Böcker av Alan Kreider

How and why did the early church grow in the first four hundred years despite disincentives, harassment, and occasional persecution? In this unique historical study, veteran scholar Alan Kreider delivers the fruit of a lifetime of study as he tells the amazing story of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Challenging traditional understandings, Kreider contends the church grew because the virtue of patience was of central importance in the life and witness of the early Christians. They wrote about patience, not evangelism, and reflected on prayer, catechesis, and worship, yet the church grew--not by specific strategies but by patient ferment.

This booklet explores the Christianity of the days before it became an official religion of the Roman Empire. It considers the impact of various areas of church life in this initial state.

Rarely does one find a book on the topic of holiness with such depth as well as breadth. Kreider takes us on a journey deep into biblical territory and back again into the lives of nations, churches, familiesand individuals. In this journey the reader is convicted and drawn by the beauty of holiness. We Pentecostals need this word. --Cheryl Bridges Johns, Church of God Theological SeminaryKreider's Social Holiness surprises! While holiness indeed owns the otherness of God and the call to be God's separated people, it does much more. Holiness unleashes in history a living force, a dynamism that envisions the sanctification of God's entire creation. Holiness is positive, the 'heartbeat' of Missio Dei. I highly recommend this book for its life-changing potential, both personally and for the church as God's new nation. --Willard M. Swartley, Associated Mennonite Biblical SeminaryAlan Kreider writes a masterful narrative about social holiness from which Pentecostals can learn much as they reaffirm and recover this important dimension of their heritage. Its familiar terrain serves not only as a timely reminder of a way of life Pentecostals still cherish, but also as a challenge to reconsider crucial features of that way of life long forgotten. --Dale M. Coulter, Regent UniversityAlan Kreider has gifted us with an inspiring, hopeful, and transformative invitation to follow Jesus on the journey toward personal and social holiness. His prophetic call to participate in Jesus' transnational renewal movement challenges families, congregations, students, and all Christians with practical ideas emerging from the biblical story of God's kingship and our citizenship in the holy nation. [ I appreciate his emphasis on moral zeal, experience, liberating action, storytelling, praise, and the risk of repentance and trust, and think] this book can be a great resource for helping the church with our public witness to Christ's shalom in a broken world. --Paul Alexander, Azusa Pacific UniversityKreider's Social Holiness breaks new ground and makes new connections, both in his overview of biblical history and in his application of social holiness to the contemporary church. I hope this book will help many believers today - Wesleyans, Anabaptists, and those from other traditions - become more fully and authentically a part of God's 'holy nation' in the world today. --Howard A. Snyder, Asbury Theological SeminaryOurs is the age of bombast, exaggeration, hyper-activism and self-importance--all of which leaves us feeling empty. We have lost the capacity for reverence, awe, and experience of the transcendent. Alan Kreider has the audacity to call us back to the transforming presence of God so that we become God-like. This book's message can help set us free from the bondage of our self-centeredness and liberate us to participate in the mission of God. --Wilbert R. Shenk, Fuller Theological SeminaryLively, gutsy . . . Holiness is about practical social matters--such as economic relationships, making peace, working for justice . . . Kreider takes us through the Bible to show how deeply these themes are embedded in the text and how persistent has been the failure of the community of faith to be true to them . . . A must for serious-minded Christians today. --Rt. Rev. John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford, in Third WayAlan Kreider is Associate Professor of Church History and Mission, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and author of English Chantries: The Road to Dissolution and The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom.Dale M. Coulter is Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Regent University, and author of Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St Victor (d 1173) and Holiness: The Beauty of Perfection

First-class insight into the life and mission of the Christian church in the first four centuries, based on solid scholarship and a clear sense of mission.--Samuel Escobar, Palmer Theological SeminaryWritten in a lively and clear manner, this small volume makes many connections between different aspects of early Christian history and practice. I have learned from reading it and recommend it to both scholars and beginners.--Paul Bradshaw, University of Notre DameKreider traces the changing nature of the process of conversion across some four centuries. I know of no better treatment of religious initiation undergone by the most seriously committed Christians of this period.--Ramsay MacMullen, Yale University I recommend this book highly to anyone interested not only in the history and theology of Christian initiation, but in the relationship of Christianity and culture throughout the ages. - Maxwell E. Johnson, University of Notre Dame, in ''Worship'' Alan Kreider is Associate Professor of Church History and Mission at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana.

Description:The chantries of medieval England were founded in the belief that intercessory masses shortened the period spent by souls in purgatory. They played a greater role in the daily life of sixteenth-century Englishmen than did monasteries, yet up to now the dissolution of the chantries has not been a popular subject of study. Alan Kreider rectifies this, establishing the importance of the chantries in the story of late medieval and Reformation England. He discusses their social and religious significance. He explains the role of purgatory in the founding of chantries and in the theological debates, popular preaching and political struggles unleashed by the Reformation that led to their confiscation. He explores the forces that led the governments of Henry VIII and Edward VI to jettison traditional practices, and he underlines the pain of state-fostered religious change.Endorsements:""Kreider''s book is among the most remarkable additions of recent years to our knowledge of the late medieval church and the Reformation in England."" A.G. Dickens, University of London. ""Kreider''s English Chantries is an excellent piece of work, bringing together a multitude of scattered fragments of evidence to present a coherent account of one of the central aspects of English religious life on the eve of the Reformation. Moreover, in his discussion of contemporary attitudes towards purgatory, Dr. Kreider has made a most valuable contribution to our understanding of the ambiguities and inconsistencies of human motivation that make the Reformation such a continually interesting phenomenon. D.M. Loades, University of Durham, in Heythrop Journal.""This is a book whose interest far surpasses what its subject might lead one to expect . . . A combination of the rigour expressed in tables and calculations with the attractions of a coolly elegant style brings the story of the chantries to an appropriately elegiac close."" G.R. Elton, Cambridge University, in the Times Literary Supplement.""The definitive study."" Diarmaid MacCullough, Oxford University.John Ben Snow Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies, honorable mention (1979)About the Contributor(s):Alan Kreider is Professor of Church History and Mission (retired), Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, IN

Part of an expanding and academically acclaimed series, this is a genuine trans-denominational work on Nonconformity.