How do persons come to faith in our time? Are they active seekers or brought in by others? Is it a journey? Or is it a more sudden conversion? Are spouses, relatives, and friends most important to the process? Do clergy matter? What sorts of values, practices, and lifestyles tend to change for those who newly come to faith? What are the differences among the various religious traditions in how one comes to faith? This book presents the findings of a multi-year study on how people come to f...

Most people think of evangelism as something an individual does--one person talking to one or more other people about the gospel. Bryan Stone, however, argues that evangelism is the duty and call of the entire church as a body of witness. Evangelism after Christendom explores what it means to understand and put to work evangelism as a rich practice of the church, grounding evangelism in the stories of Israel, Jesus, and the Apostles. This thorough treatment is marked by an astute ...

What does it mean to keep a promise when the world is watching-and when it isn't?In The Real Promise Keepers II, B.P. Stone interweaves extraordinary true stories and vivid historical fiction, illuminating the quiet heroism and steadfast kindness that shape our world. From the nuclear crisis at Chalk River, where a young Jimmy Carter confronts the terror of a reactor meltdown and learns that true leadership lies in restraint, not glory, to the windswept pl...

Sixty-seven short stories compiled by lawyer-historian, Jerry Summers, about lesser known but interesting persons, places and events in the Volunteer state, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States of America. Featured are famous movie stars, aviators and athletes; medal of honor winners and military heroes; honored judges and civil servants; notorious gangsters and crooks; political intrigues and scandalous events; and curious places once famous but now obscure. Contains 49 photograph...

Christianity and Horror Cinema explores ways that Christian beliefs, spiritualities, practices, and symbols provide the religious and existential "depths" out of which the monsters of Western horror cinema have emerged, arguing that they are, in several respects, the monsters for which Christians are responsible. Horror cinema preys on Christianity’s narrative, moral, cultural, and aesthetic traditions; reverses them; upends them; inverts them; and offends them. But it also reflec...

This accessible and engagingly written book describes how national and international scientific monitoring programmes brought to light our present understanding of Arctic environmental change, and how these research results were successfully used to achieve international legal actions to lessen some of the environmental impacts. David P. Stone was intimately involved in many of these scientific and political activities. He tells a powerful story, using the metaphor of the 'Arctic Messenger...

This Reader presents a diverse and ecumenical cross-section of ecclesiological statements from across the twenty centuries of the church's existence. It builds on the foundations of early Christian writings, illustrates significant medieval, reformation, and modern developments, and provides a representative look at the robust attention to ecclesiology that characterizes the contemporary period. This collection of readings offers an impressive overview of the multiple ways Christians have ...

During the early years of the Cold War, England and the United States both found themselves reassessing their relationship with their former ally the Soviet Union, and the status of their own “special relationship” was far from certain. As Jeffrey P. Stone argues, maps from British and American news journals from this period became a valuable tool for relating the new realities of the Cold War to millions of readers. These maps were vehicles for political ideology, revealing both obvious a...

Roslynne Steinberg struggled all her life with the knowledge that her father blamed her for causing the mental illness of her mother. A native of the Jewish Bronx in New York, she recounts overcoming her parents' rejection and also tells of coping with the death of her own child. However she says, “No matter the lot we were cast at birth, and no matter how difficult the journey, life is a beautiful gift.” She is now an artist living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she is recognize...

Since the legalisation of off-course cash betting in 1960, and the rise of varying forms of gambling, the British have come to be known as a nation of gamblers. Until this study was published in 1976, barely any evidence existed against which to assess the claim that gambling had become a major social problem. The authors present data drawn from area surveys carried out in Swansea, Sheffield, Wanstead and Woodford, and explore how well previous sociological theories of gambling agree with ...

This third edition of a classic urban sociology text examines critical but often-neglected aspects of urban life from a social-psychological theoretical perspective.Symbolic interaction is among the most central theoretical paradigms in sociology and the theory that most thoroughly attends to how individuals give meaning to their world—in this case, how city dwellers interpret and respond to their daily experiences as urbanites. This thoroughly updated edition of

In 1991 the mosque at Ayodhya in India was demolished by Hindu fundamentalists who claim that it stood on the birthplace of a legendary Hindu hero. During recent conflicts in former Yugoslavia, ethnic groups destroyed mosques and churches to eliminate evidence of long-term settlement by other communities. Over successive centuries, however, a single building in Cordoba functioned as a mosque, a church and a synagogue. The Roman Emperor Diocletian's Palace in Split is occupied today by shop...