Brian Stanley

A Distinctive People

History & Biography

“This thoroughly researched and engagingly written set of essays will be of keen interest, not just to Scottish Baptists eager to know about their recent past, but also to all those concerned with the changing place of Christian belief and practice in twentieth-century Scottish society.”

African Literacies and Western Oralities?

Evangelism & Missions

“Has Western Christianity been too book-centered for African tastes? There is plenty of evidence to support this oft-repeated contention, but Coppedge’s fascinating analysis of the reception of the Orality Movement in a Ugandan church turns on its head any simple juxtaposition between Western literacy and African orality.”

Apostolicity

Theology

“This is a highly original work in the theology of Christian mission that deserves the serious attention of missiologists, theologians and New Testament scholars. Flett has issued a weighty challenge to all attempts—from whatever ecclesiastical stable—to ground the apostolic being of the church in ecclesiological form or some static essence. The church is apostolic only to the extent that its testimony to Jesus Christ is severally received and embodied by diverse peoples and cultures. The diversity of world Christianity today is thus not a problem for the apostolicity of the church, but rather integral to its very being as the body of Christ, the one sent into the world to redeem it.”

Baptists and Mission

History & Biography

“Baptists have always been a missionary people. . . . Yet the Baptist contribution to the history of Christian mission has remained sadly neglected by scholarship. This richly diverse volume makes a major contribution to rectifying that neglect.”

Building on a Common Foundation

History & Biography

“Those who are in danger of losing their memory struggle to make sense of the present or find direction for the future. Brian Talbot’s many-sided and admirably researched history of the 150 years of the Baptist Union of Scotland will be an invaluable resource, enabling Baptists in Scotland to reinforce or recover their collective memory, and hence to discern with more profound wisdom the leading of God for mission in the years that lie ahead.”

Chosen Nations

History & Biography

“The great value of Christina Littlefield's book lies in its bringing together of what has too often been studied in mutual isolation. Christian reformers in late nineteenth-century Britain and their contemporaries in the United States, ideas of civil religion and of the social gospel, and concepts of the kingdom of God and of the chosen nation, are all brought into relationship in a way that is both original and illuminating.”

Christian Missions in East Bengal

History & Biography

“The history of Christianity in the Muslim-majority nation of Bangladesh since its creation in 1971 is a neglected subject. This biography of Theotonious Ganguly, Catholic archbishop of Dhaka from 1967 to his death in 1977, is of interest for a number of reasons. . . . Hence Mr. Ahmed’s study is to be warmly welcomed.”

Conservative in Theology, Liberal in Spirit

Evangelism & Missions

Foreword

“This fascinating book fills two major gaps. First, it directs attention to Thailand, a country neglected by mission historians. Second, it uncovers the ambiguities surrounding the concepts of modernism and modernization that figured prominently in missionary discourse.”

From Crisis to Creation

Evangelism & Missions

“Mark Laing's work makes an important contribution to scholarship, not simply on Newbigin, but more broadly to understanding the development of both ecumenical and evangelical theologies of mission during the twentieth century.”

Global Awakening

History & Biography

“Transforming experiences of spiritual awakening and spiritual power have been central in shaping the remarkable growth of Christianity in the non-Western world over the last century. Mark Shaw's book charts many of the most important of these revival movements, and identifies the crucial issues and hard questions which they raise for all Christians.”

Holistic Mission

Evangelism & Missions

“The International Congress on World Evangelization held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974 was a milestone in the history of evangelicalism around the world. One of the factors (perhaps the most important one) that made a difference was the significant input that Lausanne I had from the Majority World especially on issues related to the social dimension of both the gospel and the mission of the church. I am very pleased to recommend this collective work as a wonderful demonstration that the seed that was planted at that historical gathering has been bearing and continues to bear fruit on a global scale. C. René Padilla, author of Mission Between the Times: Essays on the Kingdom, President Emeritus of the Kairos Foundation, and President of the Micah Network It may have taken half a century but at last it seems that evangelicals have grown past the struggle to re-unite what they should never have pushed asunder in the first place. If the Lausanne Covenant of 1974 provided a powerful mandate for recovering an integrated and holistic understanding of biblically authentic mission as intrinsically including both evangelism and social responsibility, then Cape Town 2010 ought to mark the consolidation of that recovery and enable us all to move forward alongside those parts of the world church that have always had such an understanding of the gospel and mission, unhampered by western dichotomizing. This comprehensive volume, rich in its range of content and of international voices, helpfully documents a century of debate and gathers together some of the major issues in it – theological and practical – through the authoritative reflections of some of those who have been most influential in the movement, and others who are poised to carry the message to their own generation. It is particularly encouraging that in this volume a third major issue of missional importance has been recognized and added to the two that Lausanne 1974 wrestled with – namely creation care in the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth. “We remind ourselves that the Bible declares God’s redemptive purpose for creation itself. Integral mission means discerning, proclaiming, and living out, the biblical truth that the gospel is God’s good news, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for individual persons, and for society, and for creation. All three are broken and suffering because of sin; all three are included in the redeeming love and mission of God; all three must be part of the comprehensive mission of God’s people.” Cape Town Commitment, Lausanne III, 2010. Christopher J.H. Wright International Director, Langham Partnership International Author of The Mission of God (IVP), and The Mission of God’s People(Zondervan) For much of the last century Christian mission has been bifurcated between those have majored on evangelistic proclamation and those who have defined mission as embodying the values of the reign of God. This collection of essays will forcibly remind the former that the gospel in its fullness is a message of the transforming rule of God over all creation. Equally it will remind the latter that God’s reign of justice will not come unless mission-minded churches introduce people to transforming encounters of repentance and faith. The contributors of these essays, coming as they do from all parts of the globe, provide ample testimony that for the majority of the world church today there is no contradiction between the gospel of grace and the gospel of justice.”

In Search of Christ in Latin America

Theology

“Samuel Escobar's study of Christology in Latin America is the fruit of a lifetime of critical evangelical engagement with the challenges of Latin American society, as well as with the riches of Latin American literary culture. If you want to grasp the distinctive contours of Christianity in Latin America—whether Catholic or Protestant—read this book. If you want to understand why all Christians need an understanding of Jesus that is rooted, not simply in his death and resurrection, but also in his earthly ministry and his proclamation of the kingdom of God, read this book.”

Inside the Whirlwind

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Too much writing on African theology is at home in the university lecture hall but remote from the lives of ordinary Christians in their villages and townships. Jason Carter's study of popular interpretations of the book of Job among the Fang of Equatorial Guinea is a decided exception. Based on careful participant observation and a deep knowledge of Fang cosmology, Carter's book raises profound and unsettling questions for all rose-tinted interpretations of modern African Christianity. He calls on theology in Africa--and by implication in the North as well--to consider afresh whether it is in danger of losing its central focus on the sovereignty of God.”

Intercultural Theology, Volume Two

Evangelism & Missions

“The publication in English of Volume Two of Henning Wrogemann's Intercultural Theology is to be heartily welcomed. The book covers a phenomenal range, in terms of period, Christian tradition, and theme. All future students of the theology of Christian mission will want to consult this seminal and insightful work.”

Intra-African Pentecostalism and the Dynamics of Power

Evangelism & Missions

Foreword

“Scholarship on the vibrant phenomenon of African Pentecostalism has been fascinated with the complex dynamics between religious, economic, and political power, especially in relation to the continuing hegemony wielded by the Global North in the Global South. By examining the expansion of the Nigerian Pentecostal church, Winners’ Chapel, into neighboring Cameroon, this book breaks exciting new ground by showing how these dynamics also play out in an intra-African context.”

Kenneth L. Pike: An Evangelical Mind

History & Biography

“Boone Aldridge’s biography of Kenneth Pike tells the astonishing story of an evangelical Christian mind that became truly innovative. How many anthropologists, scholars of religion, or linguists know that one of the basic tools of their intellectual analysis, the distinction between etic and emic views of cultural systems, owes its origins to an American missionary reared in fundamentalist circles? This book will explode preconceptions, widen horizons, and inspire deep reflection.”

Liang A-Fa

History & Biography

“The voices of indigenous Chinese Christians from the nineteenth century are rarely heard, and those from the early nineteenth century are rarer still. Jonathan Seitz's first-class, critical edition of George Hunter McNeur's classic biography of Liang A-Fa is therefore to be warmly welcomed. It opens a fascinating window into the mind of one of the very first Chinese Protestants.”

Megachurch Christianity Reconsidered

Church Leadership & Ministry

“This is not yet another book on African Pentecostalism. Rather it is a highly original study of a Kenyan megachurch whose roots lie in conservative evangelical traditions of a very different kind. The Victorian mission theorist Henry Venn dreamed of establishing autonomous churches supported by a prosperous middle class, able to take their own mission initiatives throughout the continent. Wanjiru Gitau's engaging account shows how Nairobi's Mavuno Church has remarkably fulfilled those dreams among the millennial generation in Africa.”

Missionary Imperialists?

History & Biography

“John Darch's valuable book provides fresh insight into the hotly disputed topic of the missionary contribution to the growth of the British Empire and further evidence of how ambiguous this contribution actually was.”

Missions and Unity

Evangelism & Missions

“Common participation in mission has consistently been the most powerful solvent of the historic divisions between churches. Yet Christians have frequently disagreed about the appropriate means of mission, and may struggle to agree even about the goals of mission. The twin themes of mission and unity are thus intertwined in complex and ambiguous ways throughout the history of the Church. Norman Thomas's book is a timely and helpful reminder of that ambiguous yet inescapable relationship.”