Exploring Protestant Traditions

Exploring Protestant Traditions

Author: W. David Buschart

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2009-09-20

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 083087514X

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Protestant is shorthand for a spreading family tree of church and theological traditions. Each tradition embodies a historically shaped perspective on the beliefs, practices and priorities that make up a Christian community. Whether you are an insider to one tradition, a hybrid of two or three, or--as many Christians today--an outsider to all, Exploring Protestant Traditions is a richly informative field guide to eight prominent Protestant theological traditions: Lutheran, Anabaptist, Reformed, Anglican, Baptist, Wesleyan, Dispensational and Pentecostal. Clearly and evenhandedly, W. David Buschart traces the histories of each tradition, explains their interpretive approaches to Scripture and identifies their salient beliefs. As a result, you will gain a sense of what it is to believe and worship as a Reformed or Pentecostal Christian, who the traditions' heroes are and where the "theological accents" are placed. Charts displaying the denominational representatives of each tradition and bibliographies mapping the path for further explorations add to the value of this guide. This is a book that seeks to receive rather than evaluate, to listen and understand rather than judge or correct. His is a model of theological hospitality that encourages you to open your doors to the varied ways in which Protestantism has taken root in history and human society. Some things take time, like coming to know a religious tradition. But Exploring Protestant Traditions is an excellent place to start.


Protestant Worship

Protestant Worship

Author: James F. White

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 1989-01-01

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780664250379

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Provides an overview of Protestant worship and examines the origins, development, and present characteristics of nine different Protestant traditions


Exploring Church History

Exploring Church History

Author: Derek Cooper

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2014-12-15

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 1451489609

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Fortress Press’s Foundations for Learning series prepares students for academic success through compelling resources that kick-start their educational journey into professional Christian ministry. In Exploring Church History, Derek Cooper invites readers to consider the purpose and significance of church history in the lives of individuals and communities today. Rather than offering an exploration of bygone eras and outdated events, Cooper brings history to life by emphasizing how past events, individuals, and movements shape how we understand the world around us. Exploring Church History is divided into three convenient sections. While the first and second sections explain why and what we study in church history, the last section teaches readers how to study church history. The combined effect of the book is to present a clear and accessible introduction to the field of church history.


When God Comes to Town

When God Comes to Town

Author: Rik Pinxten

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 9781845455545

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Around 1800 roughly three per cent of the human population lived in urban areas; by 2030 this number is expected to have gone up to some seventy per cent. This poses problems for traditional religions that are all rooted in rural, small-scale societies. The authors in this volume question what the possible appeal of these old religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam could be in the new urban environment and, conversely, what impact global urbanization will have on learning and on the performance and nature of ritual. Anthropologists, historians and political scientists have come together in this volume to analyse attempts made by churches and informal groups to adapt to these changes and, at the same time, to explore new ways to study religions in a largely urbanized environment.


Scripture and Tradition (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology)

Scripture and Tradition (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology)

Author: Edith M. Humphrey

Publisher: Baker Books

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1441240489

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In some of the church's history, Scripture has been pitted against tradition and vice versa. Prominent New Testament scholar Edith Humphrey, who understands the issue from both Protestant and Catholic/Orthodox perspectives, revisits this perennial point of tension. She demonstrates that the Bible itself reveals the importance of tradition, exploring how the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles show Jesus and the apostles claiming the authority of tradition as God's Word, both written and spoken. Arguing that Scripture and tradition are not in opposition but are necessarily and inextricably intertwined, Humphrey defends tradition as God's gift to the church. She also works to dismantle rigid views of sola scriptura while holding a high view of Scripture's authority.


Theology as Retrieval

Theology as Retrieval

Author: W. David Buschart

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2015-04-15

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0830898166

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Buschart and Eilers identify six critical areas—Scripture, theology, worship, spirituality, mission and culture—where contemporary Christians are retrieving aspects of our Christian past for life and thought today. The result is a fascinating tour and wise reflection on how Christians might receive, employ and transmit the treasures of their past.


Pagan Christianity?

Pagan Christianity?

Author: Frank Viola

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Published: 2010-09-30

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1414341652

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Have you ever wondered why we Christians do what we do for church every Sunday morning? Why do we “dress up” for church? Why does the pastor preach a sermon each week? Why do we have pews, steeples, and choirs? This ground-breaking book, now in affordable softcover, makes an unsettling proposal: most of what Christians do in present-day churches is rooted, not in the New Testament, but in pagan culture and rituals developed long after the death of the apostles. Coauthors Frank Viola and George Barna support their thesis with compelling historical evidence and extensive footnotes that document the origins of modern Christian church practices. In the process, the authors uncover the problems that emerge when the church functions more like a business organization than the living organism it was created to be. As you reconsider Christ's revolutionary plan for his church—to be the head of a fully functioning body in which all believers play an active role—you'll be challenged to decide whether you can ever do church the same way again.


Practicing Protestants

Practicing Protestants

Author: Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2006-08-28

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0801889324

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This collection of essays explores the significance of practice in understanding American Protestant life. The authors are historians of American religion, practical theologians, and pastors and were the twelve principal researchers in a three-year collaborative project sponsored by the Lilly Endowment. Profiling practices that range from Puritan devotional writing to twentieth-century prayer, from missionary tactics to African American ritual performance, these essays provide a unique historical perspective on how Protestants have lived their faith within and outside of the church and how practice has formed their identities and beliefs. Each chapter focuses on a different practice within a particular social and cultural context. The essays explore transformations in American religious culture from Puritan to Evangelical and Enlightenment sensibilities in New England, issues of mission, nationalism, and American empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, devotional practices in the flux of modern intellectual predicaments, and the claims of late-twentieth-century liberal Protestant pluralism. Breaking new ground in ritual studies and cultural history, Practicing Protestants offers a distinctive history of American Protestant practice.


Loving Waters Across Religions

Loving Waters Across Religions

Author: McAnally, Elizabeth

Publisher: Orbis Books

Published: 2019-02-20

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 1608337707

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"McAnally presents an academically rigorous, spiritually rich approach to the myriad global issues related to water. The author draws from Christianity's sacramental consciousness of baptism, loving service of the Yamuna River in Hinduism, and the compassionate wisdom of the bodhisattva to develop 'an integral approach to water ethics.' Building on but distinct from the foundation laid by Christiana Zenner's Just Water, this book is a welcome addition to the growing field of concern surrounding global water crises"--


Educating People of Faith

Educating People of Faith

Author: John H. Van Engen

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 9780802849366

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A much-needed addition to the emerging literature on the formative power of religious practices, "Educating People of Faith" creates a vivid portrait of the lived practices that shaped the faith of Jews and Christians in synagogues and churches from antiquity up to the seventeenth century. This significant book is the work of Jewish, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant scholars who wished to discover and describe how Jews and Christians through history have been formed in religious ways of thinking and acting. Rather than focusing solely on either intellectual or social life, the authors all use the concept of practices as they attend to the embodied, contextual character of religious formation. Their studies of religious figures, community life, and traditional practices such as preaching, sacraments, and catechesis are colorful, detailed, and revealing. The authors are also careful to cover the nature of religious education across all social levels, from the textual formation of highly literate rabbis and monks engaged in Scripture study to the local formation of illiterate medieval Christians for whom the veneration of saints' shrines, street performances of religious dramas, and public preaching by wandering preachers were profoundly formative. "Educating People of Faith" will benefit scholars and teachers desiring a fuller perspective on how lived practices have historically formed people in religious faith. It will also be useful to practical theologians and pastors who wish to make the resources of the past available to practitioners in the present. Contributors: John C. Cavadini Anne L. Clark Lawrence S. Cunningham Joseph Goering RobertGoldenberg Stanley Samuel Harakas Robert M. Kingdon Blake Leyerle Michael A. Signer Philip M. Soergel David C. Steinmetz John Van Engen Lee Palmer Wandel Robert Louis Wilken Elliot R. Wolfson