Spirit Mission

This book is called a festschrift--meaning a book of essays written to honor those who have served the academic community well over a long period of time. Drs Wonsuk and Julie Ma, the honorees in this book, served as faculty members, Journal pioneers and editors and academic dean (Wonsuk) at the Asia Pacific Theological Seminary (www.apts.edu) for twenty-four years, 1983-2006. In 2006, Wonsuk accepted an invitation to become the Executive Director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in the United Kingdom and Julie accepted an invitation to become a research mentor at the same institution. The theme selected for this book: A Theology of the Spirit in Doctrine and Demonstration reflects the heart of the kind of people the Mas have been and continue to be in academics, practical ministry and, most importantly, in their personal lives. The list of scholars below, representing a broad array of nationalities and academic disciplines, have followed the same theme in contributing articles within areas of their particular interest and expertise: - Allan Anderson--Contextualization and Pentecostal-Charismatic Education in a Global Village - J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu--The Blessing of Abraham: Pentecostalism and Ecumenism in African Perspectives - R.G. dela Cruz--Peter, Women and the Spirit in the Bezan Test of Acts - Rose Engcoy--Historical Sketch of Wonsuk and Julie Ma - Harold D. Hunter--Pentecostal Reflections on Apostolicity - Dave Johnson--Baptism in the Holy Spirit vs Spirit Possession in the Lowland Philippines: Some Considerations for Discipleship - Veli-Matti Karkkainen--Theological Education in a Pluralistic Word: Theological Reflections - Kirsteen Kim--Mission in the Spirit: From Edinburgh to Canberra and Athens - Robert Menzies--Missional Spirituality: A Pentecostal Contribution to Spiritual Formation - Ekaputra Tupamahu--Pentecostal Feeling in Conversation with William James and Rudolf Otto: A Preliminary Exploration - Amos Yong--Pentecost and Virtual Spiritual Formation: Renewing Theological Education in Global Context

Includes the proceedings of the annual meeting of the Society.

What difference does the Spirit make in the life of Jesus and in our lives? Answering that question without doing away with the divine dignity of Christ has been a challenge in the distant and recent past. But this need not be the case. The current work is a contribution to the growing field of Spirit Christology, which seeks to enrich the classic Logos Christology of the ecumenical Councils with a Spirit-oriented trajectory. Sanchez tests the productivity of a Spirit Christology as a theological lens for assessing the main events of Jesus' life and mission, accounts of the atonement, the significance of the incarnation, the concepts of person and relation, and models of the Trinity. Seeing Christ as the privileged locus of the Spirit also has implications for the church's life in the Spirit. Sanchez shows how a Spirit Christology fosters Christian practices such as proclamation, prayer, and sanctification. Among the highlights of this work the reader will note the author's assessment of early church fathers' readings of the place of the Spirit in the anointing of Jesus, a constructive proposal towards the complementarity of Logos and Spirit Christologies, ecumenical engagement with various theological traditions in the East and the West, and the first constructive assessment of the field informed by the Lutheran tradition.

James Kinn offers a remarkable and new appreciation of the importance of the Holy Spirit in Christian theology and personal spirituality today. By concentrating on the Holy Spirit in Scripture, prayer, and the Christian tradition, Kinn is able to show how the Spirit becomes our personal contact with Christ and the one who continues the work of Christ in us. Explicitly grasping the role of the Spirit can only lead to an enriched experience of the divine in our lives.

The Spirit and the Church celebrates the life and legacy of Peter Damian Fehlner, OFM Conv., who for the past six decades has carried the torch of the Franciscan theological and philosophical vision in the fields of ecclesiology, pneumatology, Mariology, and anthropology. Articles by colleagues, former students, and associates fall into three broad categories, corresponding with several of the main areas in which Fehlner has made a longstanding scholarly contribution: the Church’s Magisterium and development of doctrine, anthropology,comma and creation; the relation between Mariology, pneumatology, and ecclesiology; and scholarly seeds planted by Fehlner now being cultivated and harvested by younger scholars. All of the essays in this volume engage with Fehlner, evaluate his contributions, and build upon and expand in new directions the contributions of our honoree. The essays in this volume manifest the contemporary relevance of Fehlner’s Franciscan vision in terms of his invitation to renew the theology of the Church in a Marian mode in the light of Vatican II.

Henry Barlcay Swete (1835-1917) was Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, for twenty-five years. Swete is well known and respected for the extensive range of his biblical and patristic studies and for his careful and exact scholarship.

In Spirit Baptism: The Pentecostal Experience in Theological Focus David Perry demonstrates the enduring value of the experience of Spirit baptism to the Pentecostal community by focusing on its importance as a powerful and transformative encounter with the Holy Spirit.

This book is a pneumatological reflection on the use and abuse of the Spirit in light of the abuse of religion within South African Pentecostalism. Both emerging and well-established scholars of South African Pentecostalism are brought together to reflect on pneumatology from various approaches, which includes among others: historical, biblical, migration, commercialisation of religion, discernment of spirits and human flourishing. From a broader understanding of the function of the Holy Spirit in different streams of Pentecostalism, the argument is that this function has changed with the emergence of the new Prophetic churches in South Africa. This is a fascinating insight into one of the major emerging worldwide religious movements. As such, it will be of great interest to academics in Pentecostal Studies, Christian Studies, Theology, and Religious Studies as well as African Studies and the Sociology of Religion.

Craig Keener is known for his meticulous work on New Testament backgrounds, but especially his detailed work on the book of Acts. Now, for the first time in book form, Cascade presents his key essays on Acts, with special focus on historical questions and matters related to God's Spirit.

How ought the church respond to the rise of a post-Christian secular age? Should it retreat? What is the mission of the church in this context? Joseph Ratzinger's eucharistic ecclesiology provides a model for living the relation between communion and mission, a model that provides a sound image for conceiving of and imagining the church's engagement with modernity and the embodiment of missionary communion. Ratzinger's vision, deeply influenced by St. Benedict's and St. Augustine's responses to the problems of their day, offers a theologically and liturgically grounded vision of missionary communion that transcends politics. In light of our creation by, from, and for the triune God, authentic responses to the present dis-integration of reason and community require the witness and invitation of the church as a community for the world. Ratzinger argues that right worship can and does habituate Christians and equip churches to respond to the existential questions confronting modern persons, many of whom seem partially paralyzed by the anxieties of life without truth and communion. Might the witness of communion for mission lived by the new ecclesial movements, especially the Focolare, offer an example of how Ratzinger's creative minorities can successfully evangelize this secular age?

What message was the author of Acts seeking to convey, and what would the original audience have understood? How is God speaking to believers today through Acts as it has been used by the church throughout the centuries? In this addition to the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, respected New Testament scholar William Kurz offers a close reading and explanation of the entire narrative of Acts, grounded in the original Greek but keyed to the NABRE for liturgical use. This volume, like each in the series, relates Scripture to life, is faithfully Catholic, and is supplemented by features designed to help readers understand the Bible more deeply and use it more effectively.

How does the Spirit of God relate to the Bible, to the Christ, to the human person, to the church and to the world? This volume probes these questions in light of the recent worldwide revival of pneumatological reflection and debate.

Although the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has often been a neglected subject in theology, it remains vital for understanding both the Christian confession of God as Trinity and the nature of the Christian life. In view of those two topics, God's Love through the Spirit examines the relationship between love and the person and work of the Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley - two very different figures whose teachings on the Spirit and the Christian life are found to be, on the whole, surprisingly compatible. An investigation into Aquinas's amor-based pneumatology, including a groundbreaking analysis of his recently discovered Pentecost sermon, and a fresh assessment of the doctrine of sanctification in Wesley show that in distinctive yet largely complementary ways, Aquinas and Wesley provide resources that can be used to reclaim a richer pneumatology, specifically in relation to the theological virtue of love.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers"--but in our increasingly polarized communities and nation, where can a person of faith begin? In Reconciling Places, pastor and scholar Paul Hoffman introduces laypeople and ministry leaders to a "theology of reconciliation" that equips Christians to act as reconcilers and bridge builders, wherever they are and whatever issues divide their communities.

Archer & Armstrong are going to war with Bloodshot and H.A.R.D Corps! (GULP!) That’s right, Valiant’s globetrotting adventure duo have been targeted for elimination by Project Rising Spirit’s most elite kill crew. Their mission? Assassinate the the newly appointed leader of a homegrown fundamentalist terror sect named…Obadiah Archer?! And if they could take out his mentally ill, alcoholic bodyguard who just happens to think he’s a 10,000-year-old immortal, that’d be swell, too! It’s an improbable mission with impossible odds. Do Bloodshot and the steely killers of the H.A.R.D. Corps stand a chance against two conspiracy-smashing heroes that never go down without a fight? Find out right here with the complete collection of the mayhem-soaked “Mission: Improbable” crossover, collecting ARCHER & ARMSTRONG: ARCHER #0, ARCHER & ARMSTRONG #18-19 and BLOODSHOT AND H.A.R.D. CORPS #20-21 by acclaimed writers Fred Van Lente, Christos Gage and Joshua Dysart, and all-star artists Pere Pérez and Tom Raney!

This book explores the theme of the missional conversion of the church, namely how the church is transformed toward its missionary vocation, from a biblical-theological perspective. The purpose of this book is to find biblically grounded, theologically sound, and practically applicable principles helpful for the church which seeks to be continuously shaped into a missional community which authentically and fully participates in God’s mission today. The biblical-theological findings on how the triune God in the biblical narrative shapes the people of God toward their missionary vocation demonstrates, first, that, in Scripture, the missional conversion of the church is primarily the consequence of its continuous encounter with the triune God, and, second, that this divine-human encounter for the missional conversion of the church is ineluctable in view of the ongoing tension between the missional faithfulness of God in fulfilling the missionary vocation of the church, on the one hand, and the missional failure of the church in its missionary vocation, on the other hand.

This edition includes: "History of the Christian Church" is an eight volume account of Christian history written by Philip Schaff. In this great work Schaff covers the history of Christianity from the time of the apostles to the Reformation period. "The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes" is a three volume set in which Schaff is classifying and explaining many different statements of belief and articles of faith throughout the Christian history. He deals with the history of the creeds, starting with the Ecumenical creeds, and moving to Greek and Roman creeds, then Old Catholic Union creeds, and finally to the Evangelical creeds and Modern Protestant creeds.