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A handy, comprehensive guide to the history of both Christian and secular end-times thought and movements.
Most forms of religion are best understood in the con- text of their relationship with the surrounding culture. This may be particularly true in the United States. Certainly immigrant Catholicism became Americanized; mainstream Protestantism accommodated itself to the modern world; and Reform Judaism is at home in American society. In Evangelicalism, Richard Kyle explores paradoxical adjustments and transformations in the relationship between conservative Protestant Evangelicalism and contemporary American culture. Evangelicals have resisted many aspects of the modern world, but Kyle focuses on what he considers their romance with popular culture. Kyle sees this as an Americanized Christiani...
How will the world end? Doomsday ideas in Western history have been both persistent and adaptable, peaking at various times, including in modern America. Public opinion polls indicate that a substantial number of Americans look for the return of Christ or some catastrophic event. The views expressed in these polls have been reinforced by the market process. Whether through purchasing paperbacks or watching television programs, millions of Americans have expressed an interest in end-time events. Americans have a tremendous appetite for prophecy, more than nearly any other people in the modern world. Why do Americans love doomsday? In Apocalyptic Fever, Richard Kyle attempts to answer this question, showing how dispensational premillennialism has been the driving force behind doomsday ideas. Yet while several chapters are devoted to this topic, this book covers much more. It surveys end-time views in modern America from a wide range of perspectives--dispensationalism, Catholicism, science, fringe religions, the occult, fiction, the year 2000, Islam, politics, the Mayan calendar, and more.
John Knox ranks among the great leaders of the Reformed tradition. In particular, he made significant contributions to this movement as it unfolded in Scotland. In doing so, Knox wore many hats--prophet, pastor, preacher, reformer, statesman, revolutionary, and more. God's Watchman: John Knox's Faith and Vocation attempts to connect these aspects of Knox's life. Being a man of action, these roles come to the forefront. Still, they rest on a particular faith shaped by his interpretation of Scripture, his view of God, and the events of sixteenth-century Europe. Section one of this study establishes these beliefs. Part two spells out his vocation--namely, functioning as a prophet, pastor, and preacher. All of this--his faith and vocation--culminated in his revolutionary political ideas, which are the subject of section three.
This Reader presents a diverse and ecumenical cross-section of ecclesiological statements from across the twenty centuries of the church's existence. It builds on the foundations of early Christian writings, illustrates significant medieval, reformation, and modern developments, and provides a representative look at the robust attention to ecclesiology that characterizes the contemporary period. This collection of readings offers an impressive overview of the multiple ways Christians have understood the church to be both the 'body of Christ' and, at the same time, an imperfect, social and historical institution, constantly subject to change, and reflective of the cultures in which it is foun...
John Knox's First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, one of the most notorious political tracts of the sixteenth century, has been more often referred to than read. Its true significance as one of a series of pamphlets which Knox wrote in 1558 on the theme of rebellion is therefore easily overlooked. This new edition of his writings includes not only The First Blast, but the three other tracts of 1558 -The Letter to the Regent of Scotland, The Appellation to the Scottish Nobility, and The Letter to the Commonalty of Scotland - in which Knox confronted the problem of resistance to tyranny. Related material, mostly drawn from Knox's own History of the Reformation in Scotland, illuminates the development of his views before 1558 and illustrates their application in the specific circumstances of the Scottish Reformation and the rule of Mary Queen of Scots. This edition thus brings together for the first time all of Knox's most important writings on rebellion.
"Superstition" is one of the most fought over terms in the history of early modern popular culture, especially religious culture, and is also one of the most difficult to define. This volume offers a novel approach to the issue, based upon national and regional studies, and examinations of attitudes to prophets, ghosts, saints, and demonology, alongside an analysis of Catholic responses to the Reformation and the apparent presence of "superstition" in the reformed churches. It challenges the assumptions that Catholic piety was innately superstitious, while Protestantism was rational, and suggests that the early modern concept of "superstition" needs more careful treatment by historians.
Exploring California as a theological place, this book renders critical engagement with significant Californian religious and theological phenomena and the inherent theological impulses within major Californian cultural icons. Harnessing conceptual tools inherent to theology, through theological reflection, assessment, and critique, the chapters in this volume begin to ascertain the significance of various empirical data and that no other qualitative methodological Californian study has done. Many universities are picking up on California literature as a theme that highlights a place of hope, wonder, and cultural innovation, but have neglected the significance of theological instincts flowing through the Californian dynamic. Californians Fred Sanders and Jason Sexton assemble leading voices and specialists both from within and without California for engagement with California’s influential culture: including leading theologians and cultural critics such as Richard J. Mouw, Paul Louis Metzger, and Fred Sanders, alongside leading specialists in Film studies and cultural critique, theological anthropology, missiology, sociology, and history.
More than 50 years ago scientists made a remarkable discovery, proclaiming, "We have found the secret of life ... and it's so pretty!" The secret was the discovery that life is helixical, two strands wound around a single axis—what most of us know today as the model for DNA. Over the course of his ministry, author Leonard Sweet has discovered that this divine design also informs God's blueprint for the church. In this seminal work, he shares the woven strands that form the church: missional, relational, and incarnational. Sweet declares that this secret is not just pretty, but beautiful. In fact, So Beautiful! Using the poignant life of John Newton as a touchstone, Sweet calls for the re-union of these three essential, complementary strands of the Christian life. Far from a novel idea, Sweet shows how this structure is God's original intent, and shares the simply beautiful design for His church.
The essays in this volume highlight the different paths Calvinism followed as it took root in Western Europe, and how it developed, within fifty years, into the dominant Protestant confession. Each chapter reinforces the notion that while many reformers tried to duplicate the kind of community that Calvin had established, most had to compromise by adapting to the particular political and cultural landscapes in which they lived. Summarizing recent research in the field through selected French, German, English and Scottish case studies, this collection adds to the emerging picture of a flexible Calvinism that could adapt to meet specific local conditions and needs in order to allow the Reformed tradition to thrive and prosper.