The American evangelical church today faces profound political and cultural challenges. It is vitally important for the church to understand these challenges more fully and to think about them more theologically. It is also important for the church to repent of how we have failed to be the edifying and countercultural influence we ought to be, and craft an approach to public and political life that bears authentic and life-giving witness to who our God is and what he is like. In this book, the author shows how Justin Martyr, a prominent second-century church leader, provides a useful and powerful...

Reuben V. "Uncle Bud" Robinson, born a moonshiner's son in Tennessee and converted under the preaching of a traveling circuit rider while working as a Texas ranch hand, persevered to become the Mark Twain of the early twentieth-century holiness movement. And, at the height of his ministry, he was dubbed the "the most popular man in America." This book explains how a man who originally came from nothing eventually came to personify an entire subset of American Christianity and what it means for Christianity and evangelicalism today. The author examines how "Uncle Bud's" preaching brought together people from all walks...

In October of 1938, two evangelists/faith healers, Burroughs Walters and Kathryn Kuhlman, elope to Iowa to be married. The bride fainted at the civil ceremony. The play covers the first one hundred minutes of their wedding night, the bride seriously second-guessing her decision to marry, feeling compelled to return to her flock in Denver. The bridegroom, frustrated on his wedding night, compels her to stay. Lifting the Veil is a play depicting the battle of two scripture-filled minds and wills. This play is a "what-if" tale, loosely based upon the obscure marriage of Kathryn Kuhlman and Burroughs Waltrip. Burroughs became...

Sermons preached before a congregation are only one way people hear messages of faith. Whether the listener is seated in a pew or listening to a podcast or a book about faith, most of the faith-talk people hear is shaped by a speaker's faith sensibility. And those faith sensibilities can generally be distinguished as four distinctly different "voices" of preaching. Understanding what these voices are, how they differ in purpose as well as design, and how excellence in each voice can make for greater authenticity in communicating faith is what this book is about. The author canvases the tradition of...

In this updated and expanded version of Dr. Spencer's classic offering, we are treated to new insights and expressions of wisdom. Big, colorful virtues like courage and decisiveness in crisis easily get our attention. But sometimes it's those everyday values that shape us much more profoundly. Lost in our noisy, flashy, gaudy world are the quiet virtues that work behind the scenes--molding our character, guiding our actions, enriching our lives. Greg Spencer unfolds the beauty and nature of each, showing us how to take notice of discernment, innocence, generosity, authenticity and more. In this book you'll discover how far from...

In this updated and expanded edition, the author invites professors of communication and media to reflect on each chapter in light of our current cultural challenges and technological advancements over the past two decades. The collection of voices and conversations offer a discerning introduction to communication theory that guides readers through an interesting, creative, and biblical study of communication. Thoroughly grounded in a Christian worldview, Communicating for Life explores the implications of individual human communication and the influence of communication on community.

Why does the family matter? How can the family truly flourish with so many different opinions about what family means and what role it plays in society? How can we strengthen the family to reflect God's design for it? Family Communication and the Christian Faith: An Introduction and Exploration provides answers to these questions. This book examines the family from a biblical worldview while integrating theories and practices from diverse academic disciplines (psychology, theology, family studies, sociology) with special emphasis on how communication creates and sustains healthy, rewarding, and godly families. Instructor's Resource and Teaching Guide available. Published by Integratio...

At a time when Christian voices in higher education are facing increased persecution and marginalization, the Christian authors of this collection who teach in public universities share their faith-learning integration journeys including their practical, theoretical, and biblically based strategies for teaching, administration, and doing research. Authors explain how they actively subvert secular worldviews that marginalize biblical truth, promote incivility, and discourage love of neighbor. At the same time, they explore pro-active, bridge-building and transformational methods for cultivating biblical absolutes and Christian virtue in ways that prompt evangelistic encounters. The book adds to ongoing and robust faith-learning conversations in higher education...

This book aims to change the Christian conversation regarding civility, from techniques about achieving civility to the conditions necessary for civility to exist. As such, the authors in this volume explore the work of Dr. Calvin Troup, president of Geneva College, and his insights regarding humility and hospitality--presented at a keynote address at a conference--and interrogate the ideas that serve as its foundation. The goal of the book is to create a conversation across the broad spectrum of Christian experience and voices from within secular culture in order to explore, in a robust fashion, the possibilities for hospitality, humility, and...