Christianity Confronts Culture is a practical guide to effective communications in the cross-cultural setting -- which exists, in fact, when any one... person meets another. Dr. Mayers discusses cross-cultural communication by means of four models, each of which approaches the subject in the light of a different discipline: social psychology, sociology, anthropology, and cross-cultural education. The second part of the book presents a series of case studies illustrating each of the four models. Pastors, future pastors, missionaries, Christian educators -- any who find themselves in constant contact with foreign cultures or North American cultures -- will find this book invaluable.

Peter Kreeft believes that Blaise Pascal is the first post-medieval apologist. No writer in history, claims Kreeft, is a more effective Christian... apologist and evangelist to today's uprooted, confused, secularized pagans (inside and outside the Church) than Pascal. He was a brilliant man--a great scientist who did major work in physics and mathematics, as well as an inventor--whom Kreeft thinks was three centuries ahead of his time. His apologetics found in his Pensées are ideal for the modern, sophisticated skeptic. Kreeft has selected the parts of Pascal's Pensées which best respond to the needs of modern man, and offers his own comments on applying Pascal's wisdom to today's problems. Addressed to modern skeptics and unbelievers, as well as to modern Christians for apologetics and self-examination, Pascal and Kreeft combine to provide a powerful witness to Christian truth.

The first 400 years after the death of Christ saw huge changes in the emerging faith. Christianity spread from Jerusalem to much of the known world.... Despite enormous pressures from within and without, including persecution, Christianity became the official religion of the empire in the fourth century.

Religion has long been a source of identity for many Southerners, and the Appalachian areas in particular have proven to be a virtual fortress... protecting faith and culture. Yet, in a region popularly thought to be religiously homogeneous, congregations reflect a wide range of doctrinal differences over such issues as conversion, ministerial leadership, and the authority on which a church bases its core beliefs.Profiling the prominent Christian traditions in southern Appalachia, this book brings together contributions by twenty scholars who have long studied the religious practices found in the region’s cities, small towns, and rural communities. These authors provide insights into not only the independent mountain churches that are strongly linked to local customs but also the mainline and other religious bodies that have a significant presence in Appalachia but are not strictly associated with it. The essays explore the nature of ministry within these various churches, show the impact of broader culture on religion in the region, and consider the question of whether previously isolated, tradition-based churches can retain their distinctiveness in a changing world.One group of chapters focuses on elements of mountain religion as seen in the beliefs and practices of mountain Holiness folk, serpent handlers, and various Baptist traditions. Later chapters review the history and activities of other denominations, including Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Wesleyan/Holiness, Church of God, and Roman Catholic. Also considered are the economic history of the region, popular religiosity, and the role of church-affiliated colleges. Taken together, these essays offer a richly nuanced understanding of Christianity in Appalachia.The Editor: Bill J. Leonard is dean of the Divinity School at Wake Forest University. His other books include Out of One, Many: American Religion and American Pluralism and God's Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention.The Contributors: Monica Kelly Appleby, Donald N. Bowdle, Mary Lee Daugherty, Melvin E. Dieter, Howard Dorgan, Anthony Dunnavant, Gary Farley, Samuel S. Hill, Loyal Jones, Helen Lewis, Charles H. Lippy, Bill J. Leonard, Deborah Vansau McCauley, Lou F. McNeil, Marcia Clark Myers, Bennett Poage, Ira Read, James Sessions, Barbara Ellen Smith, H. Davis Yeuell.

Christianity in Late Antiquity, 300-450 C.E.: A Reader collects primary sources of the early Christian world, from the last "Great Persecution" under... the Emperor Diocletian to the Council of Chalcedon in the mid-fifth century. During this period Christianity rose to prominence in the Roman Empire, developed new notions of sanctity and heresy, and spread beyond the Mediterranean world. This reader incorporates standard texts--from authors such as Athanasius, Augustine, and Eusebius--in the most recent translations and also includes less familiar texts, some of which appear in English translation for the first time. Presented in their entirety or in long excerpts, the texts are arranged thematically and cover such topics as orthodoxy, conversion, asceticism, and art and architecture. The editors provide introductions for each chapter, text, and image, situating the selections historically, geographically, and intellectually. Christianity in Late Antiquity, 300-450 C.E.: A Reader highlights the ways in which religion and culture were mutually transformed during this crucial historical period. Ideal for courses in Early Christianity, Christianity in Late Antiquity, and History of Christianity, this reader is an excellent companion to Bart D. Ehrman's After the New Testament (OUP, 1998) and an exceptional resource for scholars.

Christianity has had an undeniable impact on Latin America, which has in turn transformed Christianity itself. Focusing on this mutually constitutive... relationship, Christianity in Latin America presents the important encounters between people, ideas, and events of this large, heterogeneous subject. This book offers an accessible and engaging review of the history of Christianity in Latin America with a widely ecumenical focus to foster understanding of the various forces shaping both Christianity and the region.

Christianity, the faith of almost three-quarters of the diverse South African population, has long been pushed to the margins of historical writing on... South Africa, yet for more than two centuries it has shaped South African society and its diverse subcultures. This tightly constructed and vigorously written book--a collaboration of thirty specialists working in seven countries--situates Christianity for the first time in the broad political, social, and economic context of South African history; it also traces a variety of religious movements and their histories both before and during apartheid.Perhaps nowhere in the African continent is the study of Christianity as fascinating, complex, or contentious as in South Africa. In the twentieth century South Africans have used Christian doctrine both to justify and to oppose doctrines of racial segregation, and Christian leadership provided much of the impetus for the founding of the African National Congress in 1912. But the history of South African Christianity is found for the most part in local, or "micro" narratives, while the highly elaborated "macro" narratives of colonialism, capitalism, and liberation--the backbone of the conventional histories of South Africa--assign Christianity a marginal role, or no role at all. This volume seeks to insert the Christian micro-narratives into the macro-narratives of South African history, providing for the first time an in-depth, cohesive look at Christianity in South Africa.

Background becomes foreground in Moyer Hubbard's creative introduction to the social and historical setting for the letters of the Apostle Paul to... churches in Asia Minor and Europe. Hubbard begins each major section with a brief narrative featuring a fictional character in one of the great cities of that era. Then he elaborates on various aspects of the cultural setting related to each particular vignette, discussing the implications of those venues for understanding Paul's letters and applying their message to our lives today. Addressing a wide array of cultural and traditional issues, Hubbard discusses: Religion and superstition, education, philosophy, and oratory, urban society, households and family life in the Greco-Roman world. This work is based on the premise that the better one understands the historical and social context in which the New Testament (and Paul's letters) was written, the better one will understand the writings of the New Testament themselves. Passages become clearer, metaphors deciphered, and images sharpened. Teachers, students, and laypeople alike will appreciate Hubbard's unique, illuminating, and well-researched approach to the world of the early church.

A study not of the institution of the Church but of Christianity itself, this book explores the Christian people, their beliefs, and their way of life,... providing a new understanding of Western Christianity at the time of the Reformation. Bossy begins with a systematic exposition of traditional or pre-Reformation Christianity, exploring the forces that tended to undermine it, the characteristics of the Protestant and Catholic regimes that superseded it, and the fall-out that resulted from its disintegration.

Since slavery times African-American religious thinkers have struggled to answer this question: Is Christianity a source of liberation or a source of... oppression? In a study that reviews representative thinkers over the last 50 years, Chapman reviews the variety of ways that African-Americans have addressed this problem and how it has informed their work and lives.

This profound and thought-provoking book is one of the classics of modern missionary writing. Superficially just a good missionary story, about how one... man brought a number of groups of Masai people in east Africa to Christian faith, it is something much more than that. For in what the author says about the method and content of evangelism; the meaning of the eucharist; and the nature of ministry, we are led back to the question our understandings of the mission of the church in all its contexts. For Donovan, his experiences in Africa meant a total reappraisal of the meaning of his faith, and therefore a rediscovery of his Christianity. His book, which is written with moving simplicity, continues to represent a provocative challenge to all those engaged in issues of evangelism and multiculturalism.

The "dangerous idea" lying at the heart of Protestantism is that the interpretation of the Bible is each individual's right and responsibility. The... spread of this principle has resulted in five hundred years of remarkable innovation and adaptability, but it has also created cultural incoherence and social instability. Without any overarching authority to rein in "wayward" thought, opposing sides on controversial issues can only appeal to the Bible—yet the Bible is open to many diverse interpretations. Christianity's Dangerous Idea is the first book that attempts to define this core element of Protestantism and the religious and cultural dynamic that this dangerous idea unleashed, culminating in the remarkable new developments of the twentieth century. At a time when Protestants will soon cease to be the predominant faith tradition in the United States, McGrath's landmark reassessment of the movement and its future is well-timed. Replete with helpful modern-day examples that explain the past, McGrath brings to life the Protestant movements and personalities that shaped history and the central Christian idea that continues to dramatically influence world events today.

A New Interpretation of Protestantism and Its Impact on the World The radical idea that individuals could interpret the Bible for themselves... spawned a revolution that is still being played out on the world stage today. This innovation lies at the heart of Protestantism's remarkable instability and adaptability. World-renowned scholar Alister McGrath sheds new light on the fascinating figures and movements that continue to inspire debate and division across the full spectrum of Protestant churches and communities worldwide.

"Truly groundbreaking work. Boswell reveals unexplored phenomena with an unfailing erudition."—Michel FoucaultJohn Boswell's National Book... Award-winning study of the history of attitudes toward homosexuality in the early Christian West was a groundbreaking work that challenged preconceptions about the Church's past relationship to its gay members—among them priests, bishops, and even saints—when it was first published twenty-five years ago. The historical breadth of Boswell's research (from the Greeks to Aquinas) and the variety of sources consulted make this one of the most extensive treatments of any single aspect of Western social history. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, still fiercely relevant today, helped form the disciplines of gay and gender studies, and it continues to illuminate the origins and operations of intolerance as a social force."What makes this work so exciting is not simply its content—fascinating though that is—but its revolutionary challenge to some of Western culture's most familiar moral assumptions."—Jean Strouse, Newsweek

The definitive history of Christianity for our time. A product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill, Diarmaid MacCulloch's... Christianity goes back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and encompasses the globe. It captures the major turning points in human history and fills in often neglected accounts of conversion and confrontation in Africa, Latin America and Asia. And it uncovers the roots of the faith that galvanized America, charting the surprising beliefs of the founding fathers, the rise of the Evangelical movement and of Pentecostalism, and the recent crisis within the Catholic Church. Bursting with original insights and a great pleasure to read, this monumental history will not soon be surpassed.