Recommendations based on "Heresy"

Christians who want to take the next step in their faith walk need look no further. It's time to ante up and go all in with God.The Gospel costs nothing.You can't earn it or buy it.It can only be received as a free gift, which is compliments of God's grace.It doesn't cost anything, but it demands everything.It demands that we go "all in, "putting all that we have into God's hands.But why do so many Christians hesitate to do that? And when did we start believing that the Gospel is an insurance plan? We're afraid that if we go all in that we might miss out on what life has to offer. But Jesus did not die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous.So, let's step out of spiritual no man's land and kneel at the foot of the cross of Christ and surrender to his lordship. It's time to dethrone yourself and enthrone Christ as king, and Pastor Mark Batterson is here to show you how.Using his customary vivid, contemporary illustrations, as well as biblical characters like Shamgar, Elisha, Jonathan, and even Judas, you will be challenged to trade what Batterson calls "inverted Christianity" for true discipleship as you strip away your excuses and inhibitions and follow God completely.It's now or never. Are you ready to go all in and all out for God?Also available: All In student edition, video curriculum, and study guide.

Do Miracles Really Happen?In Miracles, C.S. Lewis argues that a Christian must not only accept but rejoice in miracles as a testimony of the unique personal involvement of God in his creation. Using his charismatic warmth, lucidity, and wit, Lewis challenges the rationalists and cynics who are mired in their lack of imagination and provides a poetic and joyous affirmation that miracles really do occur in everyday lives.

When first published, Evil and the God of Love instantly became recognized as a modern theological classic, widely viewed as the most important work on the problem of evil to appear in English for more than a generation. It has continued to be at the centre of discussions ever since. Alongside a new preface by the author, this reissue of the work includes a foreword by Marilyn McCord Adams.

A holistic, eye-opening history of one of the most significant turning points in Christianity, The Reformation as Renewal demonstrates that the Reformation was at its core a renewal of evangelical catholicity.In the sixteenth century Rome charged the Reformers with novelty, as if they were heretics departing from the catholic (universal) church. But the Reformers believed they were more catholic than Rome. Distinguishing themselves from Radicals, the Reformers were convinced they were retrieving the faith of the church fathers and the best of the medieval Scholastics. The Reformers saw themselves as faithful stewards of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church preserved across history, and they insisted on a restoration of true worship in their own day.By listening to the Reformers' own voices, The Reformation as Renewal helps readers explore: The Reformation's roots in patristic and medieval thought and its response to late medieval innovations. Key philosophical and theological differences between Scholasticism in the High Middle Ages and deviations in the Late Middle Ages. The many ways sixteenth and seventeenth century Protestant Scholastics critically appropriated Thomas Aquinas. The Reformation's response to the charge of novelty by an appeal to the Augustinian tradition. Common caricatures that charge the Reformation with schism or assume the Reformation was the gateway to secularism. The spread of Reformation catholicity across Europe, as seen in first and second-generation leaders from Luther and Melanchthon in Wittenberg to Zwingli and Bullinger in Zurich to Bucer and Calvin in Strasbourg and Geneva to Tyndale, Cranmer, and Jewel in England, and many others. The theology of the Reformers, with special attention on their writings defending the catholicity of the Reformation.This balanced, insightful, and accessible treatment of the Reformation will help readers see this watershed moment in the history of Christianity with fresh eyes and appreciate the unity they have with the church across time. Readers will discover that the Reformation was not a new invention, but the renewal of something very old.

These days many evangelicals are exploring the more sacramental, liturgical, and historically-conscious church traditions, including Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. This hunger for historical rootedness is a welcome phenomenon--but unfortunately, many assume that this need can only be met outside of Protestant contexts.In What it Means to Be Protestant, Gavin Ortlund draws from both his scholarly work in church history and his personal experience in ecumenical engagement to offer a powerful defense of the Protestant tradition. Retrieving classical Protestant texts and arguments, he exposes how many of the contemporary objections leveled against Protestants are rooted in caricature. Ultimately, he shows that historic Protestantism offers the best pathway to catholicity and historical rootedness for Christians today.In his characteristically charitable and irenic style, Ortlund demonstrates that the 16th century Reformation represented a genuine renewal of the gospel. This does not entail that Protestantism is without faults. But because it is built upon the principle of semper reformanda (always reforming), Protestantism is capable of reforming itself according to Scripture as the ultimate authority. This scholarly and yet accessible book breaks new ground in ecumenical theology and will be a staple text in the field for many years to come.

Grace is the heart of the Christian gospel. It's a doctrine that touches the very depths of human existence and makes Christianity such an essential alternative to the dissolution and nihilism of modern culture. Grace Alone guides you into a better doctrinal understanding of the issue and gives you a more glorious vision of an active and saving God.The language of grace fills the Bible so much that to say "grace alone" may not evoke much reflection. Unlike "faith alone, " there's no theological controversy among expressions of Christianity. Reviving one of the five great declarations of the Reformation (and one of the more overlooked) —sola Gratia — professor and church historian Carl Trueman: Provides a thorough definition of grace as it's found in the Bible and an overview of biblical references to, and teaching on, grace. Tracks the doctrine of grace as it's been articulated throughout church history, with discussions of Augustine, Pelagius, Thomas Aquinas, and ending with the Reformation and theologies of Luther and Calvin. Looks at the relationship between the means of grace and the modern church, defining the practical implications of the Reformation's understanding of grace. Explanations throughout on the relationship of grace to sin, salvation and glorification, God's sovereignty, the sacraments, and the controversies regarding freewill and predestination. Grace Alone is a beautiful and much-needed revival of this foundational doctrine and the assurance of salvation.—THE FIVE SOLAS—Historians and theologians have long recognized that at the heart of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation were five declarations, often referred to as the "solas." These five statements summarize much of what the Reformation was about, and they distinguish Protestantism from other expressions of the Christian faith: that they place ultimate and final authority in the Scriptures, acknowledge the work of Christ alone as sufficient for redemption, recognize that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, and seek to do all things for God's glory.The Five Solas Series is more than a simple rehashing of these statements, but instead expounds upon the biblical reasoning behind them, leading to a more profound theological vision of our lives and callings as Christians and churches.

The Niv Is The World's Best-selling Modern Translation, With Over 150 Million Copies In Print Since Its First Full Publication In 1978. This Highly Accurate And Smooth-reading Version Of The Bible In Modern English Has The Largest Library Of Printed And Electronic Support Material Of Any Modern Translation.

America's Book shows how the Bible decisively shaped American national history even as that history influenced the use of Scripture. It explores the rise of a strongly Protestant Bible civilization in the early United States that was then fractured by debates over slavery, contested by growing numbers of non-Protestant Americans (Catholics, Jews, agnostics), and torn apart by the Civil War.This first comprehensive history of the Bible in America explains why Tom Paine's anti-biblical tract The Age of Reason (1794) precipitated such dramatic effects, how innovations in printing by the American Bible Society created the nation's publishing industry, why Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831 and the bitter election of 1844 marked turning points in the nation's engagement with Scripture, and why Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were so eager to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible.Noll's magisterial work highlights not only the centrality of the Bible for the nation's most influential religious figures (Methodist Francis Asbury, Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Catholic Bishop Francis Kenrick, Jewish scholar Solomon Schechter, agnostic Robert Ingersoll), but also why it was important for presidents like Abraham Lincoln; notable American women like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frances Willard; dedicated campaigners for civil rights like Frederick Douglass and Francis Grimké; lesser-known figures like Black authors Maria Stewart and Harriet Jacobs; and a host of others of high estate and low. The book also illustrates how the more religiously plural period from Reconstruction to the early twentieth century saw Scripture become a much more fragmented, though still significant, force in American culture, particularly as a source of hope and moral authority for Americans on both sides of the battle over white supremacy-both for those hoping to fight it, and for others seeking to justify it.

Selected from sermons delivered by C. S. Lewis during World War II, these nine addresses show the beloved author and theologian bringing hope and courage in a time of great doubt. Addressing some of the most difficult issues we face in our day-to-day lives, C.S. Lewis’s ardent and timeless words provide an unparalleled path to greater spiritual understanding. Considered by many to be Lewis’s finest sermon of all, and his most moving address, ‘The Weight of Glory’ extols a compassionate vision of Christianity an dincludes lucid and compelling discussions on faith. Also included in this volume are "Transposition," "On Forgiveness," "Why I Am Not a Pacifist," and "Learning in War-Time".

In Created Equal, Joshua Berman engages the text of the Hebrew Bible from a novel perspective, considering it as a document of social and political thought. He proposes that the Pentateuch can be read as the earliest prescription on record for the establishment of an egalitarian polity. What emerges is the blueprint for a society that would stand in stark contrast to the surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East -- Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and the Hittite Empire - in which the hierarchical structure of the polity was centered on the figure of the king and his retinue. Berman shows that an egalitarian ideal is articulated in comprehensive fashion in the Pentateuch and is expressed in its theology, politics, economics, use of technologies of communication, and in its narrative literature. Throughout, he invokes parallels from the modern period as heuristic devices to illuminate ancient developments. Thus, for example, the constitutional principles in the Book of Deuteronomy are examined in the light of those espoused by Montesquieu, and the rise of the novel in 18th-century England serves to illuminate the advent of new modes of storytelling in biblical narrative.