Kirjahaku

This book examines why liberal churches remain appealing, where they are growing and why liberal theological approaches to ministry are more widespread than many assume to be the case. "Why Liberal Churches are Growing" is a fascinating journey through different case studies, social science reflection, and theological analysis. The contributors include sociologists, theologians, and practical theologians. The book has four sections. The first, 'defining themes', looks at the social justice witness (community organizing), church growth as conversational, and the challenge of turning liberal churches around. The book then looks at three case studies - starting with congregations and moving to a denomination. Under the heading 'macro issues', it explores in more detail the underlying disposition of liberal churches and revisits such themes as social justice, homosexuality, and alternative indicators of vitality. The book concludes with three essays on 'clergy and growth'.

Belief in the possibility of truth demonstrates a belief in God. Professor Markham places this striking argument, which lies at the very heart of Augustinian theology, within the modern debate about truth and defends its underlying claim. Belief in God is, he claims, an all-embracing world view about the nature of reality of which the possibility of truth is a part. Drawing on the work of St Augustine and St Anselm, Richard Rorty, Don Cupitt, and in particular Alasdair MacIntyre, Markham demonstrates that the necessary assumptions underpinning the realist account of truth must entail the existence of God. Referring to Nietzsche, and again to St Augustine, Markham concludes with the stark choice: either God and truth, or no God and no truth.

The Study of Ministry is a comprehensive guide to the theory and practice of ministry that attends to historical sources, the social sciences, pastoral theology, ecclesiology and cultural studies. The book argues for the study of ministry to be taken seriously as an aspect of ecclesiology and pastoral theology, providing a stimulating resource both for practising ministers and for all those training for ministry in a range of denominations.