The Lord's Supper has been the central and characteristic action of the church at worship. But there are still many ways of understanding it and many questions surrounding this meal... Who should participate in the Lord's Supper? How frequently should we observe it? What does this meal mean? What happens when we eat the bread and drink from the cup? What do Christians disagree about and what do they hold in common? These and other questions are explored in this volume of the fair-minded, informative Counterpoints series. Contributors make a case for one of the following views: Baptist view (memorialism) Reformed view (spiritual presence) Lutheran view (consubstantiation) Roman Catholic view (transubstantiation) All contributors use Scripture to present their views, and each responds to the others' essays. Included are resources for understanding the topic further, such as: A listing of statements on the Lord's Supper from creeds and confessions Quotations from noted Christians A resource listing of books on the Lord's Supper Discussion questions for each chapter to facilitate small group and classroom use The Counterpoints series presents a comparison and critique of scholarly views on topics important to Christians that are both fair-minded and respectful of the biblical text. Each volume is a one-stop reference that allows readers to evaluate the different positions on a specific issue and form their own, educated opinion.

Gain an understanding of baptism from four main traditional perspectives. Of all the sacraments, the practice of baptism is often the most disputed. Christians hold different views of its exact significance, who should receive baptism and how old they need to be, the practice of rebaptism, and baptism as a requirement for church membership. In Understanding Four Views on Baptism, four historic views on baptism are considered in depth: Baptist view: baptism of the professing regenerate by immersion (presented by Thomas J. Nettles) Reformed view: infant baptism of children of the covenant (presented by Richard Pratt Jr.) Lutheran view: infant baptism by sprinkling as a regenerative act (presented by Robert Kolb) Church of Christ view: believers' baptism on the occasion of regeneration by immersion (presented by John Castelein) Each view is presented by its proponent, then critiqued and defended in dialogue with the book's other contributors. Here is an ideal setting in which you can consider the strengths and weaknesses of each stance and arrive at your own informed conclusion. The Counterpoints series presents a comparison and critique of scholarly views on topics important to Christians that are both fair-minded and respectful of the biblical text. Each volume is a one-stop reference that allows readers to evaluate the different positions on a specific issue and form their own, educated opinion.

Description: The current popularity of contemplative prayer is not accidental. A twenty-first-century understanding of the human condition has made us suspicious of words and the understanding we craft out of words. Theology generally offers us words that purport to give us a more precise and certain understanding of God, but the mystic has always known that our relationship to God transcends words and the kind of understanding that words produce. The theology of the mystic has always been about understanding our communion with the mystery that is God in order to fall evermore deeply in love with the Divine. That is the ultimate purpose of contemplative prayer, and the purpose of this book is to offer a philosophy and theology of contemplative prayer in the twenty-first century. Endorsements: ""Again, James Danaher shows us that the use of the mind and the search for God are not in competition, but in fact enrich and feed one another at very deep levels. How much we need this kind of integration in our culture--where so much religious talk seems divisive and compromised. Contemplative Prayer is not just about divine prayer but about the very quality of human faith and love."" -Richard Rohr, OFM author of Everything Belongs and The Naked Now ""There is often a wide gulf in academia between the mind and the spirit. Many Christian academics start in the spirit but lose something of their spirituality in the development of their mind. Jim Danaher successfully bridges that gulf in this book on contemplative prayer. Jim's insights into this marvelous discipline nourish both the mind and the spirit, bringing them together in Holy Communion with the Trinity."" -Ron Walborn Dean, Alliance Theological Seminary About the Contributor(s): James P. Danaher is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Philosophy Department at Nyack College, Nyack, New York. He is the author of Jesus after Modernity: A Twenty-First-Century Critique of Our Modern Concept of Truth and the Truth of the Gospel (2011), Eyes That See, Ears ThatHear: Perceiving Jesus in a Postmodern Context (2006), Postmodern Christianity and the Reconstruction of the Christian Mind (2001), and over sixty articles that have appeared in a variety of philosophy and theology journals.

Open theists like to picture the God of classical Christian theism as a distant, despotic, micromanaging sovereign. The god of Open theism, on the other hand, is ready to enter into new experiences and to become deeply involved in helping us cope as we, with him, face things we simply did not know would happen. They insist that God has knowledge, but not all knowledge, certainly not knowledge of the future acts of free beings. Such Open theistic inferences reveal a deep-seated devotion to Enlightenment categories and narrow, unpoetic imaginations. Ideas have destinations, and one of the consequences of our trying to read the Scriptures without any poetry in our souls will be the eventual destruction of any possibility of ministering to souls. Just imagine the hymn writer trying to lift up the downcast - "I know not what the future holds, but I know Who doesn't know much about it either."