Crossing social, cultural, and religious barriers and making disciples of all nations has probably never been without some level of controversy. This book is an attempt to hit the pause button on this rapid-paced world and to reflect on how we do mission, especially in light of the new layers of complexity that globalization brings. While the contributors engage in new aspects of mission and cultural encounter unique to the twenty-first century, the underlying issues of each chapter are age-old topics that have reared their heads at various times throughout history: priorities in mission, power struggles, perspectives on cultural others, and contextualization. With that in mind, our aims are twofold: (1) to carefully consider issues causing tension and contention within current mission thought, practice and strategy and then (2) to engage in serious but charitable dialogue for the sake of God’s mission and the salvation of all peoples.

Leading evangelical mission experts offer a comprehensive theology of mission text, providing biblical, historical, and contemporary perspectives.

Newly updated and expanded by Christopher J. H. Wright, John Stott's classic book presents an enduring and holistic view of Christian mission that must encompass both evangelism and social action. Through a thorough biblical exploration, Stott provides a biblically based approach to mission that addresses both spiritual and physical needs.

The Rites Controversies in the Early Modern World is a collection of fourteen articles focusing on debates concerning the nature of “rites” raging in intellectual circles of Europe, Asia and America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The controversy started in Jesuit Asian missions where the method of accommodation, based on translation of Christianity into Asian cultural idioms, created a distinction between civic and religious customs. Civic customs were defined as those that could be included into Christianity and permitted to the new converts. However, there was no universal consensus among the various actors in these controversies as to how to establish criteria for distinguishing civility from religion. The controversy had not been resolved, but opened the way to radical religious scepticism. Contributors are: Claudia Brosseder, Michela Catto, Gita Dharampal-Frick, Pierre Antoine Fabre, Ana Carolina Hosne, Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, Giuseppe Marcocci, Ovidiu Olar, Sabina Pavone, István Perczel, Nicholas Standaert, Margherita Trento, Guillermo Wilde and Ines G. Županov.

Offering a series of case studies of recent media controversies, this collection draws on new perspectives in cultural studies to consider a wide variety of images. The book suggest how we might achieve a more subtle understanding of controversial images and negotiate the difficult terrain of the new media landscape.

Michael Goheen gives us a full-scale introduction to mission studies today in its biblical, theological and historical dimensions. Goheen covers the full horizon of major issues in mission, including its global, urban and holistic contexts. This text shows how the missional church encounters the pluralism of Western culture and global religions.

This book provides a thorough introduction to historical and contemporary issues in American religion, tackling controversial hot-button topics such as abortion, Intelligent Design, and Scientology. Surveying key aspects of the controversial issues, persons, and religious groups of today, Encyclopedia of Religious Controversies in the United States, Second Edition is a thorough update and expansion of the first edition of this book. This two-volume work contains many new entries that reflect current 21st-century religious controversies. Written by a variety of scholars with varying specializations, the content covers major people, ideas, terms, institutions, groups, books, and events. The A–Z format allows for easy location of materials, a chronology of developments and events enables readers to trace the development of contentious topics over time, and a section of primary document excerpts gives readers further perspective on the issues.

Recent studies into the experiences and failures of health care services, along with the rapid development of patient advocacy, consumerism and pressure groups have led historians and social scientists to engage with the issue of the medical complaint. As expressions of dissatisfaction, disquiet and failings in service provision, past complaining is a vital antidote to progressive histories of health care. This book explores what has happened historically when medicine generated complaints. This multidisciplinary collection comprises contributions from leading international scholars and uses new research to develop a sophisticated understanding of the development of medicine and the role of complaints and complaining in this story. It addresses how each aspect of the medical complaint – between sciences, professions, practitioners and sectors; within politics, ethics and regulatory bodies; from interested parties and patients – has manifested in modern medicine, and how it has been defined, dealt with and resolved. A critical and interdisciplinary humanities and social science perspective grounded in historical case studies of medicine and bioethics, this volume provides the first major and comprehensive historical, comparative and policy-based examination of the area. It will be of interest to historians, sociologists, legal specialists and ethicists interested in medicine, as well as those involved in healthcare policy, practice and management.

Classical orthodoxy, the Reformational understanding of the gospel, and the Great Awakening beliefs and behaviors, including missions/missiology, reflect what the evangelical movement and its mission should be if it is to have a future. Evangelicals must work and pray together in resubmission of their ways of thinking and working to the Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. They must recover the faith of the fathers and the mission of the revivalists. Nothing less will rescue American missions from a marginal role. Nothing less will reinvigorate historic doctrine and get missions back on the track to world evangelization.