Understanding Christianity, Islam, and the Modern World
In the 1960s we saw the beginning of a historically unprecedented series of movements from Islam to Christianity. In this lecture I present a summary of some key elements of three of them–Indonesia, Iran, Algeria–and then offer an overall analysis of three categories of factors facilitating conversion in the modern and late modern context.
This is the second of my four Copenhagen lectures.
Delivered at St Nathaniel’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The Reformation fell on hard times in Spain. The Spanish Inquisition was vibrant and energetic and that institution was not disbanded until 1834. This meant that anyone sympathetic to Protestant ideas had to flee from Spain or keep their ideas to themselves.
There is a bit of my article on our special celebration of the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation which took place on October 31st at the Cathedral of the Redeemer here in Madrid.
Read it all at VirtueOnline.
The Reformed Episcopal Church of Spain (of which I am a clergy member) published this booklet some decades ago. It really needs to be updated! However, there is little information available about the Anglican Cathedral of the Redeemer in Madrid, so I thought I would make this booklet available to any researcher or curious party. I scanned it and it can now be found at Scribd. Also, check out the cathedral’s homepage.
Some time ago I was approached about writing some entries for the newly released War and Religion: an encyclopedia of faith and conflict (ABC-CLIO, 2017). And I’m glad to share that it has now been published in three volumes.
My own humble contributions were (in alphabetical order) on the Fourth Crusade, the Knights Templar, the Sixth Crusade, and the Venetian Crusade. That last one was quite successful and does not get the attention it deserves, in my opinion.
Feel free to sample my own entries above and please do consider asking your institution’s library to acquire this valuable resource.
I am happy to share with you all that volume 3 of the Oxford History of Anglicanism is now available. My own chapter is ‘Anglican Mission in the Middle East up to 1910’.
Volume 3 focuses on the partisan era and Anglicanism’s expansion into a global community up to 1910. Volume 4 concentrates on Anglicanism in the contemporary period and its history after the 1910 EdinburghWorld Missions Conference.
More info on volume 3 can be found at the OUP website and much of my own chapter can be read at books.google.
My girls are doing arts and crafts here at the Southwest School of Art and I’m catching up on blogs.
Happened across this brilliant article arguing for more tradition and less relevance in education.
Here is one particularly excellent section:
The real objection to relevance is that it is an obstacle to self-discovery. Some sixty years ago I was introduced to classical music by teachers who did not waste time criticizing my adolescent taste and who made no concessions to my age or temperament. They knew only that they had received a legacy and with it a duty to pass it on. If they did not do so the legacy would die. They discovered in me a soul that could make this legacy its own. That was enough for them. They did not ask themselves whether the classical repertoire was relevant to the interests that I then happened to have, any more than mathematicians ask whether the theorems that they teach will help their students with their accounting problems. Their assumption was that, since the musical knowledge that they wished to impart was unquestionably valuable, it could only benefit me to receive it. But I could not understand the benefit prior to receiving it. To consult my desires in the matter would have been precisely to ignore the crucial fact, which was that, until introduced to classical music, I would not know whether it was to be a part of my life.
Enjoy!
It’s always a pleasure to be interviewed by Al Kresta from Ave Maria Radio.
In this interview, released on January 12th, we shift over to the central topic of Arab Evangelicals in Israel and, indeed, Christianity in general in the whole region.
The opening question: does Christianity in the Middle East have a future? Listen and enjoy.
Also, visit Al’s website and consider subscribing to his podcast.
