A Free Church in a Free State

A Free Church in a Free State PDF

Author: Surya Harefa

Publisher: Langham Publishing

Published: 2023-06-30

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 183973888X

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How does Christ call his people to engage the societies, cultures, and politics of the nations they call home? From prioritizing patriotism over faith to withdrawing from the public sphere entirely, the struggle to navigate the intersection of an earthly and heavenly kingdom remains an ongoing challenge for Christians around the world. Bridging cultures and time periods, Dr. Surya Harefa brings Abraham’s Kuyper’s ecclesiology to bear on questions of Japanese Christian engagement within the political sphere. Harefa offers a contextually robust exploration of evangelical Japanese approaches to ecclesiology and political involvement. Taking care to place Kuyper’s conception of the church within Kuyper’s own political and historical context, careful lines of application are drawn between Kuyper’s theological perspectives and the need for an active Japanese church engaged in all spheres of life. This book is an excellent resource for those seeking to equip Christians to engage politically as followers of Christ for the good of the church and their nations. It also provides an example of the rich and powerful insight offered by exploring Western and non-Western theologies within their diverse contexts and in conversation with each other.

The People are Holy

The People are Holy PDF

Author: Graydon F. Snyder

Publisher: Mercer University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9780865549524

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Using biblical and historical data, this book first describes the biblical and theological basis for worship in the Free Church tradition, then shows how this tradition is expressed in worship at special occasions as well as in traditional services. The People Are Holy describes the characteristics of early church worship, then traces how those qualities and practices are realized in the Free Churches. In addition to analyzing all parts of the Sunday worship services, the book includes a consideration of key special services such as baptisms, communions, weddings, installations, healing services, and funerals. In order to demonstrate how preaching functions, the book contains four sermons on key concerns for the Free Church. This book will help members of Free Churches understand why they do what they do when they come together as a faith community. It will help pastors reflect on the theological and biblical basis of how they conduct worship. This is not a "how-to" book. Based on the faith stance of Free Churches in general, it describes what would be the reasonable application of those principles in worshipping communities. Christians not of a Free Church persuasion can discover in this book what inspires so many Americans and marks the way they worship. Book jacket.

Free Churches and Society

Free Churches and Society PDF

Author: Lesley Husselbee

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-07-05

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1441136010

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Many of the key improvements to social conditions in the United Kingdom have been made by Christians. Most of us would be able to think of such key Anglican figures as William Wilberforce, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury or Dr Thomas Barnardo, but lesser known contributions were made behind the scenes by significant members of the Non-Conformist Churches. This book traces the Free Church contribution to society from 1800 to the present day. It looks at the work of campaigners, co-operative societies, philanthropists and politicians, and traces the ways in which conditions in slums, education, and industry were improved, including work with women and with black and ethnic minorities. There is a growing interest in the part the churches can play today in community development and in the building of social capital. This book will show that some of the things now seen as government initiatives had their origins in the work of Free Church pioneers.

Free Churches and the Body of Christ

Free Churches and the Body of Christ PDF

Author: Jeffrey W. Cary

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2012-11-05

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1621894835

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Those within the free church tradition have often appealed to the notion of the invisible church to account for the unity of the Body of Christ. A growing number of free church theologians, however, are giving increased attention to the importance of visible ecclesial unity, which immediately raises the perennial problem of the authorities by which unity is maintained. There is also a growing recognition among free church theologians of the need to recognize the authority of tradition in tandem with the authority of Scripture. In this book, Cary affirms these recent developments but then inquires whether a turn toward visible unity, together with an embrace of the authority of tradition, can eventually be coherent without also embracing the authority of an extra-congregational teaching office. To guide his study, Cary engages the work of two theologians from outside the free church tradition: Robert Jenson and Rowan Williams. He then brings them into contact with the prominent free church theologian James McClendon in order to supplement some of the deficiencies Cary perceives in McClendon's groundbreaking work. Once these deficiencies are addressed, however, the question intensifies whether the free church tradition, as such, can remain a coherent ecclesial option over time.

The Free Church

The Free Church PDF

Author: James D. Murch

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2014-06-06

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 1625648960

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About the Contributor(s): James DeForest Murch (1892-1973) was born in Ohio, where he was educated in Ohio University and the University of Cincinnati. He was an editor, organizer, historian, and unity activist among the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ in the twentieth century.

The Free Church Today: New Life for the Whole Church

The Free Church Today: New Life for the Whole Church PDF

Author: Arthur A. Rouner

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2017-10-06

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1532641524

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This important contribution to American ecumenism is an impassioned plea for an encounter between the mainline denominational churches and the vital new “third force” of the evangelical and “free” churches. It strives to bridge the gulf between the most uncritical supporters of organic church union and those most suspicious of its organizational purpose and theology. It suggests that the common elements of the New Testament church life in all local churches provide a basis for understandings out of which a new spirit and a broad new alignment can evolve. It urges the mainline groups to achieve an understanding with these free churches—whose doctrine of authority posits a direct, personal rule of Christ over each local “gathered” congregation without the meditation of bishops, priests, synods or councils—in seeking a new basis for achieving the reality of the “great church coming” which is the ecumenical hope. The author’s conviction is that the future of the church in America and of any vital ecumenical witness rests with these “left out” churches and their creative rapprochement with other life of all churches together in an exciting and meaningful mission in which American churches of all traditions can share completely, yet without compromise.

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