Winner, 2022 Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize While the idea that successful missions needed Indigenous revolts and missionary deaths seems counterintuitive, this book illustrates how it became a central logic of frontier colonization in Spanish North America. Missions Begin with Blood argues that martyrdom acted as a ceremony of possession that helped Jesuits understand violence, disease, and death as ways that God inevitably worked to advance Christendom. Whether petitioning superiors for support, preparing to extirpate Native “idolatries,” or protecting their conversions from critics, Jesuits found power in their persecution and victory in their victimization. This book correlates these tales of sacrifice to deep genealogies of redemptive death in Catholic discourse and explains how martyrological idioms worked to rationalize early modern colonialism. Specifically, missionaries invoked an agricultural metaphor that reconfigured suffering into seed that, when watered by sweat and blood, would one day bring a rich harvest of Indigenous Christianity.

In a horrific tale of faith and irony, the passions of both good and evil are tested and tormented as all try to make sense of the time now known as The Calm. Daniel Llanso, the HellSpawn from Curse of the Spawn, is overwhelmed by the feelings of Hell on Earth. What's left of humanity is truly tested, along with the depths of evil, as all reality is twisted into a storm of confusion and agony.

An uneducated youth, William Booth left home in 1849 at the age of twenty to preach the gospel for the New Methodist Connexion. Six years later he founded a new religious movement which succeeded to such a degree that the Salvation Army (which it became) is now a worldwide operation with massive membership. But that is only part of Booth's importance and heritage. In many ways his story is also that of the Victorian poor, as he and his wife Catherine made it their lives' work to battle against the poverty and deprivation which were endemic in the mid- to late 1800s. Indeed, it was Catherine who, although a chronic invalid, inspired the Army's social policy and attitude to female authority. Her campaign against child prostitution resulted in the age of consent being raised and it was Catherine who, dying of cancer, encouraged William to clear the slums -- In Darkest England, The Way Out. Roy Hattersley's masterful dual biography is not just the story of two fascinating lives but a portrait of an integral part of our history.

From accounts of healings, salvation, and miraculous deliverances, Hinn shares powerful experiences and stories that emphasize biblical concepts and explain how to apply foundational truths.

Why are there so many competing Christian churches in the world today? It is because men interpret the same passage of scripture and its terms in different ways. If there ever is to be a unity in Christianity it will require a unity of understanding the scriptures. It is our personal challenge in life to discover the truth of things. For all of us, the truth in religion isn't necessarily what we expect, or want to find. But for those of us who will accept truth when we find it in the scriptures, it will be found in the definitions of the terms of salvation that are used consistently by the prophets. We find on examination that the 'terms of salvation' in the Bible are fairly consistent in meaning throughout the book, even though the Bible was written by many different Prophets. The Mormon religion claims to possess other books of scripture. This book also compares what is written in their books against what is written in the Bible, with very interesting results. The reader from any religion will find this book a key to understanding the spirit of the Bible and the details of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

A study of the fundamentals of salvation according to the gospel through the blood of Jesus Christ. Includes a careful study of obedient faith compared to Calvinism. Topics discussed include the following: * The sacrifice of Jesus Christ * The importance of the gospel, faith, obedience, repentance, confession * A careful study of baptism: its purpose, action, and proper subject * Should an alien sinner pray for forgiveness? * What does it mean to be born again? * The importance of living a faithful life as a Christian * The importance of Jesus' church * Forgiveness for children of God who return to error * Original sin and inherited depravity * Election and predestination * Grace and mercy of God * Falling from grace (Once Saved, Always Saved) * Faith only or obedient faith?

Many ministers and faithful Christians instinctively recoil from "washed in the blood" theology, but they hesitate to discuss the subject. This book, by one of the world's leading authorities on atonement doctrine, shows how the "purchased by the blood" idea is out of step with the teachings of Jesus, who said that God reaches the pure in heart without any sacrificial payment. The successors of Paul took the Apostle Paul's sacrificial metaphors far too literally and turned them into an imagined "mechanics" of salvation in which God is "paid off." Over the centuries, this manipulative idea has been the source of confusion and mischief, from the anti-Semitic superstitions of the Middle Ages, to the pedagogy of shame taught in many fundamentalist churches today. Our understanding of Christ will be enhanced if we can recover the original apostolic Christology, which was based on Christ as Creator and life-giver.