Illustrated, comprehensive, and illuminating, this thoroughly up-to-date work takes the country's religious pulse, covering all of America's most significant organizations and denominations. Readers will find an introduction to the basic tenets and structure of 30 faiths, reviewed by a respected authority on each religion, as well as maps, surveys, and other demographic breakdowns by religious figures and scholars with respect to contemporary American society, culture, and politics. Essays discuss broader, more overarching aspects of worship in the United States. In addition to serving as an encyclopedic reference, the book tackles head-on the most current issues and controversies in American worship.

"A collection of essays tracing the history of the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania, with emphasis on the greater Philadelphia area. Includes discussions of the diversity of practice and belief within the church, and between the church and the wider national culture"--Provided by publisher.

Is religious belief reasonable? Specifically, is the doctrine of the Catholic faith consistent with reason? Drawing on Catholic and Christian theological traditions, Martin Albl engages readers in theological thinking on various topics including the Trinity, Christology, ecclesiology, human nature, sin, salvation, revelation, and eschatology. Clear and focused, the text links traditional teaching with contemporary issues to show the relevance of faith to contemporary issues. A glossary, cross-referencing system, text and discussion questions, and footnotes with information about Internet resources provide more in-depth information. --Publisher description.

Our world is growing increasingly complex and confused—a unique and urgent context that calls for a grounded and fresh approach to Christian higher education. Christian higher education involves a distinctive way of thinking about teaching, learning, scholarship, curriculum, student life, administration, and governance that is rooted in the historic Christian faith. In this volume, twenty-nine experts from a variety of fields, including theology, the humanities, science, mathematics, social science, philosophy, the arts, and professional programs, explore how the foundational beliefs of Christianity influence higher education and its disciplines. Aimed at equipping the next generation to better engage the shifting cultural context, this book calls students, professors, trustees, administrators, and church leaders to a renewed commitment to the distinctive work of Christian higher education—for the good of the society, the good of the church, and the glory of God.

Since its first appearance in 1977, this book continues to be the single most important text for understanding the theology of Johann Baptist Metz, one of the founders of the "new political theology." Metz's thesis is that the crisis that Christianity faces "is not primarily a crisis of its message, but rather a crisis of its subjects and institutions, which have pulled back all too far from the inevitable practical meaning of its message and in so doing have undercut its intelligible power." In response to this problem he offers a definition of a practical fundamental theology and, in the second part of the book, tests it against a number of issues in Christology, ecclesiology, and fundamental theology. In the third and concluding section the book devotes a chapter each to the three basic categories of the new political theology: memory, narrative, and solidarity. It is in recalling the dangerous memory of Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection, telling and retelling the dangerous stories of Jesus and those who follow him, and exercising a mystical-political discipleship of solidarity with those who don't count in our progressive, technological societies (including a solidarity of memory with the dead) that Christianity can recover its political voice without becoming simply a religious paraphrase of political and social processes. Book jacket.

Those who adhere to a faith tradition are longing for theories and insights into how they can be true to their faith within the workplace and yet be sensitive and respectful to others of varying faith commitments and beliefs. Yet for Christians, respect of other faith traditions is especially difficult since Christianity as the dominate religion has become secularized and institutionalized within the workplace as represented in holidays and days off. Within the multiple theoretical and research dimensions of management, religion and spirituality, this book explores theoretical, conceptual and strategic theories and research which consider how individuals and organizations integrate their Christian faith in the workplace, and how these groups attempt to change society as a whole. This historical movement is characterized by a desire for people to live a holistic life which integrates their Christian faith into the workplace, also deemed “faith at work”. Historically, Christian’s faith integration is manifested individually or collectively and is demonstrated in the ways it shapes and informs the values systems, ethics, character and attitudes towards work. This edited volume draws themes out of the three historical epochs of the faith and work movement traced by Miller (2007) in the book, God at work: The history and promise of the faith at work movement. These organizing themes, while not congruent to the historical epochs, do capture the ways in which people of faith have historically attempted to integrate their faith into the workplace. These themes include: Individual integration, organizational strategies for integration and societal integration.