In non-Western contexts, Christianity has often been viewed as the religion of foreigners with a hidden political agenda. Sharing the gospel in non-imperialistic ways can be challenging, particularly in Asia. Every location to which God calls his messengers has its own rich history that should be shared with gospel workers and local people. Those desiring to serve interculturally must learn as much as possible about the past before joining that history. Are we learning from the past, or are we simply repeating the same mistakes in our own times and places? No culture in the world is a blank slate; rather, we can look for the initiating, inviting work of the missio Dei already emerging from within every surprising source. This book showcases the writings of sixteen reflective practitioners who offer insights based on their study and experience of history. These women and men come from a wide variety of cultural and theological backgrounds. Their stories include: An American who brought Protestant Buddhism to Sri Lanka A Norwegian Lutheran who started a Christian monastic community in Hong Kong A local scholar who led a faith movement in China that nearly overthrew the government A Thai villager who became an evangelist and a silent-film star Highlighting key people and places, Emerging Faith surveys several Christian movements found in the mission history of Asia. If you wish to challenge your thinking and respond to God’s invitation to participate in the global context, look here for encouragement and guidance.

Provides a comprehensive examination of the emerging church phenomenon, considering emerging patterns in leadership, worship, mission, spiritual practices, and cultural engagement.

"Robert MacFarlane has written that language does not just register experience, it produces it. Our religious language in particular informs and shapes our understanding of God, our sense of self, and the way we make sense of our challenging path back to loving Heavenly Parents. Unfortunately, to an extent we may not realize, our religious vocabulary has been shaped by prior generations whose creeds, in Joseph Smith s words, have filled the world with confusion. "I make all things new," proclaimed the Lord. Regrettably, many are still mired in the past, in ways we have not recognized. In this book, Fiona and Terryl Givens trace the roots of our religious vocabulary, explore how a flawed inheritance compounds the wounds and challenges of a life devoted to discipleship, and suggest ways of reformulating our language in more healthy ways all in the hope that, as B. H. Roberts urged, we may all cooperate in the works of the Spirit to find a truer expression of a gospel restored."--

Emerging adults want to believe that science and faith can coexist peacefully, and Greg Cootsona argues that they can. In his book Mere Science and Christian Faith he holds out a vision for the integration of science and faith and how it can lead us more deeply into the conversations that confront the church today.

How important is religion for young people in America today? What are the major influences on their developing spiritual lives? How do their religious beliefs and practices change as young people enter into adulthood? Christian Smith's Souls in Transition explores these questions and many others as it tells the definitive story of the religious and spiritual lives of emerging adults, ages 18 to 24, in the U.S. today. This is the much-anticipated follow-up study to the landmark book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Based on candid interviews with thousands of young people tracked over a five-year period, Souls in Transition reveals how the religious practices of the teenagers portrayed in Soul Searching have been strengthened, challenged, and often changed as they have moved into adulthood. The book vividly describes as well the broader cultural world of today's emerging adults, how that culture shapes their religious outlooks, and what the consequences are for religious faith and practice in America more generally. Some of Smith's findings are surprising. Parents turn out to be the single most important influence on the religious outcomes in the lives of young adults. On the other hand, teenage participation in evangelization missions and youth groups does not predict a high level of religiosity just a few years later. Moreover, the common wisdom that religiosity declines sharply during the young adult years is shown to be greatly exaggerated. Painstakingly researched and filled with remarkable findings, Souls in Transition will be essential reading for youth ministers, pastors, parents, teachers and students at church-related schools, and anyone who wishes to know how religious practice is affected by the transition into adulthood in America today.

Explore the history, teachings, structure and community life of the world-wide Baha'i community-what may well be the most diverse organized body of people on earth-through this revised and updated comprehensive introduction (2002). Named by the Encyclopedia Britannica as a book that has made "significant contributions to the knowledge and understanding" of religious thought, The Baha'i Faith covers the most recent developments in a faith that, in just over 150 years, has grown to become the second most wide-spread of the independent world religions.

The Emerging Church movement developed in the mid-1990s among primarily white, urban, middle-class pastors and laity who were disenchanted with America's conservative Evangelical sub-culture. It is a response to the increasing divide between conservative Evangelicals and concerned critics who strongly oppose what they consider overly slick, corporate, and consumerist versions of faith. A core feature of their response is a challenge to traditional congregational models, often focusing on new church plants and creating networks of related house churches. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork, James S. Bielo explores the impact of the Emerging Church movement on American Evangelicals. He combines ethnographic analysis with discussions of the movement's history, discursive contours, defining practices, cultural logics, and contentious interactions with conservative Evangelical critics to rethink the boundaries of Evangelical as a category.Ultimately, Bielo makes a novel contribution to our understanding of the important changes at work among American Protestants, and illuminates how Emerging Evangelicals interact with the cultural conditions of modernity, late modernity, and visions of postmodern Christianity. James S. Bielo is Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Miami University in Oxford, OH. He is the author of Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study (NYU Press) and editor of The Social Life of Scriptures: Cross-cultural Perspectives on Biblicism.

Dr Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists, working at the cutting edge of the study of DNA, the code of life. Yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God. How does he reconcile the seemingly unreconcilable? In THE LANGUAGE OF GOD he explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes the reader on a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry and biology -- indeed, reason itself -- are not incompatible with belief. His book is essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of all: why are we here? How did we get here? And what does life mean?

Whatever else one might say about Emergence Christianity, says Phyllis Tickle, one must agree it is shifting and re-configuring itself in such a prodigious way as to defy any final assessments or absolute pronouncements. Yet the insightful and well-read Tickle offers us a dispatch from the field to keep us informed of where Emergence Christianity now stands, where it may be going, and how it is aligning itself with other parts of God's church. Through her careful study and culture-watching, Tickle invites readers to join this investigation and conversation as open-minded explorers rather than fearful opponents. As readers join Tickle down the winding stream of Emergence Christianity, they will discover fascinating insights into concerns, organizational patterns, theology, and most pressing questions. Anyone involved in an emergence church or a traditional one will find here a thorough and well-written account of where things are--and where they are going.