How do young African Americans approach their faith in God when continued violence and police brutality batters the news each day? In The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans, Almeda M. Wright argues that African American youth separate their everyday lives and their spirituality into mutually exclusive categories. This results in a noticeable division between their experiences of systemic injustices and their religious beliefs and practices. Yet Wright suggests that youth c...

Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators, and Radical Social Change interrogates the stories of African American activist-educators whose faith convictions inspired them to educate in radical and transformative ways. Many of these educators are known only or primarily for their educational theory or activism, and their religious convictions have often been obscured or outright ignored. Almeda M. Wright seeks to rectify this omission, exploring the connections between r...

Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators, and Radical Social Change interrogates the stories of African American activist-educators whose faith convictions inspired them to educate in radical and transformative ways. Almeda M. Wright explores the connections between religion, education, and struggles for freedom within twentieth-century African American communities by telling the stories of key African American teachers.Wright brings together the lives and work...

Twenty years ago, not one nation on earth had legal same-sex marriage. Now, access to same-sex marriage is increasingly seen as a basic human right. In a matter of less than a generation, western cultures have experienced a moral revolution.Dr. R. Albert Mohler examines how this transformation occurred, revealing the underlying cultural shifts behind this revolution: the acceptance of divorce culture, liberation of sex from reproduction, the prevalence of heterosexual cohabitation,...

Twenty-first-century society is diverse, and Christians must be able to understand other cultures and communicate effectively between and among them. Following up on the bestselling Hurt: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers, this new addition to the Youth, Family, and Culture series explores the much-needed skill of Cultural Intelligence (CQ), the ability to work effectively across national, ethnic, and even organizational cultures. While rooted in sound, scholarly research,

In the past, changes in behavior and in belief have been leading indicators for missionaries that Christian conversion had occurred. But these alone--or even together--are insufficient for a gospel understanding of conversion. For effective biblical mission, Paul G. Hiebert argues, we must add a third element: a change in worldview. Here he offers a comprehensive study of worldview--its philosophy, its history, its characteristics, and the means for understanding it. He then provides a det...

Sexual identity has become an idol in both the culture at large and in the Christian subculture. And yet concepts like "gay" or "straight" are relatively recent developments in human history. We let ourselves be defined by socially constructed notions of sexual identity and sexual orientation--even though these may not be the only or best ways to think about sexuality.Anthropologist Jenell Williams Paris offers a Christian framework for sexual holiness that accounts for complex postmodern ...

Our culture is not only sex-crazed but also deeply confused about sex and sexual ethics. Unfortunately, Christians seem equally confused, and the church has tended to respond with simplistic answers. The reason for this confusion is that the meaning of sex has been largely lost.Dennis Hollinger argues that there is indeed a God-given meaning to sex. This meaning, found in the Christian worldview, provides a framework for a biblical sexual ethic that adequately addresses the many co...

Named A Best Spiritual Book of the Year by Spirituality & Practice The last twenty years have seen a dramatic increase in "nones": people who do not claim any religious affiliation. These "nones" now outnumber even the largest Protestant denominations in America. They are not to be confused with secularists, however, for many of them identify themselves as "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR). The response to this dramatic change in American religion has been amazingly mixed. Whil...

Gay marriage has become the most important domestic social issue facing twenty-first-century Americans -- particularly Americans of faith. Most Christians are pro-marriage and hold traditional family values, but should they endorse extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians? If Jesus enjoined us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and the homosexual is our neighbor, does that mean we should accept and bless gay marriages? These and other, related questions are tearing many faith-based ...

This book develops a theology of childhood both from a theoretical basis in biblical theology (especially the gospel of Mark) and practical experience in children and youth ministry. Mercer builds on classical theologians such as Augustine, Calvin, Barth, and Rahner as well as modern feminist theologians such as Brock and Russell. She gains insights from pastoral theologians such as Capps and Couture and from contemporary cultural criticism. Mercer challenges approaches to educational and ...

Nancy Tatom Ammerman examines the stories Americans tell of their everyday lives, from dinner table to office and shopping mall to doctor's office, about the things that matter most to them and the routines they take for granted, and the times and places where the everyday and ordinary meet the spiritual. In addition to interviews and observation, Ammerman bases her findings on a photo elicitation exercise and oral diaries, offering a window into the presence and absence of religion and sp...