The Disappearing Christ

At the turn of the twentieth century, American popular culture was booming with opportunities to see Jesus Christ. From the modernized eyewitness gospel of Ben-Hur to the widely circulated passion play films of Edison, Lumière, and Pathé; from D. W. Griffith’s conjuration of a spectral white savior in Birth of a Nation to W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Black Christ” story cycle, Jesus was constantly and inventively visualized across media, and especially in the new medium of film. Why, in an era traditionally defined by the triumph of secular ideologies and institutions, were so many artists rushing to film Christ’s miracles and use his story and image to contextualize their experiences of modernity? In The Disappearing Christ, Phillip Maciak examines filmic depictions of Jesus to argue that cinema developed as a model technology of secularism, training viewers for belief in a secular age. Negotiating between the magic trick and the documentary image, the conflicting impulses of faith and skepticism, the emerging aesthetic of film in this period visualized the fraught process of secularization. Cinematic depictions of an appearing and disappearing Christ became a powerful vehicle for Americans to navigate a rapidly modernizing society. Studying these films alongside a multimedia, interdisciplinary archive of novels, photographs, illustrations, and works of theology, travel writing, and historiography, The Disappearing Christ offers a new narrative of American cultural history at the intersection of cinema studies and religious studies.

When church and culture look the same... For the many Christians eager to prove we can be both holy and cool, cultural pressures are too much. We either compartmentalize our faith or drift from it altogether—into a world that’s so alluring. Have you wondered lately: Why does the Western church look so much like the world? Why are so many of my friends leaving the faith? How can we get back to our roots? Disappearing Church will help you sort through concerns like these, guiding you in a thoughtful, faithful, and hopeful response. Weaving together art, history, and theology, pastor and cultural observer Mark Sayers reminds us that real growth happens when the church embraces its countercultural witness, not when it blends in. It’s like Jesus said long ago, “If the salt loses its saltiness, it is no longer good for anything…”

Each hour brings troubling headlines from the many news sources now available. Every report seems more intrusive upon our daily lives than the previous, and all accounts appear to be setting the end-time stage for soon fulfillment of God's prophetic Word.The world is turned upside down by issues and events that are contrary to life as we've known it. All rational thought has turned to wickedness-toward the dark side. Our times seem like the "days of Noah," just as Jesus Christ described how things will be at the moment He is next revealed. That moment will be when the greatest event since Christ's resurrection occurred: the Rapture!The Disappearing: Future Events That Will Rock the World presents the wind-up of human history. It chronicles what set in motion and is driving this heaven-directed, end-times drama. It's the conclusion of the greatest story ever told. What we're witnessing today is about to bring down the curtain of prophecy's final act."And when you see all these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your head, for your redemption is drawing near" (Luke 21:28).The Disappearing: Future Events That Will Rock the World brings to the reader:· Explanation of Heaven's conception; causes and effects of the Rapture· God's prophetic timeline in detail from this present moment-in-depth, yet in understandable terms· A dramatic presentation of the Rapture· What happens to children in the disappearance· Vivid depiction of unfolding events immediately following the Rapture and beyond-through planet earth's judgment and its ultimate restoration· The glorious, victorious return of Christ

Phillip Maciak examines filmic depictions of Jesus to argue that cinema developed as a model technology of secularism, training viewers for belief in a secular age. Cinematic depictions of an appearing and disappearing Christ became a powerful vehicle for Americans to navigate a rapidly modernizing society.

In this unique, practical book—written to be read by those remaining on earth after the Rapture—Jimmy Evans reveals the truth of the Bible about the end times. With compassion and deep insight into the prophecies of Scripture, he explains the disappearance of millions of believers around the world and gives future readers a glimpse into the events of the Tribulation. From the rise of the Antichrist to the ultimate redemption provided by Jesus, this hopeful book is a must-read for anyone navigating the future. Buy it for family members or friends. Leave it on your desk or coffee table. Put it in a place where a future reader can find it. The truths in this book will literally transform their lives. And it may be necessary sooner than you think.

After the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004, the "God Gap" became a hotly debated political issue. Religious voters were seen as the key to Bush's victory, and Democrats began scrambling to reach out to them. Four years later, however, with the economy in a tailspin on election day, religion barely seemed to register on people's radar screens. In this book, a team of well-regarded scholars digs deeper to examine the role religion played in the 2008 campaign. They take a long view, placing the election in historical context and looking at the campaign as a whole, from the primaries through all the way through election day. At the heart of their analysis is data gleaned from a national survey conducted by the authors, in which voters were interviewed in the spring of 2008 and then re-interviewed after the election.

The Vanishing reveals the plight and possible extinction of Christian communities across Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Palestine after 2,000 years in their historical homeland. Some of the countries that first nurtured and characterized Christianity - along the North African Coast, on the Euphrates and across the Middle East and Arabia - are the ones in which it is likely to first go extinct. Christians are already vanishing. We are past the tipping point, now tilted toward the end of Christianity in its historical homeland. Christians have fled the lands where their prophets wandered, where Jesus Christ preached, where the great Doctors and hierarchs of the early church established the doctrinal norms that would last millennia. From Syria to Egypt, the cities of northern Iraq to the Gaza Strip, ancient communities, the birthplaces of prophets and saints, are losing any living connection to the religion that once was such a characteristic feature of their social and cultural lives. In The Vanishing, Janine di Giovanni has combined astonishing journalistic work to discover the last traces of small, hardy communities that have become wisely fearful of outsiders and where ancient rituals are quietly preserved amid 360 degree threats. Di Giovanni's riveting personal stories and her conception of faith and hope are intertwined throughout the chapters. The book is a unique act of pre-archeology: the last chance to visit the living religion before all that will be left are the stones of the past.

Based on an unfinished manuscript by the late philosopher Dallas Willard, this book makes the case that the 20th century saw a massive shift in Western beliefs and attitudes concerning the possibility of moral knowledge, such that knowledge of the moral life and of its conduct is no longer routinely available from the social institutions long thought to be responsible for it. In this sense, moral knowledge—as a publicly available resource for living—has disappeared. Via a detailed survey of main developments in ethical theory from the late 19th through the late 20th centuries, Willard explains philosophy’s role in this shift. In pointing out the shortcomings of these developments, he shows that the shift was not the result of rational argument or discovery, but largely of arational social forces—in other words, there was no good reason for moral knowledge to have disappeared. The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge is a unique contribution to the literature on the history of ethics and social morality. Its review of historical work on moral knowledge covers a wide range of thinkers including T.H Green, G.E Moore, Charles L. Stevenson, John Rawls, and Alasdair MacIntyre. But, most importantly, it concludes with a novel proposal for how we might reclaim moral knowledge that is inspired by the phenomenological approach of Knud Logstrup and Emmanuel Levinas. Edited and eventually completed by three of Willard’s former graduate students, this book marks the culmination of Willard’s project to find a secure basis in knowledge for the moral life.