Beginning in the 1970s evangelical Christians decided to become involved in our nation's political life by becoming Republican partisans. Today they are widely considered the Republican Party's most reliable constituency. In the process American politics has become more bitter, chaotic, divisive, and now dysfunctional. There is a significant bipartisan consensus that the Republican Party bears the most responsibility for the state of o ...
What will the final state of the redeemed look like? Throughout the history of the church, conceptions of the final state have tended to minimize the promise of the new heavens and new earth. In contrast to the historical dominance of spiritual, heavenly, non-temporal conceptions of the final state, the last two decades have witnessed a rise in conceptions that include the redemption of material, earthly, and temporal reality. These «new creatio ...
This book introduces David H. C. Read to a new generation, through sermons that are not merely elegantly worded and biblically grounded, but packed with life experience that included a five year stint as a prisoner of war during World War II. From amongst the almost 1500 sermons that Read preached during his ministry in Manhattan, John McTavish has selected forty enduring messages that show David Read, justifying Time magazine's assessment ...
Being Christian in the Twenty-first Century was written to help struggling and doubting Christians develop an understanding of Christianity that avoids literalism, creeds, and doctrines–all factors which seem to be driving people away from the church. The book is well suited for individual or group study, complete with a study guide and sample lesson plans. It responds to the call for theological reform advocated by many contemporary clergy and ...
What is found in this series, unveils an entirely different side of C.K. Barrett, a side one might never have known about if one had knowledge only of his famous commentaries and monographs. Herein lies a goodly selection of Kingsley's sermons preached largely in small- and medium-sized Methodist churches in the Northeast of England, though often elsewhere in England and around the world. Fred Barrett was not the scholar his son was, bu ...
The commentary tradition regarding 1 Corinthians unanimously identifies the «weak» as Christ-followers whose faith was not yet sufficient to indulge in the eating of idol food with indifference, as if ideally Paul wanted them to become «strong» enough to do so. Commentaries also do not hesitate to explain that Paul advised the Corinthians that he behaved like non-Jews (e.g., ate idol food) in order to win non-Jews to Christ, convinced that he wa ...
The mid-nineteenth century is a gold mine for contemporary scholars interested in American Protestant ecclesiology. There one will find the extensive writings of John Nevin who came to the notice of the theological world with The Anxious Bench, a critique of the «quackery» of Protestant revivalism. Influenced by a critical appropriation of cutting-edge contemporary German theology, he came to believe that the church was not «invisible,» but the ...
Die geheimnisvoll-poetische Einfuhrung in die Schopfungsgeschichte gehort zu den bekanntesten Passagen der Bibel. Doch so wie Ben Becker diese Zeilen spricht, hat man sie noch nie gehort. Mit seiner markanten, basslastigen Stimme – untermalt von eigens komponierter Musik – verleiht er den Bibeltexten eine einzigartige Kraft und Dynamik. Selbst nicht-religiose Menschen konnen sich der magischen Anziehungskraft von Ben Beckers Stimme kaum entziehe ...
B. T. Roberts was born in a small farming community in western New York, on July 25, 1823. By the time of his death in 1893, he had made a profound impact on church and society. Roberts's writing, preaching, and ministry focused on true conversion, the disciplines of the Christian life, and holiness. Rejecting «prosperity theology,» he argued for simplicity, generosity, and mission. A prophet of dissent, he vigorously promoted abolition, pr ...
