Known in the Dominican Republic and Togo as Vodu, in Benin as Vodun, and in Haiti as Vodou, West African religion has, for hundreds of years, served as a repository of sacred knowledge while simultaneously evolving in response to human experience and globalization. Spirit Service: Vodun and Vodou in the African Atlantic World explores this dynamic religion, its mobility, and its place in the modern world. By examining the systems-ritual practices, community-based spirit veneration, and spiritual means of securing opportunity and well-being-alongside the individuals who worship, this rich collection offers the first comprehensive ethnographic study of West African spirit service on a broad scale. Contributors consider social encounters between African/Haitian practitioners and European / North American spiritual seekers, economies and histories, funerary rites and spirit possessions, and examinations of gender and materiality. Offering much-needed perspective on this historically disparaged religion, Spirit Service reminds us all that the gods are growing, assimilating, and demanding recognition and respect.

Known in the Dominican Republic and Togo as Vodu, in Benin as Vodún, and in Haiti as Vodou, West African religion has, for hundreds of years, served as a repository of sacred knowledge while simultaneously evolving in response to human experience and globalization. Spirit Service: Vodún and Vodou in the African Atlantic World explores this dynamic religion, its mobility, and its place in the modern world. By examining the systems—ritual practices, community-based spirit veneration, and spiritual means of securing opportunity and well-being—alongside the individuals who worship, this rich collection offers the first comprehensive ethnographic study of West African spirit service on a broad scale. Contributors consider social encounters between African/Haitian practitioners and European / North American spiritual seekers, economies and histories, funerary rites and spirit possessions, and examinations of gender and materiality. Offering much-needed perspective on this historically disparaged religion, Spirit Service reminds us all that the gods are growing, assimilating, and demanding recognition and respect.

Combines a serious examination of the state of today's church and a powerful solution: reclaiming the gospel of grace found in the confessional truths of the Reformation.

Though the Christian church has achieved a worldly sort of success-big numbers, big budgets, big outreaches-these are not good days for evangelicalism. Attendance is down, and it is increasingly difficult to distinguish so-called "believers" from their non-Christian neighbors-all because the gospel of grace has been neglected.

In this work, now in paperback, the late James Montgomery Boice identifies what's happened within evangelicalism and suggests how the confessional statements of the Reformation-Scripture alone, Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, and glory to God alone-can ignite full-scale revival. "A church without these convictions has ceased to be a true church, whatever else it may be," he wrote, but "if we hold to these doctrines, our churches and those we influence will grow strong."

Two respected pastors make a compelling case for the need to recover the five fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.

We live in an age of weak theology and casual Christianity. And this situation will continue as long as God's people insist on substituting intuition for truth, feeling for belief, and immediate gratification for enduring hope.

Yet if evangelicalism will again denounce this self-centered faith and place Christ and his cross at the center of its vision, the church will see great days once more. According to authors James Montgomery Boice and Philip Graham Ryken, this will happen when believers specifically return to the gospel foundation with its doctrines of radical depravity, unconditional election, particular redemption, efficacious grace, and persevering grace.

As these two noted pastors provide a compelling exposition of these essential truths, they also consider the current challenges, leaving no doubt that the church suffers when the doctrines of grace are neglected. Only in a faith that is practical-minded, kindhearted, and Bible-based will Christians recover what they have lost in this postmodern age. Now in paperback.

The seventh-century poet Tumadir, also known as al-Khansa'--a sobriquet that means "the Snub-nosed Gazelle doe"--survived both her brothers. Her poetic output consists of dirges for those dead brothers. In Loss Sings, James Montgomery translates a number of these dirges from the Arabic and weaves a cahier around them. Bringing this little-known ancient Arabic poet to contemporary readers for the first time, Montogomery intersperses personal and poignant observations throughout the collection as he explores related elements of death and loss.