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Like most Protestant denominations, the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) was founded upon ideas that shaped its vision and ethos throughout its history. Also like most denominations, over time the influence of these ideas on the movement tends to diminish. Denominations, like any organization, have to consistently revisit their original vision in order to remain vitally sustained by those things that gave it a reason for existing in the first place. This book addresses six key ideas that have shaped the Christian and Missionary Alliance throughout its history: Jesus as our savior, sanctifier, healer, and coming king, which are known as the «fourfold gospel,» as well as the concepts of «Jesus only» and world mission. These ideas are at the heart of the C&MA identity. However, there has long been a sense within C&MA circles that these core ideas are not always given the kind of attention that they deserve so that they can dynamically shape the movement as it faces the challenges of being the church in the twenty-first century. This volume is a resource for Alliance churches that will help them re-engage with the central tenets of Alliance theology and spirituality in a way that will ultimately inspire greater passion for the cause of Christ in the world as it is uniquely expressed through the movement known as the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

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Virtue theory has become an important development in Christian ethics. Efforts are made in this volume to bring pastoral theology into conversation with these developments. This book probes the philosophical theology of Jonathan Edwards, who proposed that virtue is a form of beauty defined as «consent to being.» This leads to the notion of compassion as ontological consent. Since language is the vehicle by which our experiences are conveyed, the book probes the issue of how moral vision is expressed in «experience-near» language through parable, poem, and lament. Moral vision is articulated most adequately through such language, and finding it is a kind of quest.
The last chapter is a proposal for a mature pastoral theology of virtue as an expansion of Edwards's concept of «consent to being» from the vantage point of pastoral theology. A dynamic vision of virtue requires some connection between the experience of suffering and the inward striving toward the greatest good. The essence of virtue can be best understood, from a pastoral theological perspective, as the relational dynamic of «suffering with» another human being.

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Tom Dow asserts that Job does not go through his trials to somehow improve him. He is being tried by Satan, who seeks to break Job's and God's trust in one another. When that trust survives the worst that Satan and insensitive friends can do, both Job and God are vindicated. When Storms Come shows how the book of Job can be related to New Testament teaching, and how it can be a great help to people experiencing suffering and stress. It also serves as a resource for people ministering to those going through the storms of life.

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