Who Is My Enemy?
Welcoming People the Church Rejects
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Are You at War with Someone Jesus Loves?Many Christians are. We find it much easier to judge those outside the church than to love them. Yet Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save it. It is time we took on his attitude of servanthood--time to share not canned presentations, but our hearts and lives. Rich Nathan helps us understand how. Tackling five knotty current issues, he takes us inside the worldviews and street-level realities of postmodernists, New Agers, homosexuals, feminists, and liberals in order to better understand them, and to see beyond categories to real faces, real needs, and real hearts that long to be welcomed. Nathan reveals both the errors that we must challenge, and unexpected truths that will challenge us. Most important, he helps us to see individuals who long to experience the redemptive touch of Jesus--through us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
According to Nathan (Empowered Evangelicals), Christian churches rarely step up to the plate with the same compassion and intelligent understanding offered so graciously by Jesus Christ. Today's evangelical masses consistently repel the people God loves, and churches shun those they don't understand out of fear and ignorance. Nathan, senior pastor of Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Columbus, Ohio, presents a soulful entreaty that resonates with the teachings of the late Francis Schaeffer. Nathan writes that followers of God must seek out the hurting and discover areas of agreement in order to effectively communicate the gospel of Christ. His text delves into five major classes of people who make Christians most uneasy: postmodernists, feminists, homosexuals, New Agers and liberals. He cites how indifferent and even hostile many churches are toward those men and women who come calling with a different worldview. When addressing cultural issues with those outside the Christian faith, he suggests, believers should take care to be civil, use persuasion rather than force, be realistic and incorporate biblical principles when communicating their beliefs. Nathan's work is an outstanding compilation of well-thought-out arguments, though some might find the book a bit weighty, requiring a second or third read to fully understand its points. His probings are both relevant and resourceful.