Download Free Christian Social Witness Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Christian Social Witness and write the review.

In this volume of The New Church’s Teaching Series, Harold T. Lewis surveys the teachings and witness of Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church concerning the Christian vision of a righteous social order, including the challenges of the new millennium. Beginning with the Bible’s understandings of social justice, Lewis summarizes the Anglican witness of theologians like F. D. Maurice and William Temple and goes on to discuss the Episcopal Church in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Later chapters discuss the challenges of a new social order that face the church today raised by liberation theology, third-world debt and economic justice, and questions of race, gender, and human sexuality. As with each book in The New Church’s Teaching Series, recommended resources for further reading and questions for discussion are included.
The two volume authoritative guide to the social teaching of the Catholic Church. This first volume covers the period from Genesis to Centesimus Annus - Biblical times to the late nineteenth century. There has been a social teaching in the Judaeo-Christian tradition from the beginning, and it has continued to develop in the Christian tradition through the social witness and teaching of the Church through to the present time. Here is the Christian experience from Apostolic times, through the witness of the early Church Fathers and then Christendom in the Middle Ages, and the periods of absolutisms, imperialisms and revolutions in the early modern and modern world down to the end of the nineteenth century. Rodger Charles, S.J. has been researching, lecturing and writing in London, Oxford and San Francisco for over forty years.
Everybody seems interested in innovation and entrepreneurship these days. Start-ups are generating new jobs, creating wealth and providing solutions to longstanding problems. People are also aware that old-line social institutions need innovative approaches that provide renewal, re-establish trust and cultivate sustainability. What do faith communities have to do with innovation and entrepreneurship? Faith communities have their own need for innovation, demonstrated in a growing interest in starting new churches, developing “fresh expressions” for gatherings of community and discussions about how to cultivate a renewed sense of mission. But do faith communities have anything unique to contribute to conversations about innovation and entrepreneurship, especially in “social entrepreneurship”? At first glance, the answer seems to be “no.” Burgeoning literature on social entrepreneurship barely mentions the church or other faith-based institutions — and when it does they’re often described as part of the broken institutional landscape. Recently much of the most innovative and entrepreneurial work in these sectors has been done apart from faith communities, whether through secular non-governmental organizations (e.g., Teach for America, Knowledge is Power Program schools) or for-profit businesses (e.g., hospitals and hospices). Indeed, it is now often assumed that faith and faith communities either are irrelevant to social innovation and entrepreneurship or are a significant obstacle. We believe too many people in faith communities, and faith-based organizations themselves, turned inward. They became preoccupied with managing what already existed rather than focusing on innovative renewal of their organizations and entrepreneurial approaches to starting new ones. However, Christian social innovation, at its best, depends on a conception of hope different than the optimism that often characterizes secular endeavors, a hope that acknowledges personal and social brokenness. Further, faith communities, at their best, have embodied perseverance, often bringing people together across generations and diverse sectors to imagine how common effort and faith might overcome obstacles. Although some faith communities have lost the “at-their-best” focus, new conversations and experiments are emerging beyond the goal of starting new congregations. But they tend to be “and” conversations: faith and innovation, faith and entrepreneurship, faith and leadership. We don’t think this goes deep enough. Faith might truly “animate” social innovation and entrepreneurship. In this perspective, faith is not held at a distance from the activities of life but is instead its vital force, providing the imagination, passion and commitment that lead to transformation.
How can celebrating the “holy days” of American culture help us to understand what it means to be both Christian and American? In timely essays on Super Bowl Sunday, Mother’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and other holidays of the secular calendar, James Calvin Davis explores the wisdom that Christian tradition brings to our sense of American identity, as well as the ways in which American culture might prompt us to discern the imperatives of faith in new ways. Rather than demonizing culture or naively baptizing it, Davis models a bidirectional mode of reflection, where faith convictions and cultural values converse with and critique one another. Focusing on topics like politics, race, parenting, music, and sports, these essays remind us that culture is as much human accomplishment and gift as it is a challenge to Christian values, and there is insight to be discovered in a theologically astute investment in America’s “holy days.”
In this volume of The New Church's Teaching Series, Harold T. Lewis surveys the teachings and witness of Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church concerning the Christian vision of a righteous social order, including the challenges of the new millennium. Beginning with the Bible's understandings of social justice, Lewis summarizes the Anglican witness of theologians like F. D. Maurice and William Temple and goes on to discuss the Episcopal Church in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Later chapters discuss the challenges of a new social order that face the church today raised by liberation theology, third-world debt and economic justice, and questions of race, gender, and human sexuality. As with each book in The New Church's Teaching Series, recommended resources for further reading and questions for discussion are included.
"A critical engagement of the ecumenical movement's approach to ethical and economic issues, Ecumenical Babel updates a line of criticism articulated by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Ramsey, and Ernest W. Lefever. Arguing for the continuing importance of Christian ecumenism, Jordan J. Ballor seeks to correct the errors created by the imposition of economic ideology onto the social witness of ecumenical Christianity as represented by the Lutheran World Federation, the newly formed World Communion of Reformed Churches, and the World Council of Churches. Ecumenical Babel is a voice for sustained ecumenical dialogue, vital ecclesiastical witness, and individual Christian conscience"--Back cover.
What should Christian witness look like in our contemporary society? In this timely book, Alan Noble looks at our cultural moment, characterized by technological distraction and the growth of secularism, laying out individual, ecclesial, and cultural practices that disrupt our society's deep-rooted assumptions and point beyond them to the transcendent grace and beauty of Jesus.
Learn to leverage privilege. Privilege is a social consequence of our unwillingness to reckon with and turn from sin. But properly stewarded, it can help us see and participate in God's inbreaking kingdom. Scripture repeatedly affirms that privilege is real and declares that, rather than exploiting it for selfish gain or feeling immobilized by it, Christians have a responsibility to leverage it. Subversive Witness asks us to grapple with privilege, indifference, and systemic sin in new ways by using biblical examples to reveal the complex nature of privilege and Christians' responsibility in stewarding it well. Dominique DuBois Gilliard highlights several people in the Bible who understood this kingdom call. Through their stories, you will discover how to leverage privilege to: Resist Sin Stand in Solidarity with the Oppressed Birth Liberation Create Systemic Change Proclaim the Good News Generate Social Transformation By embodying Scripture's subversive call to leverage--and at times forsake--privilege, readers will learn to love their neighbors sacrificially, enact systemic change, and grow more Christlike as citizens of God's kingdom.
If Christians are part of the one body of Christ, how do we account theologically for the multiple expressions of our common faith? If God is ultimate truth, why is it so difficult to agree on issues related to truth? Must we sacrifice a commitment to truth in favor of a pragmatic unity in the church? Or must we hold on to our perception of the truth at the expense of fracturing the church? For John Franke, truth versus unity is a false dichotomy. In this provocative yet thoughtful book, he argues that orthodox and biblical Christian faith is inherently pluralist, and that this diversity, far from being a problem that needs to be overcome, is in fact a blessing from God and part of the divine design and intention for the church. Suggesting that Christians should affirm the reality of ultimate truth, but cautioning humility regarding our grasp of it, Franke sets forth a relational theology in which the many expressions of revealed truth—Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Scripture, along with a diverse church—together witness to the expansiveness of the one God. John Franke asserts the plurality of truth, not as a capitulation to non- or anti-Christian thought, but rather as an expression of profoundly Christian thought—and specifically, of emergent, missional, and Trinitarian Christian thought. In so doing, he gently implies that the dominant alternative view—that white, modernist, Western Christian scholars and institutions have a monopoly on truth—is actually a capitulation to modes of thought and power that have betrayed the life and gospel of Jesus Christ. —From the foreword by Brian McLaren A refreshing study of plurality and diversity as something intrinsic to the nature of Christianity rather than as something extraneous to it. Lucid and lively, the book makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion about the religion’s emerging profile in the twenty-first century. I am entirely in agreement with John Franke that faith is embodied, that theology is rooted in practice and experience, and that the gospel shapes and is shaped by culture. Manifold Witness tracks the manifold trails of Christianity’s impact on persons and societies. It should find welcome response in theological study and teaching. —Lamin Sanneh, Professor of World Christianity and Director, World Christianity Initiative, at Yale Divinity School, Professor of History at Yale University, and author of Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture and Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity Why is there a Trinity of persons and a quartet of Gospels? Do not relation and difference, context and plurality lie at the very heart of the Christian tradition? Is not the infinite resourcefulness of love enhanced by change and alterity? These are the kinds of questions that John Franke addresses in a bold, sweeping, and lucid presentation of the ongoing renewal of the life of the church. Manifold Witness is the fruit of a tenacious faith in the Christian tradition and a no-less-tenacious faith in the power of truth. —John D. Caputo, Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Humanities at Syracuse University and author of What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church John Franke’s Manifold Witness is the most Reformed book I have ever read. Why? It is the first I have read that not only believes the human mind has been impacted by the Fall but also that carries this through into how the Bible makes truth claims. We need manifold witnesses because, as humans, no one author can grasp the whole Story. If it takes a village to nurture a child, it takes the manifold voices of the Bible and the church to nurture the church. Boldness, braced up by humility, marks every page of this book. —Scot McKnight, Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies, North Park University and author of A Community Called Atonement With clarity, grace, and practical insight, John Franke argues convincingly that the plurality of witnesses in Christian tradition is not a hindrance but a gift that rescues us from both the rigid dogmatism that constricts God’s truth and the ‘anything goes’ pluralism that trivializes it. —Danielle Shroyer, pastor of Journey Church in Dallas, Texas, and author of The Boundary Breaking God: An Unfolding Story of Hope and Promise An honest, passionate, engaging, and spirit-raising book! Franke’s humble, bold articulation of the crux of the emerging church conversation, centered on the Bible and tradition, is confessional yet inclusive. He genuinely celebrates the gifts of the plurality of the church in diverse witnesses and the unity of the reconciling love of God in Jesus’ mission. —Andrew Sung Park, Professor of Theology at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio I cannot think of a more important nor relevant topic than the nature of Truth, with a capital T. It shapes and influences how we think, believe, and act. In a world of competing truth claims it is easy and common to end the conversation by retreating to our own familiar tradition. John Franke wants us to do more, to think deeply and faithfully about a wonderfully provocative notion, the plurality of truth. This book will be an invaluable resource for preachers and teachers. —John Buchanan, Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, and Editor/Publisher of The Christian Century Manifold Witness will truly help Christians committed to the apostolic faith understand that a plurality of views and interpretations, rather than contradicting that faith, stands at its very core! —Justo L. González, author of A Concise History of Christian Doctrine and A History of Christian Thought