From Radical Jesus People to Virtual Religion

From Radical Jesus People to Virtual Religion PDF Author: Claire Borowik
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009037374
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Get Book

Book Description
The Family International (formerly the Children of God) emerged from the radical fringe of the Jesus People Movement in the late 1960s to establish a new religious movement with communities in ninety countries. Characterized from its early days by controversy due to its unconventional version of Christianity, countercultural practices, and high level of tension with society, the Family International created a communal society that endured for four decades. The movement's reinvention in 2010 as an online community offers insights into the dynamic nature of new religious movements, as they strategically adapt to evolving social contexts and emergent issues, and the negotiations of belief and identity this may entail. The Family International's transformation from a radical communal movement to a deradicalized virtual community highlights the novel challenges alternative religions may face in entering the mainstream and attaining legitimacy within the increasingly globalized context of online information dissemination in virtual spaces.

From Radical Jesus People to Virtual Religion

From Radical Jesus People to Virtual Religion PDF Author: Claire Borowik
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009037374
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Get Book

Book Description
The Family International (formerly the Children of God) emerged from the radical fringe of the Jesus People Movement in the late 1960s to establish a new religious movement with communities in ninety countries. Characterized from its early days by controversy due to its unconventional version of Christianity, countercultural practices, and high level of tension with society, the Family International created a communal society that endured for four decades. The movement's reinvention in 2010 as an online community offers insights into the dynamic nature of new religious movements, as they strategically adapt to evolving social contexts and emergent issues, and the negotiations of belief and identity this may entail. The Family International's transformation from a radical communal movement to a deradicalized virtual community highlights the novel challenges alternative religions may face in entering the mainstream and attaining legitimacy within the increasingly globalized context of online information dissemination in virtual spaces.

Born Again and Again

Born Again and Again PDF Author: Megan K. Westra
Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.
ISBN: 1513806769
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Get Book

Book Description
Got salvation? What if salvation is not one more thing to acquire but an invitation to radical transformation? Christians often turn life—and faith—into one big quest for the good life. We expect to “get” a good job, loving spouse, a life of comfort, personal satisfaction—oh, and salvation with a cherry on top. Our acquisitive impulses aren’t limited to lattes and designer jeans; Christians in power throughout history have focused on getting people saved, possessing the land, and gaining dominance in government. But what if Christianity isn’t about striving for something more, but about renouncing the power and privilege that prevent us from receiving God’s abundant life? What if we are called not to treat salvation as one more thing to pursue but as an invitation to conform to Christ? Born Again and Again is the story of how a religion birthed on the margins of the Roman Empire became functionally the official religion of today’s largest military superpower. Pastor and blogger Megan K. Westra takes on the self-serving form of Christianity that has birthed the doctrine of discovery, planet-killing lifestyles, and civil religion. She leads readers into an encounter with the Jesus who gave up everything to come to us and invites us to give up everything to come to him. Conforming to Christ radically reorients our lives, priorities, and faith away from the pursuit of our own interests and toward a pattern of discipleship, setting us free from fear-based consumption and creating new possibilities for connection and belonging within the community of God’s people.

Digital Disciple

Digital Disciple PDF Author: Adam Thomas
Publisher: Abingdon Press
ISBN: 1426712200
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 141

Get Book

Book Description
This time in our society is unlike any other. People communicate daily without ever having to speak face to face, news breaks around the world in a matter of seconds, and favorite TV shows can be viewed at our convenience. We are, simultaneously, a people of connection and isolation. As Christians, how do we view our faith and personal ministry in this culture? Adam Thomas invites you to explore this question using his unique, personal, and often humorous insight. Thomas notes, "[The Internet] has added a new dimension to our lives; we are physical, emotional, spiritual, and now virtual people. But I believe that God continues to move through every facet of our existence, and that makes us new kinds of followers. We are digital disciples." "I gain renewed hope for the future by looking at a new generation of emerging Christian leaders like Adam Thomas." Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christianity "Digital Disciple is a new kind of pastor's sermon to a new kind of flock. Go ahead and tweet your friends: GOT 2 READ THIS." Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, author, speaker and new monastic "Bright, innovative, perceptive, eloquent, and imaginative -- Adam Thomas is all that and more, as you will see in the pages of his dynamic book." James W. Moore, author of How God Takes Our Little & Makes it Much DVD with Adam Thomas introducing each chapter separate item 843504012489

Fieldwork in New Religious Movements

Fieldwork in New Religious Movements PDF Author: George D. Chryssides
Publisher:
ISBN: 100927872X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 84

Get Book

Book Description
New religious movements are often described as bizarre and sinister. Direct acquaintance, however, often gives a different impression from media portrayals and even from some academic writing. After decades of undertaking fieldwork, the author George Chryssides discusses his experiences, as well as studies by other scholars, and the issues that fieldwork involves. How do one's personal beliefs and lifestyle impinge on field research? How involved should a participant-observer become? How should we assess what we are told by insiders and ex-members? What ethical problems does field research create? How should we engage in online fieldwork, arising from the increasing use of the Internet, accelerated by the Covid pandemic? These are among the issues which this Element explores, and which will be of interest both to field researchers and to those who read about the fieldwork of others.

Living in the Children of God

Living in the Children of God PDF Author: David E. Van Zandt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780691636733
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
At the height of the religious ferment of the 1970s, David Van Zandt studied firsthand the most vilified of the new radical religious movements--the Children of God, or the Family of Love. First feigning membership and later gaining the permission of the Family, the author lived full-time in COG colonies in England and the Netherlands. From that experience, he has produced an informed, insightful, and humane report on how COG members function in what seems at first to be a completely bizarre setting. The COG, an offshoot of the Jesus People movement of the late 1960s, was one of the first radical religious groups to be accused of "brainwashing." Led by the charismatic David Berg, known as Moses David, the group demands total commitment from its full-time members and proselytizes continuously. Until recently the COG used sex as a proselytizing tool, and it continues to encourage full sexual sharing among group members. Instead of examining the COG's ideology in the abstract, Van Zandt analyzes how its ideas are understood and used by ordinary members in their daily lives. For them the Family is its practical, day-to-day, and all-consuming activities, such as "litnessing" (the street sale of COG literature). This is a vivid eyewitness account that will fascinate anyone interested in life in modern radical communal religions, such as the Unification Church and the Hare Krishnas, as well as in other radical, Christian-based, total-commitment groups. Van Zandt's frank reflections on his near-conversion experience and on the ethics of his covert observation enrich our knowledge of doing research with such groups. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Undiluted

Undiluted PDF Author: Benjamin L. Corey
Publisher: Destiny Image Publishers
ISBN: 0768489067
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book

Book Description
Are you ready to begin experiencing an undiluted Jesus? Benjamin Corey confronts our vision of Jesus head-on, asking the hard question: Is what we see and hear in the modern church all there is to the message of Jesus… or is there a more radical side to Jesus than we have been led to believe? Get ready to encounter a Jesus that is determined to turn over the tables of a stale, ineffective and boring gospel that seeks to escape from the world instead of transforming it. This radical Jesus and His message... Invites us to reorient our lives not on Christian religion, but on the person of Jesus Calls us to live out faith in the context of authentic community with others, instead of isolation Includes the excluded and invites the outcast to have a seat at the table Responds to enemies with a radical, unexplainable love Undiluted will invite you to step out of your comfort zone and into a process of rediscovering the radical, counter cultural, and life-changing message of Jesus. As you do, you’ll discover a more vibrant faith as you embrace an undiluted Jesus and His radical message!

The God Who Riots

The God Who Riots PDF Author: Damon Garcia
Publisher: Broadleaf Books
ISBN: 1506480381
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Get Book

Book Description
For thousands of years, religious messages have been used to either uphold the status quo or upend it. And while we are all very familiar with the kind of conservative Christianity that suppresses liberation and justifies oppression, progressive Christians are just as guilty of upholding unjust systems when we prioritize harmony and unity over justice. True justice requires us to choose sides. True justice requires action. When we look at Scripture, we see that the God of the Bible was never neutral. Again and again God chooses the side of the oppressed. Jesus said the Spirit of the Lord anointed him "to let the oppressed go free," and those of us who claim to follow Jesus today must commit to this radical mission of liberation. In The God Who Riots, popular YouTuber and public theologian Damon Garcia uses his frank, tell-it-like-it-is style to connect us with the Jesus who flipped tables in the temple and led an empire-destabilizing movement for liberation. The spirit of this God is embodied in today's protests, riots, and strikes. As we join this struggle for liberation, we are joining the God who riots alongside us, within us, and through us.

Godwired

Godwired PDF Author: Rachel Wagner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136512136
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Get Book

Book Description
Godwired offers an engaging exploration of religious practice in the digital age. It considers how virtual experiences, like stories, games and rituals, are forms of world-building or "cosmos construction" that serve as a means of making sense of our own world. Such creative and interactive activity is, arguably, patently religious. This book examines: the nature of sacred space in virtual contexts technology as a vehicle for sacred texts who we are when we go online what rituals have in common with games and how they work online what happens to community when people worship online how religious "worlds" and virtual "worlds" nurture similar desires. Rachel Wagner suggests that whilst our engagement with virtual reality can be viewed as a form of religious activity, today’s virtual religion marks a radical departure from traditional religious practice – it is ephemeral, transient, rapid, disposable, hyper-individualized, hybrid, and in an ongoing state of flux.

Hare Krishna in the Twenty-First Century

Hare Krishna in the Twenty-First Century PDF Author: Angela R. Burt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009079158
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 167

Get Book

Book Description


The Radical Jesus

The Radical Jesus PDF Author: Glenn Meldrum
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781794119642
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 157

Get Book

Book Description
The Radical Jesus is a brief examination of Christ's life, teaching, death and resurrection. Everything about Jesus is absolutely radical; the One the Scriptures reveal as anything but tame. Without a clear understanding of who Jesus is, we can never hope to be the disciples we were meant to be in this fallen world. The twofold purpose of this book is to exalt the radical Jesus by presenting a fresh glimpse of who He is and to reveal the high calling that true believers are to live.