Lifestyle Christianity Christian Counterculture

Christianity gives us peace in perplexity, praise in adversity, provision in necessity and purity amidst iniquity. Following Christ's teaching is never easy, but life enrichment is ensured. We have this divine treasure in earthen vessels.

Christianity gives us peace in perplexity, praise in adversity, provision in necessity and purity amidst iniquity. Following Christ’s teaching is never easy, but life enrichment is ensured. We have this divine treasure in earthen vessels.

The question, "What does it mean to be 'the church'?" has always been among the most controversial and of vital concern to political, economic, and ecclesial leaders alike. How it is answered influences whether Christianity will be a force for legitimating or subverting existing secular relations of power, influence, and privilege. The Church as Counterculture enters the debates on Christian identity, purpose, and organization by calling for the churches to reclaim their roles as "communities of disciples"—distinct and distinctive groups formed by the priorities and practices of Jesus—to constitute a countercultural reality and challenge to secular society and existing power relations. The notion of the church as a countercultural community of disciples confounds many conventional divides within the Christian family (liberal and conservative, church and sect), while forcing redefinition of commonplace categories like religion and politics, sacred and secular. The contributors to this book—theologians, social theorists, philosophers, historians, Catholics and Protestants of various backgrounds—reflect this shifting of categories and divisions. The book provides thought-provoking Christian perspectives on war and genocide, racism and nationalism, the legitimacy of liberalism and capitalism, and more. Contributors include Michael J. Baxter, Robert W. Brimlow, Walter Brueggemann, Michael L. Budde, Curt Cadorette, Rodney Clapp, Roberto S. Goizueta, Stanley Hauerwas, Marianne Sawicki, and Michael Warren.

In recent years the cultural climate of America has shifted dramatically away from a biblical worldview. For the committed Christian, this turn of events poses many problems. However, Believers do not have to shrink back in fear or run from the battle. There is also a counterculture of passionate Christians who are not willing to sit by idly as our history is rewritten, our legacies destroyed, and our future stolen. Instead, this counterculture aims to take back our nation and ultimately reform and restore America. In a thought-provoking exploration shared to encourage the remnant and call others out of darkness into God’s light, Catherine Butte challenges Christians and nonbelievers alike to rise from the ordinary and move into the extraordinary in order to experience more of the epic life God has planned for each of us. Through her guidance and insights, readers will: • Experience the liberating truths and freedom that comes with a biblically-based discourse on matters that are attempting to divide our nation and the Body of Christ; • Be armed with the truth of our nation’s biblical roots and its righteous foundation; • Be encouraged and inspired by the wonder of the supernatural and miraculous in the life of the Believer; and • Receive God’s unconditional love, grace, and mercy. Counterculture is an uplifting presentation that offers the truths of God’s Word to encourage Christians and nonbelievers to join a passionate movement to see America gloriously reformed and restored.

Compassionate call to counter culture in a world of poverty, same-sex marriage, racism, sex slavery, immigration, persecution, abortion, orphans, pornography.

This volume demonstrates that the Christian Right has a surprising past. Historical analysis reveals that the countercultural movements and evangelicalism share a common heritage. Shires warns that political operatives in both parties need to heed this fact if they hope to either, in the case of the Republican Party, retain their evangelical constituency, or, in the case of the Democratic Party, recruit new evangelical voters.

Counterculture, while commonly used to describe youth-oriented movements during the 1960s, refers to any attempt to challenge or change conventional values and practices or the dominant lifestyles of the day. This fascinating three-volume set explores these movements in America from colonial times to the present in colorful detail. "American Countercultures" is the first reference work to examine the impact of countercultural movements on American social history. It highlights the writings, recordings, and visual works produced by these movements to educate, inspire, and incite action in all eras of the nation's history. A-Z entries provide a wealth of information on personalities, places, events, concepts, beliefs, groups, and practices. The set includes numerous illustrations, a topic finder, primary source documents, a bibliography and a filmography, and an index.

Who would have imagined that the hippies, those long-haired, psychedelia-influenced youth of the 1960s, would have initiated a spiritual revolution that has transformed American Christianity? If you are unfamiliar with the 1960s, the counterculture, the hippie movement, and the Jesus People, then this book will transport you to that era and introduce you to the generation and the decade that turned American culture upside down. If you have read other books on the Jesus People, this account will take you by surprise. A refreshingly different narrative that unveils a storyline and characters not commonly known to have been associated with the movement, this book argues that the Jesus People, though often trivialized and stigmatized as a group of lost and vulnerable youth who strayed from the Fundamentalism of their childhood, helped American Christianity negotiate a way forward in a post-1960s culture. It examines the narrative of the Holy Spirit and the phenomenon called Pentecostalism. Although utterly central, the Jesus People's Pentecostalism has never been examined and their story has been omitted from the historiography of Pentecostalism. This account uniquely redresses this omission.