Two nineteenth-century men, Alexander Campbell and Joseph Smith, each launched restoration movements in the United States, pejoratively called Campbellites and Mormonites. In post-revolutionary America, characterized by the Second Great Awakening and disestablishment, they vied for seekers and dissatisfied mainstream Christians, which led to conflict in northeastern Ohio. Both were searching for the primordial beginning of Christianity: Campbell looking back to the Christian church described in the New Testament epistles, and Smith looking even further back to the time of Adam and Eve as the first Christians. Campbell took a rational approach to reading the Bible, emphasizing the New Testament and began by advocating reform among the Baptists. Smith took a revelatory approach to reading the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and adding new scriptures. Campbell was most focused on restoring to the church ordinances and practices of the apostolic church that had been neglected¿whereas Smith was restoring ancient doctrines, practices, ordinances, and covenants to a church that had ceased to exist shortly after the time of the Apostles.

"A biography of Alexander Campbell, one of the founders of the Stone-Campbell Movement"--

Like a golden cord, the covenant relationship between God and people runs through the Bible from beginning to end. The covenant is made, broken, and remade again and again. The death of Jesus on a cross was the final act by which God renewed the relationship of love and trust. So, says the author, the meaning of the Bible can best be unlocked by using the covenant as a special key. The covenant story is here divided into acts and scenes in order to emphasize that the Bible is a great drama played on the living stage of history. Following this absorbing drama, the reader ceases to think of the Bible as a confusing collection of stories, poems, songs, sermons, and prayers and becomes vividly aware of its grand design. The author has written this book as a practical guide to understanding the Bible for youth and adults. He is eager to bring to them the insights of biblical scholarship, to lead them to an intensive and intelligent study of the Bible, and to move them to identify themselves as actors in the continuing drama of salvation by the grace of God. Parents, teachers, and other adults will also find profit and satisfaction in this pastor's extraordinary gift of narration and interpretation. The Covenant Story of the Bible is written with a contagious conviction and enthusiasm. The author has struggled to answer the recurring question: How do I adequately communicate the story of the Bible to the young people of my church? Thus the book has come out of a pastoral concern and long teaching experience.

Life's short. Enjoy it. This is the slogan of Leata, the wonder-drug that sixteen-year-old Hope has been taking since she was a child, just like the rest of her family. Well, the rest of the country really. For who would choose not to take it - a perfectly safe little pill that just helps 'take the edge off' life. Because everyone can do with a little help staying happy sometimes . . . Especially Hope, whose life is maybe not as perfect as she likes to make out on her blog. Tom's never taken Leata. Why would he? His family are happy as they are. At least they were, until the sudden death of his journalist father. The police are unequivocal: his dad killed himself. But Tom just can't believe it. Consumed by grief, he obsessively begins to unravel the trail that leads to his dad's final news story. And Hope is there to help. As a Leata-backed blogger, Hope wants to steer Tom into 'positive living'. Instead, her efforts take them down a path she could never have expected - into the murky underworld that lies beneath the surface of the 'happy' drug everyone wants to love . . . and the secrets it will kill to hide.

The first critical biography of Alexander Campbell, one of the founders of the Stone-Campbell Movement A Life of Alexander Campbell examines the core identity of a gifted and determined reformer to whom millions of Christians around the globe today owe much of their identity—whether they know it or not. Douglas Foster assesses principal parts of Campbell’s life and thought to discover his significance for American Christianity and the worldwide movement that emerged from his work. He examines Campbell’s formation in Ireland, his creation and execution of a reform of Christianity beginning in America, and his despair at the destruction of his vision by the American Civil War. A Life of Alexander Campbell shows why this important but sometimes misunderstood and neglected figure belongs at the heart of the American religious story.