, and provide crucial aid to church leaders for avoiding the pitfalls that inadvertently widen the racial divide.

In our day, a powerful revelation has been released, teaching all believers how to enter the realm of breakthrough prayer and Kingdom authority—the Courts of Heaven.

As a believer operating in the Courts of Heaven, you have been granted the legal right to issue divine restraining orders against satan and his demons!

Through revelatory insights, Biblical examples, and supernatural testimonies, Dr. Francis Myles invites you to enter Heaven’s courtrooms, step into your place of spiritual governance, and release divine restraining orders that destroy the schemes of the enemy!

This groundbreaking teaching will empower you to:

• Restrain the devil’s power against your life.
• Increase your spiritual authority as a judge in the Courts of Heaven.
• Identify and overcome the “Delilah Spirit” that aims at your destiny.
• Apply practices modeled by key biblical figures to issue divine restraining orders.

Featuring a special chapter from bestselling author Robert Henderson, this fresh teaching includes 18 powerful activation prayers for issuing divine restraining orders against spiritual attacks, abuse, witchcraft, the spirit of poverty, premature death, and more.

Learn to demolish the adversary’s plots and step into the fullness of your Kingdom destiny!

This volume approaches the Word of Faith as a worldview, and analyses the movement through N. T. Wright's model for worldview-analysis in order to provide necessary nuance and complexity to scholarly interpretations of the Word of Faith. The reader receives insights into the movement's narrative, semiotic, practical and propositional dimensions, which cumulatively offer a multifaceted understanding of how the Word of Faith interprets reality and engages with the world. The analysis shows that there is a narrative core to Word of Faith beliefs in the form of a unique theological story with focus set on the present restoration of Eden's authority and blessings. This study demonstrates how the Word of Faith operates as a distinct worldview that parses the world through the lens of faith's causative power to affect a direct correspondence between present reality and Eden's perfection. The findings advance a critical and therapeutic approach that acknowledges how the worldview both strengthens and subverts Pentecostalism.

The church is rapidly approaching the final hours before the return of the Lord. Scripture clearly reveals that evil forces will be unleashed upon this world. These forces will cause great fear and violence, the like of which man has never encountered. How will the body of Christ survive such an onslaught?... Angels One of the distinguishing characteristics of the culminating events in God's timetable will be the influc of the angelic in our churches and individual lives. They are coming at God's bidding to impart gifts and anointings reserved for these last days. We must expect the enemy to either emulate or ridicule this unusual visitation of God. We must press on and obey God in welcoming His angels. Ultimately, God wants us to be Ministering with Angels. We must be prepared This will require instruction, training and caution. Get Ready The most incredible and adventurous days of the church are ahead.

This is a significant in-depth study that explores the cultural context of the religious experience of West Indian immigrant communities. Whereas most studies to date have focussed on how immigrants settle in their new home contexts, Janice A. McLean-Farrell argues for a more comprehensive perspective that takes into account the importance of religion and the role of both 'home' and the 'host' contexts in shaping immigrant lives in the Diaspora. West Indian Pentecostals: Living Their Faith in New York and London explores how these three elements (religion, the 'home' and 'host' contexts) influence the ethnic-religious identification processes of generations of West Indian immigrants. Using case studies from the cities of New York and London, the book offers a critical cross-national comparison into the complex and indirect ways the historical, socio-economic, and political realities in diaspora contribute to both the identification processes and the 'missional' practices of immigrants. Its focus on Pentecostalism also provides a unique opportunity to test existing theories and concepts on the interface of religion and immigration and makes important contributions to the study of Pentecostalism.

What does Luke mean when he describes the Spirit as gift (Acts 2:38)? This study explores the social implications of gift-giving in the Greco-Roman world, arguing that gifts initiate and sustain relationships. Therefore, the description of the Spirit as gift is inherently social, which is shown in the Spirit's empowerment of the teaching, unity, meals, sharing of possessions and worship of the early Jesus community. The Spirit as gift then leads us to see that the early Jesus community is "the community of the Holy Spirit."

Deception by Design provides a comprehensive study of Mormonism; exposes the surprising source of Joseph Smith's "conversion" story; reveals the immense influence of others on Smith's beliefs; equips evangelical Christians with principals for witnessing to Mormons.

"Allen Harrod has written a wonderfully helpful and insightful book on Mormonism. It is both original in its research, as well as in its offering helpful conclusions and applications regarding the nature and history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." --Dr. R. Philip Roberts, president, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

"Deception by Design represents the best book I have seen in terms of explicating the beliefs and theology of Mormonism and at the same time providing superb approaches to presenting the claims of Christ to Mormons." --Dr. Paige Patterson, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary