Razing Hell
Razing Hell

Author: Sharon L. Baker

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0664236545

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Seventy percent of Americans believe in hell, as do 92 percent of those who attend church every week. In her candid and inviting style, Baker explores and ultimately refutes many traditional views of hell.

Rethinking Hell
Rethinking Hell

Author: Christopher M. Date

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2014-04-15

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1630871605

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Most evangelical Christians believe that those people who are not saved before they die will be punished in hell forever. But is this what the Bible truly teaches? Do Christians need to rethink their understanding of hell? In the late twentieth century, a growing number of evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers began to reject the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell in favor of a minority theological perspective called conditional immortality. This view contends that the unsaved are resurrected to face divine judgment, just as Christians have always believed, but due to the fact that immortality is only given to those who are in Christ, the unsaved do not exist forever in hell. Instead, they face the punishment of the "second death"--an end to their conscious existence. This volume brings together excerpts from a variety of well-respected evangelical thinkers, including John Stott, John Wenham, and E. Earl Ellis, as they articulate the biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for conditionalism. These readings will give thoughtful Christians strong evidence that there are indeed compelling reasons for rethinking hell.

Hell in a Nutshell
Hell in a Nutshell

Author: Charles Watson Sr.

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2016-10-04

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1498290043

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"Is a doctrine of everlasting punishment in hell consistent with God's perfect love and perfect justice? And what implications does this traditional doctrine carry for the nature of divine grace and mercy? In Hell in a Nutshell Charles Watson Sr. argues that we should not allow a received doctrine, such as the doctrine of hell, to determine our understanding of God's justice, love, and mercy; instead, we should allow a biblically informed understanding of these divine attributes to shape our understanding of every received doctrine, including the doctrine of hell."

What Happens When We Worship
What Happens When We Worship

Author: Jonathan Landry Cruse

Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books

Published: 2020-10-20

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1601788177

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Many churchgoers assume that worship is inherently boring, something we need to make exciting. But as Jonathan Landry Cruse shows, churchgoing only seems monotonous and mundane because our eyes are blinded to the supernatural wonder that is taking place all around us. In this book, Cruse helps us perceive the significance of worship and guides us through the spiritual actions of a worship service. Once you recognize how God is doing something to us and for us and through us in each element of the service, Lord’s Day worship will become the highlight of your week! Table of Contents: Foreword by Michael S. Horton Part 1: Introduction 1. What Happens When We Worship? Part 2: A Brief Theology of Worship 2. The Most Important Thing We Will Ever Do 3. We Are Being Shaped 4. We Meet with God 5. God Renews His Covenant 6. We Submit to God’s Agenda 7. We Commune with the Saints Part 3: The Parts of the Service 8. God Calls Us 9. The Verdict Is Pronounced 10. Jesus Gets Up to Preach 11. God Feasts with Us 12. We Get a New Name 13. We Sing a New Song Part 4: Conclusion 14. Extraordinarily ordinary Worship 15. Preparing for Worship

I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die
I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die

Author: Sarah J. Robinson

Publisher: WaterBrook

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0593193539

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A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

The Skeletons in God's Closet
The Skeletons in God's Closet

Author: Joshua Ryan Butler

Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM

Published: 2014-10-21

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 052910055X

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How can a loving God send people to hell? Isn’t it arrogant to believe Jesus is the only way to God? What is up with holy war in the Old Testament? Many of us fear God has some skeletons in the closet. Hell, judgment, and holy war are hot topics for the Christian faith that have a way of igniting fierce debate far and wide. These hard questions leave many wondering whether God is really good and can truly be trusted. The Skeletons in God's Closet confronts our popular caricatures of these difficult topics with the beauty and power of the real thing. Josh Butler reveals that these subjects are consistent with, rather than contradictory to, the goodness of God. He explores Scripture to reveal the plotlines that make sense of these tough topics in light of God’s goodness. From fresh angles, Josh deals powerfully with such difficult passages as: The Lake of Fire Lazarus and the Rich Man The Slaughter of Canaanites in the Old Testament Ultimately, The Skeletons in God's Close uses our toughest questions to provoke paradigm shifts in how we understand our faith as a whole. It pulls the “skeletons out of God’s closet” to reveal they were never really skeletons at all.

Dare We Hope - 2nd Edition
Dare We Hope - 2nd Edition

Author: Hans Urs von Balthasar

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2014-11-20

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 158617942X

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This book is perhaps one of the most misunderstood works of Catholic theology of our time. Critics contend that von Balthasar espouses universalism, the idea that all men will certainly be saved. Yet, as von Balthasar insists, damnation is a real possibility for anyone. Indeed, he explores the nature of damnation with sobering clarity. At the same time, he contends that a deep understanding of God’s merciful love and human freedom, and a careful reading of the Catholic tradition, point to the possibility—not the certainty—that, in the end, all men will accept the salvation Christ won for all. For this all-embracing salvation, von Balthasar says, we may dare hope, we must pray and with God’s help we must work. The Catholic Church’s teaching on hell has been generally neglected by theologians, with the notable exception of von Balthasar. He grounds his reflections clearly in Sacred Scripture and Catholic teaching. While the Church asserts that certain individuals are in heaven (the saints), she never declares a specific individual to be in hell. In fact, the Church hopes that in their final moments of life, even the greatest sinners would have repented of their terrible sins, and be saved. Sacred Scripture states, “God ... desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:4–5).

Cold-Case Christianity
Cold-Case Christianity

Author: J. Warner Wallace

Publisher: David C Cook

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1434705463

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Written by an L. A. County homicide detective and former atheist, Cold-Case Christianity examines the claims of the New Testament using the skills and strategies of a hard-to-convince criminal investigator. Christianity could be defined as a “cold case”: it makes a claim about an event from the distant past for which there is little forensic evidence. In Cold-Case Christianity, J. Warner Wallace uses his nationally recognized skills as a homicide detective to look at the evidence and eyewitnesses behind Christian beliefs. Including gripping stories from his career and the visual techniques he developed in the courtroom, Wallace uses illustration to examine the powerful evidence that validates the claims of Christianity. A unique apologetic that speaks to readers’ intense interest in detective stories, Cold-Case Christianity inspires readers to have confidence in Christ as it prepares them to articulate the case for Christianity.