Confronting the Controversies is a 7-session group study of "tough issues" based on Adam Hamilton's sermons on these topics. The study is designed as a "fishing expedition," with tools and helps that will enable congregations to make the study a church and community wide outreach event, including sermon starters and promotion aids. The seven sessions are: The Separation of Church and State Creation and Evolution in the Public Schools The Death Penalty Euthanasia Prayer in Public Schools Abortion Homosexuality The Leader's Guide gives tips on setting up and facilitating a group, getting the most out of each session, and coordinating with church-wide activities. Includes reproducible worksheets, brief summaries of session content, discussion questions, and activities.
For many people, skeptics and believers alike, the Old Testament is rife with controversial passages and events that make both belief and sharing our beliefs with others difficult. Often our solutions have tended toward the extremes--ignore problem passages and pretend they don't matter or obsess over them and treat them as though they are the only thing that matters. Now with clarity of purpose and fidelity to the message and spirit of Scripture as a whole, Tremper Longman confronts pressing questions of concern to modern audiences, particularly young people in the church: - the creation/evolution debate - God-ordained violence - the historicity of people, places, and events - human sexuality Pastors, leaders in the church, and thoughtful and troubled Christians in the pews will find here a well-reasoned and faithful approach to dealing with the Old Testament passages so many find challenging or disconcerting.
How clear are your windows? How biblical is your worldview? Discover Your Windows analyzes how you think about your involvement in the church. The way you see your world drives your behavior. In this dynamic book, Church Doctor Kent Hunter explores ten worldviews (windows) that greatly affect your life and your church. Based on research of over 18,000 church members, Hunter reveals that most tensions in churches are focused on symptoms rather than the issues that lie behind them--conflicting worldviews.
Is the 'Full Gospel Baptist Church' truly Baptist, or is it Pentecostalism in disguise? Is the growing trend towards women serving as preachers and pastors biblical? Is the 'mega-church mania' that is sweeping the country doctrinally sound? Dr. Burwell not only addresses these issues, but he also issues a stinging indictment against the leadership of the National Baptist Conventions for their failure to develop and adopt doctrinal stances on these and other controversies. Falling prey, he says, to the fear of another convention split, the leadership has chosen to hide behind the veil of autonomy, sacrificing doctrine on the altar of dollars. As such, the National Baptist church has lost its identity and its distinctiveness. In a call for doctrinal integrity, Sho Nuff offers a biblical examination of more than a dozen major and minor controversies from a uniquely National Baptist perspective. Dr. Bill Burwell is a former Black nationalist who was converted to Christianity in 1978, after serving as co-founder, professor, and chairman of the Afro-American Studies department at California State University, Northridge for ten years. Leaving his pursuit of the PhD degree at the University of Southern California, and resigning his tenured position at the university in 1981, Dr. Burwell became a full-time seminarian pursuing the Master of Divinity Degree at Talbot Theological Seminary in La Mirada California, where after assisting in the development of a Minority Ministers Program; he briefly joined the faculty teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate level. After organizing and serving as Pastor-Teacher of the First Berean Christian Church in Los Angeles for eight years, Dr. Burwell left the pastorate and embarked upon the unique ministry of a full-time teaching evangelist. In addition to serving as a commentary writer for the NBC, USA Sunday School Publishing Board, he was a regular lecturer for more than six years at the National Conference of Christian educators held each December at the World Baptist Center in Nashville, TN. Over the past seventeen years he, with his faithful wife Kathy at his side, has traveled more than a million miles in the USA, the Virgin Islands, and Germany serving as Christian education consultant and lecturer to dozens of local Baptist district associations, state and national conventions. He and his wife Kathy currently reside in Palm Springs, California where they play active roles in the lives of their eight children and thirteen grandchildren.
Although many people suggest that Christianity is declining, research indicates that it continues to be the world's most popular worldview. But even so, the Christian faith includes many controversial beliefs that non-Christians find hard to accept. This book explores 12 issues that might cause someone to dismiss orthodox Christianity—issues such as the existence of suffering, the Bible's teaching on gender and sexuality, the reality of heaven and hell, the authority of the Bible, and more. Showing how the best research from sociology, science, and psychology doesn't disagree with but actually aligns with claims found in the Bible, these chapters help skeptics understand why these issues are signposts, rather than roadblocks, to faith in Christ.
The book draws together, in one source, divergent perspectives on critical issues or questions confronting the field of special education. Each issue is addressed in a pro/con format. Each contributing author was requested to outline his/her position on a particular issue and to provide the strongest supporting arguments and evidence available.
Providing a comprehensive review of pressing issues roiling American college campuses today, this book is a valuable resource for students and scholars alike. People often refer to America's colleges and universities as "Ivory Towers," a term that implies that campuses are innocent places of study largely insulated from wider societal concerns. In actuality, our nation's universities are hotbeds of controversy. Some of these sources of heated debate relate directly to access to the college experience, such as the rising cost of tuition and admission policies related to student diversity. Others reflect wider societal schisms, such as divisions over sexual assault (both causes and responses) and "political correctness." Controversies on Campus: Debating the Issues Confronting American Universities in the 21st Century examines the myriad controversies regarding today's college campuses and student bodies, such as tuition costs, campus rape, academic freedom/free speech, gun policies, binge drinking, "hook-up" culture, corporatization of academic research, poverty-level wages of adjunct faculty, and student-athletes in the era of big-money amateur sports. The book objectively examines these issues and others, taking care to not only present up-to-date quantifiable data to help readers understand the controversy but also to provide a fair and impartial summary of perspectives on the issue in question. It is a one-stop resource for learning about a wide range of issues and controversies confronting American colleges and universities and the people--students, professors, and administrators--who comprise those communities.
'Biopiracy' refers either to the unauthorised extraction of biological resources, such as plants with medicinal properties, and associated traditional knowledge from indigenous peoples and local communities, or to the patenting of spurious 'inventions' based on such knowledge or resources without compensation. Biopiracy cases continue to emerge in the media and public eye, yet they remain the source of considerable disagreement, confusion, controversy and grief. The aim of this book is to provide the most detailed, coherent analysis of the issue of biopiracy to date. The book synthesises the rise of the issue and increasing use of the term by activists and negotiators in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to form a critical understanding of the themes, implications and politics of biopiracy. Taking a case-study based approach, derived from interviews and fieldwork with researchers, government, industry, local farmers, healers and indigenous people, the author sequentially documents events that have occurred in biopiracy and bioprospecting controversies. Implications and ethical dilemmas are explored, particularly relating to work with local communities, and the power relations entailed. Detailing international debates from the WTO, CBD and other fora in an accessible manner, the book provides a unique overview of current institutional limitations and suggests ways forward. Options and solutions are suggested which are relevant for local communities, national governments, international negotiators, NGO and interest groups, researchers and industry.
This book provides a long-overdue account of online technology and its impact on the work and lifestyles of professional employees. It moves between the offices and homes of workers in the knew "knowledge" economy to provide intimate insight into the personal, family, and wider social tensions emerging in today’s rapidly changing work environment. Drawing on her extensive research, Gregg shows that new media technologies encourage and exacerbate an older tendency among salaried professionals to put work at the heart of daily concerns, often at the expense of other sources of intimacy and fulfillment. New media technologies from mobile phones to laptops and tablet computers, have been marketed as devices that give us the freedom to work where we want, when we want, but little attention has been paid to the consequences of this shift, which has seen work move out of the office and into cafés, trains, living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms. This professional "presence bleed" leads to work concerns impinging on the personal lives of employees in new and unforseen ways. This groundbreaking book explores how aspiring and established professionals each try to cope with the unprecedented intimacy of technologically-mediated work, and how its seductions seem poised to triumph over the few remaining relationships that may stand in its way.
