LITMIR.BIZ

For the last two centuries biblical interpretation has been guided by perspectives that have largely ignored the oral context in which the gospels took shape. Only recently have scholars begun to explore how ancient media inform the interpretive process and an understanding of the Bible. This collection of essays, by authors who recognize that the Jesus tradition was a story heard and performed, seeks to reevaluate the constituent elements of narrative, including characters, structure, narrator, time, and intertextuality. In dialogue with traditional literary approaches, these essays demonstrate that an appreciation of performance yields fresh insights distinguishable in many respects from results of literary or narrative readings of the gospels.

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The Anglican Communion must address a central issue: that of the postmodern worldview growing in its midst and the corresponding development of a One World Religion. It is an issue of theological meaning and interpretation, of right doctrine and right practice. It is an issue of Christian identity. The crisis has only just begun. Anglicans are the canary in the coal mine, gasping for air while worldwide Christianity looks on to see how much oxygen is left. The One World Religion is actively coming into being. Many Christian churches are grappling with forces and pressures from within and without to yield, to change, or to embrace this phenomenon, which can be oh-so-appealing. The time has come for all who would call themselves Christians to decide which set of beliefs and practices will be adhered to and taught in the church, and which vision will be offered to the world as the Christian faith. Anglican Manifesto seeks to ignite a reformation of Anglicanism in order to set the stage for a global reunification and revival of Christian churches worldwide.

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The field of the theology of mission has developed variously across Christian traditions in the last century. Pentecostal scholars and missiologists also have made their share of contributions to this area. This book brings the insights of pentecostal theologian Amos Yong to the discussion. It delineates the major features of what will be argued as central to a viable vision and praxis for Christian mission in a postmodern, post-Christendom, post-Enlightenment, post-Western, and postcolonial world. What emerges will be a distinctively pentecostally- and evangelically-informed missiological theology, one rooted in the Christian salvation-history narrative of Incarnation and Pentecost that is yet open to the world in its many and various cultural, ethnic, religious, and disciplinary discourses and realities. The argument unfolds through dialogical engagements with the work of others, concrete case studies, and systematic theological reflection. Yong's pneumatological and missiological imagination proffers a model for Christian theology of mission suitable for the twenty-first-century global and pluralistic context even as it exemplifies how a missiological understanding of theology itself unfolds amidst engagements with contemporary ecclesial practices and academic/theological impulses.

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The relation between Christianity and the claims of reason has been at times sharp and conflicting and at times symbiotic. Noted scholars in the church and in the secular academy have asked what Christianity has to do with culture and what the Christian mind has to say, or should be saying, by way of critique in the marketplace of ideas. In Discovering the Christian Mind, Douglas Vickers argues insightfully that prior to the question of what the Christian mind should be doing or saying is that of what the Christian mind is. Vickers shows that the true identity of the Christian mind derives from the Holy Spirit's conveyance to the soul of the grace of regeneration. The conclusion that regeneration is prior to knowing, and that those know truly who know God truly, challenges thought and opinion.

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In a world where armed conflict, repression, and authoritarian rule are too frequent, human rights and peace-building present key concepts and agendas for the global and local struggle for peace and development.
But are these agendas congruent? Do they support each other? Many organizations, states, and individuals have experienced how priorities of one agenda create friction with the other. For instance, are justice and reconciliation incompatible goals? If not, do they lead to counteracting initiatives? How can local and international actors develop support to societies that search a way out of violence and repression without violating universal moral standards, in an imperfect and resource-scarce situation?
This study departs from the view that both human rights and peace-building are agendas with specific and unique contributions. In order to deal with overlapping claims that the two agendas sometimes formulate, in both conflict and post-conflict situations, this study suggests specific approaches in order to create synergy effects of agenda cooperation.

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In Luke: Gospel to the Nameless and Faceless, Dr. W. Mark Tew offers the Christian reader a commentary like none other. Combining a detailed examination of the Greek text, a fresh translation of the Gospel, and a commitment to presenting the meaning of the Gospel in a fluid and contemporary fashion, Luke: Gospel to the Nameless and Faceless presents the advanced student and the casual reader alike with an inspirational look at the timeless beauty of Luke's Gospel. Committed to the literary integrity of Scripture, the author allowed the Greek text of the Gospel of Luke to determine the organizational structure of the book. Because of this, readers will find themselves immersed in the message of Jesus that Luke portrayed. Luke: Gospel to the Nameless and Faceless is destined to become an inspirational classic.

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What may happen when Christians take doctrine seriously? One possible answer is that the shape of churchly life «on the ground» can be significantly altered. This pioneering study is both an account of the doctrine of the person of Christ as it has been expounded by the theologians of historic English and Welsh Nonconformity, and an attempt to show that while many Nonconformists held classical orthodox views of the doctrine between 1600 and 2000, others advocated alternative understandings of Christ's person; hence the evolution of the ecclesial landscape as we have come to know it. The traditions here under review are those of Old Dissent: the Congregationalists, Baptists, Presbyterians and their Unitarian heirs; and the Calvinistic and Arminian Methodist bodies that owe their origin to the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century.

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The arrival of three Sisters of St. Mary of Namur at the railroad station of Waco, Texas, on September 23, 1873, brought remarkable change to the state of education in the center and north of the state. Hoping «to do a little good» by living their faith and establishing Catholic schools, Mother Emilie, Sister Mary Angela, and Sister Stanislaus were somewhat appalled to learn that Waco boasted only twenty-five Catholic families, and among them were only six school-age children.
But Protestants too appreciated the education that was offered. Other sisters came, and in less than forty years Waco, Corsicana, Ennis, Denison, Sherman, Wichita Falls, Fort Worth, and Dallas boasted flourishing Catholic establishments. Boarding schools offered girls in rural areas as well as towns an opportunity for education.
Who were those sisters? Where did they come from, what did they find, and why did they stay? That story, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, always challenging, is the subject of this book.

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Thoughtful Christians are legitimately perplexed by a number of issues relating to the church's belief and practice. They are perplexed partly because they recognize that the issues themselves are thorny, and partly because they are not sure how to test the mutually inconsistent theories and explanations affirmed by diverse voices speaking with equal assurance.
Most Christians find relatively little occasion or encouragement to address their perplexities with intellectual candor and integrity. If they dare to acknowledge their theological perplexities at all, they are too often told that these perplexities are unimportant, or that they can be answered very simply, or that they should be left to the experts.
Guide for the Christian Perplexed, written by members of the faculty of Wycliffe College, Toronto, aims to explore a diversity of issues and questions to do with
oour knowledge of Jesus othe meaning of suffering othe function of doctrine othe understanding of Scripture othe place of other religions othe challenge of atheism othe pleasures and complications of sexuality othe nature of worship othe way to evangelize ounderstanding who our neighbor is locally and globally odiversities of spirituality Here you will find thoughtful reflections and answers to the questions around these issues. A study guide is included for individual and group use.

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By Bartholomew's Day, 24 August, 1662, all ministers and schoolmasters in England and Wales were required by the Act of Uniformity to have given their «unfeigned assent and consent» to the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. On theological grounds nearly two thousand ministers–approximately one fifth of the clergy of the Church of England–refused to comply and thereby forfeited their livings.
This book has been written to commemorate the 350th Anniversary of the Great Ejectment. In Part One three early modern historians provide accounts of the antecedents and aftermath of the ejectment in England and Wales, while in Part Two the case is advanced that the negative responses of the ejected ministers to the legal requirements of the Act of Uniformity were rooted in positive doctrinal convictions that are of continuing ecumenical significance.

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