Secret Faith in the Public Square PDF Download

Author: Jonathan Malesic
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1587432269
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Provocatively argues that concealing Christian identity in American public life is the best way to maintain faithful witness and integrity.

Author: Bill Haslam
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 1400224438
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Two-term governor of Tennessee Bill Haslam reveals how faith--too often divisive and contentious--can be a redemptive and unifying presence in the public square. As a former mayor and governor, Bill Haslam has long been at the center of politics and policy on local, state, and federal levels. And he has consistently been guided by his faith, which influenced his actions on issues ranging from capital punishment to pardons, health care to abortion, welfare to free college tuition. Yet the place of faith in public life has been hotly debated since our nation's founding, and the relationship of church and state remains contentious to this day--and for good reason. Too often, Bill Haslam argues, Christians end up shaping their faith to fit their politics rather than forming their politics to their faith. They seem to forget their calling is to be used by God in service of others rather than to use God to reach their own desires and ends. Faithful Presence calls for a different way. Drawing upon his years of public service, Haslam casts a remarkable vision for the redemptive role of faith in politics while examining some of the most complex issues of our time, including: partisanship in our divided era; the most essential character trait for a public servant; how we cannot escape "legislating morality"; the answer to perpetual outrage; and how to think about the separation of church and state. For Christians ready to be salt and light, as well as for those of a different faith or no faith at all, Faithful Presence argues that faith can be a redemptive, healing presence in the public square--as it must be, if our nation is to flourish.

Author: Jonathan Malesic
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520391527
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Going beyond the how and why of burnout, a former tenured professor combines academic methods and first-person experience to propose new ways for resisting our cultural obsession with work and transforming our vision of human flourishing. Burnout has become our go-to term for talking about the pressure and dissatisfaction we experience at work. But in the absence of understanding what burnout means, the discourse often does little to help workers who suffer from exhaustion and despair. Jonathan Malesic was a burned out worker who escaped by quitting his job as a tenured professor. In The End of Burnout, he dives into the history and psychology of burnout, traces the origin of the high ideals we bring to our jobs, and profiles the individuals and communities who are already resisting our cultural commitment to constant work. In The End of Burnout, Malesic traces his own history as someone who burned out of a tenured job to frame this rigorous investigation of how and why so many of us feel worn out, alienated, and useless in our work. Through research on the science, culture, and philosophy of burnout, Malesic explores the gap between our vocation and our jobs, and between the ideals we have for work and the reality of what we have to do. He eschews the usual prevailing wisdom in confronting burnout (“Learn to say no!” “Practice mindfulness!”) to examine how our jobs have been constructed as a symbol of our value and our total identity. Beyond looking at what drives burnout—unfairness, a lack of autonomy, a breakdown of community, mismatches of values—this book spotlights groups that are addressing these failures of ethics. We can look to communities of monks, employees of a Dallas nonprofit, intense hobbyists, and artists with disabilities to see the possibilities for resisting a “total work” environment and the paths to recognizing the dignity of workers and nonworkers alike. In this critical yet deeply humane book, Malesic offers the vocabulary we need to recognize burnout, overcome burnout culture, and acknowledge the dignity of workers and nonworkers alike.

Author: Joseph I. Lieberman
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451627319
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Discusses the importance of observing the Jewish Sabbath as both a practical and spiritual exercise, and provides guidelines for properly incoporating the Sabbath into everyday life.

Author: Os Guinness
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830837671
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Recognizing that tyranny takes on secular as well as traditional guises, Os Guinness seeks a return to the first principles of religious and political freedom. Hearkening back to the "soul liberty" of English Puritan Roger Williams, Guinness argues that a society's greatest bulwark against abuse lies in its people's freedom of conscience.

Author: Jonathan Leeman
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
ISBN: 1400207657
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
How can the church move forward in unity amid such political strife and cultural contention? As Christians, we’ve felt pushed to the outskirts of national public life, yet even within our congregations we are divided about how to respond. Some want to strengthen the evangelical voting bloc. Others focus on social justice causes, and still others would abandon the public square altogether. What do we do when brothers and sisters in Christ sit next to each other in the pews but feel divided and angry? Is there a way forward? In How the Nations Rage, political theology scholar and pastor Jonathan Leeman challenges Christians from across the spectrum to hit the restart button by shifting our focus from redeeming the nation to living as a nation already redeemed rejecting the false allure of building heaven on earth while living faithfully as citizens of a heavenly kingdom letting Jesus’ teaching shape our public engagement as we love our neighbors and seek justice When we identify with Christ more than a political party or social grouping, we can return to the church’s unchanging political task: to become the salt and light Jesus calls us to be and offer the hope of his kingdom to the nations.

Author: Bob Fu
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1441244662
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Tens of millions of Christians live in China today, many of them leading double lives or in hiding from a government that relentlessly persecutes them. Bob Fu, whom the Wall Street Journal called "The pastor of China's underground railroad," is fighting to protect his fellow believers from persecution, imprisonment, and even death. God's Double Agent is his fascinating and riveting story. Bob Fu is indeed God's double agent. By day Fu worked as a full-time lecturer in a communist school; by night he pastored a house church and led an underground Bible school. This can't-put-it-down book chronicles Fu's conversion to Christianity, his arrest and imprisonment for starting an illegal house church, his harrowing escape, and his subsequent rise to prominence in the United States as an advocate for his brethren. God's Double Agent will inspire readers even as it challenges them to boldly proclaim and live out their faith in a world that is at times indifferent, and at other times murderously hostile, to those who spread the gospel.

Author: Todd M. Johnson
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1441221794
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
As Christians, we belong to not only a diverse global Christian family but also a diverse human family. Todd Johnson, a noted expert on global Christianity and world missions trends, and Cindy Wu show how divisions within these families work against our desire to bring about positive change in the world. They provide an overview of global Christian identity, exploring how we can be faithful to our own tradition while engaging Christians across denominations and be better informed as we work with people of other religions. The book utilizes the latest research data on global Christianity and world religions and includes tables, graphs, charts, and end-of-chapter discussion questions.

Author: Ray Comfort
Publisher: Whitaker House
ISBN: 1603749926
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
How many souls have you won to Christ? How many are still walking with the Lord? All, some, a few? The facts are: Evangelical success is at an all-time low. We’re producing more backsliders than true converts. The fall-away rate—from large crusades to local churches—is between 80 to 90 percent. Why are so many unbelievers turning away from the message of the gospel? Doesn’t the Bible tell us how to bring sinners to true repentance? If so, where have we missed it? The answer may surprise you. One hundred years ago, Satan buried the crucial key needed to unlock the unbeliever’s heart. Now Ray Comfort boldly breaks away from modern tradition and calls for a return to biblical evangelism. If you’re experiencing evangelical frustration over lost souls, unrepentant sinners, and backslidden “believers,” then look no further. This radical approach could be the missing dimension needed to win our generation to Christ.

Author: William Lobdell
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061877336
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
William Lobdell's journey of faith—and doubt—may be the most compelling spiritual memoir of our time. Lobdell became a born-again Christian in his late 20s when personal problems—including a failed marriage—drove him to his knees in prayer. As a newly minted evangelical, Lobdell—a veteran journalist—noticed that religion wasn't covered well in the mainstream media, and he prayed for the Lord to put him on the religion beat at a major newspaper. In 1998, his prayers were answered when the Los Angeles Times asked him to write about faith. Yet what happened over the next eight years was a roller-coaster of inspiration, confusion, doubt, and soul-searching as his reporting and experiences slowly chipped away at his faith. While reporting on hundreds of stories, he witnessed a disturbing gap between the tenets of various religions and the behaviors of the faithful and their leaders. He investigated religious institutions that acted less ethically than corrupt Wall St. firms. He found few differences between the morals of Christians and atheists. As this evidence piled up, he started to fear that God didn't exist. He explored every doubt, every question—until, finally, his faith collapsed. After the paper agreed to reassign him, he wrote a personal essay in the summer of 2007 that became an international sensation for its honest exploration of doubt. Losing My Religion is a book about life's deepest questions that speaks to everyone: Lobdell understands the longings and satisfactions of the faithful, as well as the unrelenting power of doubt. How he faced that power, and wrestled with it, is must reading for people of faith and nonbelievers alike.