Friday, March 26, 2010

A History of Christianity on DVD

A History of Christianity DVD #1
Q & A with Diarmaid MacCulloch,
Host of A History of Christianity
(Part 1 of 2)


Q: A History of Christianity corrects several misconceptions regarding Christianity’s past and traditions, beginning with the earliest days of the fledgling religion. How does the true history of Christianity’s origins differ from the version most of us know?
A: Today, Christianity is seen as a Western faith. Indeed, many in the Muslim world would see Western lifestyles as Christian lifestyles. But Christianity is not by origin a Western religion. Its beginnings are in the Middle East, where there still exist churches which have been Eastern since the earliest Christian era. For centuries, Christianity flourished in the East, and indeed, at one point, it was poised to triumph in Asia, maybe even in China. The headquarters of Christianity might well have been Baghdad rather than Rome, and if that had happened, Western Christianity would have been very different. The story of the first Christianity tells us the Christian faith is, in fact, hugely diverse with many identities. The history of Christianity has been the never-ending rebirth of a meeting with Jesus Christ, the resurrected son of God. For some, like the Oriental and Orthodox churches, the meeting has been through ritual and tradition, or the inner life of the mystic. For Western Catholics, through obedience to the Church. In Protestant churches, through the Bible. And it’s the variety that is so remarkable in Christianity’s journey. It’s reached into every continent and adapted to new cultures. That’s the hallmark of a world religion.


Q: Why does Christian history fascinate you?
A: When I was a small boy, my parents used to drive me around historic churches searching out whatever looked interesting, but soon, they realized they had created a monster. The history of the church became my life’s work. For me, no other subject can rival its scale and drama. For 2,000 years, Christianity has been one of the great players in world history, inspiring faith but also squalid politics. It is an epic story starring a cast of extraordinary people—from Jesus himself and the first apostles to empresses, kings, and popes, from reformers and champions of human conscience to crusaders and sadists. Religious belief can transform us for good or ill. It has brought human beings to acts of criminal folly as well as the highest achievements of goodness and creativity. I will tell the story of both extremes. Christianity has survived persecution, splits, wars of religion, mockery, hatred. Today there are two billion Christians, a third of humanity—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Pentecostal, and many more. Deep down, the Christian faith boasts a shared core—but what is it? This is something I wanted to explore on a truly global scale.


Q: Your search for Christianity’s true history begins with a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Why does this location tell us about the Christianity’s global roots?
A: The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is said to have been built where Jesus was crucified and buried. At its heart is what’s believed to be his tomb. The church built around the tomb of Jesus is the starting point for a forgotten story, a story that may overturn your preconceptions about early Christianity. Pride of place in this building goes to two churches—the Greek Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic church. It’s true that Orthodoxy and Catholicism dominated Christianity in Europe, in the West, for its first 1,500 years. But as you walk around the edges of the church, you can’t fail to notice other curious little chapels. They’re not Western or European. They’re Middle Eastern and African, and they tell a very different story about the origins of Christianity. Around the back of Jesus’ tomb is Egypt’s Coptic church. There are plenty of other churches at this location, but you need to know where to look: the Syriac Orthodox church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, to name a few. Many versions of Christian history would make these churches unorthodox, yet they are far older than better known versions of Christianity like Protestantism. It’s easy for tourists to dismiss these ancient churches as quaint or even irrelevant. But that would be a big mistake.


Q: What are some general differences between the expansion of Western and Eastern Christianity?
A: In the West, Christianity became the religion of an entire empire. This meant the end of persecution. It brought power and wealth. It gave the Christian faith a chance at becoming a universal religion. In theory, it embraced Christians in the Eastern Empire as well as in the West.

But in the east, many Christians were unimpressed by the new alliance—even hostile. At stake were fundamental disagreements about the direction the faith should take. Jesus had told people to abandon wealth, not to ally with the rich and powerful. It was Eastern Christians in Syria who led the way, showing Western Christianity a pattern for spiritual life. We call this pattern monasticism, a way of life involving isolation from the world, austerity, and suffering. The expansion of Eastern Christianity has often taken place apart from any empire. It has often been a religion of dialogue, not conquest.
The DVD set will arrive in stores, including Sam’s Club, in time for the Easter Season. The series will also be available on Amazon.com.


A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years 6 DVD Set presented by Diarmaid MacCulloch
www.ambrosevideo.com This material is from the publisher.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Prophetic Untimeliness

From Time to Time I like to let you know about books that catch my interest but that I have not read. Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance is one such book. The material below is from the publisher and Amazon.com.

There is a desperate quest for the Good News (Gospel of Christ)in our soul and therefore in the gatherings we call church. I like Os Guinness's clear and non-sugar coated approach to things and I am looking forward to reading this book completely. I will let you know if I am as interested in what he says after I have finished reading it.

Product Description
The buzz among evangelicals today is about relevance and reinvention, about new ways of "doing church" through revising, innovating, borrowing, mixing, and experimenting. Yet, says Os Guinness, in our uncritical pursuit of relevance, Christians have actually become irrelevant. By our determined efforts to redefine ourselves in ways that are more in line with the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and significance. Prophetic Untimeliness addresses this issue by giving practical, constructive solutions for living with integrity in the midst of modern pressures. Guinness explores what it means to be both faithful and relevant, and how to be truly relevant without being trivial or trendy. Readers will be challenged to develop "resistance thinking," an approach inspired by C. S. Lewis that balances the uncomfortable truths of the gospel with the pursuit of relevance. Only by being true to Christ and living with integrity and wisdom will we meet the needs of a world that is hungry for some really good news.

From the Back Cover
An immensely thoughtful and provocative book, challenging some trends in our Christian culture and inviting us to reconsider and rediscover. A powerful read. Alister McGrath
Prophetic Untimeliness brings a timely warning. The temptation to dress the faith in today’s fashion guarantees that it will look out-of-style tomorrow only the eternal can reach every time and culture.--Frederica Mathewes-Green
Never have Christians tried to be so relevant. But never have Christians ended up so irrelevant. How can this be? The problem, says Os Guinness, is that our views of relevance and our efforts to redefine ourselves are captive to the seductions and pressures of our modern clock culture. Ironically, we end up as neither relevant nor faithful. And in the process we are in danger of losing not only our identity but our authority, our significance, and even our very soul.
Prophetic Untimeliness is a hard-hitting critique written with deep love for the church. It offers constructive suggestions for living with integrity in the midst of modern pressures and explores how to be truly relevant without being trivial or trendy. Inspired by C. S. Lewis, Guinness outlines a creative approach-resistance thinking-through which the pursuit of relevance is balanced by the disturbing truths of the gospel. Only by such prophetic untimeliness can we be faithful to Christ and speak with integrity and wisdom in a world that is hungry for some truly good news.

Os Guinness is an internationally renowned speaker and author of numerous books, including Time for Truth, The Call, and Long Journey Home. An Englishman, he was born in China, graduated from the universities of London and Oxford, and currently lives in Washington, D.C., where he is Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The Divine Conspiracy

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God
A Powerful, Thought-Provoking Guide to Living the Life Jesus Intends for Us

The material below is from the authors web site http://www.dwillard.org/books/DivConsp.asp

"Is Jesus part of your daily life—here and now? Or, by failing to take him seriously, have you relegated him to the realm of the "hereafter"? In The Divine Conspiracy, biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice are weaved together to capture the central insights of Christ's teachings in a fresh way and show the necessity of profound changes in how we view our lives and faith.
Christians for the most part consider the primary function of Christianity to be admittance to heaven. But a faith that guarantees a satisfactory afterlife, yet has absolutely no impact on life in the here and now, is nothing more than "consumer Christianity" and "bumper-sticker faith." In an era when so many consider Jesus a beloved but remote savior, readers of The Divine Conspiracy will explore a revolutionary way to experience God—by knowing Him as an essential part of the here and now, an integral part of every aspect of our existence.
The Divine Conspiracy calls us into a more authentic faith and offers a practical plan by which we can become Christ-like. It challenges us to step aside from the politics and pieties of contemporary Christian practice and inspires us to reject the all too common lukewarm faith of our times by embracing the true meaning of Christian discipleship.
"My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. Very few people today find Jesus interesting as a person or of vital relevance to the course of their actual lives. He is not generally regarded as a real life personality who deals with real-life issues, but is thought to be concerned with some feathery realm other than the one we must deal with, and must deal with now."
"[A]ctual discipleship or apprenticeship to Jesus is, in our day, no longer thought of as in any way essential to faith in him. It is regarded as a costly option, a spiritual luxury, or possibly even as an evasion. Why bother with discipleship, it is widely thought, or, for that matter, with a conversational relationship with God? Let us get on with what we have to do."
"This book, then, presents discipleship to Jesus as the very heart of the gospel. The eternal life that begins with confidence in Jesus is a life in His present kingdom, now on earth and available to all. So the message of and about him is specifically a gospel for our life now, not just for dying. It is about living now as his apprentice in kingdom living, not just as a consumer of his merits. Our future, however far we look, is a natural extension of the faith by which we live now and the life in which we now participate." -- from The Divine Conspiracy
What is "the divine conspiracy"? It is God's plan to intervene in human history... now.
384 pages, hardcover from Harper SanFrancisco.
Chapter Titles :
Chapter 1: Entering the Eternal Kind of Life Now
Chapter 2: Gospels of Sin Management
Chapter 3: What Jesus Knew: Our God-Bathed World
Chapter 4: Who is Really Well Off? — The Beatitudes
Chapter 5: The Rightness of the Kingdom Heart: Beyond the Goodness of Scribes and Pharisees
Chapter 6: Investing in the Heavens: Escaping the Deceptions of Reputation and Wealth Chapter 7: The Community of Prayerful Love
Chapter 8: On Being a Disciple, or Student, of Jesus
Chapter 9: A Curriculum for Christlikeness
Chapter 10: The Restoration of All Things"
________________________________________________
From Harper Collins the Publisher
Book Description
A renowned teacher and writer of the acclaimed The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard, one of today's most brilliant Christian thinkers now offers a timely and challenging call back to the true meaning of Christian discipleship. In The Divine Conspiracy, Willard gracefully weaves biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice into a tour de force that shows the necessity of profound changes in how we view our lives and faith. In an era when many Christians consider Jesus a beloved but remote savior, Willard argues compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our existence. Masterfully capturing the central insights of Christ's teachings in a fresh way for today's seekers, he helps us to explore a revolutionary way to experience God--by knowing Him as an essential part of the here and now, rather than only as a part of the hereafter.
"The most telling thing about the contemporary Christian," Willard writes, "is that he or she has no compelling sense that understanding of and conformity with the clear teachings of Christ is of any vital importance to [their] life, and certainly not that it is in any way essential . . . Such obedience is regarded as just out of the question or impossible." Christians, he says, for the most part consider the primary function of Christianity to be admittance to heaven. But, as Willard clearly shows, a faith that guarantees a satisfactory afterlife, yet has absolutely no impact on life in the here and now, is nothing more than "consumer Christianity" and "bumper-sticker faith."
Willard refutes this "fire escape" mentality by exploring the true nature of the teachings of Jesus, who intended that His followers become His disciples, and taught that we have access now to the life we are only too eager to relegate to the hereafter. The author calls us into a more authentic faith and offers a practical plan by which we can become Christ-like. He challenges us to step aside from the politics and pieties of contemporary Christian practice and inspires us to reject the all too common lukewarm faith of our times by embracing the true meaning of Christian discipleship.