Outline: This book responds to the crisis of American democracy as perceived by such diverse thinkers as Christopher Lasch, Michael Sandel, Mary Ann Glendon, and Robert Putnam. Despite their philosophical differences, these thinkers highlight a common theme: a decline in the institutions of civil society once hold to be the vital center of the American polity. In place of these institutions …
Outline: The author is well known for his incisive views on the intersection of culture and Christianity and for his efforts to make the thought of major Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper accessible to average Christians. In this volume the author provides the scholarly "backstory" to his popular books as the interprets, applies, expands on - and at times even corrects - Kuyper's remarkable visi…
Outline: Many women struggle daily with habits, emotions, and difficulties that they long to overcome. This book interweaves the perfect wisdom of God's Word with heartfelt compassion and concern as it addresses... - fear, worry, and depression - single parenting, wayward teenagers, the "perfect mom" syndrome - eating disorders, same-sex attraction, and other habitual struggles - verbal a…
Outline: Say bye-bye to bad behavior. 101 Solutions to your most frustrating discipline problems in children's ministry! This A-to-Z, quick-flip guide delivers classroom-tested, expert advice for: 1. Anger, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, Attention Span; 2. Bad Language, Biting, Bored Kids, Bribes, Broken Hearts, Bullying; 3. Cell Phones, Challenging Kids, Cleanup, Clingy Child, C…
Outline: This four-volume work combines rigorous historical and theological scholarship with application and practically - characterized by an accessible, Reformed, and experiental approach. In this volume, the authors explore the first two of eight central themes of theology: revelation and God.
Outline: In ordinary conversation, including among the "educated," the word "sin" rarely gets mentioned except when one is trying to be coy or facetious. As Thomas Mann once said, "sin" is nowadays "an amusing word used only when one is trying to get a laugh." But this small work will interpret sin in its true - that is, serious - meaning. What will emerge from its analysis is the discovery…
Overview: This book collects the paper presentations and seminar reports by these prominent international Calvin scholars: Heiko A. Oberman, James A. De Jong, James B. Torrance, Wilhelm H. Neuser, Paul E. Rorem, Richard C. Gamble, Richard Horcsik, Cornelis Augustijn, Luke Anderson, Erik A. de Boer, I. John Hesselink, Francis M. Higman, Nobuo Watanabe, Irene Backus, Adrianus D. Pont, Mitsuru Shi…
Outline: We've all heard sermons that sound more like a lecture, filling the head but not the heart. And we've all heard sermons tailored to produce an emotional experience, filing the heart but not the head. But biblical preaching both informs minds and engages hearts - giving it the power to transform lives. By the Spirit's grace, biblical preaching brings truth home from the heart of the …
Outline: What happens after death to Jesus and to those who follow him? This book offers a constructive theology that seeks to answer that very question, carefully considering both Jesus' descent into hell and eventual resurrection as integral parts of a robust vision of the Christian bodily resurrection. Taking on the claims of N. T. Wright and Richard B. Hays, the author draws strongly upo…
Outline: This book draws on current arhaeological and textual research to trace the spread of Christianity in the first millennium. The editor has assembled a team of expert historians to survey the diverse forms of early Christianity as it spread accross centuries, cultures, and continents.
Outline: Among the smiling faces in church on Sunday mornings are those who long for deeper, more genuine relationships within their local congregations - active, intentional relationships that nurture the soul, and foster spiritual growth. Drawing on decades of experience in spiritual direction, congregational ministry, and seminary teaching, this book offers a clear and rich introduction to …
Outline: The author examines the key events that will bring greater understanding of this fascinating period, in addition to sharpening the reader's perspective on today's church. The author explores the implications of - the Thirty Years' War - the rise of Pietism and the Enlightenment - colonization and revolution in America - the French Revolution - other critical events His examinat…
Overview: In this book, four perspectives are presented by a majo advocate of each: - Normative Pluralism : all ethical religions lead to God (John Hick) - Inclusivism: salvation is universally available, but is established by and leads to Christ (Clark Pinnock) - Salvation in Christ : salvation depends on explicit personal faith in Jesus Christ alone (R. Douglas Geivett and W. Gray Phillip…
Outline: Christians feel increasingly useless, argues the author, not because we have nothing to offer a post-Christian society, but because we are trying to serve as "sponsoring chaplains" to a civilization that no longer sees Christianity sas necessary to its existence. In our individualistic, technologically oriented, consumer-based culture, Christianity has become largely irrelevant. The …
Outline: Whether your church is healthy or struggling, the biblical principles in this book point the to way to greater spritual vitality. A pastor, seminary teacher, and conference speaker, the author has long specialized in church revitalization. He deftly alerts us to potential problems in our churches, help us to recognize our weeknesses and opportunities, and guides us in applying biblical…
Outline: This book is a comprehensive resource for understanding modern political issues in light of Scripture. A virtual source - book for anyone who takes the Bible seriously, it provides a thoughtful, carefully reasoned analysis of over fity specific topics, including the following: - Protection of life - Marriage - Family and children - Economic issues & taxation - The Environment - …
Outline: What was it like to be an ordinary Christian in the beginning decades of the Roman Empire? In this absorbing and authoritative book, the author analyzes the earliest extant documents of Christianity - the letters of Paul - to describe the tensions and the texture of life of the first urban Christians.
Overview: This comprehensive treatment of Christian doctrine was first issued in 1909 under the title The Wonderful Works of God. It has served well as a synopsis of Bavinck's larger, four-volume Dogmatics, for it presents in clear perspective all the fundamental doctrines of the Bible. Above all, the author was a thoroughly Scriptural theologian - he was always guided by the Bible as he syste…
Outline: In this unique work the author uses the ancient story of Philemon and Onesimus as a compelling entry into modern theological reflection on the unbelivable reach of the grace and forgiveness of the Father whose Son died without disciples, rose to reconcile and transform them, and then scattered them around the world as men and women who were now also able to love those who loved them no…
Outline: The author's believe there is a lot that evangelicals can agree on if only we employ the right categories and build our theology of mission from the same biblical building blocks. Explaining key concepts like kingdom, gospel, and social justice, the author's help us to get on the same page - united by a common cause - and launch us forward into the true misson of the church.
Overview: Klass Schilder (1890 - 1952), the author of the triology about the suffering of Christ, is remembered both for his courageous stand in opposition to Nazism, which led to his imprisonment three months after the Nazis overran the Netherlands in 1940, and for his role in the church struggle in the Netherlands, which culminated in 1944 with the suspension of scores of office-bearers and t…
Outline: In this book, the author has provided a masterly account of this transition and what it signified for the meaning of Christian theology itself. In the decades preceding the outbreak of the Civil War, American theologians mastered the conceptual languages of republican political thought and commonsense moral reasoning. Because religious thinkers learned to speak these languages so well,…
Overview: This is a survey and an analysis of the European Reformation of the sixteenth century. During this period western Christianity underwent the most dramatic changes in its entire history. From Iceland to the Transylavania, from the Baltic to the Pyrenees, the Reformation divided churches and communities into 'catholic' and 'protestant', and created varying regional and national traditio…
Overview: This book examines the thinking of several Reformed theologians on theological issues that are, historically or by content, related to philosophy. Three Dutch autors from succesesive generations are considered in particular: Gisbertus Voetius (1589 - 1676), Petrus van Mastricht (1630 - 1706), and Anthonius Driessen (1684 - 1748). A diversity of issues in Christian doctrine is discusse…
Overview: Bringing the methods of contemporary social and intellectual history to bear on a vast range of archival sources, particularly records of city councils and the clergy, the author has fashioned a comprehensive history of the Reformation in the frontier city of Strasbourg. Most
Outline: The author presents a major study of the key elements of John Owen's writings and his theology. Presenting his theology in its historical context, the author explores the significance of Owen's work in ongoing debates on seventeenth-century theology, and examines the contexts within which Owen's theology was formulated and the shape of his mind in relation to the intellectual culture …
Overview: In honor of esteemed scholar Edward A. Dowey Jr., this book covers important aspects of the teaching of John Calvin and other leaders of the Reformed tradition. It looks at the distinct characteristics of Reformed Christianity and examines its foundation and contribution to Christian history and thought. The book includes thoughtful and provocative articles by twenty-one leading sch…
Overview: Religious communities that possess sacred documents define themselves, at least in part, by how they understand and interpret their sacred texts and how those sacred texs inform the community. The author has brought together thirteen outstanding contributors to this book in order to explore recent understanding of the ways in which the early Jewish and Christian communities of faith…
Overview: Short, pointed essays summarize some of the author's central (and a few peripheral) ideas on theological method, apologetics, and ethics, beginning with the author's shortest and clearest presentation of his signature concept of triperspectivalism - the need to read Scripture from various perspectives, especially threefold perspectives that reflect the nature of the Trinity.
Overview: Short, pointed essays summarize some of the author's central (and a few peripheral) ideas on theological method, apologetics, and ethics, beginning with the author's shortest and clearest presentation of his signature concept of triperspectivalism - the need to read Scripture from various perspectives, especially threefold perspectives that reflect the nature of the Trinity.
Overview: Jonathan Edwards (1703 - 1758) is widely regarded as one of the major thinkers in the Christian tradition and an important and influential figure in American theology. This book is a collection of specially commissioned essays that track his intellectual legacies from the work of his immediate disciples who formed the New Divinity movement in colonial New England, to his impact upon …
Overview : This book (literally "love of the beautiful or good") is, after the Bible, the most influential source of spiritual within the Orthodox Church. First published in Greek in 1782 by St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Maricos of Corinth, this book includes works by thirty-six influential Orthodox authors from the fourth to fifteenth-centuries such as Maximus the Confessor, Pete…
Overview: With its focus on the traditions and communities that form us over the course of a lifetime, virtue ethics has richly expanded our understanding of what the Christian life can look like. Yet its emphasis on human virtues and habits of mind and life seems inconsistent with the Reformed tradition's insistence that sin lies at the heart of the human condition. For this reason, virtue e…
Overview: The Reformed tradition is characterized by a rigorous commitment to theological formulation, yet it is equally known for its commitment for rooting its life and practice in the authority of God's Word. While these two commitments are commonly acknowledged, the path from biblical interpretation to doctrinal formulation is often overlooked. Examining a diverse group of thinkers across…
Overview: This book, the author's readable, entertaining, and immensely informative introduction to the major themes of Reformed Christianity, answers these questions. He examines the most common misunderstandings of what it means to be Reformed - misunderstandings that the author encountered in teaching and pastoral work. He strips away such adjectives as "rationalistic", "exclusive", and "l…
Overview: The Reformation in the Low Countries developed along very different lines from German Lutheranism. The prolonged persecution of heresy - betwheen 1523 and 1566 more than 1300 dissidents were executed - by both Charles V and Philip II postponed the formation of public Protestant churches until after 1572. The decentralized character of political authority in the Low Countries ensured…
Overview: The author shows that there was a deep religious crisis in western Christendom in the twelfth century, just as there was in the sixteenth, although divided Churches were not its outcome. There was a desire to return to the simplicity of the apostolic life of the New Testament and a dissatisfaction with traditional religious practice. Out of this ferment emerged not warring sects, as…