Soldiers of the Cross


Book Description

Extremely well researched and unique in its approach, citing nine individual Confederate soldiers and the impact of the Civil War on their Christianity. These case studies, largely drawn from their own words in letters and diaries, give a personal and individual perspective that has largely been overlooked in other similar works.




Parish Nursing


Book Description

Parish Nursing presents a vision where nurses can serve as the vital link between secular healthcare and sacred faith-based systems. Nurses are able to provide direct ministry to members of the congregation and also can be the communicators, teachers, motivators, and encouragers of others. The parish nurse could be a key person to link the two systems and provide truly wholistic care. Reading the stories of parish nurses gives us hope that this vision might be possible—indeed must be possible—if our aging society is to flourish in the years ahead.




The Living Church


Book Description




Naked Parish Priest


Book Description

Based on a survey sent out to Catholic clergy in the UK, this study is a major contribution from empirical theology towards interpreting the health and potential of the priesthood today. The issues raised by this new study concern the nature and health of the priesthood, a topic of most urgent concern at a time of clerical scandal and abuse. The conclusions of this book are extremely revealing but fundamentally positive for anyone concerned with the future of the Christian Church at the start of a new millennium.




Why Liberal Churches are Growing


Book Description

Why Liberal Churches are Growing is a fascinating journey through different case studies, social science reflection, and theological analysis. The contributors include sociologists, theologians, and practical theologians. The book has four sections. The first, 'defining themes', looks at the social justice witness (community organizing), church growth as conversational, and the challenge of turning liberal churches around.The book then looks at three case studies - starting with congregations and moving to a denomination. Under the heading 'macro issues' it explores in more detail the underlying disposition of liberal churches and revisits such themes as social justice, homosexuality, and alternative indicators of vitality. The book concludes with three essays on 'clergy and growth'.




Unity


Book Description

For years, there has been talk of the importance of unity without a clear theological narrative to underpin this, leading to competing claims of what this unity is for or defined by, and challenges posed to its possibility or desirability as a polity and as a theological idea. This book is a timely theological exploration of the concept of unity in the context of divisions, frictions, frustrations and arguments both within the Church of England, and the wider Anglican Communion. Resisting the urge to merely provide a cut-and-dry definition of unity, author Charlie Bell teases out the theological currents that run in this stream of thought, and ensure that we are refining our thinking, and doing justice to a topic that may appear to contain many opposing and contradictory elements. That unity is a call of Christ to His church is not in doubt – what that unity might look like in the reality of today’s ecclesial and cultural landscape is the question that this book seeks to answer.




Who We Are, Profile '93


Book Description




The Local Church and Generational Change in Birmingham, 1945-2000


Book Description

An examination of how religious identity changed in twentieth-century England, using Birmingham as a case-study to illuminate wider trends. The ongoing debate about secularisation and religious change in twentieth-century Britain has paid little attention to the experience of those who swam against the cultural tide and continued to attend church. This study, based on extensive original archive and oral history research, redresses this imbalance with an exploration of church-based Christianity in post-war Birmingham, examining how churchgoers interpreted and responded to the changes that theysaw in family, congregation, neighbourhood and wider society. One important theme is the significance of age and generational identity to patterns of religiosity amidst profound change in attitudes to youth, age and parenting andgrowing evidence of a widening "generation gap" in Christian belief and practice. In addition to offering a new and distinctive perspective on the changing religious identity of late twentieth-century English society, the book also provides a rare case-study in the significance of age and generation in the social and cultural history of modern Britain. Ian Jones is the Director of the Saltley Trust (an educational charity), Birmingham.




Of Thine Own Have We Given Thee


Book Description

Every Sunday around the world, Christians offer money and in-kind gifts to the church, traditionally known as alms. For communities that celebrate the Eucharist regularly, bread and wine, traditionally known as oblations, often accompany these gifts. What does it mean theologically for Christians to offer gifts to God, who first offered the greatest gift of Jesus Christ? This question regarding the role of alms and oblations in the liturgy was among the most controversial questions of the English Reformations in the sixteenth century. While the eucharistic prayer proper has often been the site of this theological controversy, the offertory rite has also received great attention. The 1552 English Book of Common Prayer excised all references to oblation in the offertory rite, but oblationary language and actions, such as the offertory procession, returned in full force by the twentieth century. The movement from the near elimination of oblation in the offertory rite to its widespread usage in the churches of the Anglican Communion is a remarkable liturgical and theological development. Using liturgical theology's tools of historical, textual, and contextual analyses, this book explores how this development occurred and why it is important for the church today.




Closing Chapters


Book Description

Closing Chapters attempts to explain the disintegration of urban parochial schools in Youngstown, Ohio, a onetime industrial center that lost all but one of its eighteen Catholic parochial elementary schools between 1960 and 2006. Through this examination of Youngstown, Welsh sheds light on a significant national phenomenon: the fragmentation of American Catholic identity.