Christianity At The Cross Roads

The Gospel Coalition Book of the Year Biblical Foundations Award Winner Christianity in the twenty-first century is a global phenomenon. But in the second century, its future was not at all certain. Initially Christianity possessed little social or cultural influence and found itself fighting for its life. While apostolic tradition was emerging as a "rule of faith," factions contested the nature of the gospel, and pagan philosophers found its claims scandalous. And while its pathway was tenuous, Christianity was forming structures of leadership and worship, and a core of apostolic texts was emerging as authoritative. But it was the challenges, obstacles, and transitions faced by Christians in the second century that, in many ways, would determine the future of the church for the next two millennia. It was a time when Christianity stood at a crossroads. Michael Kruger's introductory survey examines how Christianity took root in the second century, how it battled to stay true to the vision of the apostles, and how it developed in ways that would shape both the church and Western culture over the next two thousand years. Christianity at the Crossroads provides an accessible and informative look at the complex and foundational issues faced by an infant church still trying to determine its identity. The church's response to the issues of heresy and orthodoxy, the development of the canon, and the transmission of the Christian Scriptures not only determined its survival, but determined the kind of church it would be for generations to come.

How can Christians live faithfully at the crossroads of the story of Scripture and postmodern culture? In Living at the Crossroads, authors Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew explore this question as they provide a general introduction to Christian worldview. Ideal for both students and lay readers, Living at the Crossroads lays out a brief summary of the biblical story and the most fundamental beliefs of Scripture. The book tells the story of Western culture from the classical period to postmodernity. The authors then provide an analysis of how Christians live in the tension that exists at the intersection of the biblical and cultural stories, exploring the important implications in key areas of life, such as education, scholarship, economics, politics, and church.

Contents Part I: Christianity and Catholicism 1 Modernism and Tradition 2 Various Forms of Modernism 3 The Old Orthodoxy 4 The New Orthodoxy 5 Newman's Theory of Development 6 First Results of New Testament Criticism 7 The Christ of Liberal Protestantism 8 The Christ of Eschatology 9 The Christ of Catholicism 10 The Abiding Value of the Apocalyptic Idea 11 The Truth-Value of Visions 12 The Apocalyptic Vision of Christ 13 The Apocalyptic Vision and the Catholic Church Part II: Christianity and Religion 1 Exclusiveness and Tolerance 2 The Unification of Religion 3 The Science of Religions 4 Character of an Universal Religion 5 The Religion and Personality of Jesus 6 The Church and Its Future

Albert Y. Hsu provides a balanced, biblical understanding of Christian singleness that debunks the myth of the "gift of singleness" and honors singleness as a status equal to marriage. Includes an interview with John Stott.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 edition. Excerpt: ... THE APOCALYPTIC VISION OF CHRIST (a) THE TRANSCENDENCY OF THE KINGDOM HOW, then, must we, here and now, understand the apocalyptic and transcendental revelation of Jesus, so as to shape our spiritual life, feeling and action in harmony with His? How must we re-embody the same " idea" if it is to live for us? M First of all we must recognise that morality is not our highest life, but only a particular manifestation of it under certain contingencies. So far as morality is the will of God, it unites man dynamically with God. But it is not conscious union until the moral experience receives a religious and transcendent interpretation--until the absolute peremptoriness of right over all personal, social or racial interests is more or less recognised as that of a Will, whose object is universal and eternal Right, and in subjection to which our wills find their true life and expansion. It is just the conscious aiming at this union with the transcendent, through the moral life, that raises morality to religion--to a conscious self-adjustment to the realities of the transcendent world. But besides the "ought" of conduct there is the "ought" of thinking and the "ought" of feeling--the duty of a complete and ever completer harmony of the whole spirit--mind, heart, will and action--with what we necessarily conceive as a perfect Spirit, without limitations. However obscure and rudimentary, the need of this harmony becomes explicit in the love and exercise of any sort of rightness--moral, intellectual or aesthetic--for its own sake. Man's need of harmony with the Divine is as natural as his need of bread. If this harmony be an ideal or end "in process of becoming," it supposes, as its other term, the Divine, as something actual and given. The moral...

The art of interpreting Holy Scriptures flourished throughout the culturally heterogeneous pre-modern Orient among Jews, Christians and Muslims. Different ways of interpretation developed within each religion not without considering the others. How were the interactions and how productive were they for the further development of these traditions? Have there been blurred spaces of scholarly activity that transcended sectarian borders? What was the role played by mutual influences in profiling the own tradition against the others? These and other related questions are critically treated in the present volume.