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by Tony Lane
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (1996-05-22)
ISBN: 0785211438
EAN: 9780785211433
Dewy Decimal #: 230.09
Paperback: 256 pages
SKU: 091908021
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: some highlighting...minor wear on cover
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Product Description
From Augustine to Aquinas, the early church fathers to the charismatic movement, Exploring Christian Thought introduces you to the thinkers and writings that have shaped Christian history and much of Western culture. Exploring Christian Thought offers a succinct introduction to over 100 influential thinkers and important events in the church, including the creation of the creeds, schisms and controversies, and the development of theology and doctrines.
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Customer Reviews
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A wonderful, short history of Christian thought
Rating  (5)
Date: 2005-05-18
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
I'm almost finished with this book, but I've already been recommending this book to people. Although this book has a good deal of church history, it is not a church history book so it may be helpful to supplement your reading with another good church history book. (My favorite is "Church History In Plain Language" by Bruce Shelley
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0849938619/103-1572103-3320655
or if that's too long for you, a nice supplemental reference is Zondervan's "Chronological and Background Charts of Church History" by Robert Walton
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310362814/ref=sib_rdr_dp/103-1572103-3320655
although that one is not a good stand alone church history reference.)
Any ways, Tony Lane is great at encapsulating key people and events in church history and explaining how they significantly contributed to the different aspects of Christian beliefs as well as their contribution at different points in history. You'll read about the discussions through the ages from issues regarding the trinity and the reliability of scripture to others like the role of communion and baptism. The events and people are grouped in logical sections, although you won't always find them in chronological order, which is fine if you pay attention to the dates.
Tony also does a good job of presenting the different sides of various debates as fairly as possible. However, he's also not afraid to interject his own judgement calls when absolutely necessary. I especially appreciated this aspect of this book because it can be difficult to know which side of which debate to believe without a third party's opinion. This is a tough balance to hold, but I think Tony does a great job because even during those rare instances when he interjects his judgement call, he gives clear reasons why based on insights from other Christians in church history. Even then, you as the reader are equipped to make your own decisions based on the material.
Another great aspect of the book is that almost every chapter has excerpts from the actual writings of either the person or from the event discussed. The only thing that I can think of that would make this book better is if it had an index to reference different topics, places, and people.
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Great Survey of Christian Theological Thought
Rating (5)
Date: 1998-06-27
6 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a wonderful survey of Christian Theological Thought from ancient times to the present. Tony Lane writes in an engaging style and hits all of the high points. The various (100 or so) Theologians discussed have their ideas exemplified by short pertinent quotations. Although each discussion is, by necessity, short, I found this volume to be an invaluable reference in my own Theological studies as a way of putting into perspective various periods, issues, etc. that I was only peripherally studying. Well worth the read!
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by Ford Lewis Battles (Editor: Robert Benedetto) (Corporate Author: H. H. Meeter Center for Calvin Studies)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Baker Book House (1996-12)
ISBN: 0801020972
EAN: 9780801020971
Dewy Decimal #: 230.42092
Hardcover: 375 pages
SKU: 051008024
Condition: Used: Acceptable
Comments: ...No Underlining or Highlighting...corner of cover is very beat up...big tear out of dustjacket
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Foreword by Richard Gamble. A leading Calvin scholar explores the origin, method, and structure of Calvin's theology.
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Customer Reviews
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The Calvinian Legacy of Ford Lewis Battles
Rating (5)
Date: 2000-03-27
17 out of 18 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a splendid collection of pieces by the late Ford Lewis Battles, one of the 20th century's premier Calvin scholars. Battles was the translator of the Library of Christian Classics edition of Calvin's '1559 Institutes' as well as translator of his '1536 Institutes.' The pieces here have been gathered from Battles' contributions to scholarly literature on Calvin over a number of years. The value of the collection is that it places these hard to find pieces together in one convenient place. The two introductory essays convey the scope of Battles' contributions as a Calvin scholar. Two of the most important essays in the collection should be noted. One is Battles', 'Calculus Fidei' in which he puts forth his view of the structure of Calvin's overall theology. This piece will be one with which Calvin scholars will interact for years to come. The second piece on 'Accommodation' conveys one of the most imporant interpretive aspects of Calvin's thought. It has been an important piece in the years since it was published in drawing attention to the principle of accommodation as an interpretive tool in Calvin's understanding of divine revelation. Editor Benedetto has done a masterful job in assembling these pieces, providing the helpful Battles' diagrams and producing an important resource for Reformation scholars as well as scholars of Calvin. Ford Battles was my teacher and was a Calvin scholar without peer. It is a pleasure to commend this book with the highest commendation.
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by Michelle Goldberg
Product Group: Book
Publisher: W. W. Norton (2006-05-11)
ISBN: 0393060942
EAN: 9780393060942
Dewy Decimal #: 277.3083
Hardcover: 224 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: 091308021
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: ...no markings or highlighting...minor wear on dustjacket
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Michelle Goldberg, a senior political reporter for Salon.com, has been covering the intersection of politics and ideology for years. Before the 2004 election, and during the ensuing months when many Americans were trying to understand how an administration marked by cronyism, disregard for the national budget, and poorly disguised self-interest had been reinstated, Goldberg traveled through the heartland of a country in the grips of a fevered religious radicalism: the America of our time. From the classroom to the mega-church to the federal court, she saw how the growing influence of dominionism-the doctrine that Christians have the right to rule nonbelievers-is threatening the foundations of democracy.
In Kingdom Coming, Goldberg demonstrates how an increasingly bellicose fundamentalism is gaining traction throughout our national life, taking us on a tour of the parallel right-wing evangelical culture that is buoyed by Republican political patronage. Deep within the red zones of a divided America, we meet military retirees pledging to seize the nation in Christ's name, perfidious congressmen courting the confidence of neo-confederates and proponents of theocracy, and leaders of federally funded programs offering Jesus as the solution to the country's social problems.
With her trenchant interviews and the telling testimonies of the people behind this movement, Goldberg gains access into the hearts and minds of citizens who are striving to remake the secular Republic bequeathed by our founders into a Christian nation run according to their interpretation of scripture. In her examination of the ever-widening divide between believers and nonbelievers, Goldberg illustrates the subversive effect of this conservative stranglehold nationwide. In an age when faith rather than reason is heralded and the values of the Enlightenment are threatened by a mystical nationalism claiming divine sanction, Kingdom Coming brings us face to face with the irrational forces that are remaking much of America.
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Customer Reviews
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Do you want a Christian Taliban on our hands?
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-10-31
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I don't. It's counter to freedom and democracy-- it's a theocracy of one nation under Jesus Christ.
Apparently, a lot of people in the U.S. want just that.
Canada: looking better and better every day.
Thanks to Goldberg for writing about this. Other writers need to draw our attention to this menace.
Come the rapture, there'll be more room for us.
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The Christo-Fascists Want To Take Over The World - Yikes!
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-06-22
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Another great book documenting the malignant and rapidly-spreading tumor that threatens to destroy not only our great SECULAR nation but the entire modern ( read ADVANCED ) world and all the painstaking progress we humans have made over the past 500 years. Make no mistake: these so-called Christian nutjobs want to turn back the clock to a romanticized vision they have of something called "Biblical Times", when everyone - especially women and slaves - knew their place, and all was right with the world. Of course these modern-day religious freaks are enjoying the fruits of the Enlightenment and scientific progress by living much longer and healthier lives; they fly in airplanes and go to medical doctors, neither of which existed in the good old days. Many of these people live in the deep south, where the heat and humidity are legendary but, thanks to SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS they are comfortable in their air conditioned cars and houses and HUGE Mega-churches - again, none of that in Biblical times. I say let these people live ouit their visions and dreams: send them back to where they think they came from, the roaring-hot Middle East, with no technologies invented after the year 1. See how much they like that, and then they can get back to the rest of us with an update - presumably written on parchment. But - wait! Most people there and then were illiterate. They'll have to make it an Oral Tradition for a few generations before somebody - the world's first used car dealer? - figures out "writing" and "paper". But then that would be "progress", and progress ( and of course Progressives ) is Bad, very Bad.
This book is a great clarion call for all rational and reasonable and patriotic citizens to wake up and turn back the tide of these idiots, before it's too late.
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Scary Look at the Fringe Becoming Mainstream
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-05-26
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Christian fundamentalism has been a national problem at least since the Scopes Monkey trial; it is more or less a development of the past quarter-century, however, that such fundamentalism has gained political clout. Michelle Goldberg, a secular liberal Jewish feminist (one wonders if her being a lesbian would significantly increase the right-wing paranoia these labels provoke) has assembled a terrifying factbook of the history, agenda, and methods of the religious right, all with considerable humanity, felicitous writing, and minimal elitism.
All of her subjects, from Focus on the Family to the wretchedly misnamed Discovery Institute (the main thinktank behind "intelligent design") are easy to oppose. Goldberg's feat is to show how such groups, so naturally objectionable to secularists and the mainstream religious, have ascended to heights previously unthinkable within the Republican party. Her analysis is well-documented and journalistically sound (though plenty of outside sources are used, she also spent much time with primary material, including conference calls with important religious right figures).
I must admit to find it a depressing read. I am, however, cautiously optimistic that the type of lunacy described in the book is at a high water mark; this was written before the 2006 congressional elections, and John McCain (to say nothing of Obama or Hillary) doesn't have near the influence in religious right circles as Bush does. Still, as Goldberg points out, some of their most important advances were made during the Clinton years.
Though an unabashed secularist, Goldberg refreshingly does not withhold support for sensible religious leaders. Most prominent among them is Jim Wallis, the evangelical progressive who has become something of a go-to man for churches that are tired of their right wing captivity.
Topical and urgent, it will also stand as a fine history of a peculiarly American political movement. Read it, wake up, and turn your faith, whether in humanity or the divine, into action.
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Incredible Compilation of Facts
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-05-11
24 out of 25 customers found this reveiw helpful
The organized push from Evangelicals to dissolve the separation between church and state is currently one of the most potent threats to individual rights in the United States. With 'Kingdom Coming', Michelle Goldberg presents a detailed intellectual history of Christian Nationalism as well as documents how Evangelicals have permeated American culture.
This book is rich in intellectual history. In the first chapter, Goldberg explains Dominionism, which holds that Christians have the god-given right and duty to be sovereign over one's country, if not the entire world. This idea derives from Christian Reconstructionism, which argues that American law should be replaced by Biblical law.
You will learn about many important figures in the intellectual origins of Christian Nationalism. This includes the following thinkers and writers:
* R. J. Rushdoony, the profoundly influential prolific writer who wrote that homosexuals, blasphemers and unchaste women should be sentenced to death as well as insisted that Jesus Christ would not return until Christians establish a thousand-year reign on Earth. Rushdoony is the father of Christian Reconstructionism.
* Francis Schaeffer, whose 'Christian Manifesto' argued that history is a contest between two antipodal forces: the Christian worldview and a materialist (secular) worldview, that the U.S. was founded on a Christian Consensus and that any public official who "commands what is contrary to God's Law [abrogates his authority]." Unfortunately, Goldberg only speaks of Schaeffer for a little over two pages.
* David Barton, a Christian revisionist historian who writes extensively on how the separation between church and state is a myth and that the founding fathers intended for basic biblical principles to permeate public life.
* Marvin Olasky, a prolific writer who is considered the founder of Compassionate Conservatism. One of Olasky's major works, 'The Tragedy of American Compassion', argues that there was a golden age of social services provided by churches until the secular government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt made social welfare the government's responsibility. President George W. Bush cites Olasky as his leading influence for funding faith-based initiatives.
This book also thoroughly documents how Evangelicals are changing American culture. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:
* Many widely-read revisionist history books such as Barton's 'Original Intent'.
* Textbooks designed to bring Christian science and morality into classrooms such as the intelligent design championing text 'Of Pandas and People'.
* Television shows that promote Christian ideology such as Pat Robertson's '700 Club'.
* Rock concerts and campus clubs intended to convert and recruit the younger generation.
* Highly influential political activists such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Ralph Reed and their respective non-profit political organizations.
* Active Christian think-tanks such as Answers in Genesis, Discovery Institute and the Family Research Council.
* Media moguls such as the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
* Many recent/current legislators with openly pro-Evangelical agendas such as Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, Rick Santorum, Jesse Helms and former House Majority Leader Tom Delay.
After the first, each chapter is organized around a specific political campaigns that the Religious Right has embraced: against gays, for intelligent design, for faith-based initiatives, for abstinence-only education and against "activist" judges. The ongoing war on abortion rights is also thoroughly treated.
My only complaint is that, like a waitress who seasons your food without asking, the author rudely inserts her socialist views throughout the book. She even explicitly celebrates FDR's New Deal for "[bringing] socialism to America." As if everyone who is anti-religion is also pro-socialism! Irritating as this is, it does not ruin an otherwise informative book.
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Terrifying and enlightening
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-04-28
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
In this excellent, fascinating, and frightening book, Michelle Goldberg brings up the well-known fact that abstinence-only sex education programs for teenagers don't work. But an abstinence-only educator emphatically insisted that it doesn't matter that these programs don't work. What matters, she said, is that these programs tell "the TRUTH" that sex outside of marriage is "a SIN." Apparently, most abstinence-only programs are less concerned with preventing pregnancy and disease than with pushing a religious ideology.
I can't tell you how many times I raised my eyebrows over what I read in this book, nor how many times I had to put the book down in order to digest what I'd just read. Some of what Goldberg writes seems incomprehensible, yet she thoroughly documents all of it.
The Reverend Moon's tremendous clout with the D.C. establishment and the religious right came as quite a surprise to me. I always dismissed him as a crackpot, but no more.
Goldberg's book is about a parallel reality that is alive, well, and growing in the U.S. today--thanks to generous subsidies from the Bush administration and an unquestioning, incurious press. Goldberg is to be commended for providing much-needed insight into this subculture, which is making alarming progress towards the mainstream. This book is also a whole lot scarier than anything by Steven King--because it's true. With all due respect to King, even he couldn't make this stuff up.
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by Donald E. Miller
Product Group: Book
Publisher: University of California Press (1999-10-25)
ISBN: 0520218116
EAN: 9780520218116
Dewy Decimal #: 284
Paperback: 262 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: 080508010
Condition: Used: Acceptable
Comments: HARDCOVER...Exlibrary copy with the usual markings and protective cover..a section of pages has fallen out but is included..could probably be fixed
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During the past thirty years the American religious landscape has undergone a dramatic change. More and more churches meet in converted warehouses, many have ministers who've never attended a seminary, and congregations are singing songs whose melodies might be heard in bars or nightclubs. Donald E. Miller's provocative examination of these "new paradigm churches"--sometimes called megachurches or postdenominational churches shows how they are reinventing the way Christianity is experienced in the United States today.
Drawing on over five years of research and hundreds of interviews, Miller explores three of the movements that have created new paradigm churches: Calvary Chapel, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, and Hope Chapel. Together, these groups have over one thousand congregations and are growing rapidly, attracting large numbers of worshipers who have felt alienated from institutional religion. While attempting to reconnect with first-century Christianity, these churches meet in nonreligious structures and use the medium of contemporary twentieth-century America to spread their message through contemporary forms of worship, Christian rock music, and a variety of support and interest groups.
In the first book to examine postdenominational churches in depth, Miller argues that these churches are involved in a second Reformation, one that challenges the bureaucracy and rigidity of mainstream Christianity. The religion of the new millennium, says Miller, will connect people to the sacred by reinventing traditional worship and redefining the institutional forms associated with denominational Christian churches. Nothing less than a transformation of religion in the United States may be taking place, and Miller convincingly demonstrates how "postmodern traditionalists" are at the forefront of this change.
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Customer Reviews
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Excellent Introduction to New Directions in American Christianity
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-10-27
6 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
An excellent introduction to some of the most interesting contemporary developments within American Christianity. For those with experience in traditional, mainline churches, what the book describes will seem strange but a growing number of new believers only know this type of church as what "church" is supposed to be. Since many new paradigm churches have large attendance, they are able to financially support the start of other new paradigm churches. Indeed, new paradigm churches may well become the new normal of church life in America.
For two in-depth case studies of a new paradigm church, see Gerardo Marti's A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church and also his book Hollywood Faith: Holiness, Prosperity, and Ambition in a Los Angeles Church.
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New Paradigm Churches
Rating  (4)
Date: 2002-10-18
4 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is an insightful exploration of the so-called third wave or new paradigm churches from a scholar who presents the information in a readable fashion. The author is an outsider, yet he provides a favorable account of these rapidly-growing, Pentecostal-type congregations that all originated in California. It is a great book for anyone who is interested in the contemporary Christian scene. It is filled with stories, keen observations, balanced analyses, and surveys on the movement.
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Excellent Study of CalvaryChapels & Vineyards
Rating (5)
Date: 1997-11-07
12 out of 14 customers found this reveiw helpful
CalvaryChapels has been an "underground" church for over 25 years now - an alternative for the typical lifeless church down the street. Now someone has studied this phenomenon to see why it continues to grow and attract more people (often from non-religious backgrounds). The same for Vineyards & HopeChapels (which both have intersecting histories with CalvaryChapel). The personal stories are touching and fascinating, The research is exhaustive if not exhausting. The author belongs to a mainline church and periodically shows his amazement at these new church movements. They were all built on simplicity of faith, by those whose lives were radically changed by Jesus Christ (often people who would be the last ones you would expect). A little too much psychology & sociology throughout but the author is a professor and the book is published by a university press.
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