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The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people—as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort—by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others—helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits—but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.
Kenosis, or self-emptying, poses a fundamental question to any theological discussion about Jesus Christ: “In becoming human, did God empty himself of any divine qualities?” Many variations on kenotic Christology have emerged over the past 200 years, most of them claiming to both preserve and highlight the true humanity and ecclesial significance of Jesus Christ. While there is much to commend in these efforts, Samuel Youngs contends that nearly all such kenotic attempts have, against their best intentions, fallen into an echo chamber of abstraction and metaphor, rendering their talk about Jesus Christ and analysis of the Gospels fundamentally “unreal” and lacking in material significance for today’s living church. Most fundamentally, many kenotic accounts pay inadequate attention to Christ’s lived accomplishment, his current presence, and the modes of praxis that he makes real in the world. In dialogue with the important movement known as Transformation Theology, Youngs unfolds a detailed critique of method and discourse in kenotic christologies. Turning then to the vibrant christological thought of Jürgen Moltmann, a different outlook on kenosis is articulated and defended, one that is relational, concrete, and praxiological.
Fear is one of the strongest human emotions, and it is one that often baffles Christians. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." — Proverbs 1:7 Fear is one of the strongest human emotions—and one that often baffles Christians. In the Bible the picture can seem equally confusing: Is fear a good thing or a bad thing? And what does it mean to "fear the Lord"? In Rejoice and Tremble, Michael Reeves clears the clouds of confusion and shows that the fear of the Lord is not a negative thing at all, but an intensely delighted wondering at God, our Creator and Redeemer.
Exhaustively annotated and illustrated, this explosive work of history unearths clues that finally demonstrate the truth about one of the world’s great religions: that it was born out of the conflict between the Romans and messianic Jews who fought a bitter war with each other during the 1st Century. The Romans employed a tactic they routinely used to conquer and absorb other nations: they grafted their imperial rule onto the religion of the conquered. After 30 years of research, authors James S. Valliant and C.W. Fahy present irrefutable archeological and textual evidence that proves Christianity was created by Roman Caesars in this book that breaks new ground in Christian scholarship and is destined to change the way the world looks at ancient religions forever. Inherited from a long-past era of tyranny, war and deliberate religious fraud, could Christianity have been created for an entirely different purpose than we have been lead to believe? Praised by scholars like Dead Sea Scrolls translator Robert Eisenman (James the Brother of Jesus), this exhaustive synthesis of historical detective work integrates all of the ancient sources about the earliest Christians and reveals new archeological evidence for the first time. And, despite the fable presented in current bestsellers like Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus, the evidence presented in Creating Christ is irrefutable: Christianity was invented by Roman Emperors. I have rarely encountered a book so original, exciting, accessible and informed on subjects that are of obvious importance to the world and to which I have myself devoted such a large part of my scholarly career studying. In this book they have rendered a startling new understanding of Christianity with a controversial theory of its Roman provenance that is accessible to the layman in a very powerful way. In the process, they present new and comprehensive archeological and iconographic evidence, as well as utilizing the widest and most cutting edge work of other recent scholars, including myself. This is a work of outstanding and original scholarship. Its arguments are a brilliant, profound and thorough integration of the relevant evidence. When they are done, the conclusion is inescapable and obviously profound. Robert Eisenman, Author of James the Brother of Jesus and The New Testament Code "A fascinating and provocative investigative history of ideas, boldly exploring a problem that previous scholarship has not clearly or credibly addressed: how (and why!) the Flavian dynasty wove Christianity into the very fabric of Western civilization." -Mark Riebling, author of Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler
For most of church history, hospitality was central to Christian identity. Yet our generation knows little about this rich, life-giving practice.
The Real Christ is simply the E=MC2 of theology, unfolding the deepest mysteries of the Trinity with profound clarity. This is a must read book for anyone who has struggled with remaining a Christian or grown frustrated with the banality of what seems to be the "Jesus Industry" of corporate Christianity. Please prayerfully and slowly read The Real Christ. It is full of some of the most liberating and transforming ideas currently available to humankind. It is what Christianity was meant to be and, quite truthfully, must still become. We are urged to take up and read, and consider again the complete superstructure that is Christianity so to really discover and really become Christ.
Is your church making disciples . . . who make disciples . . . who make disciples? Real-Life Discipleship explains what should happen in the life of every Christian and in every small group so that the church becomes an army of believers dedicated to seeing the world saved. With the overriding goal to train disciples who know how to make more disciples, this book offers proven tools and strategies from Real Life Ministries, one of America’s fastest-growing churches. In this book, you will learn: How to create churches that succeed and grow How to intentionally disciple believers in every stage of their spiritual development How to find and develop leaders in your church This book also contains these helpful features: A summary and profile of each stage of spiritual growth Recommended resources for disciple-makers Spiritual facts A presentation of the gospel Discover what the Bible says about true and effective discipleship with these strategies and practices in this great church resource.
The purpose of this book is to bring truth as to who God The Father is and who we really are in Christ. Knowing who you are allows you to take back your power and authority over the God of this world—Yahweh. God The Father of Christ and all creation is not the God of this world (John 18:36). The Father gave man dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26–28); through man's sin, power and authority was transferred to Satan/Lucifer. The Father cast Lucifer out of heaven down to the earth (Isaiah 14:12–14) vowed to be worshipped as God the Most High, the Father. Lucifer deceives the whole world (Revelation 12:9) into believing he is God The Father of Christ. The world is looking for this deception to occur in the future. In this book, I prove biblically this deception has already occurred twenty-five hundred years ago when Yahweh freed the Jews out of Egypt. Yahweh declares he is the God of the Jews ever since the land of Egypt and there is no other savior but him (Hosea 13:4). Before this, who was Yahweh? Our minds have been blinded by two thousand years of corrupt and false teachings that were set in place to maintain Yahweh's power and control over this world. Jesus Christ came into this world to tell the Jews the god they're worshipping—Yahweh is not God The Father. The Jews killed Jesus to save the Jewish nation (John 11:50–53) as His message would have completely destroyed the nation; this truth brought division within families. The Jews, with the help of Paul, gathered the children of Christ, grafting them into Yahweh's kingdom under the pretense that Yahweh is the Father of Christ, knowing he is the fallen angel Lucifer. The Father gave man markers to identify Lucifer and his fallen angels. One marker—they are chained in darkness. Yahweh always appears to men in thick darkness: Moses, Solomon, David, and the prophets. Yahweh/Jehovah is the god and ruler of this world, so the only way God The Father could help man was to be born into Yahweh's kingdom here on earth. Yahweh demanded shedding of blood—an innocent blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. Jesus followed all of Yahweh's laws and statutes perfectly; He was sinless. Jesus gave himself to be man's blood sacrifice to appease Yahweh's wrath upon man. God the Father is perfect love; He is displeased with blood sacrifice of any kind. He told the Jews to stop but they continued making sacrifices to their God—Yahweh (Isaiah 66:3, Hosea 6:6–9). God the Father says killing of bulls and goats does not take away sin (Hebrews 10:4–6 ). I prove through scripture that Yahweh is not the loving God The Father of Christ. Yahweh does not have the Holy Spirit of the Father; therefore, he cannot create, he cannot raise the dead, and he cannot heal the sick. Yahweh needs the Father's Holy Spirit that is in all men to maintain his world construct; without it, this world would collapse. Yahweh keeps all men's souls in bondage and imprisoned here within the earth through sin and reincarnation; our spirit is recycled over and over till the day of judgment. Jesus came to teach us how to break free from Yahweh's matrix, being brought into God The Father's kingdom of light in the third heaven. Yahweh/Jehovah is the God of this world; his realm is the heavens directly above the earth and our planetary system. God the Father and Christ dwells in the third heaven aka the pleroma where there is no time, gravity, or matter. All things created emanate from the Father, Who is perfect love. He loves all His creation equally, so He has no favorites; no judgment or wrath towards His creation. This world is worshipping Yahweh; who comes from the Creator/God the Father. Yahweh is a jealous, angry, wrathful god that wants you to fear him. God the Father is the father of all things created; all things emanate from the Father so who can He be jealous of? Nothing. We are now living in the end times. Yahweh is doing everything in his power to corrupt God The Father's creation using all men of power having one agenda—to control the whole world through one world religion, one world government, and one world currency. In this book, I give you the tools needed to escape Yahweh's kingdom of condemnation, death, and destruction.
REAL-LIFE ANSWERS TO LIFE'S BIGGEST QUESTIONS Real Life Theology invites you to a fresh way of living by bridging two areas of your life: what we know about God and how we live our lives. This collection of thirteen accessible books gives real-life answers to fifty-two of life's biggest questions, such as: What is the gospel? What is saving faith? What role does baptism play in salvation? What are the essential, important, and personal elements of the faith? How should we view marriage, gender, and race? Real Life Theology was written with everyday Christians in mind. We encourage you to read it, walk with others through it, and along the way learn God's real-life answers to your biggest questions. This series will help churches in their training of pastoral staff as well as the everyday disciple maker in your church or ministry. -- Jim Putman, author of Real-Life Discipleship As our churches become more diverse and our culture less biblically literate, we increasingly need Real Life Theology. -- Mark Moore, author of Core 52 This book is a one of a kind for our generation. Highly recommended! -- David Young, author of King Jesus and the Beauty of Obedience-Based Discipleship We're excited to integrate Real Life Theology into our leadership development resources at Southeast Christian Church. -- Matt Reagan, Associate Pastor of Southeast Christian Church It's imperative that we do theology wisely and well, and this book is a fantastic help! -- Matt Proctor, President of Ozark Christian College BOBBY HARRINGTON (DMin, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is CEO of Renew.org and Discipleship.org, both national disciple making networks. Bobby is the founding and Lead Pastor of Harpeth Christian Church. He is author or coauthor of more than a dozen books on disciple making. DANIEL MCCOY (PhD, North-West University) is Editorial Director of Renew.org. He has created classes on philosophy, ethics, and world religions for Ozark Christian College. Among his books are The Popular Handbook of World Religions (general editor) and The Atheist's Fatal Flaw (coauthored with Norman Geisler).
From the author of the bestselling novel The Shack and the New York Times bestsellers Cross Roads and Eve comes a compelling, conversational exploration of twenty-eight assumptions about God—assumptions that just might be keeping us from experiencing His unconditional, all-encompassing love. In his wildly popular novels, Wm. Paul Young portrayed the Triune God in ways that challenged our thinking—sometimes upending long-held beliefs, but always centered in the eternal, all-encompassing nature of God’s love. Now, in Wm. Paul Young’s first nonfiction book, he invites us to revisit our assumptions about God—this time using the Bible, theological discussion, and personal anecdotes. Paul encourages us to think through beliefs we’ve presumed to be true and consider whether some might actually be false. Expounding on the compassion fans felt from the “Papa” portrayed in The Shack—now a major film starring Sam Worthington and Octavia Spencer—Paul encourages you to think anew about important issues including sin, religion, hell, politics, identity, creation, human rights, and helping us discover God’s deep and abiding love.