LITMIR.BIZ

This book is a collection of short reflections on mentoring and discipleship in honor of Scott M. Gibson. Gibson says: «The missing ingredient in the Church today is discipleship.» This book casts a vision for all believers for what mentoring and discipleship can look like in the local church, in Bible colleges and seminaries, and in Christian friendships. We hope that you will be inspired by Scott M. Gibson's example to be selfless and intentional about mentoring and discipling others. Gibson desires to see a multiplying effect of true mentorship and discipleship rippling across congregations in North America and around the globe. He has spent his life prioritizing discipleship because he wants to look more and more like his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and he wants the same for others. Read this book and be moved to serve as a mentor and to make disciples.

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Promise has a long pedigree in the history of Christian understandings of the gospel. This volume gathers together leading homileticians to consider the breadth of its understanding today in light of the struggle to reconcile God's grace with God's justice. Assuming that promise is a core sense of the gospel, how does this relate to the variety of contexts in which homiletical theology is done? In this final volume in the series, six homileticians from a variety of contexts and perspectives try to move specifically toward a homiletical theology of promise as a way to articulate the central theological gift and task that is preaching the gospel today.

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Most academics agree with Peter Berger that pluralism theory appears more accurate than secularization theory in accounting for the societal changes that accompany modernization. Yet Berger's earlier book Many Altars of Modernity gives limited attention to the implications of the pluralist paradigm for religious discourse, in particular for evangelicals. According to Berger–who wrote the first chapter in this book–while pluralism leads to less certainty about faith and creates «secular spaces,» it also, more positively, clarifies the importance of trust in God, highlights the nature of religious institutions as voluntary associations rather than birth rights, and challenges Christians to know what they believe in. Subsequent chapters respond to the first. Four responses are theoretical (e.g., challenging the concept of secular spaces, exploring social constructionism) and four are contextual (e.g., describing anti-pluralist forces in India, challenging feminists to pluralism, examining women's responses to pluralism, and exploring values in Brazil and China). The ideas are easily accessible to the lay reader and are intended to initiate a much-needed conversation about the implications of pluralist theory. We conclude that pluralism is challenging for Christian faith but, as Peter Berger says, in most ways it is «good for you.»

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Medical imaging technologies can help diagnose and monitor patients' diseases, but they do not capture the lived experience of illness. In this volume, Devan Stahl shares her story of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis with the aid of magnetic resonance images (MRIs). Although clinically useful, Stahl did not want these images to be the primary way she or anyone else understood her disease or what it is like to live with MS. With the help of her printmaker sister, Darian Goldin Stahl, they were able to reframe these images into works of art. The result is an altogether different image of the ill body. Now, the Stahls open up their project to four additional scholars to help shed light on the meaning of illness and the impact medical imaging can have on our cultural imagination. Using their insights from the medical humanities, literature, visual culture, philosophy, and theology, the scholars in this volume advance the discourse of the ill body, adding interpretations and insights from their disciplinary fields.

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In every church–in every pew, it sometimes seems–there is someone who has been deeply hurt in the Catholic Church. And yet these people find themselves coming to church, wondering if anybody else can understand their experiences, their questions, and their needs. This book brings together twelve authors who describe the pain they've experienced in Catholic institutions–and the pathways they've found to healing and renewed faith. In poetry, memoir, pastoral guidance, and practical advice, these authors explore issues ranging from racism to sexual abuse to gossip and judgment. They share the prayers and practices which have helped them come to know the God Who is Love. They offer support and encouragement to all those for whom the church has been a place of harm as well as holiness.

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The Word of God as it has been received by the church has embedded in it dozens of songs. Each of these songs has a story to tell us about God and God's people. In brief meditations, twelve faculty at Wycliffe College explore Songs of Scripture in this volume to answer the questions «Why do Scriptures tell us to sing? What are we to sing? What does singing make of us?» Each of these meditations will give you a new appreciation for God's gift of songs. By singing the words of Scripture, we tune our hearts to God's song.

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California matters, both as a place and as an idea. What famed historian Kevin Starr has called «the California Dream» is a vital part of American self-understanding. Just as America was meant to be a place of renewal, even redemption, for Europe, so too California was intended as a place of renewal for America. Therefore, California–place and idea–provides a fertile ground for scholars to think deeply about what it means to articulate «the promise of American life.» This book follows in the train of George Marsden's classic The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship–believing that people of faith have a contribution to make to scholarship–and of Jay Green's more recent book, Christian Historiography: Five Rival Views–believing that scholars of faith should engage in moral inquiry. In this book, eight authors inquire into the moral questions that emerge from studying California.

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Every generation has sought to make teaching and learning more inclusive and equitable, but pesky questions always remain, such as, how can teaching and learning be conducted in ways that satisfies and respects everyone? What are the parameters of an inclusive pedagogy? Who defines its principles? How should these principles be taught and by whom? And by what authority shall they be grounded? These types of thorny questions occupy the essence of educators and the authors of this book. This book is about teachers, educators, and topics related to inclusion. Teachers and educators have a lot to know, therefore the topics are broad and relevant to the times. What should teachers know about special needs, religion and spirituality, Aboriginality, the environment, tolerance, and school choice? Although teachers have knowledge of their subject matter, knowledge alone is not sufficient. They must know and understand how people learn. A teacher must also care deeply about who they teach. And this «teacher knowledge» grows and changes over time as teachers become more experienced, informed, skilled, and wiser. At the same time no teacher preparation will be sufficient because there will always be discussions that were never had and knowledge that was never shared. Time has its costs and there is only so much a formal education can prepare someone. This book helps to satisfy a cavity in learning for teachers and educators in general.

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In 1517, Martin Luther set off what has been called, at least since the nineteenth century, the Protestant Reformation. Can Christians of differing traditions commemorate the upcoming 500th anniversary of this event together? How do we understand and assess the Reformation today? What calls for celebration? What calls for repentance? Can the Reformation anniversary be an occasion for greater mutual understanding among Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants? At the 2015 Pro Ecclesia annual conference for clergy and laity, meeting at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, an array of scholars–Catholic and Orthodox, Evangelical Lutheran and American Evangelical as well as Methodist–addressed this topic. The aim of this book is not only to collect these diverse Catholic and Evangelical perspectives but also to provide resources for all Christians, including pastors and scholars, to think and argue about the roads we have taken since 1517–as we also learn to pray with Jesus Christ «that all may be one» (John 17:21).

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Throughout history, Christians have found the summary of their faith in the three ancient creeds. The God We Proclaim explores that faith as it is found in the shortest of them: the Apostles' Creed. The contributors are among Britain's foremost Christian communicators and teachers. Written with an infectious enthusiasm for theology, The God We Proclaim is ideal for anyone seeking to understand the Christian faith, either individually, or in a church or student study group. It is based on a set of sermons delivered in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, which surveyed the foundations of Christianity. Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) wrote in her essay «The Dogma is the Drama» that people assume that if churches are empty it is because preachers «insist too much upon doctrine,» or «dull dogma» as they disapprovingly call it. Sayers knew that the opposite is true. «It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man–and the dogma is the drama.»

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