I have written a 300-page book about black religious humor. I created two fictitious characters I called Reverend Cheese Head Brown and Deacon Jones. It’s a fictitious church in a make-believe Arkansas town named Turkey Scratch Arkansas. In the end, you will split your sides laughing, but to understand where I am coming from, you have to understand my background and the time and place that I was raised. I am going to help you, but first, I have to hurt you before I can heal you. Your first reaction will be to throw this book away and to curse me out, but that’s the pain we all must endure to pass the denial stage.
This classic is organized as follows: I. A Christian Church II. Church Officers III. Church Ordinances IV. Church Membership V. Church Discipline Private Offenses Public Offenses VI. Cases of Appeal VII. Church Business Order of Business Rules of Order VIII. Christian Doctrine Articles of Faith Covenant IX. Optional Standing Resolutions X. Baptism Considered Meaning of the Word The Baptism of Jesus Much Water Needed Philip and the Eunuch The Testimony of Scholars Apostolical Allusions The Witness of History For Thirteen Centuries As to the Greek Church The Design of Baptism A Sufficiency of Water The Rise of Sprinkling XI. The Lord’s Supper Open and Close Communion One and the Same Rule The Baptist Position Pedobaptist Close Communion The Power of Sympathy Three Facts Explained Pedobaptist Witnesses XII. Infant Baptism Not of Scriptural Authority When Did It Rise? Why Did It Rise? Household Baptisms XIII. Church Government XIV. Church Officers
I have written a 300-page book about black religious humor. I created two fictitious characters I called Reverend Cheese Head Brown and Deacon Jones. It's a fictitious church in a make-believe Arkansas town named Turkey Scratch Arkansas. In the end, you will split your sides laughing, but to understand where I am coming from, you have to understand my background and the time and place that I was raised. I am going to help you, but first, I have to hurt you before I can heal you. Your first reaction will be to throw this book away and to curse me out, but that's the pain we all must endure to pass the denial stage.
Dr. JM Carroll's "The Trail of Blood" is a great historical premise concerning the beginnings of the church from "Christ it's founder, till the current day". Written in the early 20th century, Dr. Carroll details the history and plight of TRUE bible believers throughout time. Still as relevant today as it was almost 100 years ago, this timeless classic is a must-have part of any Christian's personal reading collection.
An updated examination of ecclesiology from a Baptist perspective In this useful book, professor and former pastor John Hammett helps church leaders think through foundational questions about the nature of the church. Blending biblical teaching and practical ministry experience, Hammett presents a comprehensive ecclesiology from a historic Baptist perspective, examining crucial contemporary issues such as church discipline, the role of elders, and church ministry in a post-Christian culture. This second edition contains updates throughout, including: · Substantive changes to chapters on the nature of the church, Baptist church polity, and deacons · An expanded chapter on baptism and the Lord’s Supper · A thoroughly revised chapter on church models like multisite churches and missional churches · A brand-new chapter on meaningful church membership
The Puritans called Baptists "the troublers of churches in all places" and hounded them out of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Four hundred years later, Baptists are the second-largest religious group in America, and their influence matches their numbers. They have built strong institutions, from megachurches to publishing houses to charities to mission organizations, and have firmly established themselves in the mainstream of American culture. Yet the historical legacy of outsider status lingers, and the inherently fractured nature of their faith makes Baptists ever wary of threats from within as well as without. In Baptists in America, Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins explore the long-running tensions between church, state, and culture that Baptists have shaped and navigated. Despite the moment of unity that their early persecution provided, their history has been marked by internal battles and schisms that were microcosms of national events, from the conflict over slavery that divided North from South to the conservative revolution of the 1970s and 80s. Baptists have made an indelible impact on American religious and cultural history, from their early insistence that America should have no established church to their place in the modern-day culture wars, where they frequently advocate greater religious involvement in politics. Yet the more mainstream they have become, the more they have been pressured to conform to the mainstream, a paradox that defines--and is essential to understanding--the Baptist experience in America. Kidd and Hankins, both practicing Baptists, weave the threads of Baptist history alongside those of American history. Baptists in America is a remarkable story of how one religious denomination was transformed from persecuted minority into a leading actor on the national stage, with profound implications for American society and culture.
Before white churches can pursue diversity, we must first address the faulty discipleship that has led to our segregation in the first place. Pastor David Swanson proposes that we rethink our churches' habits, or liturgies, and imagine together holistic, communal discipleship practices that can reform us as members of Christ's diverse body.
Unity in the gospel is essential to the witness of the church. Yet that unity was tested by the release of two documents, Evangelicals and Catholics Together and The Gift of Salvation, which appeared to surrender the historic doctrine of sola fide (faith alone). In response, Christian leaders released a statement called The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration. Getting the Gospel Right, a companion to Sproul's popular Faith Alone, contains the complete text of that statement along with thorough, point-by-point discussion and exposition, to make a strong declaration of the abiding unity of evangelicals regarding the gospel and justification by faith alone.
Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his refusal to conform to Puritan religious and social standards, Roger Williams established a haven in Rhode Island for those persecuted in the name of the religious establishment. Davis gathers together important selections from Williams's public and private writings on religious liberty, illustrating how this renegade Puritan radically reinterpreted Christian moral theology and the events of his day in a powerful argument for freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state.
