Author C.B. Matthews shares a passionate and clear vision for what is lacking in the majority of Christian people today. Fake Christianity is a challenging and inspiring book for any Christian. In the center of cultural decay, blurred ethics, and a church that lacks the knowledge of God, this book shines out like a beacon. If you want to learn how a genuine Christian should think, feel, act, and believe in the world today, this book is for you.

Author C.B. Matthews shares a passionate and clear vision for what is lacking in the majority of Christian people today. Fake Christianity is a challenging and inspiring book for any Christian. In the center of cultural decay, blurred ethics, and a church that lacks the knowledge of God, this book shines out like a beacon. If you want to learn how a genuine Christian should think, feel, act, and believe in the world today, this book is for you.

Historic heresies didn’t die or fade away. Each generation boasts its own. Even while these counterfeit teachings remain outside the accepted bounds of Christianity, modern-day versions plague churches.So how does a church leader or pastor understand and deal with these age-old controversies when they pop up in the congregation? In this book, Roger Olson describes the curses but also gifts that heresies bring the Church. While heresies can occasionally correct a version of orthodoxy, they are not simple confusions or misunderstandings about impenetrable mysteries of divine revelation. Instead they undermine the faith and are dangerous distortions. The author describes major heresies and how the church dealt with them, the players, and what pastors can do to address these faith issues in order to educate congregations about Jesus, God, and salvation. Also included are questions for individual or group study. Also available - a Leader guide with DVD in which Adam Hamilton hosts on-screen conversations with Roger Olson (9781501806360)

Jesus Christ said that He would build His Church and that it would never die out. Is today's Christianity, with its hundreds of denominations with widely differing beliefs and practices, the Church Jesus promised that He would build? -- Inside this Bible study aid booklet: -- A People Special to God -- The Historical Background of the Term Church -- 'Church' and 'Congregation' in the Scriptures -- A Spiritually Transformed People -- The Apostles: A Case Study in Conversion -- The Responsibility and Mission of the Church -- What is the True Gospel? -- Is Today the Only Day of Salvation? -- The Rise of a Counterfeit Christianity -- Changes in Christian Scholars' Perspective on God's Law -- Early Trends That Affected the Future of the Church -- The Church of God Today -- What Did the Early Church Believe and Practice? -- The Church as the Bride of Christ

"All news that's fit to print" professionalism was fading - as this country began to experience a new tabloid-level fascination of themselves - and single mom's went to work. Sex, alcohol, drugs, and rock-and-roll was beginning to take prisoners by the thousands, but this eyewitness noticed a type of "religious covering" that shielded the advertising of those, and other activities to the masses. By the late 1960's the political and social climate in America changed forever. Something referred to as, "The Jesus movement," also made it's way into the fabric of society during the early 1970's and was occasionally tolerated in certain songs on the radio, but mostly regarded as a variation of something performed by "flower children and hippies." The ministry's of Billy Graham and Oral Roberts were evident, and the first Assembly of God liberal arts college was being attended. At age twelve, this observer received his first rebuke for commenting on the false pretenses displayed by "adults" and told, "You're too young to be saying such things." Forty years later, these observations of Christianized American life have become too much to bear. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob won't have anything to do with it. Born during an era of transition to parents who were sons and daughters of America's "greatest generation," this author watched nightly newscasts that included Walter Kronkite and John Chancellor reporting on the Vietnam war and other cultural happenings during the 1960's and 1970's.

Questions about the reliability of the New Testament are commonly raised today both by biblical scholars and popular media. Drawing on decades of research, Craig Blomberg addresses all of the major objections to the historicity of the New Testament in one comprehensive volume. Topics addressed include the formation of the Gospels, the transmission of the text, the formation of the canon, alleged contradictions, the relationship between Jesus and Paul, supposed Pauline forgeries, other gospels, miracles, and many more. Historical corroborations of details from all parts of the New Testament are also presented throughout. The Historical Reliability of the New Testament marshals the latest scholarship in responding to New Testament objections, while remaining accessible to non-specialists.

Pastor Brian Zahnd began "to question the theology of a wrathful God who delights in punishing sinners, and has started to explore the real nature of Jesus and His Father. The book isn’t only an interesting look at the context of some modern theological ideas; it’s also offers some profound insight into God’s love and eternal plan." —Relevant Magazine (Named one of the Top 10 Books of 2017) God is wrath? Or God is Love? In his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Puritan revivalist Jonathan Edwards shaped predominating American theology with a vision of God as angry, violent, and retributive. Three centuries later, Brian Zahnd was both mesmerized and terrified by Edwards’s wrathful God. Haunted by fear that crippled his relationship with God, Zahnd spent years praying for a divine experience of hell. What Zahnd experienced instead was the Father’s love—revealed perfectly through Jesus Christ—for all prodigal sons and daughters. In Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, Zahnd asks important questions like: Is seeing God primarily as wrathful towards sinners true or biblical? Is fearing God a normal expected behavior? And where might the natural implications of this theological framework lead us? Thoughtfully wrestling with subjects like Old Testament genocide, the crucifixion of Jesus, eternal punishment in hell, and the final judgment in Revelation, Zanhd maintains that the summit of divine revelation for sinners is not God is wrath, but God is love.