Helps Church leaders and members get their bearings in the renewal debate by analyzing the most salient proposals for Church renewal that have surfaced over the last fifty years. In successive chapters the editor pairs outspoken figures who (in all but one chapter) represent strongly contrasting convictions. He also gives special attention to the theological assumptions of each proposal, highlights its overall strengths and weaknesses, and develops hi sown proposals for Church renewal through interaction with those under review.
From the acclaimed author of Unfinished Business, a story of crisis and change that can help us find renewed honesty and purpose in our personal and political lives Like much of the world, America is deeply divided over identity, equality, and history. Renewal is Anne-Marie Slaughter’s candid and deeply personal account of how her own odyssey opened the door to an important new understanding of how we as individuals, organizations, and nations can move backward and forward at the same time, facing the past and embracing a new future. Weaving together personal stories and reflections with insights from the latest research in the social sciences, Slaughter recounts a difficult time of self‐examination and growth in the wake of a crisis that changed the way she lives, leads, and learns. She connects her experience to our national crisis of identity and values as the country looks into a four-hundred-year-old mirror and tries to confront and accept its full reflection. The promise of the Declaration of Independence has been hollow for so many for so long. That reckoning is the necessary first step toward renewal. The lessons here are not just for America. Slaughter shows how renewal is possible for anyone who is willing to see themselves with new eyes and embrace radical honesty, risk, resilience, interdependence, grace, and vision. Part personal journey, part manifesto, Renewal offers hope tempered by honesty and is essential reading for citizens, leaders, and the change makers of tomorrow.
Worship Quest serves as a guide to understanding foundational questions about worship and leading in worship. Worship Quest offers a practical perspective on four roles of worship leadership and how they are to be fulfilled within various worship gatherings. For those called to lead in worship as well as those tasked in hiring worship leaders, it is important to understand the roles of worship leadership. Worship Quest helps readers come to understand the different worship gatherings and the various roles of worship leadership, and thus successfully fulfill God's call of leading in worship.
How I wish this book had been available years ago when I as a young minister tried to preach on the life of King Saul. Dr. Cyril Barber has given us a commentary on 1 Samuel that balances dependable information, spiritual interpretation, and practical application. I predict that in years to come this volume will be a standard reference work for serious Bible students and careful expository preachers. But there is no dull academic atmosphere in these pages. The book is a joy to read. Dr. Barber makes ancient history exciting and practical, and he does so without spiritualizing the text. You will enjoy using this book. It will open up new facets of truth for you to receive and apply in your own life and then share with others. From the Foreword, by Warren W. Wiersbe
In The Theology of Amos Yong and the New Face of Pentecostal Scholarship, Wolfgang Vondey and Martin William Mittelstadt gather a table of experts on one of the most influential voices in current Pentecostal theology. The authors provide an introduction and critical assessment of Yong’s biblical foundations, hermeneutics, epistemology, philosophical presuppositions, trinitarian theology, theology of religions, ecumenical and interfaith relations, theology of disability, engagement with contemporary culture, and participation in the theology and science conversation. These diverse topics are pursued through the complementary perspectives that together shape Yong’s methodology: pneumatology, pentecostalism, and the possibility of renewal. The contributors invite a more thorough reading of Yong’s work and propose a more substantial engagement with the new face of Pentecostal scholarship. Contributors include Andrew Carver, Jacob D. Dodson, Jeff Hittenberger, Mark Mann, Martin William Mittelstadt, L. William Oliverio, Jr., David A. Reed, Tony Richie, Christopher A. Stephenson, Steven M. Studebaker, Paraskevè (Eve) Tibbs, and Wolfgang Vondey.
This is an authoritative presentation and discussion of the most basic thematic elements universally found in folklore and literature. The reference provides a detailed analysis of the most common archetypes or motifs found in the folklore of selected communities around the world. Each entry is written by a noted authority in the field, and includes accompanying reference citations. Entries are keyed to the Motif-Index of Folk Literature by Stith Thompson and grouped according to that Index's scheme. The reference also includes an introductory essay on the concepts of archetypes and motifs and the scholarship associated with them. This is the only book in English on motifs and themes that is completely folklore oriented, deals with motif numbers, and is tied to the Thompson Motif-Index. It includes in-depth examination of such motifs as: Bewitching; Chance and Fate; Choice of Roads; Death or Departure of the Gods; the Double; Ghosts and Other Revenants; the Hero Cycle; Journey to the Otherworld; Magic Invulnerability; Soothsayer; Transformation; Tricksters.
Reviving the Tribe creates a rich and brutally honest portrait of contemporary gay men’s lives amidst the seemingly endless AIDS epidemic and offers both autobiographical self-examination and a relentless critique of current sexual politics within the gay community. Fearlessly confronting the horrors experiences by surviving gay men without giving way to hopelessness, denial, or blame, Reviving the Tribe offers an inspiring blueprint for the gay community which faces a continuing spiral of disaster. In Reviving the Tribe, Author Eric Rofes argues that a return to the interrupted agenda of gay liberation may provide long-term motivation to keep gay men alive and spur rejuvenation of new generations of gay culture. By interweaving social history, psychology, anthropology, epidemiology, sociology, feminist theory, and sexology with his own journey through the epidemic, Rofes provides a moving and compelling argument for stepping out of the “state of emergency” and embracing a life beyond disease. He boldly offers a plan for community regeneration focused on restoring mental health, reclaiming sexuality, and mending the social fabric of communal gay life. Rofes asks unspoken questions lurking in gay men’s minds and suggests answers to these questions, hitting such controversial topics as: gay men’s sex cultures of the 1970s why “educated” gay men continue to become HIV-infected changing forms of gay masculinity the opening of new sex clubs and bathhouses leaving “rage activism” behind links between the Holocaust and AIDS unacknowledged roots in the feminist movement of gay men’s AIDS response mass denial of chronic trauma among gay men The refusal to confront the ever-intensifying manifestations of AIDS has seriously endangered the foundation of contemporary gay communities. Rofes argues that many gay men suffer from the ”disaster syndrome,” a psychologically determined response that defends individuals against being overwhelmed by traumatic experience. In Reviving the Tribe, he provides a radical critique of contemporary gay political culture and suggests alternatives which offer the opportunity to face history, grapple with decimation, and regenerate communal life. Cautioning that an honest analysis of recent gay history and urban cultures promises neither to stop gay men’s suffering nor to end continuing HIV infections, Reviving the Tribe provides gay men with a clear lens through which they might scrutinize their lives, come to a new understanding of the epidemic’s impact on their generation, and redirect activism. This courageous and inspiring work brings Rofes’commanding intellect and twenty years of grassroots gay activism to bear on the challenging task of reconstructing gay life in the new mellennium. Reviving the Tribe is filled with insight of special interest to gay men, lesbians involved in the mixed lesbian/gay movement, sociologists, public health workers, psychologists, counselors, sex educators, religious leaders, and AIDS prevention policymakers searching for fresh vision.