Faith And Culture

For those who want to love God with their hearts and minds, editors Kelly Monroe Kullberg and Lael Arrington weave together both inspiration and illumination throughout this collection of daily readings. Faith and Culture: A Guide to a Culture Shaped by Faith translates the ideas of today’s Christian thought leaders, delivering them in accessible portions that fit into anyone’s busy schedule. Each chapter interacts with one of seven recurring themes: the Bible and theology, literature, history, contemporary culture, the arts, science and math, and philosophy. Along the way, Kullberg and Arrington explore significant ideas, people, and events from a distinctly Christian worldview. Some of the readings in this book include: Thee Secret Gospels (the Bible and theology), Slavery (history), A Response to God’s Beauty (art), Globalization (contemporary culture), and more Each day spent with this illuminating guide will inspire readers to wonder at the genius, power, and beauty of Jesus.

Many religious scholars have noted a decline in institutional forms of religion in Canada. With fewer Canadians regularly attending church or following denominational proscriptions, is institutionalized religion becoming a thing of the past? In A Culture of Faith, Sam Reimer and Michael Wilkinson argue that evangelical Protestants continue to show strong allegiance to their congregations. Through a national study, including interviews with over five hundred pastors and an analysis of financial resources, the authors argue that evangelical Protestant congregations demonstrate greater resiliency within a broader context of declining religiosity. According to their findings, weekly church attendance among evangelicals is substantially higher than the national average, church attendees say they get significant enjoyment from their religious groups, youth participation is high, and evangelicals are more likely to volunteer. While there may be signs of decline on the horizon, Canadian evangelical congregations seem to remain vital at a time when most other Christian traditions are waning. A clearly presented study of evangelical beliefs, organizations, leaders, and finances, A Culture of Faith reveals the current strength of evangelical Protestantism and its implications for the future of religion in Canada.

The Christian life is one of dualities: we are simultaneously sinner and saint, we know believers and non-believers, we interact in the left and right kingdoms, and we hear Law and Gospel.

Globalization has raised numerous questions about theology and culture for Christians. How should we respond to outsourcing and immigration? How does anti-Western sentiment affect the proclamation of the gospel? What is the role of the church in society? This book argues that Christians will be most fulfilled and most effective if they embrace their cultural activity rather than feel ambivalent about it. The central question of this book is, how does bearing God's image relate to cultural activity? Nehrbass explains that "spheres of culture," such as political, technological, and social structures, are systems that God has instilled in humans as his image bearers, so that they can glorify and enjoy him forever. Therefore, a theology of culture involves recognizing that the kingdom of God encompasses heaven and Earth, rather than pitting heaven against Earth. The text surveys anthropological explanations for humanity's dependence on culture, and shows that each explanation provides only partial explanatory scope. The most satisfying explanation is that a major functional aspect of bearing God's image is engaging in culture, since the Trinity has been eternally engaged in cultural functions like ruling, communicating, and creating. Each chapter contains a summary and questions about what it means to be a world-changer in the twenty-first century.

Without a uniform dietary code, Christians around the world used food in strikingly different ways, developing widely divergent practices that spread, nurtured, and strengthened their religious beliefs and communities. Featuring never-before published essays, this anthology follows the intersection of food and faith from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century, charting the complex relationship among religious eating habits and politics, culture, and social structure. Theoretically rich and full of engaging portraits, essays consider the rise of food buying and consumerism in the fourteenth century, the Reformation ideology of fasting and its resulting sanctions against sumptuous eating, the gender and racial politics of sacramental food production in colonial America, and the struggle to define "enlightened" Lenten dietary restrictions in early modern France. Essays on the nineteenth century explore the religious implications of wheat growing and breadmaking among New Zealand's Maori population and the revival of the Agape meal, or love feast, among American brethren in Christ Church. Twentieth-century topics include the metaphysical significance of vegetarianism, the function of diet in Greek Orthodoxy, American Christian weight loss programs, and the practice of silent eating rituals among English Benedictine monks. Two introductory essays detail the key themes tying these essays together and survey food's role in developing and disseminating the teachings of Christianity, not to mention providing a tangible experience of faith.

This 50th-anniversary edition, with a new foreword by the distinguished historian Martin E. Marty, who regards this book as one of the most vital books of our time, as well as an introduction by the author never before included in the book, and a new preface by James Gustafson, the premier Christian ethicist who is considered Niebuhr’s contemporary successor, poses the challenge of being true to Christ in a materialistic age to an entirely new generation of Christian readers.

Every day, major headlines tell the story of how Christianity is attempting to influence American culture and politics. But statistics show that young Americans are disenchanted with a faith that has become culturally antagonistic and too closely aligned with partisan politics. In this personal yet practical work, Jonathan Merritt uncovers the changing face of American Christianity by uniquely examining the coming of age of a new generation of Christians. Jonathan Merritt illuminates the spiritual ethos of this new generation of believers who engage the world with Christ-centered faith but an un-polarized political perspective. Through personal stories and biblically rooted commentary this scion of a leading evangelical family takes a close, thoughtful look at the changing religious and political environment, addressing such divisive issues as abortion, gay marriage, environmental use and care, race, war, poverty, and the imbalance of world wealth. Through Scripture, the examples of Jesus, and personal defining faith experiences, he distills the essential truths at the core of a Christian faith that is now just coming of age.