The New Reformation


Book Description

In the sixteenth century, the church faced a doctrinal crisis. Today, the crisis is race. We all know that racial unity is important. But what’s the right way to approach it? How can Christians of different ethnicities pursue unity in an environment that is so highly charged and full of landmines on all sides? In The New Reformation, Christian hip-hop artist Shai Linne shows how the gospel applies to the pursuit of ethnic unity. When it comes to ethnicity, Christians today have to fight against two tendencies: idolatry and apathy. Idolatry makes ethnicity ultimate, while apathy tends to ignore it altogether. But there is a third way, the way of the Bible. Shai explains how ethnicity—the biblical word for what we mean by “race”—exists for God’s glory. Drawing from his experience as an artist-theologian, church planter, and pastor, Shai will help you chart a new way forward in addressing the critical question of what it means for people of all ethnicities to be the one people of God.




Self-Esteem


Book Description




A New Reformation


Book Description

A modern-day theologian’s call for the radical transformation of Christianity • Echoes the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in 1517 • Addresses the corruption and authoritarian tendencies that distinguish today’s Christian institutions from the spiritual message upon which they are founded • Offers a new vision of Christianity that values the Earth, honors the feminine, and emphasizes spiritual tolerance In 1517, Martin Luther, disgusted at the corruption then reigning in the Catholic Church, nailed on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, 95 theses calling for a Reformation. During Pentecost week 2005, former Dominican priest Matthew Fox nailed at that same church door a new set of 95 theses calling for a reawakening of the Christian spirit and a repudiation of the authoritarian, punitive tendencies that prevail in modern churches today. Fox’s theses not only condemn the deep corruption in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, made evident by the pedophile scandal and the recent canonization of a fascist admirer of Hitler, but also speak to the loss of inspiration and resulting apathy that have emptied churches of all denominations. Fox says, “At this critical time in human and planetary history, when the earth is being ravaged by the violence of war, poverty, sexism, homophobia, and eco-destruction, we need to gather those who offer a future that is one of compassion, creativity, and justice to speak their conscience as never before. Religion ought to be part of the solution, not the problem.” His 95 theses call for a New Reformation, a radical transformation that will allow us to move once again from the hollow trappings of organized religion to genuine spirituality.




The New Calvinism


Book Description

Josh Buice, Paul Washer, Steven Lawson, Conrad Mbewe, and Tim Challies discuss- The foundations, benefits, and weaknesses of New Calvinism In light of biblical theology and church history




The New Apostolic Reformation


Book Description

From Justin Bieber, to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, to the controversial documentary Jesus Camp (2006), the New Apostolic Reformation's influence can be seen everywhere in mainstream America. Beginning with an examination of the Latter Rain, Church Growth and Shepherding movements, this book explores how the new Reformation has become one of the most powerful movements in modern evangelical Christianity and a major influence on American political and cultural life. The author describes the New Apostolic Reformation's organization, how the movement spread and its national and international objectives.




95 Theses for a New Reformation


Book Description

Five hundred years ago Martin Luther wrote his Ninety-Five Theses, inaugurating the Protestant Reformation, and with it exemplified an unflinching devotion to return to the Word of God as the ultimate authority. Today, the church is also in desperate need for reformation--a new reformation to correct her shortcomings and meet the challenges of the day. Some might see everything as fine, some might see everything as hopeless, and others might simply dismiss the church as irrelevant, too impotent to reform herself, much less to strengthen the disintegrating family or address the downward-spiraling culture with a prophetic voice. 95 Theses for a New Reformation confronts the necessity for reformation today head-on. Over thirty of today's pastors, theologians, and church leaders analyze ninety-five current problems, search the Scriptures for solutions, and make sound biblical appropriations to implement into the life of the church, family, and culture. On this 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, let us pray that the Lord will again revive his church for his own glory and for the purification of Christ's beloved bride, the church. And let us prepare ourselves to respond with urgency to God's call to action by reforming the church, family, and culture. Contributors include: John Frame, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Peter J. Leithart, and James White




Reformation Worship


Book Description

Worship is the right, fitting, and delightful response of moral beings—angelic and human—to God the Creator, Redeemer, and Consummator, for who he is as one eternal God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and for what he has done in creation and redemption, and for what he will do in the coming consummation, to whom be all praise ...




The Unintended Reformation


Book Description

In a work that is as much about the present as the past, Brad Gregory identifies the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation and traces the way it shaped the modern condition over the course of the following five centuries. A hyperpluralism of religious and secular beliefs, an absence of any substantive common good, the triumph of capitalism and its driver, consumerism—all these, Gregory argues, were long-term effects of a movement that marked the end of more than a millennium during which Christianity provided a framework for shared intellectual, social, and moral life in the West. Before the Protestant Reformation, Western Christianity was an institutionalized worldview laden with expectations of security for earthly societies and hopes of eternal salvation for individuals. The Reformation’s protagonists sought to advance the realization of this vision, not disrupt it. But a complex web of rejections, retentions, and transformations of medieval Christianity gradually replaced the religious fabric that bound societies together in the West. Today, what we are left with are fragments: intellectual disagreements that splinter into ever finer fractals of specialized discourse; a notion that modern science—as the source of all truth—necessarily undermines religious belief; a pervasive resort to a therapeutic vision of religion; a set of smuggled moral values with which we try to fertilize a sterile liberalism; and the institutionalized assumption that only secular universities can pursue knowledge. The Unintended Reformation asks what propelled the West into this trajectory of pluralism and polarization, and finds answers deep in our medieval Christian past.




Still Time to Care


Book Description

At the start of the gay rights movement in 1969, evangelicalism's leading voices cast a vision for gay people who turn to Jesus. It was C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer and John Stott who were among the most respected leaders within theologically orthodox Protestantism. We see with them a positive pastoral approach toward gay people, an approach that viewed homosexuality as a fallen condition experienced by some Christians who needed care more than cure. With the birth and rise of the ex-gay movement, the focus shifted from care to cure. As a result, there are an estimated 700,000 people alive today who underwent conversion therapy in the United States alone. Many of these patients were treated by faith-based, testimony-driven parachurch ministries centered on the ex-gay script. Despite the best of intentions, the movement ended with very troubling results. Yet the ex-gay movement died not because it had the wrong sex ethic. It died because it was founded on a practice that diminished the beauty of the gospel. Yet even after the closure of the ex-gay umbrella organization Exodus International in 2013, the ex-gay script continues to walk about as the undead among us, pressuring people like me to say, "I used to be gay, but I'm not gay anymore. Now I'm just same-sex attracted." For orthodox Christians, the way forward is a path back to where we were forty years ago. It is time again to focus with our Neo-Evangelical fathers on care--not cure--for our non-straight sisters and brothers who are living lives of costly obedience to Jesus. With warmth and humor as well as original research, Still Time to Care will chart the path forward for our churches and ministries in providing care. It will provide guidance for the gay person who hears the gospel and finds themselves smitten by the life-giving call of Jesus. Woven throughout the book will be Richard Lovelace’s 1978 call for a "double repentance" in which gay Christians repent of their homosexual sins and the church repents of its homophobia--putting on display for all the power of the gospel.




John Donne and the Protestant Reformation


Book Description

The early transition from Catholicism to Protestantism was a complicated journey for England, as individuals sorted out their spiritual beliefs, chose their political allegiances, and confronted an array of religious differences that had sprung forth in their society since the reign of Henry VIII. Inner anxieties often translated into outward violence. Amidst this turmoil the poet and Protestant preacher John Donne (1572-1631) emerged as a central figure, one who encouraged peace among Christians. Raised a Catholic but ordained in 1615 as an Anglican clergyman, Donne publicly identified himself with Protestantism, and yet scholars have long questioned his theological orientation. Drawing upon recent scholarship in church history, the authors of this collection reconsider Donne's relationship to Protestantism and clearly demonstrate the political and theological impact of the Reformation on his life and writings. The collection includes thirteen essays that together place Donne broadly in the context of English and European traditions and explore his divine poetry, his prose work, the Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and his sermons. It becomes clear that in adopting the values of the Reformation, Donne does not completely reject everything from his Catholic background. Rather, the clash of religion erupts in his work in both moving and disconcerting ways. This collection offers a fresh understanding of Donne's hard-won irenicism, which he achieved at great personal and professional risk.