Academic
Encyclopedia of Christianity, The : Volume 4 P - Sh
Overview: This book is a monumental reference work that addresses the broad interest in Christianity and religion around the world today. Comprehensive, up to date, reflecting the highest standards in scholarship yet intended for a wide range of readers, this book describes the Christian faith and community in their myriad forms today and throughout the 2,000 years of Christianity history. This book also looks outward beyond Christianity, considering other world religions and philosophies as it paints the overall religious and sociocultural picture in which the Christian church now finds itself as it moves into a new millennium. Written by leading scholars from many countries and cultural backgrounds, the more than 1,700 articles that comprise this book depict Christianity in its global context. Separate articles for every continent and for over 170 countries examine both the history and the current situation of the Christian faith worldwide. This book also portrays Christianity in its widest ecumenical context. Major articles detail Christianity's rich spiritual and theological diversity in order to inform readers about religious traditions and perspectives beyond their own ecclesiastical frameworks. In its portrayal of Christianity, this book also takes into account the current sociocultural context, including other world religions, secular philosophies, cultural trends, and modern political and economic forces. Covering such current topics as abortion, atheism, Islam, modernity, and psycho-analysis, these articles describe the multivalent setting in which the Christian church today must maintain a credible witness to the ancient gospel. Finally, this book presents Christianity in its rich historical context, starting with the biblical tradition and reflecting how the apostolic tradition developed and how the church has sought throughout its history to keep faith with its traditions while engaging the world around it.
Volume 4 of this book contains 299 articles constituting the alphabetical entries P-Sh - articles on significant topics ranging from Paul, process theology, and the Qur'an to religious liberty, salvation history, and Sholasticism. Like each volume in the complete of this book, this book incorporates many enhancements of and additions to the third revised edition of the German Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon: Internationale theologische Enzyklopadie, on which this book is based. Among the new features of this English work are the following:
- articles on all but the smallest countries of the world, including the former communist states that have gained their independence since 1989;
- the latest, best statistical information, compiled by David B. Barrett, on the religious affiliation and ecclesiastical breakdown of each country and continent;
- the addition of over seventy biographical articles on prominent figures throughout chuch history;
- many expanded or entirely new articles that address topics of particular interest to English-speaking readers.
Unparalleled in scholarship and breadth of content, this book will long serve as the standard reference work for the study of Christianity in the past and the present - and its trajectory into the twenty-first century.
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