Cosmic Conflicts

Cosmic Conflict is a series of four plays that examine the complex union between the physical and the spiritual world. It gives a face to the metaphysical conflicts that people face every day. This is spiritual warfare in the most literal sense of the word, and Cosmic Conflict offers the Holy Bible as the answer. We often speak of evil spirits or Satan, but it is hard to get a clear picture of what those apparitions look like, many images that have been fed to us through out our lives. For example, the devil is red with horns and a tail, and demons are monstrous creatures with ill intent. But what if Satan is the man sitting next to you reading a book? What if a demon looks like your wife, husband, or even your child? Cosmic Conflict tackles these dilemmas full force, using scripture, prayers, and evangelical pastors. It uses the unyielding power of Jesus Christ to go to the source of negative and destructive world behavior - the spirits working behind the scene to do us harm. No human being on this earth will ever survive or overcome the manipulation of Satan on his or her own power neither is any human free from this conflict. It is all around us effecting our lives in different ways. Cosmic conflict is responsible for that child of yours who is involved in one problem to another, that your shattered marriage, your inability to succeed in anything, your inability to set any goal for yourself and achieve it. Cosmic Conflict is behind the high rate of corruptions in public service, trade union unrest, accidents in our roads, plane crash, train derailment etc. While in the world stage cosmic conflict is responsible for civil unrest, wars in many nations and rumors of wars, natural disasters like earthquakes, flood, hurricanes, typhoon just to mention but few. I will not also fail to mention others like plane, hijack, terrorist attacks, and many others.

If God is all powerful and entirely good and loving, why is there so much evil in the world? Based on a close canonical reading of Scripture, this book offers a new approach to the challenge of reconciling the Christian confession of a loving God with the realities of suffering and evil. John Peckham offers a constructive proposal for a theodicy of love that upholds both the sovereignty of God and human freedom, showing that Scripture points toward a framework for thinking about God's love in relation to the world.

“But just as then the child born as a result of the flesh persecuted the one born as a result of the Spirit, so also now” (Gal 4:29 CSB). Why do God’s people suffer? In Galatians, Paul makes an argument from persecution for the authenticity of his gospel. Persecution demonstrates that Paul and the Galatians belong to God and have believed in the divinely revealed gospel. While Paul does not offer an explicit theodicy in Galatians, his argument from persecution requires an implicit one. Paul’s theodicy can primarily be understood through his interpretation of earlier Scripture, especially the story of Isaac and Ishmael in Genesis. In Persecution and Cosmic Conflict, Joshua Caleb Hutchens examines the theme of persecution in Galatians and Paul’s theological context in earlier Scriptures and early Judaism. Hutchens argues that Paul sees persecution as a manifestation of the cosmic conflict between God in Christ and the present evil age. Paul argues for this by appealing to earlier Scripture in Genesis. Hutchens offers a biblical-theological reading of Genesis that makes sense of Paul’s usage of the book in Galatians.

"Three Cosmic Messages reviews the three angels' messages of Revelation 14. These messages are Christ's last message of love to mankind, calling him to worship God and refuse the mark of the beast"--

Born in the throes of violence! Teeming with conflict ever since! Constant struggle is the way of our universe and the heart of this thrilling collection of stories. Get caught up in the excitement of cosmic gods at war over battleground Earth…a life-or-death battle between alien races claiming the legacy of a monstrous humanity…apocalyptic strife over the adoption of a vicious alien infant…and the blitzing of a world dominated by bloodthirsty dragons. Experience one spectacular clash after another in the unforgettable words of USA Today bestselling author Robert Jeschonek, a scifi champion with a Star Trek and Doctor Who pedigree…plus a story co-written with Mike Resnick, the legendary winner of five Hugo Awards and a Nebula.

Several view of martyrdom co-existed in the early Church. The 'orthodox' position, generally accepted by scholars, was that a Christian should choose martyrdom rather than deny the Faith, but should not, on any account, court death. Although it has been recognised that some in the early Church did seek a glorified death, by giving themselves over to arrest, most scholars have dismissed such acts as differing from 'the accepted attitude to martyrdom' in the early Church. Therefore, instances of volitional, or radical martyrdom, have been largely overlooked or sidelined in scholarly investigations into the theology and origins of Christian martyrdom. Paul Middleton argues that, far from being a deviant strand of early Christianity, 'radical martyrdom' was a significant, and widely held idealised form of devotion in the late first to early third centuries. Christian martyrdom is placed within the heritage of Jewish War tradition, with each martyr making an important contribution to the cosmic conflict between Satan and God. Radical Martyrdom re-examines the presentation, theology, and origins of Christian martyrdom up to the beginning of the Decian persecutions in the light of new perspectives on the subject.

Violence has always played a part in the religious imagination, from symbols and myths to legendary battles, from colossal wars to the theater of terrorism. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence surveys intersections between religion and violence throughout history and around the world. The forty original essays in this volume include overviews of major religious traditions, showing how violence is justified within the literary and theological foundations of the tradition, how it is used symbolically and in ritual practice, and how social acts of violence and warfare have been justified by religious ideas. The essays also examine patterns and themes relating to religious violence, such as sacrifice and martyrdom, which are explored in cross-disciplinary or regional analyses; and offer major analytic approaches, from literary to social scientific studies. The contributors to this volume--innovative thinkers who are forging new directions in theory and analysis related to religion and violence--provide novel insights into this important field of studies. By mapping out the whole field of religion and violence, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence will prove an authoritative source for students and scholars for years to come.

In view of the explosion of violent conflicts in many parts of the world and the hasty, but prevailing, assumption that ethnicity is the source of these conflicts, this book is encompassed to highlight, describe and examine how ethnicity is politicized in many of these current conflicts. By deploying the instrumentalist approach and the theory of identity and difference in ethnicity, the author identifies the actors involved and depicts how religion is exploited as an instrument of division by reflecting it on the Nigerian situation, exploring the examples of the Jos conflicts and the Warri Crisis within a twenty years period, 1990 to 2010.