The History Of Providence

Alexander Carson lived in an age that was turning away from the revelation of God in Scripture. The dominant philosophy of the times sought to replace the knowledge of the personal, sovereign and provident God of Scripture with a 'more intelligent belief' in the impersonal laws of nature (which are, of course, nothing but the physical laws by which God usually conducts his government of the world). If God exists - and that was a big 'if' - then he is a God who is far removed from the events of every-day life. But truth and Scripture teach that all physical laws have their effect from the immediate agency of God's almighty power. In his works of providence God preserves and governs all his creatures and all their actions. 'In him we live, and move, and have our being' (Acts 17:28). Although Christians recognize this doctrine of Providence, they tend to overlook it in practice. In so doing they lose, in a great measure, that advantage which a constant and deep impression of this truth is calculated to give. In this book, Alexander Carson takes the reader through the Scriptures and points to instances of God's providence that will provide comfort for all true believers.

Sarah Koenig traces the rise and fall of Protestant missionary Marcus Whitman's legend, revealing two patterns in the development of American history. On the one hand is providential history, marked by the conviction that God is an active agent in human history and that historical work can reveal patterns of divine will. On the other hand is objective or scientific history, which arose initially in the pleas of Catholics and other racial and religious outsiders who resisted providentialists' pejorative descriptions of non-Protestants and nonwhites.

New from Best-Selling Author John Piper From Genesis to Revelation, the providence of God directs the entire course of redemptive history. Providence is "God's purposeful sovereignty." Its extent reaches down to the flight of electrons, up to the movements of galaxies, and into the heart of man. Its nature is wise and just and good. And its goal is the Christ-exalting glorification of God through the gladness of a redeemed people in a new world. Drawing on a lifetime of theological reflection, biblical study, and practical ministry, pastor and author John Piper leads us on a stunning tour of the sightings of God's providence—from Genesis to Revelation—to discover the allencompassing reality of God's purposeful sovereignty over all of creation and all of history. Piper invites us to experience the profound effects of knowing the God of all-pervasive providence: the intensifying of true worship, the solidifying of wavering conviction, the strengthening of embattled faith, the toughening of joyful courage, and the advance of God's mission in this world.

In crafting racial visions of the modern world, European thinkers appropriated the Christian doctrine of providence, constructing the idea of European humanity’s rule over the globe on the model of God’s rule over the universe. As a powerful ordering theory of the relationship between God and creation, time and space, self and other, the doctrine served as an intellectual framework for the theorization of whiteness, as the male European subject replaced Jesus Christ as the human being at the center of world history. Through an analysis of the work of G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Barth, and James H. Cone, God, Race, and History examines this subversion of the Christian doctrine of providence, as well as subsequent attempts within modern Protestant theology to liberate the doctrine from its captivity to whiteness. It then develops a constructive political theology of providence in conversation with Delores S. Williams and M. Shawn Copeland, discerning Jesus Christ at work through the Holy Spirit in the struggles of ordinary, overlooked, and oppressed human creatures to survive and to carve out a flourishing life for themselves, their communities, and their world.

At the start of the Second World War, Poland was invaded by both the German and the Soviet armies. The country was unable to withstand the assaults and thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians were shipped to labour camps and prisons, where starvation, disease, and mistreatment were their daily expectations. With the signing of an amnesty between the Polish and Soviet governments in 1942, many of these soldiers were engaged in rebuilding the Polish army, and travelled through the Mideast to fight in the Italian campaign.After the war, Canada accepted over 4000 Polish immigrant soldiers and their families who did not want to return to a communist regime in their country. This book is a moving oral history of the experiences of forty-five individuals during that transition period between the outbreak of war and their eventual relocation in Canada. Their memories of those times remain clear, not so remarkably perhaps, as they recount how they struggled in labour and prison camps, refugee camps, and exile in freezing northern climates, often arriving with the clothes they wore and nothing else. There are stories here of families torn apart and reunited, courageous escapes, underground resistance, friendship and emnity, and above all of survival. To read these memoirs is to understand how the inhumanity of war is confronted and defied by the indomitable human spirit.