Historical Theology

In this short, accessible account of the Eastern Orthodox Church, John McGuckin begins by tackling the question "What is the Church?" His answer is a clear, historically and theologically rooted portrait of what the Church is for Orthodox Christianity and how it differs from Western Christians' expectations.

In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium. In Stark's view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and non-secular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason.

Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will (1525) is a response to Desiderius Erasmus's "Diatribe on Free Will.’ The work is considered as one of the great masterpieces of the Reformation. Luther writes powerfully about man's depravity and God's sovereignty in his direct style, which combines spirituality and humor. For Luther, the crucial issue was the ability of free will, and the extent to which it is subject to God's sovereignty.

In this book, we will explore Gnosticism and the Divine Feminine through the lens of two great Gnostic texts. We will see the influence of Gnosticism and how their idea of the Divine Feminine effected orthodox or mainstream Christianity. The treatise of Eugnostos the Blessed (50-150 AD) and the gospel called The Sophia of Jesus Christ (50-200 AD) are presented together in a single volume, due to their close and undeniable connection.

For more than 500 years, the story of Joan of Arc has been an inspiration and a mystery. The least likely of heroines, a peasant girl with no education and no prospects, Joan turned herself into the legendary Maid of Orleans, knight, martyr, and saint. Following a voice she knew was God's, she led an army to victory in battle and crowned the king of France, only to be captured by her English enemies and burned at the stake as a heretic, all by the age of 19.

After years of searching for meaning through drugs, Buddhism, sex, and Eastern philosophy, a long-haired hippie musician walked his bare feet into a little country church and encountered the living God. Confounded by the simplicity of the gospel, a young Chuck Girard dedicated his life to Jesus during the height of the sexual revolution and civil unrest that characterized the decade of the '60s.

Inspired by the great preacher Charles Spurgeon, Warren Wiersbe launched a personal study of the lives of prominent Bible characters. Interested in more than biographical facts, Wiersbe sought out the themes of each person's life as reflected in the pages of scripture. How does the Bible summarize this person's life? What is the key to understanding his or her character? How do I see my own life reflected in the life of this person?

Tim Chester invites a new generation to experience the Christian life as John Stott envisioned it - not simply a theological puzzle to be solved, but the daily practice of humble service and compassion found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In this culmination of his highly acclaimed Cultural Liturgies project, James K. A. Smith examines politics through the lens of liturgy. What if, he asks, citizens are not only thinkers or believers but also lovers? Smith explores how our analysis of political institutions would look different if we viewed them as incubators of love-shaping practices—not merely governing us but forming what we love.

Embark on a worldwide journey with renowned scholar of comparative religion, Jacob Needleman, as he gathers together ancient texts and writings of the modern practitioners of essential Christianity. Needleman demonstrates that a more effective, contemplative tradition existed in the early church and continues today in the lives of extraordinary people whose stories he retells in the course of his own personal explorations into the realms of the spirit.

John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce suffered lifelong opposition and endured for the causes of gospel truth, missionary zeal, and political justice. They found, in solid doctrine and humble joy, the tough roots for habitual tenderness in response to their adversaries - without doctrinal or moral flinching. They are examples of remarkable grace. In the third book of the Swans Are Not Silent series, best-selling author John Piper looks at the lives of these three great men and how they not only endured great opposition but did so with joy and without bitterness.

The Way of Thomas offers a crystal clear, easy-to-understand new version of the Gospel of Thomas. Dr. Mabry, an expert in the mysticism of the world’s religions, then unpacks the core teachings of the gospel in ways that can shift not only how we understand ourselves, but how we view reality.

In Grace Alone: Audio Lectures, together with accompanying book, Grace Alone, scholar Carl Trueman looks at the historical and biblical roots of the doctrine that salvation is by grace alone, a free gift unmerited by human effort or works. Lessons examine the development of this theme in the early church through the Reformation to the Protestant confessions that still shape the church in the present day. Trueman also explores the biblical means of receiving God’s grace through the fellowship of believers, the sacraments, and through the Word of God.

The doctrine of reprobation—that is, the eternal, unconditional decree of God for the non-elect—is frequently misconstrued in both pastoral and theological literature. In Reprobation and God's Sovereignty, Peter Sammons reintroduces this oft-misunderstood doctrine, revealing its relationship to divine sovereignty. With Romans 9 as a guiding text, Sammons presents a thoroughly researched defense of reprobation as an essential part in a Reformed theology that magnifies God and encourages believers to trust in him.

What does Plato have to do with the Christian faith? Quite a bit, it turns out. In ways that might surprise us, Christians throughout the history of the church and even today have inherited aspects of the ancient Greek philosophy of Plato, who was both Socrates's student and Aristotle's teacher. To help us understand the influence of Platonic thought on the Christian faith, Louis Markos offers careful readings of some of Plato's best-known texts and then traces the ways that his work shaped the faith of some of Christianity's most beloved theologians.

Two hundred and fifty years later, Jonathan Edwards, America’s consummate pastor-theologian, continues to capture the attention of Christians around the world. Yet Edwards left us over 1,200 sermons and thousands of pages of other publications, not to mention the literal thousands of books that have been written about Edwards since he died. The Essential Jonathan Edwards serves as a perfect introduction to Edwards’s life and thought. It explores Edwards day-to-day life, and his views on beauty, true Christianity, heaven and hell, and the good life.

Lord Jesus Christ expounds the doctrine of Christ by focusing upon theological interpretation of Scripture regarding Jesus's identity. The book's structure traces a Christological arc from the eternal communion of the Triune God through creation, covenants, Incarnation, passion, and exaltation all the way to the consummation of redemptive history. This arc identifies Jesus as the divine Lord who assumed human flesh for our salvation.

Almost every pastor feels the pressure to get people in the doors. Often, in their zeal for fruit and growth, pastors and church leaders adopt worldly mechanisms for church growth that end up undermining the very call God has given them. Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, was a pastor to well over 5,000 people in a day long before "mega-churches" were the norm. In Spurgeon the Pastor, Geoff Chang shows how Spurgeon models a theological vision of ministry in preaching, baptism and the Lord's supper, meaningful church membership, biblical church leadership, and more.

This in-depth discussion of New Testament scholarship and the challenges of history as a whole proposes Bayes's Theorem, which deals with probabilities under conditions of uncertainty, as a solution to the problem of establishing reliable historical criteria. The author demonstrates that valid historical methods - not only in the study of Christian origins but in any historical study - can be described by, and reduced to, the logic of Bayes's Theorem. Conversely, he argues that any method that cannot be reduced to this theorem is invalid and should be abandoned.

Martin Luther started a reformation movement that revolutionized Europe in the 16th century. His far-reaching reforms of theological understanding and church practices radically modified both church and society in Europe and beyond. Paulson's introduction to Luther's thought, coupled with illustrations, provides an engaging introduction to Luther's multifaceted self and the ideas that catapulted him to fame.