Christianity in Palestine, Lecture 4

Lecture 4: The Roman Empire and the Spread of Christianity

Synopsis: What were the factors present in the Roman Empire that facilitated the surprisingly rapid growth of the Christian faith? This lecture will cover factors like the Pax Romana, Roman infrastructure, the Jewish diaspora, and the Septuagint.

Lecturer: Alex Miller

Course Information: Christianity and Mission in Palestine (Fall of 2012).

Brent Neely reviews Gabriel Said Reynolds' new book

In our first NETS Book Review, Brent Neely, our Vice President for Academic Affairs, reviews the new book by Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Emergence of Islam: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspective (Fortress Press, 2012).

Download the PDF by clicking here. Here is the first paragraph of the review:

Gabriel Said Reynolds' The Emergence of Islam: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspective  is a masterfully-written book. The argument is propelled by an engaging style, economy of words, and a momentum built in to the structure of the book. Reynolds' approach is academic and empirical, but the target audience is educated non-specialists. His tone is candid without being sensational or polemical. In fact, his ability to give context and a fair hearing to a wide spread of data is rather refreshing given the contentious nature of much writing on Muhammad and Islam. In terms of spirit one might place Reynolds somewhere between the poles of philo-Islamic advocates and anti-Islamic polemicists, a polarity which he explicitly illustrates with reference to Karen Armstrong and to Robert Spencer (locations 198-212, Kindle Edition).

Christianity in Palestine, Lecture 3: The Content and Method of Jesus' Ministry

Lecture 3: The content and method of Jesus’ mission

Nazareth Seminary, Fall of 2012.

Lecture questions: In what ways was Jesus’ ministry original? In what ways did he simply carry on established traditions? What was the content of his teaching? And how did he envision to accomplish that goal?

Lecturer: D. A. Miller

Christianity in Palestine, Lecture 2

Christianity in Palestine, Fall 2012, lecturer D A Miller

Lecture 2: when Christianity became a religion

Christianity in Palestine, Lecture 1

Christianity in Palestine, Fall 2012, lecturer D A Miller

Lecture 1: what is contextual missiology?

Christ Church (Anglican) in Nazareth, by Duane Alexander Miller

Do you ever wonder what the churches in Nazareth today are like? Very few of them have any documented history, and one of our goals is to document the history of the churches here in our city.

With that in mind, our lecturer in Church History and Theology, Alex Miller, has recently published a brief history of Christ Church, which is the Anglican/Episcopal church here in town. This article appears in St Francis Magazine. The article has some nice pictures of the church as well as some helpful information.

Click to download the PDF of the article.


Mr Miller has also published articles on the following churches in the region:

Church of the Redeemer (Anglican/Episcopal) in Amman, Jordan

The Cathedral Church of St George the Martyr (Anglican/Episcopal) in Jerusalem

The Alliance Church (CMA) in Jerusalem's Old City


If you would like to see some pictures of a few churches check these out:

St Joseph's (Latin) in Nazareth

Annunciation (Orthodox) in Nazareth

Christ Church (Anglican) in Nazareth

St Michael's (Anglican) in Heliopolis, Egypt

If you have pictures of any church in the Middle East and would like to corroborate in a project to preserve photographic records of these structures please contact Mr Miller by leaving a comment on this blog's most recent post, regardless of topic.

Mary's Well Occasional Papers 1:4 "It is okay to question Allah"...

Nazareth Seminary welcomes you to read our fourth Mary's Well Occasional Paper.
 
Abstract
The author presents a theological analysis of Farewell to Islam, by Saiid Rabiipour (Xulon 2009, 348 pages). In analyzing Rabiipour’s writing he argues that Rabiipour’s experience of being trapped in Iran should be read as a metaphor for Islam, both as a religion and as a political structure. In American Christianity Rabiipour finds a space of freedom and liberation. Utilizing the extended metaphor of his de facto captivity in Iran, Rabiipour offers both an American, Christian apologetic, and a critique of Islam as a religion and a politic.

Key Words
Liberation theology, Iranian Christianity, ex-Muslim, Muslim-background believer, MBB, freedom
 
And here is the bibliography:
 
Miller, Duane Alexander. ‘"It is okay to question Allah": the theology of freedom of Saiid Rabiipour, a Christian ex-Muslim’ in Mary’s Well Occasional Papers, 1:4, September (Nazareth, Israel: Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary, 2012).

Click HERE to download the PDF.

Previous Mary's Well Occasional Papers can be found here:

Mary's Well Occasional Paper 1:3 by Azar Ajaj
Mary's Well Occasional Paper 1:2 by Stephen Louy
Mary's Well Occasional Paper 1:1 by Bryson Arthur