A study of the well known medieval royal chapel, constructed by Roger II, king of Sicily in the mid-twelfth century.

For over 20 years, Bethel Church has been attempting to live the core values reflected in Kingdom Culture: Living the Values that Disciple Nations. This journal is an exploration of the biblical emphases that have enabled Bethel's leadership, church family, and ministry school to sustain individual and corporate revival for all these years and experience ongoing salvations, joy, transformation, miracles, and healings.¿Inside, we dig deeply into values like: God Is Good, Salvation Creates Joyful Identity, Jesus Empowers Supernatural Ministry, God Is Still Speaking, His Kingdom Is Advancing, Hope in a Glorious Church, and more!Kingdom Culture is designed to be highly interactive, helping to renew your mind by inviting God to ignite a passionate, life-giving understanding of the Kingdom. It is a culture-changing tool that can be used devotionally, as a small group study, curriculum, sermon starter, or beginning place to think through larger cultural issues.¿

Modern movements such as neo-Calvinism, the New Perspective on Paul, and the emerging church have popularized a view of Christianity and culture that calls for the redemption of earthly society and institutions. Many Christians have reflexively embraced this view, enticed by the socially active and engaged faith it produces. Living in God’s Two Kingdoms illustrates how a two-kingdoms model of Christianity and culture affirms much of what is compelling in these transformationist movements while remaining faithful to the whole counsel of Scripture. By focusing on God’s response to each kingdom—his preservation of the civil society and his redemption of the spiritual kingdom—VanDrunen teaches readers how to live faithfully in each sphere. Highlighting vital biblical distinctions between honorable and holy tasks, VanDrunen’s analysis will challenge Christians to be actively and critically engaged in the culture around them while retaining their identities as sojourners and exiles in this world.

This 50th-anniversary edition, with a new foreword by the distinguished historian Martin E. Marty, who regards this book as one of the most vital books of our time, as well as an introduction by the author never before included in the book, and a new preface by James Gustafson, the premier Christian ethicist who is considered Niebuhr’s contemporary successor, poses the challenge of being true to Christ in a materialistic age to an entirely new generation of Christian readers.

This book is a prophetic call that examines the culture of the kingdom of God as compared with the culture of the Western church. We are in great need of seeing the truths of the Sermon on the Mount restored to the Western church. Through this introductory study of Jesus' teaching from the Mount of Beatitudes, discover the answers to the challenging questions regarding the culture of the kingdom.

We all participate daily in culture-building. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords, and that he is at work to redeem this fallen world. "Gospel culture" refers to a total meaning for the cosmos, a design plan. In other words, the gospel should impact all our cultural activities.

The call to make the world a better place is inherent in the Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the 21st century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative? In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive--and provocative--answers to these questions. Hunter begins with a penetrating appraisal of the most popular models of world-changing among Christians today, highlighting the ways they are inherently flawed and therefore incapable of generating the change to which they aspire. Because change implies power, all Christian eventually embrace strategies of political engagement. Hunter offers a trenchant critique of the political theologies of the Christian Right and Left and the Neo-Anabaptists, taking on many respected leaders, from Charles Colson to Jim Wallis and Stanley Hauerwas. Hunter argues that all too often these political theologies worsen the very problems they are designed to solve. What is really needed is a different paradigm of Christian engagement with the world, one that Hunter calls "faithful presence"--an ideal of Christian practice that is not only individual but institutional; a model that plays out not only in all relationships but in our work and all spheres of social life. He offers real-life examples, large and small, of what can be accomplished through the practice of "faithful presence." Such practices will be more fruitful, Hunter argues, more exemplary, and more deeply transfiguring than any more overtly ambitious attempts can ever be. Written with keen insight, deep faith, and profound historical grasp, To Change the World will forever change the way Christians view and talk about their role in the modern world.