A Free Church in a Free State
A Free Church in a Free State

Author: Surya Harefa

Publisher: Langham Publishing

Published: 2023-06-30

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 183973888X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How does Christ call his people to engage the societies, cultures, and politics of the nations they call home? From prioritizing patriotism over faith to withdrawing from the public sphere entirely, the struggle to navigate the intersection of an earthly and heavenly kingdom remains an ongoing challenge for Christians around the world. Bridging cultures and time periods, Dr. Surya Harefa brings Abraham’s Kuyper’s ecclesiology to bear on questions of Japanese Christian engagement within the political sphere. Harefa offers a contextually robust exploration of evangelical Japanese approaches to ecclesiology and political involvement. Taking care to place Kuyper’s conception of the church within Kuyper’s own political and historical context, careful lines of application are drawn between Kuyper’s theological perspectives and the need for an active Japanese church engaged in all spheres of life. This book is an excellent resource for those seeking to equip Christians to engage politically as followers of Christ for the good of the church and their nations. It also provides an example of the rich and powerful insight offered by exploring Western and non-Western theologies within their diverse contexts and in conversation with each other.

Free Churches and the Body of Christ
Free Churches and the Body of Christ

Author: Jeffrey W. Cary

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2012-11-05

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1610976371

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Those within the free church tradition have often appealed to the notion of the invisible church to account for the unity of the Body of Christ. A growing number of free church theologians, however, are giving increased attention to the importance of visible ecclesial unity, which immediately raises the perennial problem of the authorities by which unity is maintained. There is also a growing recognition among free church theologians of the need to recognize the authority of tradition in tandem with the authority of Scripture. In this book, Cary affirms these recent developments but then inquires whether a turn toward visible unity, together with an embrace of the authority of tradition, can eventually be coherent without also embracing the authority of an extra-congregational teaching office. To guide his study, Cary engages the work of two theologians from outside the free church tradition: Robert Jenson and Rowan Williams. He then brings them into contact with the prominent free church theologian James McClendon in order to supplement some of the deficiencies Cary perceives in McClendon's groundbreaking work. Once these deficiencies are addressed, however, the question intensifies whether the free church tradition, as such, can remain a coherent ecclesial option over time.

Ordained Ministry in Free Church Perspective
Ordained Ministry in Free Church Perspective

Author: Jan Martijn Abrahamse

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-10-12

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 9004440720

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Ordained Ministry in Free Church Perspective Jan Martijn Abrahamse offers a methodologically innovative way to understand ordained ministry in terms of covenantal theology by returning to the life and thought of the English Separatist Robert Browne (c. 1550-1633).

An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church
An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church

Author: Robert Boak Slocum

Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 591

ISBN-13: 0898697018

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A comprehensive, quick reference for all Episcopalians, both lay and ordained. This thoroughly researched, highly readable resource contains more than 3,000 clearly entries about the history, structure, liturgy, and theology of the Episcopal Church—and the larger Christian church worldwide. The editors have also provided a helpful bibliography of key reference works and additional background materials. “This tool belongs on the shelf of just about anyone who cares for, works in or with, or even wonders about the Episcopal Church.”—The Episcopal New Yorker

Fountain of Salvation
Fountain of Salvation

Author: Fred Sanders

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2021-09-02

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1467462608

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A trinitarian exposition of Christian soteriology The relation of God and salvation is not primarily a problem to be solved. Rather, it is the blazing core of Christian doctrine, where the triune nature of God and the truth of the gospel come together. Accordingly, a healthy Christian theology must confess the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of salvation as closely related, mutually illuminating, and strictly ordered. When the two doctrines are left unconnected, both suffer. The doctrine of the Trinity begins to seem altogether irrelevant to salvation history and Christian experience, while soteriology meanwhile becomes naturalized, losing its transcendent reference. If they are connected too tightly, on the other hand, human salvation seems inherent to the divine reality itself. Deftly navigating this tension, Fountain of Salvation relates them by expounding the doctrine of eternal processions and temporal missions, ultimately showing how they inherently belong together. The theological vision expounded here by Fred Sanders is one in which the holy Trinity is the source of salvation in a direct and personal way, as the Father sends the Son and the Holy Spirit to enact an economy of revelation and redemption. Individual chapters show how this vision informs the doctrines of atonement, ecclesiology, Christology, and pneumatology—all while directly engaging with major modern interpreters of the doctrine of the Trinity. As Sanders affirms throughout this in-depth theological treatise, the triune God is the fountain from which all other doctrine flows—and no understanding of salvation is complete that does not begin there.