From Sin to Disease


Book Description

Since Benjamin Rush first introduced the disease of wills as the cause of alcoholism, a steady and slow infiltration of the disease model has infected how the church treats those who struggle with addictions. The first organization that truly sought to remove the soul care of addicts from the church was Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), through their bestselling The Big Book of AA and the introduction of the 12 Steps. AA's influence on how the church confronts addiction still reverberates today, with many of the ministries that address addiction firmly rooted in what can be found in AA literature. Addictions were once viewed as an issue caused by sin and best addressed through faith and prayer. Currently addiction is seen through the lens of disease. The ramifications are consequential as more church members are struggling with addictions than ever before. Tracing the progression of addiction from sin to disease will reveal that the SBC and its churches have been negligent in understanding the underlying foundations of AA and the influence that the medicalization of substance abuse has had on how churches approach what should be classified as a sin issue.




America's Churches Through the Eyes of a Bum


Book Description

The true story of the events that took place across America as a successful businessman and his wife spent most of their weekends since 1998 hanging out in the lawns, parking lots and cemeteries of America's churches dressed, not as upstanding citizens, but rather, in the tattered and smelly clothes of the homeless. It is in this guise that they experienced the shocking response of today's Sunday morning, church-going crowds to people to people who "don't look like they do."




Crumbs from a Bum


Book Description

Finding a coherent set of answers to life's age-old questions can be an onerous undertaking. Yet the questions abound in our culture, and a rational collection of answers is seemingly ungraspable. Commoners have been led to believe that beliefs are irreversibly inconsequential. Youngsters are boldly instructed to merely seek success. Teachers unblushingly preach to students that there is no such thing as truth. With uncountable opinions and beliefs put forth, who ought we to trust? Should we give credence to the preachy words of secularists who do not even have the backbone to adhere to a logically consistent worldview? Are we to trust the pop psychologists who unmindfully and unabashedly bypass life's essential questions? Would it be shrewd of us to subscribe to the pluralists who lack the decency to study incommensurable worldviews, yet absurdly accept contrasting worldviews as equally valid? Whom shall we trust? In a culture where common sense has commonly vanished amongst commoners, we would do well to welcome common sense into our lives. Thinking episodically has become the modern routine, and yet, such a routine suffocates us in the ruins of our own lack of thinking, for thinking episodically is really no way of thinking at all. Perhaps, just perhaps, the answers to life's most pressing questions are within our reach, but first we must be willing to embrace common sense.




Exporting the American Gospel


Book Description

As the pressures of globalization are crushing local traditions, millions of uprooted people are buying into a new American salvation product. This fundamentalist Christianity, a fusion of American popular religion and politics, is one of the most significant cultural influences exported from the United States. With illuminating case studies based on extensive field research, Exporting the American Gospel demonstrates how Christian fundamentalism has taken hold in many nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia.




American Exodus


Book Description

American Exodus is a race against time to transform the Body of Christ from faith-based theology alone to being founded in love. To transform from the authority of the state to follow only Christ, past thousands of years of tradition to remember the whole truth of creation, faith, holiness and the power of God to preserve nations. But if the church comes of age in a world filled with unprecedented lawlessness, the price for following Jesus might be very high. Only the Lord knows who will be for Him and who will be against Him when the time comes, but the end is coming""His patience is fulfilled. Can humanity humble itself and gain the mercy of God? Or will the end come with humans isolated and alone at the mercy of merciless powers? American Exodus is about the power of the Holy Spirit to manifest Himself in ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. It rises to heart and life-changing heights of the Glory of the Lamb, and it dives to the depths of tormented souls desperately trying to find refuge, sanctuary, healing, and reconciliation. It is a study on how dramatically everything can change, yet how constant the power and grace of God is for those who are willing to seek out the Holy Place.




Collier's


Book Description







The Missionary Herald


Book Description

Vols. for 1828-1934 contain the Proceedings at large of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.