[PDF] Western Culture In Gospel Context eBook

Author : David J. Kettle
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 397 pages
File Size : 48,71 MB
Release : 2011-04-18
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1610971841

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Approaching us in sovereign freedom, God comes alive to us, we come alive to God, and all creation comes alive as a sign pointing to God. In the gospel of Jesus Christ, God gives and discloses himself in this immediate way as our ultimate context and host, within the provisional medium of creation. This life-giving gospel is met by blindness, however, among those who live today in a collapsing Western culture. This is because their imaginative world is shaped by habitual assumptions and practices that lie--largely unacknowledged--deep within that culture, and that preclude openness to the gospel. Moreover, Western Christians themselves widely share these assumptions, betraying the gospel into cultural captivity. God calls for the conversion of Western culture to the living gospel. Crucially this must include, as Lesslie Newbigin recognized, a repentance from modern Western assumptions about knowledge. Part One explores seeking, knowing, and serving God, as providing a true paradigm for understanding all human enquiry, knowledge, and action. Part Two examines ten resulting "hot spots" where conversion from prevailing cultural assumptions is vital for authentic mission to Western culture.

Author : Thomas M. Stallter
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 10,18 MB
Release : 2022-02-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1666712426

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What we fear most has ironically come upon us as Western individualists. We are being controlled by the invisible forces of culture and they have come between God and us. Silent but in the background of all we do and think, its influence cannot be overlooked. We condone and even encourage and champion the very things that create distance between our needs and God's goodness, between our plans and his destiny for us, between our weakness and his strength. We have been deceived. Not only have we created distance between us, but we seldom free God from these cultural and personal expectations and let him speak for himself. We have locked God into our system and, in the end, distracted by our needs for social and personal survival. We must turn our eyes toward him, open our ears to his voice, and let him speak.

Author : J. Alexander Rutherford
Publisher : Teleioteti
Page : 172 pages
File Size : 50,97 MB
Release : 2020-12-18
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1989560040

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Many writers and commentators are convinced that Western culture and society are unravelling. Who can blame them! As I write this, violent protests rage across the USA in response to senseless murders. The political sphere has never seemed to virulent, and a deadly epidemic has affected all our lives. Many are agreed that there are serious problems working themselves out in Western society, yet among Christians, there is little agreement over the approach we should take to the West and its problems. This issue, how Christians should approach engagement with culture, is not a new one, nor is it a uniquely Western issue. Christians in every age and in every culture are confronted with this question. In response to many today who see it as the Christian responsibility to save the West, to preserve its unique cultural heritage and achievements, this author argues that our lives in this world need to be governed by three theological themes, ecclesiology, soteriology, and eschatology. That is, we must prioritize the local church, engage with society with the understanding that earthly kingdoms are manifestations of Satan’s kingdom, and live in light of Christ’s imminent return.

Author : Gert-Jan Roest
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 435 pages
File Size : 17,73 MB
Release : 2018-10-02
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9004386483

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In The Gospel in the Western Context, Gert-Jan Roest presents how Hendrikus Berkhof and Colin Gunton read the Western context and contextualize Christology. In “dialogue” with them he presents a Western gospel for mission in the 21st Century.

Author : Dee Dyas
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 26,58 MB
Release : 2014-06-03
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1136525696

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The influence of the Bible in Western culture is immeasurable, but these days few of us know much about it. Presenting concise and accessible introductions to the Bible's most important characters, stories and themes, this text encourages better understanding, study and analysis of the Christian element in Western culture. With no prior biblical knowledge required, this clearly presented volume delivers a framework of understanding for those studying Western literature, art, historical events, or for those simply wanting to improve their general knowledge. Filling a gap in the market for an introductory text of this kind, this genuinely multi-disciplinary book provides: * edited extracts from the Bible * explanations of the context and beliefs of each passage * links to related biblical texts * examples of related key works of art and literature * brief biographies of key figures * a comprehensive glossary defining specialist terms * chronology * suggested further reading. Enabling readers to encounter key Bible stories directly, the book also provides useful background information on issues of content, context and influence. Easy to use and follow, it is the essential guide for those wishing to find out more about the Bible and its impact on the world around us.

Author : David Jacobus Bosch
Publisher : Gracewing Publishing
Page : 84 pages
File Size : 43,78 MB
Release : 1995
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780852443330

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Following an analysis of the postmodern world, the legacy of the Enlightenment, and Christian faith into a postmodern age, Professor Bosch sketches the contours of a missiology of Western culture. The latter includes considerations of mission as social ethics, mission and the Third World, and God-talk in an age of reason. A concluding section summarizes the five ingredients of a missiology of Western culture, that is, that it include an ecological dimension, that it be countercultural and ecumenical and contextual, andthat it be primarily a ministry of the laity.

Author : Hilary Regan
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 20,49 MB
Release : 2016-10-06
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1474281516

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There is a growing awareness of cultural diversity and plurality on the one hand and shared responsibility for our planet on the other. The sense of cultural identity exposes the wealth and richness of our heritage but also introduces its risks, like the proliferation of often violent independence and separatist movements. A sense of shared responsibility represents the hope to avoid ecological catastrophe and highlights the problems of inequality, poverty and suffering. Is our understanding of cultures and contexts affected, or even dramatically transformed, by our perception of Christ and Trinitarian theology? This series of essays addresses the issues of cultural plurality and diversity, poverty, sexist and racist oppression and ecological crisis, and aims to discuss the place of Christ in our understanding of human contextuality. Authors include Gustavo Gutiérrez, Jürgen Moltmann, Johann Metz, Janet Martin Soskice and John de Gruchy.

Author : Jean-Georges Gantenbein
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 31,32 MB
Release : 2021-11-04
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1793633827

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Rather than reconsidering contemporary culture in light of secularization, much of the western church operates with a degree of nostalgia. She has yet to fully embrace prospective, innovative models for what form her task might take in some of Christianity’s historic heartlands. Amidst rapidly declining church membership, contextualizing the Gospel for the contemporary West is an urgent task for churches and Christians living in this context. This book seeks an interdisciplinary, international, and ecumenical response to this challenge, uniting historical, sociological, theological, and missiological perspectives. Benefiting from recent studies in sociology of religion, Dr. Gantenbein offers several detailed contextual case studies before establishing correlations between western cultural-religious characteristics and corresponding theological affirmations. This study includes several unexpected dimensions, including the development of a theological aesthetic in tension with the typically Word-alone tradition of Protestantism; a constructive reading of the book of Revelation as a source for contemporary aesthetic missiology; reflections on a soteriology for the postmodern era; and a proposal for an anonymous ecclesiology within a European context where churches are viewed with growing suspicion. With rare perspicacity, Gantenbein’s study creatively calls churches to apply renewed intellectual rigor in faithfulness to their common purpose.

Author : Lesslie Newbigin
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Page : 181 pages
File Size : 40,46 MB
Release : 1988-06-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1467419087

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How can biblical authority be a reality for those shaped by the modern world? This book treats the First World as a mission field, offering a unique perspective on the relationship between the gospel and current society by presenting an outsider's view of contemporary Western culture.