In the sixteenth century, the church faced a doctrinal crisis. Today, the crisis is race. We all know that racial unity is important. But what’s the right way to approach it? How can Christians of different ethnicities pursue unity in an environment that is so highly charged and full of landmines on all sides? In The New Reformation, Christian hip-hop artist Shai Linne shows how the gospel applies to the pursuit of ethnic unity. When it comes to ethnicity, Christians today have to fight against two tendencies: idolatry and apathy. Idolatry makes ethnicity ultimate, while apathy tends to ignore it altogether. But there is a third way, the way of the Bible. Shai explains how ethnicity—the biblical word for what we mean by “race”—exists for God’s glory. Drawing from his experience as an artist-theologian, church planter, and pastor, Shai will help you chart a new way forward in addressing the critical question of what it means for people of all ethnicities to be the one people of God.
Theology and historiography often see the future as a realm open to new experiences and unexpected events. Yet for classical physics, the future was the result of the universe’s predictable development. Given enough information about current states, we could use the laws of nature to uncover the universe’s future. Modern space-time theory, with its picture of an invariant four-dimensional universe, only makes this problem more acute. Room for radically novel events, for miracles and new hope seems to have disappeared. It is this hope for something new that the German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg seeks to preserve in his controversial work on time. To defend God’s supernatural freedoms and to escape natural determinism, Pannenberg invokes a medieval understanding of the unsurpassable and absolute power of God, using God’s potentia absoluta to reverse time’s flow and express absolute authority over creation’s progress. Time and all its contents are utterly subjected under the free will of a divine “all-determining reality”. But is this tenable for modern understandings of God and the universe? Or does it lead to theological difficulties and promote an arms race between the laws of nature and the rule of God? In this volume, Stephen Lakkis offers an analysis and critique of Pannenberg’s approach and suggests a different way forward.
Christians cannot remain indifferent to the divisions in the Church today. In this study guide companion, Chan draws on the gospel infused message of Until Unity to remind readers that Church unity is not optional. This study guide includes: Deeper exploration of every chapter in Until Unity Free original videos with Francis Chan Tips for leading and participating in a small group Scripture passages and reflection questions Prompts for group and individual prayer Chan’s emphasis on worship and praise, along with his passionate teaching, make this guide a unique and life-changing exploration of why unity is not just God’s wish for His Church—it’s His command.
For years Christians have been asking, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" It turns out that many believers have been giving the wrong answer. It is not heaven. Award-winning author N. T. Wright outlines the present confusion about a Christian's future hope and shows how it is deeply intertwined with how we live today. Wright, who is one of today's premier Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity's most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection. He provides a magisterial defense for a literal resurrection of Jesus and shows how this became the cornerstone for the Christian community's hope in the bodily resurrection of all people at the end of the age. Wright then explores our expectation of "new heavens and a new earth," revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will happen with the "second coming" of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise. Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation—and if this has already begun in Jesus's resurrection—the church cannot stop at "saving souls" but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God's kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life. Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life, not only after death but before it.
Excerpt from New Hope for Human Unity This book was written mainly in August and the first week of September, 1943. Events in October and early November, especially the Moscow Conference and the Connally Resolution in the United States Senate, put any subsequent discussion of isolationism as a basis for international policy quite out of court. International commitments caught up so rapidly with the reasoning of the internationalists that their en thusiasms began to seem beside the point. Some pas sages ih the present text may thus appear outdated. Although it was possible to revise a few of the orig inal statements which gave to the argument the ring of punishment administered to a straw man, there was no time to exclude all references to the isolation ist point of View. Nor did this seem desirable. This discussion refers to isolationist ideas and attitudes once widely prevalent among citizens of the United States 5 and isolationist thinking of some sort still per sists among large sections of our population. It is cer tain to reappear in many noxious and obstructive forms at crucial points. Furthermore, the isolationistpoint of view is so natural that there is a continuing problem for education in meeting it. Since these pages are addressed primarily to American teachers, it is fair to ask those who read the book to dismiss the few contemporary references which may now appear irrelevant and to fix their attention on the permanent issues with which the book attempts to deal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "A dazzling journey across the sciences and humanities in search of deep laws to unite them." —The Wall Street Journal One of our greatest scientists—and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for On Human Nature and The Ants—gives us a work of visionary importance that may be the crowning achievement of his career. In Consilience (a word that originally meant "jumping together"), Edward O. Wilson renews the Enlightenment's search for a unified theory of knowledge in disciplines that range from physics to biology, the social sciences and the humanities. Using the natural sciences as his model, Wilson forges dramatic links between fields. He explores the chemistry of the mind and the genetic bases of culture. He postulates the biological principles underlying works of art from cave-drawings to Lolita. Presenting the latest findings in prose of wonderful clarity and oratorical eloquence, and synthesizing it into a dazzling whole, Consilience is science in the path-clearing traditions of Newton, Einstein, and Richard Feynman.
