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Christianity is in crisis. We live in a time when millions of people profoundly misunderstand the message of the Gospel. They believe that being a Christian means little more than being a nice person. They view Jesus as a wise moral teacher who showed us how to live better lives, and they conclude that the love of humanity is our greatest cause and its progress our primary purpose. Whatever else may be said of this view of Christianity, it is certainly not what Jesus taught. It is an attempt to replace the concepts of sin, redemption, and salvation with the more socially acceptable virtues of tolerance, compassion, and social progress. It elevates humanity and the world above God and his kingdom and reduces Jesus to a mere moral philosopher. But who did Jesus say he was? What was the essential message of Christ? The Gospel According to Christ answers those questions by examining the words of Jesus, in their context and in their entirety. The answers will be shocking to many Christians.

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In The Dead Sea Scrolls for a New Millennium, Phillip R. Callaway presents the most comprehensive survey of the Dead Sea Scrolls since the final publication of the cave 4 fragments. The chapters on editing the Scrolls, on the caves, on the scrolls, and on Khirbet Qumran present the evidence without getting bogged down in older controversies. Callaway discusses the so-called yahad ostracon, as well as a fascinating writing exercise, and the supposed Dead Sea Scroll on stone.
Those who desire to know more about the Bible among the Scrolls are offered brief comments on over one hundred readings from Qumran's biblical manuscripts and other biblical texts. In the chapter on the pseudepigrapha and apocrypha, Callaway emphasizes the rich literary production of the mid- to late Second Temple period, with sections on Enoch, Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, a Genesis commentary, the Reworked Pentateuch, targums on Leviticus and Job, the Temple Scroll, the New Jerusalem, an Apocryphon of Joshua, the psalms, various works of wisdom, Tobit, Ben Sira, the Epistle of Jeremiah, and the Greek fragments from cave 7. The chapter on the Community Scrolls deals with the Damascus Document, the Rule of the Community and its appendages, a Hybrid Rule, the Rule of War, the Thanksgiving Hymns, Florilegium, Testimonia, Melchizedek, the pesher commentaries on Habakkuk, Nahum, and Psalm 37, Ordinances, Calendar texts, Some Works of the Law, the Angelic Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, and the phylacteries.
In terms of the Scrolls and Jewish history, Callaway discusses the text called Praise for Jerusalem and King Jonathan, the Copper Scroll, the documentary texts (which may or may not be from Qumran), the history of the Qumran community, and some similarities to early Christian thought and language. In addition to clarifying discussions of all the works mentioned above, the author hopes that The Dead Sea Scrolls for a New Millennium will help readers understand the Scrolls not as the product of a radical, separatist community, but rather as the literary heritage of many of the greatest Jewish minds that lived in the Second Temple period.

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The Christian Bible is fundamentally a story. Writers, painters, sculptors, artists, and indeed, people of all walks of life live by the telling of their stories. Stories are the most basic mode of human communication. Thus it is vital to ask why Christians and above all Christian theologians so often fail to express their faith in terms of story. The vast majority of the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, consist of stories. Jesus proclaimed and taught about the Reign of God through stories and parables. At the heart of the Christian faith are stories, not concepts, propositions, or ideas.
Given the deep rootedness of the Christian faith in storytelling, this book seeks to address the fact that Christian theology has too often taken the form of concepts, ideas, and systems. This book is an attempt to speak of Christian faith and theology in stories rather than systems. Through stories, both biblical and non-biblical, this book shows how we might reimagine the task of Christian theology in the life of faith today. At its heart is the conviction that in the beginning there were stories and that, in the end and indeed, beyond the end, are stories, not texts, ideas, and concepts.

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Weaving together insights from social psychology, theology, and experiences of interfaith religious leaders, Dagmar Grefe develops practical strategies that support interreligious contact at a grassroots level. She shows that by working together, religious communities can more effectively address global and local problems that all people face: poverty, environmental destruction, and armed conflict. Grefe describes interreligious cooperation at work in local communities. She develops tools that equip religious leaders with the interreligious competence needed for spiritual care and counseling with individual persons in crisis. Cooperation is not only effective in the care for communities and persons in crisis, it also heals distant and strained interreligious relationships. In the process of working together, perceptions of each other can transform.

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In an era of religious mass production, so many church models invest their energies toward gathering a crowd, singing songs, and preaching good sermons. Much of the focus is on the shop window. While this is important, it is not enough. Doing church is not enough. Churches that grow disciples don't simply attract a crowd, they provide a strategic theological basis for what they do, and that requires serious thinking about the methodology of church life.
The Last Disciple is a book for those interested, not simply in doing church, but in asking hard questions about why we do what we do. Answers to these hard questions are the very basis of the foundation of the local church's existence. Rather than simply attracting a crowd, have you evaluated why your church does church? Have you ever felt that your church tradition has lost the meaning behind its existence? What would it look like if you recaptured your church's meaning? Is it possible to do this while bridging the relevancy gap of common culture? There will be different answers for different contexts, but this book will give you tools for thinking it through by asking the right questions.

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Cultural changes and social conditions today give evidence of a growing disregard of traditional authority and an increasing distrust of institutions. Relations between pastor and people are changing. In many situations, the practice of top-down leadership appears no longer to be effective. Members Are Ministers identifies the positive change necessary to achieve greater unity and to reduce conflict within the church. This book promotes an approach that generates a greater sense of community, enables a clearer corporate and personal witness to the faith, and reduces the social distances between pastors and people. Above all, it recognizes the Word as crucial for effecting change in our emerging new culture.
Paul Goetting works from a biblical base that shapes the Christian ministry of all people through their various vocations, and equips them for a clearer witness to the Christian faith and to issues of injustice. The family, the workplace, the political arena, and the church are seen as the primary contexts for authentic servant ministry of both clergy and laity.

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We achieve immortality by living. Every minute of our lives, every thought of our minds, and each action we perform no matter how insignificant are recorded immemorial. We are living entities and the story of our lives can never be taken away. The most significant feature of this book is how it captures our innermost sensitivity to life. A Pen Named Man: Our Purpose appeals to anyone who has ever wondered about his or her purpose in life. This book describes the underlying nature of reality, meaning to life, and value of the human experience on Earth. The book tells us what God is made of. The essence of Existence is described as consisting of three constituents, i.e., the domain, substance, and quality of being. Reality is examined from a top-down approach with the Animate Form of Life identified along with its major component, the universe of galaxies, stars, and planets. Every organism has a role to play in the story of animate life. Throughout the book, the human species is examined relative to the subject matter under review. That is, man's relationships to God, the universe, the world, and other species of life are evaluated. This book tells us why we are here. The importance of the human experience is emphasized with man identified as God's representative on Earth and assigned the role of gardener and governor of Nature.

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The Heterodox Yoder provides a critical rereading of Yoder's corpus through his own conviction that discipleship is, most basically, ethics. Tracing the development of Yoder's theological foundations through to their final role in redefining Jewish-Christian and ecumenical relations, this volume explains why the appropriation and use of the language of politics eventually constrains Yoder's ethical vision to the point that it reframes Christianity within the limits of social ethics alone. Because this vision self-consciously excludes or, at best, relativizes many of the claims of orthodox Christianity (including but not limited to the ecumenical creeds), Martens concludes that Yoder's Christian ethic is best described as heterodox.

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Eden's Bridge: The Marketplace in Creation and Mission explores a biblically based theology of the marketplace implicit in the creation narrative of Genesis 1-2. The thesis validates the calling and ministry of all marketplace Christians. David Doty invites readers to rethink and redirect the purposes of vocation, trade, and profit toward the purposes of God's Kingdom, as they were revealed in the beginning and are to be restored in Christ's reign. This book is eye-opening and inviting as it explores how God is moving to reclaim the marketplace for His Kingdom, and His redeeming purposes for the world of commerce. The marketplace holds untold potential if business is conducted according to God's plan: poverty can be eradicated, abundant living can be shared among all people, and shalom can prevail. Eden's Bridge offers hope for recovering from the recent collapse of the global economic system by envisioning a new view of how wealth is made and how the marketplace is yet to serve God's purposes in His mission to the world.

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Globalization and urbanization are twin forces that are powerfully shaping economics, politics, and religion in the world today. Traditional anthropological theories are inadequate to recognize and analyze trends such as global migration, diasporas, and transnationalism. New departures in anthropology and the social sciences seeking to address these and other phenomena can help us critique and reshape the theology and practice of Christian mission.
Today most societies are no longer monocultural. In such multicultural contexts any given individual may be competent in several cultures, several languages, several social networks. What does it mean to be in mission with people on the move–people who present themselves in one social identity, language, and culture within a particular setting, and then in another setting, even on the very same day, present themselves in another social identity, language, and culture? In the face of widespread, rapid movement of peoples and their increasingly fluid and multifaceted identities, will the missionary settle down somewhere or be itinerant along with the people? How are perplexing new questions in particular contexts to be addressed, such as: In what ways is the Nigerian who is founding an AIC congregation near Houston a missionary too? How will Brazilians and Koreans be trained for cross-cultural ministry?
The world is changing faster than missionaries can be retrained for service. And yet ethnographic tools are still crucial to missionary practice. This important work seeks to draw on recent developments in anthropology to bring valuable perspective and tools to bear on equipping missionaries for work amidst the rapid shifting and complex shaping of peoples by the forces of today's globalized world.