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The Reformation-era writings that make up the Lutheran Confessions remain lively resources for Christian ministry and mission today. Because each of the documents within the Book of Concord was written with a specific context and rhetorical purpose in mind, each has its own compelling story and objectives. Luther''s catechisms present the faith for daily life at the grass-roots level, with teaching elements that we might now view as typical of social media and multimedia. The Augsburg Confession and its Apology provide an adaptable foundation for preaching, teaching, church organization, and dialogue that is rooted in the promise of Christ, received through faith. Fifteen years after the Diet of Worms, the Smalcald Articles reveal yet another "Here I stand" moment for Luther. Finally, the Formula of Concord shows how the next generations of Lutherans used collaboration and consensus as they wrestled with important themes of faith and life. In summary, as these texts engage us with their stories, they invite us to consider what is most important about our journeys of faith and Christian witness in today''s twenty-first-century contexts.

Each volume of the Understanding World Christianity series analyzes the state of Christianity from six different angles. The focus is always Christianity, but it is approached in an interdisciplinary mannerchronological, denominational, sociopolitical, geographical, biographical, and theological.Short, engaging chapters help readers understand the complexity of Christianity in the region and broaden their understanding of the region itself. Readers will understand the interplay of Christianity and culture, and will see how geography, borders, economics, and other factors influence Christian faith.In this exciting volume, Dyron B. Daughrity and Jesudas M. Athyal offer an introduction to Indian Christianity that has been desperately needed by scholars, students, and interested readers alike. Rich in experience and knowledge, Daughrity and Athyal introduce readers to the vibrancy of Indian Christianity like no other authors have done before.

Reading the Proverbs as timeless observations and recommendations regarding human nature, valid for all cultures and places, blunts their cultural relevance, argues John J. Pilch. Similar in approach and format to the Social-Science Commentary on the New Testament volumes that he authored with Richard L. Rohrbaugh and Bruce J. Malina, this volume explores and describes the cultural matrix of the Mediterranean world from which the Proverbs come and of which they are descriptive. A list of social-science scenarios provides ready reference to particular aspects of the larger Mediterranean culture.

In this volume, E. P. Sanders presents five studies that re-examine the nature of Jewish law in the second Temple period. He considers how serious the legal issues discussed between Jesus and his opponents would have been, had they been authentic; explores whether the Pharisees had oral law, and whether they ate ordinary food in purity; examines ho

Stars Beneath Us brilliantly shows Gods presence in the ever-evolving cosmos. Relying on his upbringing as a Baptist, his doctoral work in experimental nuclear physics and gamma-ray astronomy, and his ordination to the gospel ministry, Paul Wallace weaves a book unlike any other in faith-and-science literature. This is a call to courage for those who fear a true encounter with the cosmos will distance them from God. Stars Beneath Us will inspire readers to engage with the natural world in new ways and find God, as it turns out, everywhere.

In this novel of Martin Luther's life, teen readers (and more than a few adults!) will be introduced to the life and adventures of Martin Luther.

In this latest installment of the Homebrewed Christianity series, Eric E. Hall approaches the question of God from various perspectives. The classical conception of God is like the famously stoic-yet-lethal Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid. Competing versions of God include Your Hippie Aunt, St. Joan of Arc, and even the muscle-headed goons from Jersey Shore. At the end of this romp through history and pop culture, Hall argues that the God you need may be the very God you rejected years ago.

Timothy J. Wengert shows Luthers Treatise on Good Works to be one of the clearest introductions to Luthers reforming work and theology. Luthers goal was to commend a new, down-to-earth piety to all Christians through a radically different meaning of good works that would transform the way believers practiced their faith. This volume is excerpted from The Annotated Luther series, Volume 1. Each volume in the series contains new introductions, annotations, illustrations, and notes to help shed light on Luthers context and to interpret his writings for today.

With great clarity and insight, James M. Estes illuminates Luthers call to secular authorities to help with the reform of the church in this important 1520 treatise. To combat Romes intransigent opposition to reform of any sort, Luther appealed to secular rulers to intervene and clear the way for ecclesiastical reform. This volume is excerpted from The Annotated Luther series, Volume 1. Each volume in the series contains new introductions, annotations, illustrations, and notes to help shed light on Luthers context and to interpret his writings for today.

In his The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther set forth a reconsideration of the sacramental Christian life that centered on the word. His thesis is that the papacy had distorted the sacraments with its own traditions and regulations, transforming them into a system of control and coercion. This volume is excerpted from The Annotated Luther series, Volume 3. Each volume in the series contains annotations, illustrations, and notes to help shed light on Luthers context and to interpret his writings for today.

In autumn 1525, Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will as a response to humanist and theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had criticized Luthers teachings in the diatribe On Free Will. Luthers argument on the matter of the bound and free will poses a challenge and an invitation for constructive contemporary theology. This volume is excerpted from The Annotated Luther series, Volume 2. Each volume in the series contains annotations, illustrations, and notes to help shed light on Luthers context and to interpret his writings for today.

Challenging the common notion that Augustines Confessions lacks literary unity, You Made Us for Yourself approaches the Confessions in light of what Augustine himself would have considered most fundamental: creation, understood in a broad sense. Creation, for Augustine, is an epiphany, a light which reveals who God and man are. It is, Ortiz argues, the light within which Augustine wrote the Confessions and can account for the often despaired of meaning, structure, and unity of the Confessions.

Many people look to the 1970s and 1980s to find the cause of the rapid growth of Christianity in Korea. But to understand the real story behind the growth of the Korean church, we need to rediscover the story of the American missionary enterprises of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There, we will learn how the story of the Americ

So much theology is confusing and intimidating. The concepts themselves are given weighty-sounding names, such as incarnation and justification, and the explanations of the concepts sometimes can be more confusing than the names.Captivating, entertaining, and highly informative, Crazy Talk helps readers navigate their way through that complexity and offers a vocabulary that dares (and equips!) its readers to embrace their own faith in a new, well-informed way.The purpose of Crazy Talk, says editor Rolf A. Jacobson, is to render the heart of our Christian theology in a form that is accessible and appealing to everyone. The format of the book is similar to that of a dictionary of theological terms, but with a twist of humor! Each entry includes the name of the theological term, an ironic definition of the term, and a short humorous essay offering a fuller explanation of the term. In making the term understandable, Jacobson concentrates on the big theological issue that is at stake in the term and why it matters.This revised and expanded edition includes new and expanded entries and all new images.

Kent Dobson climbed Mount Sinai in search of the God who had eluded him. Instead he got bitten by a camel. The senior pastor of one of the most prominent churches in America, Dobson was growing disillusioned with his faith. One Sunday, he preached, I dont know what the word God means anymore. He left the church, but his quest for God became more intense than ever. On the foundation of Jesus and the Bible, Dobson reconstructs a faith that is life-giving and truetrue to himself and true to God.

Building on his previous work on embodied liturgy, Frank C. Senn explores the relationship between the sacramental body and blood of Christ, the ecclesial body of Christ, and the body of the communicant. Drawing on the richness of the eucharistic prayer traditions and his own life experiences, this book expands our understandings of the Eucharist to include a life of gratitude (anaphora), cosmology and praise (preface), body and remembrance (anamnesis), Spirit and community (epiclesis), orthodoxy and world view (doxology), presence and union with Christ (communion), and initiation and reconciliation (fencing the table).

The electronic Bible is here to stay??packaged in software on personal computers, available as apps on tablets and cell phones. Increasingly, students look at glowing screens to consult the Bible in class, and congregants do the same in Bible study and worship. Jeffrey S. Siker asks, what difference does it make to our experience of Scripture if we no longer hold a book in our hands, if we again "scroll" through Scripture? How does the "flow" of electronic Scripture change our perception of the Bible''s authority and significance? Siker discusses the difference made when early Christians adopted the codex rather than the scroll and Gutenberg began the mass production of printed Bibles. He also reviews the latest research on how the reading brain processes digital texts and how churches use digital Bibles, including American Bible Society research and his own surveys of church leaders. Siker asks, does the proliferation of electronic translations reduce the perceived seriousness of Scripture? Does it promote an individualistic response to the Bible? How does the change from a physical Bible affect liturgical practice? His synthesis of the advantages and risks of the digitized Bible merit serious reflection in classrooms and churches alike.

To understand Jesus of Nazareth, it is essential to read writings from the four-century gap between the Old and New Testaments. Matthias Henze introduces this period and its writings, discusses how they have been read over history, guides the students encounter with select texts, then introduces key ideas in New Testament texts that cant be understood without these intertestamental writingsthe Messiah, angels and demons, the law, and the resurrection of the dead. Mind the Gap broadens students perspectives on early Judaism and Christianity and welcomes them to deeper study.

Questions have preoccupied Christian communities throughout historyWho is Jesus? How should we organize ourselves?and theyve been debated at councils and fought on battlefields. Focusing on some of the most and least savory characters in church history, this guide provides an overview of Christian responses to those and other formative questions. Plus, its a hoot!

A landmark text on the history of Christian spirituality embarks on the journey afresh. This accessible and engaging history provides an excellent primer on the two-millennium quest for union with God, a "thirst" at the center of Christian life and practice. Holt traces the practice of Christian devotion, prayer, and contemplation from the biblical and influential early periods through the diverse insights of the Reformation and modern eras. Globally framed, the book highlights the local contributions of people from a wide array of traditions and perspectives as unified yet diverse voices giving witness to the thirst for the experience of the divine that is at the heart of the Christian pilgrimage.This new edition not only updates all the chapters and features but also adds more material on the spirituality of Jesus, medieval women mystics, contemporary spirituality, spiritual faith and practice in the digital age, and spirituality in a globalized world. Excerpts and illustrations from primary sources, a glossary, a timeline, new bibliographies, sets of spiritual exercises and discussion questions, and an online resource guide heighten the book''s usefulness for students and lay persons alike.

Disputes that currently trouble Christianity often involve disagreement over scriptural interpretation. Such disagreement is nothing new, and insights available from past efforts at resolution can be valuable for modern Christians. This study elucidates the hermeneutic of Richard Hooker, a formative figure of Anglicanism, to recommend it as a resource for promoting dialogue. Hooker''s approach to scripture recognizes the importance of both rational reflection and inspiration while balancing claims of interpretive authorities and individual conscience, providing a hermeneutic that opens Christians to growth and reform while maintaining unity within the church.

The question of God and Cosmology raises the deepest questions of human existence: Why is there something rather than nothing? Or, to put it more personally, Why am I here? The 2014 Greer-Heard Forum featured Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and atheist cosmologist Sean Carroll presenting their views before a packed crowd of over nine hundred people. Spirited, civil, and often humorous, the debate highlighted not only their positions, but the full range of possibilities. In this volume, the debate is reprinted and supplemented by a range of essays.