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Books > Christianity > Protestantism & Protestant Churches
An accessible and academic reading of the doctrine of justification
by faith. It is often assumed that the Reformation taught
justification by faith as if there was a monolithic view of the
doctrine. Since We Are Justified By Faith is a collection of
important essays that dispel this myth, demonstrating the diverse
theologies of that period. Experts in the field, including Cameron
MacKenzie, Aaron OKelly, Jeff Fisher, Kirk MacGregor, Mary Patton
Baker, Karin Spiecker Stetina, David Hall, Bonnie Pattison, Timothy
Shaun Price, Andre Gazal, and Chris Ross, write on the theologies
of Luther, Melanchthon, Oecolampadius, Marpeck, Calvin, and the
English reformers to give a nuanced reading of the doctrine in
sixteenth-century Protestant theology.
A collection of 230 hymns, with music, drawn from a wide range of
liberal religious sources, all written in the 20th or 21st century;
many were composed by Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist writers,
often drawing their imagery from other faith traditions. The
collection includes songs for blessing partnerships and
relationships. The compilers have drawn on a wide range of musical
styles, using keys in keeping with current group vocal range.
This book explores one of the great paradoxes of our era. Western
culture has almost imperceptibly come to secularize the sacred,
while at the same time sacralizing the secular. The authors
endeavor to show the debilitating effects that this paradox has had
on the foundations of Christian worship with special reference to
the history of worship and in particular the Presbyterian Church in
Australia. The authors show how the theological predilection for
'minimization' has become inextricably woven into the fabric of
what we call 'the theory of transformative subjugation' which
drives the rationale for religious secularization. The book argues
that it is necessary to consider a serious reconstruction of
theological education in which its framework is located in a
specific Christian theory of knowledge which engenders the Lordship
of Christ and encourages a spirit of transformative love and
connectedness. It is only in this context that the theology of
worship and the beauty and usefulness of liturgical forms can be
appreciated.
The Reformer John Calvin has influenced America in a formative way.
Calvin remains respected as a theologian to whose work
intellectuals on both the right and left appeal. In the
nineteen-nineties, Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) formed
a politically influential ecumenical coalition to oppose abortion
and change the culture. Its ecumenism of the trenches influenced
the administration of George W. Bush and continues to influence
religious elements in the Tea Party. Evangelicals in the coalition
presume to speak for Calvin. This book provides a counter argument.
Calvin rejects the ethics advocated by ECT, an ethics of individual
virtue, conscience and natural right. Instead, he affirms an ethics
of obedience to the authority of secular government as an
institution with a divinely ordained mandate. This work considers
the following themes in Calvin: *Calvin on Faith. Modern and
postmodern philosophical approaches, including Reformed
epistemology, do not explain how Calvin understood faith. Faith is
divine activity. Belief is human activity. Faith is not a belief
system or worldview on which to base a political theology. The
author provides four Augustinian theses about Calvin on faith
*Calvin on Sanctification. Calvin rejected virtue ethics or an
ethics of individual conscience. His ethics require self-denial and
service. An important requirement of his ethics is obedience to
government. The author provides three theses about Calvin on
sanctification, as a critique of attempts to revive virtue ethics.
*Calvin on Natural Law. Calvin's doctrine of natural law is one of
the most vexed issues in Calvin studies. The author provides five
theses to clarify Calvin's doctrine of natural law. For Calvin,
secular government transcends the authority of conscience, and
Christians in conscience are required to obey it. In conclusion,
the author discusses Karl Barth's interpretation of Calvin and its
relevance for the church struggle against the Third Reich. Based on
his analysis of Calvin, he provides a defense of gay marriage and
the right to terminate a pregnancy, as well as an analysis of
religious freedom. Calvin would reject ECT's theology of virtue,
conscience and natural law. But he would affirm its ecumenism as a
possible path out of culture war.
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"Draws upon previously neglected primary sources to offer a
ground-breaking analysis of the intertwined political, racial, and
religious dynamics at work in the institutional merging of three
American Methodist denominations in 1939. Davis boldly examines the
conflicted ethics behind a dominant American religious culture's
justification and preservation of racial segregation in the
reformulation of its post-slavery institutional presence in
American society. His work provides a much-needed, critical
discussion of the racial issues that pervaded American religion and
culture in the early twentieth century.a
--Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Academic Dean and Associate Professor
of History and Theology, United Theological Seminary, Dayton
Ohio
aA discerning, sober, and troubling probing of the preoccupation
within the Methodist Church with Christian nationalism,
civilization as defined by white Anglo-Saxon manhood, and race,
race consciousness and athe problem of the Negroa that was
foundational to and constitutive of a reunited Methodism. A must
read for students of early 20th century America.a
--Russell E. Richey, Emory University
In the early part of the twentieth century, Methodists were seen
by many Americans as the most powerful Christian group in the
country. Ulysses S. Grant is rumored to have said that during his
presidency there were three major political parties in the U.S., if
you counted the Methodists.
The Methodist Unification focuses on the efforts among the
Southern and Northern Methodist churches to create a unified
national Methodist church, and how their plan for unification came
to institutionalizeracism and segregation in unprecedented ways.
How did these Methodists conceive of what they had just formed as
auniteda when members in the church body were racially divided?
Moving the history of racial segregation among Christians beyond
a simplistic narrative of racism, Morris L. Davis shows that
Methodists in the early twentieth century -- including high-profile
African American clergy -- were very much against racial equality,
believing that mixing the races would lead to interracial marriages
and threaten the social order of American society.
The Methodist Unification illuminates the religious culture of
Methodism, Methodists' self-identification as the primary carriers
of "American Christian Civilization," and their influence on the
crystallization of whiteness during the Jim Crow Era as a legal
category and cultural symbol.
This book carries an ethnographic signature in approach and style,
and is an examination of a small Brooklyn, New York,
African-American, Pentecostal church congregation and is based on
ethnographic notes taken over the course of four years. The
Pentecostal Church is known to outsiders almost exclusively for its
members' "bizarre" habit of speaking in tongues. This ethnography,
however, puts those outsiders inside the church pews, as it paints
a portrait of piety, compassion, caring, love-all embraced through
an embodiment perspective, as the church's members experience these
forces in the most personal ways through religious conversion.
Central themes include concerns with the notion of "spectacle"
because of the grand bodily display that is highlighted by
spiritual struggle, social aspiration, punishment and spontaneous
explosions of a variety of emotions in the public sphere. The
approach to sociology throughout this work incorporates the
striking dialectic of history and biography to penetrate and
interact with religiously inspired residents of the inner-city in a
quest to make sense both empirically and theoretically of this
rapidly changing, surprising and highly contradictory late-modern
church scene. The focus on the individual process of becoming
Pentecostal provides a road map into the church and canvasses an
intimate view into the lives of its members, capturing their
stories as they proceed in their Pentecostal careers. This book
challenges important sociological concepts like crisis to explain
religious seekership and conversion, while developing new concepts
such as "God Hunting" and "Holy Ghost Capital" to explain the
process through which individuals become tongue-speaking
Pentecostals. Church members acquire "Holy Ghost Capital" and
construct a Pentecostal identity through a relationship narrative
to establish personal status and power through conflicting
tongue-speaking ideas. Finally, this book examines the futures of
the small and large, institutionally affiliated Pentecostal Church
and argues that the small Pentecostal Church is better able to
resist modern rationalizing forces, retaining the charisma that
sparked the initial religious movement. The power of charisma in
the small church has far-reaching consequences and implications for
the future of Pentecostalism and its followers.
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