Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Christian Church - History

This masterful study of the early centuries of Christianity vividly brings to life the religious, political, and cultural developments through which the faith that began as a sect within Judaism became finally the religion of the Roman empire. First published in 1970, Grant's classic is enhanced with a new foreward by Margaret M. Mitchell, which assesses its importance and puts the reader in touch with the advances of current research.

In this thought-provoking book, Luis Rivera argues that evangelical reasoning and symbolism were appropriated to justify the armed seizure of people and land in the New World and to validate the conversion, peaceful or forced, of the natives. He recaptures the sixteenth-century political debates--where priests and theologians are both voices of dissent against the Spanish military conquest and fervent defenders of it. Rivera contrasts "discovery" and conquest and examines the tragic outcome: demographic collapse--from the islands Columbus first sighted to the Inca empire in Peru.

This book is a handy tool for pastors, theological students, and laity seeking a better understanding of the teaching of John Calvin. It is a comprehensive, easy-to-read introduction to the most influential book of the Protestant Reformation: Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.

The brief quotations from the Institutes, alphabetized by subject, will be useful to ministers preparing sermons or studying privately, to teachers and students as an introductory guide and reference handbook, and to general readers wishing to probe more deeply into Calvin's life,...

This in-depth survey provides a vivid overview of the religious world of the Baby Boomers. The authors worked with a national sample of persons confirmed in the Presbyterian Church, examining the religious faith of Baby Boomers and exploring the reasons they gave for leaving or staying in the church. The authors identify eight types of young adults--half of them churched and the other half unchurched. Their findings provide some unexpected results.

Many believe that American Protestantism has long been divided into two groups: those concerned with the impact of religion in the public sphere and those concerned with private faith, individual morality, and personal evangelism. Douglas Strong provides examples of people over the last 150 years who bridged the apparent chasm between these two groups and were able to nurture a deep personal piety while simultaneously working to transform society.

The United States is founded upon the principles of freedom of religion, although it has been difficult at times to understand and apply those principles. Phillip Hammond argues that the Constitution assumes a radical religious liberty, which protects the convictions of individual Americans, whether or not those convictions are explicitly religious. This book is an excellent guide to the church-state debate of today, and deepens that discussion by examining the root cause of disagreement about what freedom of religion means in America.