When The Kings Come Marching In

Widely respected for his perspectives on faith in the modern world, Richard J. Mouw has long stood at the forefront of the Christ and culture debate. In When the Kings Come Marching In here revised and updated Mouw explores the religious transformation of culture as it is powerfully pictured in Isaiah 60. In Isaiah 60 the prophet envisions the future transformation of the city of Jerusalem, a portrayal of the Holy City that bears important similarities to John's vision of the future in Revelation 21 and 22. Mouw examines these and other key passages of the Bible, showing how they provide a proper pattern for cultural involvement in the present. Mouw identifies and discusses four main features of the Holy City: (1) the wealth of the nations is gathered into the city; (2) the kings of the earth march into the city; (3) people from many nations are drawn to the city; and (4) light pervades the city. In drawing out the implications of these striking features, Mouw treats a number of relevant cultural issues, including Christian attitudes toward the processes and products of commerce, technology, and art; the nature of political authority; race relations; and the scope of the redemptive ministry of Jesus Christ. The volume culminates in an invaluable discussion of how Christians should live in the modern world. Mouw argues that believers must go beyond a narrow understanding of the individual pilgrim's progress to a view of the Christian pilgrimage wherein believers work together toward solving the difficult political, social, and economic problems of our day.

"If you have faith as small as a mustard seed," Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, "nothing will be impossible for you." That sounds good, but does it work in a world where seeds are genetically altered by an impatient few and hard to come by for countless others? In a world where the gulf between the very rich and the profoundly poor is constantly growing, can a mustard-seed faith make any difference? And can such a little bit of faith be sustained in a world whose future is so uncertain on so many fronts? Tom Sine says yes, and he has the audacity to try to prove it in his latest book. In The New Conspirators Tom surveys the landscape of creative Christianity, where streams of renewal are flowing freely from diverse sources: The emerging church Contemporary monastic movements The missional church The mosaic movement Individuals and communities of faith are coalescing in, and drawing energy from, these four streams to retrofit the church as it leads, serves and gives witness to the kingdom of God in the turbulent times facing us. Read the book and you'll want to-and be prepared to-join God's conspiracy to create a better future.

Sin and Politics: Issues in Reformed Theology is an overview of the relationship between sin and politics from the reformational point of view. This short theological history is comprised of three parts: politics without sin (creational politics), politics with sin (fallen politics), and politics beyond sin (redeemed politics). As a creation of human culture, politics have been tainted with sinful distortion in this world, but will be recovered in the future Kingdom by the eternal kingship of the Lord of Lords. Sin and Politics includes a summary and commentary on political discussions by various Reformed theologians. It uncovers the Reformed tradition's positive regard for politics and the profound theological root of politics.

This highly praised book uniquely looks at the act of preaching from the perspective of those in the pews. Drawing on many years of pulpit experience, Roger Van Harn guides pastors back to the heart of the preacher's task -- sound, biblical proclamation. Back in print in paperback.

The Lord’s Supper (or Eucharist) has often been a subject of intense debate in the church. What is often lost in this debate is the significance of the relationship of the Eucharist to Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples, which was a Passover—or Passover-like—meal. Moreover, the Last Supper connects back to various meals in Jesus’ earthly ministry. And it looks forward to the great messianic banquet as fulfillment of Jewish expectations. In exploring these connections, this book focuses on the three motifs of “new creation,” “hospitality,” and “hope” in Christ. Most significantly, when we break the bread and drink the wine (or juice) together we are asserting the reality of the new creation in Christ, affirming God’s grace, forgiveness, and cruciform love which is to be embodied in the Christian community, and anticipating the day when God’s present and ongoing work of restoration, justice, and reconciliation will ultimately prevail. The Supper, then, is basically a condensed summary of the story of God’s plan of redemption. Hesselgrave brings together biblical, theological, ethical, and social insights in a way that deepens our understanding of the meaning and practical significance of biblical texts related to this central ordinance of the church.

Nothing confuses Christian ethics quite like the Old Testament. Some faithful readers struggle through its pages and conclude that they must obey its moral laws but may disregard its ceremonial and civil laws. Others abandon its teaching altogether in favor of a strictly New Testament ethic. Neither option, argues Chris Wright, gives the Old Testament its due. In this innovative approach to Old Testament ethics--fully revised, updated and expanded since its first appearance in 1983 as Living as the People of God (An Eye for an Eye in North America) and including material from Walking in the Ways of the Lord--Wright examines a theological, social and economic framework for Old Testament ethics. Then he explores a variety of themes in relation to contemporary issues: economics, the land and the poor; politics and a world of nations; law and justice; society and culture; and the way of the individual. This fresh, illuminating study provides a clear basis for a biblical ethic that is faithful to the God of both Testaments.

This book re-imagines the universe (and the scientific study of it) through the lens of a triune Creator, three persons of irreducible identity in a perichoretic or coinherent communion. It modestly proposes that Trinitarian theology, and especially the coinherent natures of the Son in the incarnation, provides the metaphysic or “theory of everything” that manifests itself in the subject matter of science. The presence of the image of the triune God in humanity and of traces of this God in the non-human creation are discussed, highlighting ontological resonances between God and creation (resonances between the being of God and his creation), such as goodness, immensity-yet-particularity, intelligibility, agency, relationality, and beauty. This Trinitarian reality suggests there should be a similarity also with respect to how we know in theology and science (critical realism), something reflected in the history of ideas in each. These resonances lead to the conclusion that the disciplines of theology and science are, in fact, coinherent, not conflicted. This involves recognition of both the mutuality of these vocations and also, importantly, their particularity. Science, its own distinct guild, yet finds its place ensconced within an encyclopedic theology, and subject to first-order, credal theology.

V knjigi so zbrani prispevki z dveh mednarodnih konferenc, od katerih je eno organiziral ZRC SAZU septembra 1998 v Ljubljani. Zbornik je razdeljen na pet delov. V prvem z naslovom »Jeruzalem znotraj krščanske in občeslovanske tradicije« sodelujejo O. Belova, I. Kazovskaya, J. Krašovec, S. Tolstaya in E. Vereshchagin. V drugem »Jeruzalem in svet južnih Slovanov in Judov« so avtorji M. Frejdenberg, E. Holz, V. Nartnik, M. Nosić, D. Poniž, F. Premk, J. Rotar in Z. Šmitek. Avtorji prispevkov v tretjem delu »Jeruzalem in svet vzhodnih Slovanov« so A. Arkhipov, L. Calvi, G. Giraudo, P. Gonneau, L. Fialkova, Ja. Iluk, V. Khazan, V. Levin, Yu. Leving, V. Moskovich, J. Raba in A. Rogachevsky. V četrtem delu »Jeruzalem in svet zahodnih Slovanov« je en sam prispevek avtorja V. Bria in enako je v petem delu »Jeruzalem in sosedje Slovanov«, kjer je objavljen prispevek B. Levaia. Zbornik je večjezičen; dvanajst člankov je pisanih v angleščini, enajst v ruščini, dva v slovenščini in po eden v francoščini in ukrajinščini.