Author : Stephen DeYoung
Publisher : Ancient Faith Publishing
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 17,83 MB
Release : 2021-05-04
Category :
ISBN : 9781944967550
Father Stephen De Young, creator of the popular The Whole Counsel of God podcast and blog, traces the lineage of Orthodox Christianity back to the faith and witness of the apostles, which was rooted in a first-century Jewish worldview. The Religion of the Apostles presents the Orthodox Christian Church of today as a continuation of the religious life of the apostles, which in turn was a continuation of the life of the people of God since the beginning of creation.
Author : U.S. Catholic Church
Publisher : Image
Page : 849 pages
File Size : 20,75 MB
Release : 2012-11-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 030795370X
Over 3 million copies sold! Essential reading for Catholics of all walks of life. Here it is - the first new Catechism of the Catholic Church in more than 400 years, a complete summary of what Catholics around the world commonly believe. The Catechism draws on the Bible, the Mass, the Sacraments, Church tradition and teaching, and the lives of saints. It comes with a complete index, footnotes and cross-references for a fuller understanding of every subject. The word catechism means "instruction" - this book will serve as the standard for all future catechisms. Using the tradition of explaining what the Church believes (the Creed), what she celebrates (the Sacraments), what she lives (the Commandments), and what she prays (the Lord's Prayer), the Catechism of the Catholic Church offers challenges for believers and answers for all those interested in learning about the mystery of the Catholic faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a positive, coherent and contemporary map for our spiritual journey toward transformation.
Author : Bob Smietana
Publisher : Worthy Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 42,6 MB
Release : 2023-08-29
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781546001621
"A superb examination of the future of Christian institutions.... A must-read for anyone invested in the fate of the American church." -Publishers Weekly (starred review) Uncover the ways the Christian church has changed in recent years--from the decline of the mainline denominations to the mega-churchification of American culture to the rise of the Nones and Exvaneglicals--and a hopeful reimagining of what the church might look like going forward. The United States is in the middle of an unprecedented spiritual, technological, demographic, political and social transformation-- moving from an older, mostly white, mostly Protestant, religion-friendly society to a younger diverse, multiethnic, pluralistic culture, where no one faith group will have the advantage. At the same time, millions of Americans are abandoning organized religion altogether in favor of disorganized disbelief. Reorganized Religion is an in-depth and critical look at why people are leaving American churches and what we lose as a society as it continues. But it also accepts the dismantling of what has come before and try to help readers reinvent the path forward. This book looks at the future of organized religion in America and outline the options facing churches and other faith groups. Will they retreat? Will they become irrelevant? Or will they find a new path forward? Written by veteran religion reporter Bob Smietana, Reorganized Religion is a journalistic look at the state of the American church and its future. It draws on polling data, interviews with experts, and reporting on how faith communities old and new are coping with the changing religious landscape, along with personal stories about how faith is lived in everyday life. It also profiles faith communities and leaders who are finding interesting ways to reimagine what church might look like in the future and discuss various ways we can reinvent this organization so it survives and thrives. The book also reflects the hope that perhaps people of faith can learn to become, if not friends with the larger culture, then at least better neighbors.
Author : Jefferson Bethke
Publisher : HarperChristian + ORM
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 44,77 MB
Release : 2013-10-14
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1400205409
Abandon dead, dry, religious rule-keeping and embrace the promise of being truly known and deeply loved. Jefferson Bethke burst into the cultural conversation with a passionate, provocative poem titled "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus." The 4-minute video became an overnight sensation, with 7 million YouTube views in its first 48 hours (and 23+ million in a year). Bethke's message clearly struck a chord with believers and nonbelievers alike, triggering an avalanche of responses running the gamut from encouraged to enraged. In his New York Times bestseller Jesus > Religion, Bethke unpacks similar contrasts that he drew in the poem--highlighting the difference between teeth gritting and grace, law and love, performance and peace, despair, and hope. With refreshing candor, he delves into the motivation behind his message, beginning with the unvarnished tale of his own plunge from the pinnacle of a works-based, fake-smile existence that sapped his strength and led him down a path of destructive behavior. Along the way, Bethke gives you the tools you need to: Humbly and prayerfully open your mind Understand Jesus for all that he is View the church from a brand-new perspective Bethke is quick to acknowledge that he's not a pastor or theologian, but simply an ordinary, twenty-something who cried out for a life greater than the one for which he had settled. On this journey, Bethke discovered the real Jesus, who beckoned him with love beyond the props of false religion. Praise for Jesus > Religion: "Jeff's book will make you stop and listen to a voice in your heart that may have been drowned out by the noise of religion. Listen to that voice, then follow it--right to the feet of Jesus." --Bob Goff, author of New York Times bestsellers Love Does and Everybody, Always "The book you hold in your hands is Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz meets C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity meets Augustine's Confessions. This book is going to awaken an entire generation to Jesus and His grace." --Derwin L. Gray, lead pastor of Transformation Church, author of Limitless Life: Breaking Free from the Labels That Hold You Back
Author : Diana Butler Bass
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 27,14 MB
Release : 2012-03-13
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0062098284
Diana Butler Bass, one of contemporary Christianity’s leading trend-spotters, exposes how the failings of the church today are giving rise to a new “spiritual but not religious” movement. Using evidence from the latest national polls and from her own cutting-edge research, Bass, the visionary author of A People’s History of Christianity, continues the conversation began in books like Brian D. McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity and Harvey Cox’s The Future of Faith, examining the connections—and the divisions—between theology, practice, and community that Christians experience today. Bass’s clearly worded, powerful, and probing Christianity After Religion is required reading for anyone invested in the future of Christianity.
Author : Erwin Chemerinsky
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 45,93 MB
Release : 2020
Category : Law
ISBN : 0190699736
"The relationship between the government and religion is deeply divisive. With the recent changes in the composition of the Supreme Court, the First Amendment law concerning religion is likely to change dramatically in the years ahead. The Court can be expected to reject the idea of a wall separating church and state and permit much more religious involvement in government and government support for religion. The Court is also likely to expand the rights of religious people to ignore legal obligations that others have to follow, such laws that require the provision of health care benefits to employees and prohibit businesses from discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation. This book argues for the opposite and the need for separating church and state. After carefully explaining all the major approaches to the meaning of the Constitution's religion clauses, the book argues that the best approaches are for the government to be strictly secular and for there to be no special exemptions for religious people from neutral and general laws that others must obey. The book argues that this separationist approach is most consistent with the concerns of the founders who drafted the Constitution and with the needs of a religiously pluralistic society in the 21st century"--
Author : Brad East
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Page : 495 pages
File Size : 44,23 MB
Release : 2022-04-26
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1467464961
What role do varied understandings of the church play in the doctrine and interpretation of Scripture? In The Church’s Book, Brad East explores recent accounts of the Bible and its exegesis in modern theology and traces the differences made by divergent, and sometimes opposed, theological accounts of the church. Surveying first the work of Karl Barth, then that of John Webster, Robert Jenson, and John Howard Yoder (following an excursus on interpreting Yoder’s work in light of his abuse), East delineates the distinct understandings of Scripture embedded in the different traditions that these notable scholars represent. In doing so, he offers new insight into the current impasse between Christians in their understandings of Scripture—one determined far less by hermeneutical approaches than by ecclesiological disagreements. East’s study is especially significant amid the current prominence of the theological interpretation of Scripture, which broadly assumes that the Bible ought to be read in a way that foregrounds confessional convictions and interests. As East discusses in the introduction to his book, that approach to Scripture cannot be separated from questions of ecclesiology—in other words, how we interpret the Bible theologically is dependent upon the context in which we interpret it.
Author : August Neander
Publisher :
Page : 496 pages
File Size : 30,11 MB
Release : 1844
Category : Church history
ISBN :
Author : August Neander
Publisher :
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 47,36 MB
Release : 1842
Category : Church history
ISBN :
Author : Kenda Creasy Dean
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 46,3 MB
Release : 2010-07-16
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0199758662
Based on the National Study of Youth and Religion--the same invaluable data as its predecessor, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers--Kenda Creasy Dean's compelling new book, Almost Christian, investigates why American teenagers are at once so positive about Christianity and at the same time so apathetic about genuine religious practice. In Soul Searching, Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton found that American teenagers have embraced a "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism"--a hodgepodge of banal, self-serving, feel-good beliefs that bears little resemblance to traditional Christianity. But far from faulting teens, Dean places the blame for this theological watering down squarely on the churches themselves. Instead of proclaiming a God who calls believers to lives of love, service and sacrifice, churches offer instead a bargain religion, easy to use, easy to forget, offering little and demanding less. But what is to be done? In order to produce ardent young Christians, Dean argues, churches must rediscover their sense of mission and model an understanding of being Christian as not something you do for yourself, but something that calls you to share God's love, in word and deed, with others. Dean found that the most committed young Christians shared four important traits: they could tell a personal and powerful story about God; they belonged to a significant faith community; they exhibited a sense of vocation; and they possessed a profound sense of hope. Based on these findings, Dean proposes an approach to Christian education that places the idea of mission at its core and offers a wealth of concrete suggestions for inspiring teens to live more authentically engaged Christian lives. Persuasively and accessibly written, Almost Christian is a wake up call no one concerned about the future of Christianity in America can afford to ignore.
