Discipleship, Secularity, and the Modern Self

Discipleship, Secularity, and the Modern Self PDF Author: Judith A. Merkle
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567693422
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Judith A. Merkle examines the situation of Christian spirituality today, in a secular age, through the images of dance, silence, and music. Drawing on the work of Charles Taylor as well as core aspects of the tradition of Christian theology on discipleship, Merkle asks how these new conditions affect the practice of Christianity as modern discipleship. The author calls God the music maker. She argues that response to the reality of God can be captured through the image of dance. Merkle reminds us that people in secular society connect to God in diverse ways, not in the least through the call of creation and the call of conscience. She explores discipleship as a lens through which we can understand how a community of faith, service, prayer, worship, and sacramentality can be viewed and integrated in daily life. She emphasizes how the interconnection between prayer, Eucharist, and a believing community is inseparable from the dance of discipleship as it can be lived in secular society. The image of dancing to silent music is a powerful symbol of Christian religious experience in modern times.

Discipleship, Secularity, and the Modern Self

Discipleship, Secularity, and the Modern Self PDF Author: Judith A. Merkle SNDdeN
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567693430
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Judith A. Merkle examines the situation of Christian spirituality today, in a secular age, through the images of dance, silence, and music. Drawing on the work of Charles Taylor as well as core aspects of the tradition of Christian theology on discipleship, Merkle asks how these new conditions affect the practice of Christianity as modern discipleship. The author calls God the music maker. She argues that response to the reality of God can be captured through the image of dance. Merkle reminds us that people in secular society connect to God in diverse ways, not in the least through the call of creation and the call of conscience. She explores discipleship as a lens through which we can understand how a community of faith, service, prayer, worship, and sacramentality can be viewed and integrated in daily life. She emphasizes how the interconnection between prayer, Eucharist, and a believing community is inseparable from the dance of discipleship as it can be lived in secular society. The image of dancing to silent music is a powerful symbol of Christian religious experience in modern times.

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self PDF Author: Carl R. Trueman
Publisher: Crossway
ISBN: 1433556367
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 501

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Book Description
Modern culture is obsessed with identity. Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends—and yet, no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of self. In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman carefully analyzes the roots and development of the sexual revolution as a symptom, rather than the cause, of the human search for identity. This timely exploration of the history of thought behind the sexual revolution teaches readers about the past, brings clarity to the present, and gives guidance for the future as Christians navigate the culture's ever-changing search for identity.

Does Judaism Condone Violence?

Does Judaism Condone Violence? PDF Author: Alan L. Mittleman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691174237
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
A philosophical case against religious violence We live in an age beset by religiously inspired violence. Terms such as “holy war” are the stock-in-trade of the evening news. But what is the relationship between holiness and violence? Can acts such as murder ever truly be described as holy? In Does Judaism Condone Violence?, Alan Mittleman offers a searching philosophical investigation of such questions in the Jewish tradition. Jewish texts feature episodes of divinely inspired violence, and the position of the Jews as God’s chosen people has been invoked to justify violent acts today. Are these justifications valid? Or does our understanding of the holy entail an ethic that argues against violence? Reconstructing the concept of the holy through a philosophical examination of biblical texts, Mittleman finds that the holy and the good are inextricably linked, and that our experience of holiness is authenticated through its moral consequences. Our understanding of the holy develops through reflection on God’s creation of the natural world, and our values emerge through our relations with that world. Ultimately, Mittleman concludes, religious justifications for violence cannot be sustained. Lucid and incisive, Does Judaism Condone Violence? is a powerful counterargument to those who claim that the holy is irrational and amoral. With philosophical implications that extend far beyond the Jewish tradition, this book should be read by anyone concerned about the troubling connection between holiness and violence.

Sensing the Spirit

Sensing the Spirit PDF Author: Judith A. Merkle SNDdeN
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567707024
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Drawing on the work of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, this book examines how secular culture affects both the living of Christian discipleship today and impacts how religious congregations engage in their own renewal and future. It argues that religious communities can do more than improve and fix the out of date conditions they met in the renewal after Vatican II. Calling on environmental, sociological and theological insights, this book asks how the ongoing “coming of the Kingdom” in the Spirit brings new gifts for these times and how congregations might respond beyond restorative or post-Christian solutions to new challenges confronting them. This book offers a renewed meaning of religious life in secular life and the gift it offers and receives from every culture in which it is embedded.

A Strategy For Reaching Secular People

A Strategy For Reaching Secular People PDF Author: Ernan A. Norman, D. Min.
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1467084042
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Dr. Ernan A. Norman, D.Min. has identified strategies to implement John 13:35 “All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.” An excellent source for the essential principles of discipleship in a postmodern world. This book is written in nontechnical language based on the experiences as a student, pastor, and professor. I believe that the concepts presented are fundamental and are in harmony with the model demonstrated by Jesus during His ministry on earth. Meeting people at their level, putting their needs ahead of His own, treating people with respect, befriending the nonreligious and inviting them into a relationship with Himself are some of the concepts that are identified and supported as strategies for reaching secular people. This book is an outstanding and important piece of work, and easily readable. I would urge A Strategy for Reaching Secular People on members and leaders in every church – if they are willing to challenge basic assumptions and embrace change relative to reaching lost people. Strategies that remove the barriers that keep people from hearing about God’s love, and to create a warm, friendly, uncritical, and non-judgmental attitude of acceptance are clearly presented. Full of practical how-to’s and watch-out’s this book by Ernan Norman is for individuals serious about sharing the love of God. As we interact with and minister to secular people, matters such as marriage and family, academics, employment, addictions, and human rights must be addressed. Norman clearly gives strategies for intentional efforts to reach secular-postmodern men and women in our day. The central concept is the example of Jesus that we should follow. A must read! Weymouth Spence, Ed.D. President of Washington Adventist University

A Thicker Jesus

A Thicker Jesus PDF Author: Glen Harold Stassen
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 1611642655
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Why have some Christians, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr., been able to speak truth to power at great personal cost, while others readily capitulate to injustice? In this magnum opus, Christian ethicist Glen Stassen argues that such robust Christianity stems from believing in a "thicker" Jesus, who is Lord over the whole of life and not just one compartment of it. Belief in this thicker Jesus results in "incarnational discipleship" and can help Christians deal with the challenges of what Charles Taylor has identified as a secular age. Stassen elegantly weaves the characteristics of incarnational discipleship as correctives to secularism.

Follow Me

Follow Me PDF Author: David Platt
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 1414382405
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
2014 “Christian Retailing’s Best” award finalist! What did Jesus really mean when he said, “Follow Me”? In this new book, David Platt, author of the New York Times bestselling book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, contends that multitudes of people around the world culturally think they are Christians yet biblically are not followers of Christ. Scores of men, women, and children have been told that becoming a follower of Jesus simply involves believing certain truths or saying certain words. As a result, churches today are filled with people who believe they are Christians . . . but aren’t. We want to be disciples as long as doing so does not intrude on our lifestyles, our preferences, our comforts, and even our religion. Revealing a biblical picture of what it means to truly be a Christian, Follow Me explores the gravity of what we must forsake in this world, as well as the indescribable joy and deep satisfaction to be found when we live for Christ. The call to follow Jesus is not simply an invitation to pray a prayer; it’s a summons to lose your life—and to find new life in him. This book will show you what such life actually looks like.

Disruptive Witness

Disruptive Witness PDF Author: Alan Noble
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830881093
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
What should Christian witness look like in our contemporary society? In this timely book, Alan Noble looks at our cultural moment, characterized by technological distraction and the growth of secularism, laying out individual, ecclesial, and cultural practices that disrupt our society's deep-rooted assumptions and point beyond them to the transcendent grace and beauty of Jesus.

Reframing Spiritual Formation

Reframing Spiritual Formation PDF Author: Edward H. Hammett
Publisher: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 9781573123754
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Reframing Spiritual Formation takes seriously the realities of an increasingly secular, pluralistic and spiritually thirsty population base most churches face with fear, yet are called to reach and disciple. Hammett provides succinct overviews of the challenges and opportunities these realities bring to the doors of churches and their leaders. His primary focus is on facilitative questions and practical ideas for discipling the churched and the unchurched who are seeking grounding and meaning in this rapidly changing world.