The Spirit Contemporary Life

What if the Supernatural Became Normal and Natural in Your Life? How would your world change if you regularly experienced the miraculous? And what if this happened everywhere you went-in a way that attracted people to Jesus? It wouldn't just make a difference in your world; it would make the world different. It might sound too good to be true...but that's the Spirit Contemporary life. While working as a first responder in an ambulance, Leon Fontaine longed to see God's power at work outside the four walls of a church. He learned through many life-changing experiences that we can all unlock the miraculous in a way that works anywhere-at home, in a hospital, at work--with anyone! The Spirit Contemporary way of life involves communicating with others as Jesus would: using their language, stories, and settings. Leon draws on biblical truth and personal stories to reveal how this dynamic first-century faith can be yours when you live so in tune with God that you're guided in ways that are both natural and supernatural. "In a world seeking an authentic, transparent, and genuine touch of God, Leon equips us with a Christ-centered, Spirit-empowered, Bible-based, kingdom prescription." --Samuel Rodriguez, president, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, author of Be Light "When 'Spirit' and 'Contemporary' are synergized, phenomenal outcomes will happen in the church...I believe this valuable resource will help the church go to higher levels of impact and influence in the years ahead." -- Dr. Elmer L. Towns, co-Founder of Liberty University “The Spirit Contemporary Life is a grace-based approach to moving in the gifts of the spirit. You will be greatly blessed by it. --Joseph Prince, senior pastor, New Creation Church

Including essays from 2009 Wheaton Theology Conference keynote speakers Dallas Willard and Gordon Fee as well as contributing essays by noted presenters such as Chris Hall, David Gushee, Linda Cannell, Cherith Fee Nordling and Lawrece Cunningham, this book offers a stimulating exploration of the historical, biblical and theological dimensions of spiritual formation.

Since the nineteenth century, many philosophical and theological commentators have sought to trace lines of continuity between the Trinitarian thought of Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831). Many contemporary Christian theologians have also criticized Augustine's Trinitarian theology generally and his doctrine of the Holy Spirit more specifically through this historical lens. At the same time, Hegelian Trinitarian conceptual dynamics have come to exert a strong influence over contemporary Trinitarian theology. In Life in the Spirit, Douglas Finn seeks to redress several imbalances with respect to Augustine, imbalances that have one of their hermeneutic causes in a Hegelian-influenced theological tradition. Finn argues that common readings of Augustine focus too much on his De Trinitate, books 8–15, betraying a modern—and to some extent Hegelian—prejudice against considering sermons and biblical commentaries serious theological work. This broadening of Augustinian texts allows Finn to critique readings of Augustine that, on the one hand, narrow his Trinitarian theology to the so-called psychological analogy and thus chart him on a path to Descartes and Hegel, or, on the other hand, suggest he sacrifices a theology of the Trinitarian persons on the altar of divine substance. Augustine's Trinitarian theology on Finn's reading is one fully engaged with God's work in history. With this renewed understanding of Augustine's Trinitarianism, Finn allows Augustine to interrogate Hegel with his concerns rather than only the other way around. In this ambitious study, Finn shows that Hegel's rendition of Christianity systematically obviates whole swaths of Christian prayer and practice. He does this nonpolemically, carefully, and with meticulous attention to the texts of both great thinkers.

Explores the concept of Spirit in the postmodern age.

Beginning with his experiences as a prisoner of war, Moltmann anchors his reflections in a theology of life - and the Spirit as elemental renewer of life - which links biblical manifestations to contemporary ones, hope to holiness, creation to community, and politics to prayer. In the Spirit we embrace the presence of God, but we also embrace community with people and all living things.

In The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience, Simeon Zahl presents a fresh vision for Christian theology that foregrounds the relationship between theological ideas and the experiences of Christians. He argues that theology is always operating in a vibrant landscape of feeling and desiring, and shows that contemporary theology has often operated in problematic isolation from these experiential dynamics. He then argues that a theologically serious doctrine of the Holy Spirit not only authorizes but requires attention to Christian experience. Against this background, Zahl outlines a new methodological approach to Christian theology that attends to the emotional and experiential power of theological ideas. This methodology draws on recent interdisciplinary work on affect and emotion, which has shown that affects are powerful motivating realities that saturate all dimensions of human thinking and acting. In the process, Zahl also explains why contemporary theology has often been ambivalent about subjective experience, and demonstrates that current discourse about God's activity in the world is often artificially abstracted from experience and embodiment. At the heart of the book, Zahl proposes a new account of the theology of grace from this experiential and pneumatological perspective. Focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation and sanctification, he retrieves insights from Augustine, Luther, and Philip Melanchthon to present an affective and Augustinian vision of salvation as a pedagogy of desire. In articulating this vision, Zahl engages critically with recent emphasis on participation and theosis in Christian soteriology, and charts a new path forward for Protestant theology in a landscape hitherto dominated by the theological visions of Barth and Aquinas.

Philip Kenneson digs into the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, combining rich, theologically grounded reflection on Christian life and practice with analysis of contemporary culture. He explores what each fruit means in its biblical context, then investigates how key traits of late modern Western culture inhibit the development and ripening of each fruit.

Sharon Garlough Brown tells the moving story of four strangers as they reluctantly arrive at a retreat center and find themselves drawn out of their separate stories of isolation and struggle and into a collective journey of spiritual practice, mutual support and personal revelation.