Customer Reviews (2)

A meticulously researched study
Sim's book is one of the most important books on Matthean studies and Christian Judaism since J. D. Dun's Unity and Diversity in the New Testament. The chapter on Pauline Christianity and the Matthean Communityis significantly important, for Sim argues that Matthew is anti-Pauline,thus Paul's Torah-free Christianity is anathema to the Matthean Community.Furthermore, Matthew's Gospel has a number of anti-Gentile statements,which Sim concludes is a result of the Matthean Community being surroundedby a hostel Gentile environment. Gentiles wanting to join the MattheanCommunity first had to convert to Judaism and then undergo Nazareneindoctrination and ritualism. In short, Sim argues that the MattheanCommunity is totally committed to Judaism as interpreted by Jesus fromNazareth. This book raises a number of important questions, which cannot beignored to do so is at Christianity's peril.

Why we love darling Uncle David's book.
The Gospel of Matthew and Christian Judaism: The History and Social Setting of the Matthean Community is a truly inspiring and amazing book for readers of all ages. We read a chapter every night before going to bed andfind it a delight. Hannah, Bridget, Emily and Liz Sim truly love and agreewith all of Dr Sim's discussions. Dr Sim raises a lot of interesting andplausable topics that should be taught in every school. In Dr Sim's nextbook look closely in the acknowledgements for our names. That's Hannah,Bridget, Emily and Liz, David's neices. We'd just like to finish by sayingwe love the book and Hannah kisses it every night. ... Read more

Product Description
Genuine Gold: The Cautiously Charismatic Story of the Early Christian and Missionary Alliance documents the supernatural heritage of the early Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA)-welcoming the supernatural with discernment-and calls the denomination to embrace again the charismatic dimensions of the Holy Spirit today and to return to its originally close relation to the Pentecostal-charismatic movement.Author Paul L. King, C&MA historian and theologian, shows how the early C&MA, a robustly evangelical movement, embraced many practices and doctrines of the new Pentecostal movement following the famous Azusa Street Revival of 1906. Yet in following decades, the C&MA distanced itself from the Pentecostal and later charismatic movements. The reasons? Partly because the C&MA insisted on a non-exclusive view of speaking in tongues and on discernment-distinguishing the gold of genuine manifestations of the Holy Spirit from the spurious. But also because the C&MA allied itself increasingly with non-Pentecostal evangelicalism. Genuine Gold urges the C&MA to rekindle the flame of spiritual renewal through its carefully documented history of the Alliance's early vibrancy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

factual
Genuine Gold: The Cautiously Charismatic Story of the Early Christian and Missionary Alliance
The title says it all!This book is packed with facts, dates, names and places.Anyone that is in the CMA or has been needs to read this book.You will see how far the CMA has moved from it's founding roots.Don't let the historical, factual details scare you aware.This is a must read for all Alliance people today.

Excellent book.
A great history of the Alliance and its connection with early Pentacostalism and eventual split with the Assemblies of God over evidential tongues and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Very thorough and well documented.

REQUIRED READING FOR ALLIANCE AND ASSEMBLIES OF GOD LEADERS
Being a former A/G minister now in the Alliance this book was wonderful.We are a pentecostal/charismatic Alliance church and Dr. Kings work has completely re-affirmed this direction.

The Alliance has affirmed the gifts and person of the Holy Spirit, without the "intial phsycial evidence" doctrine.Amen.

Read it if you are A/G read it if you're Alliance.

Also a great discussion of the people who left the Alliance for the A/G and people who later left the A/G to join or come back to the Alliance.

A GREAT corrective for Edith L. Blumhofer's history of the A/G as regards the Alliance.

An exciting book on the C&MA
I heard Paul King speak at a conference and I was impressed by what he said.I purchaced his book "Genunine Gold" and found it to be the most exciting book about the C&MA I have ever read.My admiration for Dr. A. B. Simpson, the founder of the C&MA, skyrocketed.I believe this book should be required reading for every minister and worker in the C&MA. It is well researched and documented.If you want to learn about the exciting Spirit-filled ministry of the early C&MA this is a must read book.

Discernment or Drift? The C&MA and the Holy Spirit
Genuine Gold: The Cautiously Charismatic Story of the Early Christian and Missionary Alliance documents the supernatural heritage of the early Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) -- welcoming the supernatural with discernment -- and calls the denomination to embrace again the charismatic dimensions of the Holy Spirit today and to return to its originally close relation to the Pentecostal-charismatic movement.

Author Paul L. King, C&MA historian and theologian, shows how the early C&MA, a robustly evangelical movement, embraced many practices and doctrines of the new Pentecostal movement following the famous Azusa Street Revival of 1906.

Yet in following decades, the C&MA distanced itself from the Pentecostal and later charismatic movements. The reasons? Partly because the C&MA insisted on a non-exclusive view of speaking in tongues and on discernment -- distinguishing the gold of genuine manifestations of the Holy Spirit from the spurious. But also because the C&MA allied itself increasingly with non-Pentecostal evangelicalism.

Genuine Gold urges the C&MA to reverse its drift and to rekindle the flame of spiritual renewal through its carefully documented history of the Alliance's early vibrancy.

It is meticulous (hundreds of end-notes and thoroughly indexed), meaty, and of high merit in historical reporting and theological analysis.
... Read more

Product Description
This study develops the ethical theory implicit in the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar, a prominent twentieth-century Swiss Catholic theologian. Balthasar's attempt to critically retrieve the concept of beauty for Christian theology yields important ethical insights, culminating in an aesthetic and dramatic theory of ethics: one in which the perception of the beauty of God's love in Christ becomes a foundational experience for moral formation and ongoing ethical discernment. This new theory will be of interest to both Catholic and Protestant scholars for its myriad insights: Balthasar's emphasis on the beauty of love opens a significant space for both freedom and creativity in the moral life. God's bestowal of love uplifts and transforms human capacities, but without eradicating human freedom, enabling human beings to become genuine co-actors with Christ in the drama of salvation. Those who aesthetically appropriate the love of Christ re-enact it in their own unique ways. By making moral action indispensable to self-realization, the theory incorporates the modern concern for praxis.It attends to questions of personal identity, through its prophetic and Johannine emphasis on 'mission.' The conception of Christ as a 'concrete universal' emphasizes particularity without sacrificing universality. It accounts for the influence of culture, community, and narrative, but without thereby falling into social constructivism. It takes up Vatican II's call to return Catholic theology to its biblical foundations, but without thereby becoming either narrow or fundamentalist. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A helpful book for reconciling Balthasar with virtue ethics
As is clear by the rapidly expanding body of secondary literature, the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar has gained the attention of a wide range of contemporary scholars. In recent years, a growing number of such scholars are becoming interested in the relevance of Balthasar's work to Christian ethics, which might seem a curious question because he had little to say about specifically ethical questions. The earliest literature exploring the relevance of this work to Christian ethics included 1990 essays in Communio by E. T. Oakes and M. Oulette, which argued that Balthasar's work could contribute to what one might call the theological foundations of Christian ethics, but recognized that he did not provide the requisite philosophical resources. The very helpful 2001 study by C. Steck explored these questions at greater detail and concluded that Balthasar's work was most conducive to a divine-command ethics, while allowing that other approaches could also be employed.
For contemporary moralists who are attentive to the renewal of (especially Thomistic) virtue and action theory, who are similarly interested in rooting Christian ethics in a deeply Scriptural perspective, and who would like to understand the potential contribution of Balthasar, Steck's primary conclusion regarding divine-command ethics is disappointing, because such moralists would see such a divine-command framework as an obvious dead-end. Considerably more promising is Barrett's reading of Balthasar's thought as "an aesthetic form of virtue ethics, with love as the primary virtue," and "which implies a radical commitment to justice." In future explorations (including my own) of whether Balthasar's work offers a helpful stimulus to the core ethical tradition of Aristotelian/Thomistic virtue ethics, Barrett's study will be a primary resource.
The work is well organized, thoroughly researched, and clearly written. In my view the fourth chapter is particularly helpful in indicating how Balthasar's thought suggests what might be called a christocentric virtue ethic. In discussing Balthasar's understanding of human nature as it is (fallen), human nature as it should be (exemplified in the person of Jesus), and virtue as the way to go from the former to the latter, she shows his theology as firmly (though creatively, and thus in need of scrutiny) grounded in Scripture so as to be easily reconciled with a virtue-based moral theology such as that of Aquinas. Barrett is therefore able to illustrate many points of contact between Balthasar and virtue ethics. Similarly helpful is the fifth chapter, which discusses the (significant; see 315ff) limitations of, and the further refinements or developments required, in a Balthasarian ethic.
On p. 318, Barrett hits the nail on the head regarding the fundamental deficiency in a Balthasarian ethic: "What is really missing, in other words, is a more rigorous and more fully integrated philosophy... he lacks a genuinely practical philosophy." His work includes little moral philosophy precisely because he intentionally avoided writing a moral theology. Because of the richness and genius of what he did write, however, many want to extend his work into ethics. In my view, Balthasarian scholars wanting to speak credibly on matters of applied ethics (i.e., sexual, medical or social) will also need a robust moral philosophy. Although there is a temptation among such ressourcement theologians to eschew the tradition of Thomistic moral philosophy in favor of more recent alternatives (i.e., the postmodern philosophy of the gift), it seems to me that the contemporary renewal of Thomistic virtue ethics provides considerably more promising resources . For those exploring such a project, Barrett's study will be a valuable resource, especially for the Balthasarian side of the task.

William F. Murphy, Jr
Pontifical College Josephinum
Columbus, OH

A Welcome Introduction to Balthasar's Ethics
Primary and secondary scholarship of and on Hans Urs von Balthasar can be daunting and inaccessible to those not well-versed in his massive corpus.With Love's Beauty at the Heart of the Christian Moral Life, Melanie Barrett makes the thought of this twentieth-century giant hospitable to visitors.She illuminates the ethical thought of a thinker who famously has no systematic ethics.Barrett draws out of Balthasar's corpus a sustained argument for the moral importance of theological aesthetics, and complements the small body of secondary scholarship on Balthasar's ethics by establishing the centrality of virtue, and in particular love, in the Swiss theologian's vision of the life of Christian discipleship.Her book is an important contribution to Catholic moral theology, and a welcome point of access - through the lens of Christian discipleship - for those seeking an introduction to this monumental figure's thought.

Barrett's book is a valuable contribution to moral theology and scholarship on Balthasar in no small part due to her lucid writing and precise argumentation.The book is well-charted, making a cogent and precise case.Barrett repeatedly asks penetrating questions and offers clear answers.Furthermore, Barrett contextualizes Balthasar's ethical contributions in well-trodden inquiries in moral theology and philosophy.She explains how Balthasar's moral theology makes particular contributions to the ongoing renewal of moral theology after the Second Vatican Council.Balthasar's emphasis on the moral importance of Scripture, the essentially narrative shape of the Christian life, and the centrality of the virtues (especially love and those of the evangelical counsels) are all claims that are readily contextualized within other post-conciliar scholarship in moral theology.Barrett also locates Balthasar's thought within classic philosophical debates ranging from the existence and status of transcendentals to the nature of human emotions.Finally, though a docile student of Balthasar, Barrett does not at all shy away from identifying problems or omissions in his thought.Her constructively critical reading enables her not only to explicate Balthasar's ethics, but also to posit a Balthasarian ethics that is compatible with, and yet extends beyond, Balthasar's written work.

One crucial way that Barrett makes Balthasar's thought more accessible, and situates it in ongoing debates in moral theology, is in the dialogue the book initiates between Balthasar and St. Thomas Aquinas.The book is not a comparison and contrast of these two giants' thought.Nonetheless, Barrett invites Aquinas into the book to serve as an interlocutor for Balthasar on many key philosophical and theological issues.By identifying more points of contact between these two masters' thought than is commonly supposed, Barrett is better able to explain their importance differences, and prepares the ground for future scholarship that will better explicate the work of these two thinkers in relation to one another. ... Read more

Product Description
Now in Paperback! Born between 1965 and 1983, the young adults of Generation X grew up in an era of unprecedented wealth and consumerism. Rebelling against the liberal family, social, and academic environments in which they were raised, some have made strengthening their faith a priority.

The New Faithful is a groundbreaking book that examines the growing trend toward religious orthodoxy among todayís young adults. Author and journalist Colleen Carroll offers strong opinions on how this movement might transform an American society steeped in moral relativism and secularism.

Blending investigative journalism with in-depth analysis, Carroll seeks the reasons behind the choice of orthodoxy in a society that often denigrates traditional morality and rejects organized religion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (36)

Hippies move over
Carroll's book "The New Faithful" is an encouraging sign that Western Christianity, especially in the U.S., has turned a corner from an ego-centric view of the Christian experience.Carroll skillfully captures the changes in the next generations of Young Adults in their encounter with Christ.

"The New Faithful" represents a significant challenge to the baby-boomers and the Gen Xers where self actualization is not the highest form of achievement.In the new Orthodoxy, young adults are righting the ship, by focusing their worship and theology on the praise and glory of God.

A required read for all youth and young adult ministers!

Reviewed by:Dr. Jeffrey Wincel (D.Min), author of "Climbing The Mountain of God, The Path to Mystical Discipleship" and "Defying the Trend, Business Ethics and Corporate Morality from a Faith Perspective."

Was Expecting More
I hate to give a "bad" review to this book.The author is one of the good guys (from my point of view), and her main thesis is one that I would dearly like to believe, and one which seems to contain some considerable chunks of truth.But her exposition leaves me unconvinced.
She loads the text with anecdote after anecdote -- rather tiresomely, I think.(I could have contributed a few myself, but a zillion anecdotes can not prove her point.)Her bibliography is impressive, and I am perhaps uncharitable in suspecting that it is mostly window dressing.
I got really tired of her using the modifier "orthodox", as in "orthodox Christian" or "orthodox Catholic".It is a redundant usage.A Catholic is by definition an orthodox Catholic.If he is not orthodox, he is not a Catholic.It's like being a wealthy billionaire.
The brickbats aside, I again admit that the author is on the side of the angels.And I believe that her thesis can be defended, although not in as absolute terms as she attempted.

Conjecture & Catholic Propaganda
This book is propped up and praised by members of the press as a ground breaking earth shattering piece of research; however no religious theologians have endorsed the authors' conclusions and her date simply isn't scientific.The statistical conclusions are conjuncture and do not support the authors' statements. Her methodology in interviewing a small cross section of the upper middle class, and elite do not constitute a major move toward orthodoxy in America.Twenty believers leaving Campus Crusade does not mean one iota; I don't think that is a significant number that supports her premise.

Loyola Press should be ashamed for publishing this book! Oh, but it gives credence to the supposition that people are breaking down the doors of the Catholic Church to become members.

Please understand who GEN X is
On the first page there is a reviewer who says they are 25 years old and are a member of Generation X. This person needs to realize that a 25 year old in 2004 is NOT a member of Generation X. Gen xers typically have parents who served in the Korean Conflict. Not a single true Gen xer was born after 1980. The conrast in the book identifies Gen xers vs Boomers. Incidentally a Gen xer would be very unlikely to have a boomer as a parent. The world hasn't yet experienced the pain of the boomers children. But it is coming.

The New Faithful
As a product of a non-religious household who only converted to Christianity earlier this year at age 24, I might have been the ideal reader of this book.Regrettably, it didn't speak to me at all.Without any doubt, many of those coming of age today sense deep, underlying problems with the state of society.Many are responding by turning to the teachings of Jesus Christ that until recently guided all of western civilization.There must be a good book to be written about us, but this isn't it.

Carroll's hypothesis is simple: today's young adult Christians reject both secular thinking and watered-down versions of Christianity (as typified by Vatican II) in favor of orthodox Christian belief and practice.She presents some statistics, but her main body of evidence is interviews.She mentions dozens of young adult Christians as well as priests and community leaders, but she doesn't quote them at length.Each one gets a page or less, barely enough to recite a few cliches.For instance on page 118:

"In a suburb on the western edge of St. Louis, a cohort of young Catholics gathers each month for eucharistic adoration, confession, and charismatic praise-and-worship sessions.The group, known as the House of Prayer, is run by a handful of young adults brimming with enthusiasm for Catholicism and the desire to convert their peers.Attendance at meetings sometimes hovers around a hundred, and postmeeting conversations routinely include news of the latest conversions to Catholicism or vocation to the priesthood.Participants in the group also lead door-to-door evangelization blitzes and youth ministry events intended to invigorate the faith of Catholic teenagers."

Period.End of sentence, end of paragraph, end of section; House of Prayer is never mentioned again.This abrupt style shortchanges the subjects.Nobody in the book really gets a chance to share their stories.A real conversion experience takes more than a page to explain (I would know) and this book really gives only rough outlines of what happened to each person and organization, sometimes not even that.Hence it's hard to form an emotional attachment to anyone you read about.

Furthermore, Carroll can't stop her own opinions from bleeding over into the text.For instance, she cites several people complaining that their childhood churches were too dedicated to service, and not enough to ritual.Her attachment to ritual--particularly the Catholic mass--is clear, but she doesn't acknowledge alternatives.Some people may feel at home in a ritualistic, prayerful life, and more power to them.But if others feel that God calls them to a life of service, then that's what will suit them better.

The chapters on politics on academics are even more one-sided.For instance, we hear about City College and the annual Society for Law, Life and Religion symposium, which, Carroll notes approvingly, "featured conservative columnist Ann Coulter."(If she cares that Coulter opposes all three things in the title, Carroll doesn't mention it here.)The big problem is the ceasless attempts to play the victim.Almost every paragraph villianizes the big bad postmodernists, secularists, relativists, etc... etc...It's taken as a given that these people completely control our society and dominate everything that everyone sees and hears.

Personally I don't recall ever seeing Jacques Derrida deconstructing Rousseau when I turn on my TV.The evidence is thin for the "tyranny of relativism"; in fact it consists of only one student saying that in class he'd "get funny looks if he mentioned Jesus." (Horrors!)But besides insulting the reader's intelligence, this insistence on perennial victimhood masks a bigger problem.Carroll keeps insisting that young orthodox Christians are counterculture, but you can't be counterculture when there's no culture left to counter.It's useless to insist that we have to undermine existing beliefs.As Chesterton said, "You can't undermine a hole in the ground.If you try, you will only make the hole bigger."It's time for Christian writers to give up the endless victimhood and realize that if we want our religion to last we need to start building up out of the rubble rather than just claiming our own patch of it. ... Read more

Product Description
General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1871Original Publisher: The Backus historical societySubjects: BaptistsNew EnglandHistory / United States / State ... Read more

Product Description
The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.
The Age of Enlightenment profoundly enriched religious and philosophical understanding and continues to influence present-day thinking. Works collected here include masterpieces by David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as religious sermons and moral debates on the issues of the day, such as the slave trade. The Age of Reason saw conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism transformed into one between faith and logic -- a debate that continues in the twenty-first century.
++++
The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification:
++++
British Library

T012995

With a half-title.

London : printed for T. Cadell, 1787. [4],vii,[1],368,4p. ; 8° ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Christian sects pre-1890
The Teachings, Discipline, Customs, and Manners of Administering the Sacraments among The Abyssinians, Anglicans, Armenians, Baptists, Catholics, Congregationalists, Copts, Episcopalians, Greeks, Jacobites, Lutherans, Maronites, Methodists, Nestorians, Presbyterians, Protestants, The Syrians, etc., etc., With the differences between the various Christian denominations clearly explained for the people; The belief of the Early Christians, The changes of Discipline, and the abuses condemned in different centuries: with the Traditions of all Christian Peoples relating to these Holy Rites. Superbly Illustrated so as to show the Rules and Ceremonies of Each Christian Church. by Rev Jas. L. Meagher: Russell Brothers, Seventh edition. 1892. Contents include, Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, Matrimony, and more. A most interesting read for those interested in this subject matter. 472 pages including index. ... Read more

Product Description
Contrary to Jesus' wish that his followers "may all be one", Christianity has become, over time, ever more schismatic. This concise, one-volume dictionary provides information on over a thousand significant denominations and movements, ranging from the mainstream historical churches, for example Roman Catholic and Orthodox, to heretical sects that flourished briefly in the third or fourth centuries to groups that sprang up around charismatic leaders in the 19th and 20th centuries.;Alternative names are given at the end of entries andare cross-referenced in an appendix. Such groups include the delightfully named 'Body-felt Salvation Church' in the Torres Strait Islands, with 300 members, and the 'Old Catholic Orthodox Church,' founded in London by (and apparently for) the Most Reverend James Bartholomew Banks, "known to his friends as "Piggy" on account of the happy conjunction of his vast inherited wealth and his surname". The author approacheswhat might in other hands be a dull catalogue with considerable zest and enjoyment, and the result is a mine of good stories and useful information. ... Read more