"The Military and Hospitaller Orders emerged in the twelfth century as Christendom engaged with the threats and the opportunities offered by its Muslim and non-Christian neighbours. In an Irish context, the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar were the most significant expressions of this unusual vocation that sought to combine military service with monastic observance. Arriving with the first Anglo-Norman settlers, the orders were granted vast landholdings and numerous privileges in Ireland to support their activities in Palestine and the Middle East. From the outset, the knights were closely associated with the administration of the Anglo-Irish colony, with the superior of the Hospitallers, the Prior of Kilmainham, consistently playing a key role in crown affairs. This volume, the proceedings of the Third Glenstal History Conference, explores the history of the Military and Hospitaller Orders in Ireland from their arrival in the late twelfth century to their dissolution and attempted revival in the mid-sixteenth century. Other contributions explore the orders' agricultural, artistic, economic, pastoral and religious activities as well as examining the archaeology of many of their sites."--Publisher description.

Debates over the legacy of Pope Pius XII and his canonization are so heated they are known as the “Pius wars.” Soldier of Christ moves beyond competing caricatures and considers Pius XII as Eugenio Pacelli, a flawed and gifted man. While offering insight into the pope’s response to Nazism, Robert A. Ventresca argues that it was the Cold War and Pius XII’s manner of engaging with the modern world that defined his pontificate. Laying the groundwork for the pope’s controversial, contradictory actions from 1939 to 1958, Ventresca begins with the story of Pacelli’s Roman upbringing, his intellectual formation in Rome’s seminaries, and his interwar experience as papal diplomat and Vatican secretary of state. Accused of moral equivocation during the Holocaust, Pius XII later fought the spread of Communism in Western Europe, spoke against the persecution of Catholics in Eastern Europe and Asia, and tackled a range of social and political issues. By appointing the first indigenous cardinals from China and India and expanding missions in Africa while expressing solidarity with independence movements, he internationalized the church’s membership and moved Catholicism beyond the colonial mentality of previous eras. Drawing from a diversity of international sources, including unexplored documentation from the Vatican, Ventresca reveals a paradoxical figure: a prophetic reformer of limited vision whose leadership both stimulated the emergence of a global Catholicism and sowed doubt and dissension among some of the church’s most faithful servants.

Keith Pate has been saved since he was about twelve years old; when faced with the reality of his parents divorce. He didn’t really begin noticing or fully understanding the impact that God was having in his life until he was in the fight for his life. In Soldier for Christ, Pate, a retired Army National Guard Captain, recounts his testimony and narrates how an unexpected circumstance drastically changed his life. He journeys through his time as a high school and college athlete, time in the military, and then a life-altering and unexpected stroke in 2010 at age twenty-nine. He nearly died twice. What followed was a long road of recovery and rehabilitation. In this memoir, Pate recalls how God has used his circumstance to benefit his kingdom. Soldier for Christ narrates an inspiring testimony of Pate’s real-life struggle and survival of an unexpected challenge. He shares a true example of how all things are possible through Christ.

What does it mean to be a conqueror in Christ's army? In fact, the question really is, what does it mean to be not only a conqueror, but more than a conqueror and good soldier in Christ's ranks? Oakes, in this wonderful work on answering that question, dives deep into Paul’s statement in Romans 8:37, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” The truth proclaimed by Oakes is that there is a “more than ordinary triumph” over all those enemies that oppose themselves against the progress and advancement of a Christian in his way to the fruition of the sweet fruits of the everlasting love of God in Jesus Christ. That all true believers have a transcendent, and incomparably glorious conquest and victory in all their severe engagements with the enemies of their peace and happiness, through the love of God in Christ Jesus. Every true believer is a soldier, and engaged in a warfare. Every true believer has a constant fighting work before God, and there is no end of his war in this world, not any time in which he can stop fighting. Yet, a true believer is never totally and absolutely conquered in any engagement with the enemies that war against him. Every true believer manages a successful war, and is sure of a conquest. A believer’s victory and conquest are incomparably glorious. Every believer obtains this glorious victory and conquest through the Lord Jesus Christ. The love of God in Christ is the absolute first cause of those victorious proceedings, and this infallible conquest of believers. These believers are the greatest soldiers who have ever lived, and are comforted in their fight by the blessings of Almighty God through Christ. All believers must know and consider that they are soldiers in Christ’s army, and have a fighting work, a warfare, before them until they reach heaven. They must, as faithful soldiers, improve their skill in fighting, and harness the spiritual power of the everlasting Gospel of Jesus for their victory. We wait, and pray, and look, and long for that glorious day, when our warfare shall be ended, and we shall go out of the field victorious, and triumphant, as absolute conquerors. This work is not a scan or facsimile, has been carefully transcribed by hand being made easy to read in modern English, and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.

What did the early church believe about killing? What was its view on abortion? How did it approach capital punishment and war? Noted theologian and bestselling author Ron Sider lets the testimony of the early church speak in the first of a three-volume series on biblical peacemaking. This book provides in English translation all extant data directly relevant to the witness of the early church until Constantine on killing. Primarily, it draws data from early church writings, but other evidence, such as archaeological finds and Roman writings, is included. Sider taps into current evangelical interest in how the early church informs contemporary life while presenting a thorough, comprehensive treatment on topics of perennial concern. The book includes brief introductions to every Christian writer cited and explanatory notes on many specific texts.

The Great and Holy War offers the first look at how religion created and prolonged the First World War, and the lasting impact it had on Christianity and world religions more extensively in the century that followed. The war was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, who presented the conflict as a holy war. A steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric was served to an unprecedented audience, using language that spoke of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. But this rhetoric was not mere state propaganda. Philip Jenkins reveals how the widespread belief in angels, apparitions, and the supernatural, was a driving force throughout the war and shaped all three of the Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - paving the way for modern views of religion and violence. The disappointed hopes and moral compromises that followed the war also shaped the political climate of the rest of the century, giving rise to such phenomena as Nazism, totalitarianism, and communism. Connecting remarkable incidents and characters - from Karl Barth to Carl Jung, the Christmas Truce to the Armenian Genocide - Jenkins creates a powerful and persuasive narrative that brings together global politics, history, and spiritual crisis. We cannot understand our present religious, political, and cultural climate without understanding the dramatic changes initiated by the First World War. The war created the world's religious map as we know it today.