The Mission Of God A Manifesto Of Hope For Society

Culture is the public manifestation of religion, expressing the values and beliefs that a society treasures. Western culture was built upon the principles of Christian belief. Today, having largely abandoned the triune God and his word in public and private life, we have undermined this cultural foundation. We must recover our footing or collapse.

IVP Readers' Choice Award Mission, missions, missional, and all its linguistic variations are part of the expanding vocabulary and rhetoric of the contemporary Christian missionary enterprise. Its language and assumptions are deeply ingrained in the thought and speech of the church today. Christianity is a missionary religion and faithful churches are mission-minded. What's more, in telling the story of apostles and bishops and monks as missionaries, we think we have grasped the true thread of Christian history. But what about those odd shapes, those unsettling gaps and creases in the historical record? Is the language of mission so clearly evident across the broad reaches of time? Is the trajectory of mission really so explicit from the early church to the present? Or has the modern missionary enterprise distorted our view of the past? As with every reigning paradigm, there comes a point when enough questions surface to beg for a close and critical look, even when it may seem transgressive to do so. In this study of the language of mission—its origin, development, and application—Michael Stroope investigates how the modern church has come to understand, speak of, and engage in the global expansion of Christianity. There is both surprise and hope in this tale. And perhaps the beginnings of a new conversation.

Jesus Manifesto presents a fresh unveiling of Jesus, seeking to restore the supremacy and sovereignty of Christ in a world—and a church—that has lost sight of Him. Christians have made the gospel about so many things—things other than Christ. Religious concepts, ideas, doctrines, strategies, and methods that begin to eclipse the beauty, the glory, and the reality of the Lord Jesus Himself. We know a lot about our Lord, but we don't know Him very well. We know a lot about trying to be like Jesus, but very little about living by His indwelling life. Jesus Manifesto provides clarity on the most important points of our faith. It is a prophetic call to restore the supremacy and sovereignty of Christ in a world and church that has lost sight of Him. This manifesto emphasizes ten crucial areas of restoring the supremacy of Jesus Christ, noting: Christians don’t follow Christianity; they follow Christ Christians don't proclaim themselves; they proclaim Christ Christians don’t point people to core values; they point people to the Cross Christians don't preach about Christ; they preach Christ Read this book to see your Lord like you've never seen Him before and restore the sovereignty of Jesus in your life.

Christian identity is in moral and political crisis, scandalized by the many ways in which it has been coopted and misrepresented. Addressing this painful reality, Lee Camp writes that Christianity in America has been made into a bad public joke because of “our failure to rightly understand what Christianity is.” From this provocative claim, Camp’s manifesto makes the convincing case that a renewed Christian politic is more essential than ever, one that is “neither left nor right nor religious,” but a prophetic way of life modeled after Jesus of Nazareth. Camp’s robust vision exposes modern parodies of faith—the American concept of “Christian values,” for one—and challenges Christians to rethink who they are and how they participate in the modern world. Authentic gospel truth is a scandal to the American myth, he argues, and we are called to be scandalous witnesses.

Culture is the public manifestation of religion. Today, Western culture is facing an epochal turning point. Having largely abandoned the triune God and His Word in private and public life, the edifice of our civilization is crumbling. The humanistic and utopian architects of our "progressive" order erroneously assumed that our social order could remain stable and flourish without its foundation. The coming decades will accelerate our rapid decadent demise into pagan religion, economic decline and social decay, unless a renewal of Christian vitality is seen in the church by a recovery of biblical faith and truth for every area of life. The Mission of God is a clarion call for Christians and God's church to awaken and recover a full-orbed gospel and comprehensive faith that recognizes and applies the salvation-victory and lordship of Jesus Christ to all creation; from the family, to education, evangelism, law, church, state and every other sphere. Boot shows that the only hope for our time is the reign of Jesus Christ and His kingdom, arguing that, like a mustard seed, this kingdom grows as believers declare the good news and assert the crown rights of Christ the king, in the power and grace of the Holy Spirit.

We all participate daily in culture-building. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords, and that he is at work to redeem this fallen world. "Gospel culture" refers to a total meaning for the cosmos, a design plan. In other words, the gospel should impact all our cultural activities.

A careful and informed assessment of the “emerging church” by a respected author and scholar The “emerging church” movement has generated a lot of excitement and exerts an astonishingly broad influence. Is it the wave of the future or a passing fancy? Who are the leaders and what are they saying? The time has come for a mature assessment. D. A. Carson not only gives those who may be unfamiliar with it a perceptive introduction to the emerging church movement, but also includes a skillful assessment of its theological views. Carson addresses some troubling weaknesses of the movement frankly and thoughtfully, while at the same time recognizing that it has important things to say to the rest of Christianity. The author strives to provide a perspective that is both honest and fair. Anyone interested in the future of the church in a rapidly changing world will find this an informative and stimulating read. D. A. Carson (Ph.D., University of Cambridge) is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He is the author of over 45 books, including the Gold Medallion Award-winning book The Gagging of God, and is general editor of Telling the Truth and Worship by the Book. He has served as a pastor and is an active guest lecturer in church and academic settings around the world.