Church History in The Books Store

What do you know about Christian history? Here's your chance to test yourself, or to launch a 13 week study on the book Christian History Made Easy. The book contains a Leader's Guide with notes that add to the chapters. Author Timothy Paul Jones, Ed.D., makes Christian history refreshingly fun while at the same time informing believers about the history of the Christian faith. Each chapter contains a summary of:

• Key events
• Key concepts
• Names you should know
• Terms you should know
• Think about it
• Did you know?
• Bible maps and time-lines
• Things to think about
• Clarification on words
• At the end of each chapter the book presents a Learning Activity that drives home important topics that have been covered

• Christian history
• Church history
• Canon of Scripture
• Gospels
• Dead Sea Scrolls
• Easter
• Spanish Inquisition
• King James Version
• Nicene Creed
• Reformation
• Renaissance

• William Tyndale
• Augustine
• C.S. Lewis
• Calvin
• Finney
• Luther
• John Bunyan

• Catholicism
• Christian Science
• Gnosticism
• Islam (Muslims)
• Jehovah's Witness
• Pentecostal
• Presbyterian
• Protestant
• Puritan
• Roman Catholicism
• Seventh-Day Adventists

Spong refers to himself as a believer in exile. He believes the world into which Christianity was born was limited and provincial, particularly when viewed from the perspective of the progress in knowledge and technology made over the past two millennia. This makes any ideas or beliefs formulated in 1st-century Judea totally inadequate to our progressive minds and lives today. So Spong is in exile until Christianity is re-formed to discard all of the outdated and, according to Spong, false tenets of Christianity.

He begins his book by exposing the Apostles Creed line by line, then methodically moves on through the heart of Christian belief, carefully exploring each aspect, demonstrating in each case the inadequacies of Christianity as detailed in the Bible and in the traditions of the Church. The epilogue includes Spong's own creed, recast to reflect the beliefs he considers relevant to Christianity at the end of the 20th century.

A leading expert in New Testament ethics discovers in the biblical witness a unified ethical vision –– centered in the themes of community, cross and new creation –– that has profound relevance in today's world. Richard Hays shows how the New Testament provides moral guidance on the most troubling ethical issues of our time, including violence, divorce, homosexuality and abortion.

"Hays' passionately written book, with its bold agenda, has neither peer nor rival." ––Leander E. Keck, Winkley Professor of Biblical Theology, Yale Divinity School

"There are few people I would rather read for the actual exposition of the New Testament than Richard Hays. This book is filled with wonderful readings that not only inform us about how to think better about the so–called 'problem of the relation between the New Testament and ethics' but, even more, speak of how our lives should be lived in the light of Christ's cross. –Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Studies, Duke University Divinity School

"Richard Hays has succeeded brilliantly in bringing New Testament studies, contemporary theology, and ethics into a deeply reflective conversation... Hays' point is that the New Testament norms the Christian life, and, with the help of imagination and metaphor, can address the moral conflicts of our time." ––Ellen T. Charry, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University

"This book isn't just a breath of fresh air. It's a hurricane, blowing away the fog of half–understood pseudo–morality and fashionable compromise, and revealing instead the early Christian vision of true humanness and genuine holiness. If this isn't a book for our time, I don't know what is." ––N. T. Wright, author of The New Testament and the People of God

A fully revised and updated edition of our translation of the complete Dead Sea Scrolls, making it the definitive translation of the Scrolls in English.

With new texts, updated introductions, a glossary of terms, and other new additions, this will become the definitive translation of the Scrolls, and the lead companion to our other Dead Sea Scrolls Guides: The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible.

Jesus is as American as baseball and apple pie. But how this came to be is a complex story one that Stephen Nichols tells with care and ease. Beginning with the Puritans, he leads readers through the various cultural epochs of American history, showing at each stage how American notions of Jesus were shaped by the cultural sensibilities of the times, often with unfortunate results.

Always fascinating and often humourous, Jesus Made in America offers a frank assessment of the story of Christianity in America, including the present. For those interested in the cultural implications of that story, this book is a must-read.