At Home and Abroad bridges the divide in the study of American religion, law, and politics between domestic and international, bringing together diverse authors to explore ties across conceptual and political boundaries. They examine the ideas, people, and institutions that provide links between domestic and foreign religious politics and policies.
In this contribution to the study of one of America's best-known and most-imposing religious figures, 15 scholars offer a sustained analysis of Jonathan Edward's historical legacy throughout the world. The volume looks at Edward's lasting influence and enduring effects worldwide.
This is the best of Watchman Nee's teaching. Excerpts are taken from almost all his published works. They are topically arranged under 48 subjects covering all aspects of truth. A sketch of Watchman Nee's life is given to introduce this collection. Here is the most complete summary of Nee's writings. Every Christian should read them.
This is the best of Watchman Nee's teaching. Excerpts are taken from almost all his published works. They are topically arranged under 48 subjects covering all aspects of truth. A sketch of Watchman Nee's life is given to introduce this collection. Here is the most complete summary of Nee's writings. Every Christian should read them.
Between the 1890s and the Vietnam era, many thousands of American Protestant missionaries were sent to live throughout the non-European world. They expected to change the people they encountered, but those foreign people ended up transforming the missionaries. Their experience abroad made many of these missionaries and their children critical of racism, imperialism, and religious orthodoxy. When they returned home, they brought new liberal values back to their own society. Protestants Abroad reveals the untold story of how these missionary-connected individuals left an enduring mark on American public life as writers, diplomats, academics, church officials, publishers, foundation executives, and social activists. --
Church and state: a simple phrase that reflects one of the most famous and fraught relationships in the history of the United States. But what exactly is “the church,” and how is it understood in US law today? In Church State Corporation, religion and law scholar Winnifred Fallers Sullivan uncovers the deeply ambiguous and often unacknowledged ways in which Christian theology remains alive and at work in the American legal imagination. Through readings of the opinions of the US Supreme Court and other legal texts, Sullivan shows how “the church” as a religious collective is granted special privilege in US law. In-depth analyses of Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby reveal that the law tends to honor the religious rights of the group—whether in the form of a church, as in Hosanna-Tabor, or in corporate form, as in Hobby Lobby—over the rights of the individual, offering corporate religious entities an autonomy denied to their respective members. In discussing the various communities that construct the “church-shaped space” in American law, Sullivan also delves into disputes over church property, the legal exploitation of the black church in the criminal justice system, and the recent case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Brimming with insight, Church State Corporation provocatively challenges our most basic beliefs about the ties between religion and law in ostensibly secular democracies.
Why is it that while millions of people all over the world dream about living in the United States, many American intellectuals believe that this is a uniquely deformed and unjust society? Why do college students today have greater pride in their country than many of their teachers? How did the radical beliefs of the '60s survive and become, for many Americans, the new conventional wisdom? How is it possible that while communist systems are collapsing and seek a market economy, critics in the United States remain convinced of the evils of capitalism? Why are there more Marxists on any handful of American campuses than all over Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union? How can we explain that for important opinion makers at home and abroad, the United States has become a symbol of waste, greed, corruption, social injustice, and arrogance? While anti-Americanism abroad has been often noted and sometimes lamented, until now it has not been closely examined nor compared to domestic social criticism. Paul Hollander's volume is the first systematic study of this phenomenon both in its domestic and foreign aspects. Making use of a vast amount of information (ranging from surveys, mass media, popular culture, novels, the literature of social criticism, and social scientific studies), Hollander separates the justified critiques of the United States from anti-Americanism, which he defines as a biased predisposition against American society, culture, or U.S. foreign policy, an attitude he compares to other hostile predispositions such as sexism, racism, or anti-Semitism. Domestic anti-Americanism is found mostly among academic and literary intellectuals, the left-leaning clergy, and people associated with the mass media--more generally among those who came of age in the 1960s. Despite more than a decade of Republican presidents, the author argues that many taken-for-granted beliefs of our times can be traced back to the adversarial spirit of the '60s. What once was daring social criticism has become the new orthodoxy, or what has come to be known as "politically correct behavior." The latter also finds expression in the increasingly widespread "multicultural" or "cultural diversity" studies, which combine hostility toward American society with aversion toward Western culture as a whole. Also symptomatic of these attitudes was the love affair of the American left with Marxist-Leninist Nicaragua reminiscent of the political pilgrimages of the past which the author has also written about in his widely praised Political Pilgrims. Born in Hungary and educated in Hungary, England, and the United States, the author has written extensively about the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the United States. In this study he seeks to balance a critical analysis of anti-Americanism with the recognition that the modernity the U.S. spreads and symbolizes can sometimes be viewed with justified apprehension. Anti-Americanism is a lively and provocative volume which will elicit some impassioned responses, much discussion, and controversy.
This book clearly introduces uss to the meaning of church membership, the traits of a good church, and how we are to function as parts of the body. Includes practical discussions of church leadership, male and female roles, confrontation, unity & prayer.
With nearly fifty years combined global church-planting experience, Craig Ott and Gene Wilson are well qualified to write a comprehensive, up-to-date guide for cross-cultural church planting. Combining substantive biblical principles and missiological understanding with practical insights, this book walks readers through the various models and development phases of church planting. Advocating methods that lead to church multiplication, the authors emphasize the role of the missionary church planter. They offer helpful reflection on current trends and provide best practices gathered from research and empirical findings around the globe. The book takes up a number of special issues not addressed in most church planting books, such as use of short-term teams, partnerships, and wise use of resources. Full of case studies and real examples from around the world, this practical text will benefit students, church planters, missionaries, and missional church readers.
