Melba Padilla Maggay

A Fragile Hope

Christian Living

“This book’s idea of a ‘hermitage of the heart’ is much needed in this time of prolonged liminal space, when the global COVID pandemic has scrambled our lives and work and we all hang suspended between the familiar routines of the past and the unknown uncertainties of the future. We are being invited to know God and ourselves afresh in the thick of our everyday struggles. This book outlines and recovers for us the ancient practice of stillness, echoing especially to those of us who are Asians our own spiritual heritage: making the inner being strong enough to withstand the stresses of daily life. . . . This book situates the universal longing for inner peace within the Christian tradition. As such it is a welcome companion to those in search for a meaning to our present confusion, groping about for a foothold on which to secure a future and a hope.”

Insider Jesus

Evangelism & Missions

“At last we have in this work an attempt by a Western theologian to understand and truly locate, within our contexts as non-Western Christian peoples, the ongoing work of the Spirit in so-called insider movements. The rise of insider movements is a challenge to recognize the fresh work of the Christ outside of the territorial and theological boundaries of 'Christendom.' In a way, we are seeing a reprise of the Jew-Gentile social crisis—those critical times when the gospel broke out of its Jewish wineskins and the early Greek converts had to grope about as to its life-changing meaning within their own worldview systems. It is providential that at this juncture of the history of the churches, we have fellow travelers like the author of this book to accompany us and shed some light along the way.”

Mission and Evangelism in a Secularizing World

Evangelism & Missions

“At first glance, this book looks out of sync with what the sociologist Peter Berger describes, quite sweepingly, as ‘the desecularization of the world.’ From where I sit, societies have yet to secularize; people still see religion as the integrating point in their lives. And so-called ‘post-Christians’ are seeking some form of transcendence, but outside the usual frame of Christendom. This book is an important reminder that ‘irreligious secularism’ continues to pose a totalistic claim to our lives. That churches are being turned into pubs in Europe, and dying churches in North America are revitalized by diaspora peoples, are signs of both warning and hope that God is on the move, ‘shifting centers,’ as Andrew Walls puts it. This book invites us to invent fresh wineskins so that once again, the center holds.”