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| Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe | 
 enlarge | Creators: Stanley Hauerwas, Ben Quash, Michael Ward
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $10.08
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 164489
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 148
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.5
ISBN: 1598560131
Dewey Decimal Number: 262.8
EAN: 9781598560138
ASIN: 1598560131
Publication Date: September 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Heresies and How to Avoid Them will help Christians understand why they are expected to believe certain things and disbelieve others. Readers will learn about the decisions that radically affected the course of Christian history, and that still shape Christianity today. Here, ten top theologians, all practising Christians, tackle ten ancient heresies and show why the contemporary Church still needs to know about them. Christians need to remember what these great early heresies were and why they were ruled out, or else risk falling prey to their modern-day manifestations. The contributors show how present debates in the Church are often re-enactments of battles which the Church thought it had won against heresies many centuries ago. The book contains key scriptural passages relevant to each heresy, a glossary of terms, and summaries of historical Church documents in which these heresies were defined and outlawed. Contributors
Professor Denys Turner, Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale
Dr Janet Martin Soskice, Fellow of Jesus College and Reader in Philosophical Theology
Dr Anna Williams, Fellow of Corpus Christi College and Lecturer in Patristic and Medieval Theology
The Rev. Dr Ben Quash, Fellow and Dean of Peterhouse
The Rev. John Sweet, Fellow of Selwyn College
The Rev. Dr Michael B. Thompson, Vice Principal of Ridley Hall. Topics
Adoptionism--did Jesus become the Son of God at his baptism?
Docetism--was Jesus really human or did he just appear to be so?
Nestorianism--was Christ one Person or a hybrid with a divine dimension and a human dimension?
Arianism--was Christ divine and eternal or was there a time when he did not exist?
Marcionism--is the God of the New Testament the same as the God of the Old?
Theopaschitism--is it possible for God to suffer in His divine nature?
Destroying the Trinity--does God have a simple or a complex nature?
Pelagianism--can people save themselves by their own efforts?
`The Free Spirit'--are there two kinds of Church membership, one for the elite and one for the rest?
Donatism--do Christian ministers need to be faultless for their ministrations to be effective?
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| Customer Reviews:
 Are You A Heretic? Find Out Today! August 13, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a very readable book, owing to the fact that each chapter was originally a sermon, which had actually been preached, not just written. Each chapter details a different heresy following the same pattern: What is it, what are the key Scriptures concerning it (whether supportive or destructive), then the sermon itself detailing the historical form the heresy took and in fulfillment of the title, a how to avoid them today. A strength of this book is the sometimes sympathetic look it gives to the heretic himself. It is not the case with all heretics of the early church that they simply wanted to destroy the truth or somehow distort it for personal profit. Many of the men labeled heretic were as sincere about their faith as the orthodox opponents who eventually triumphed over them. They were just wrong. An excellent aspect of the chapters is that they provide some perspective on the "what if" factor of the heretic. What if Arius was right, what would that mean to Christianity? This brings the reader into the debate and allows him or her to understand that these teachings were not declared heretical because they differed from the people in power, but because they really were contrary to the consistent teaching of Christ.
The format of the book makes it a quick book to read. The information packed into each chapter is definitely worth keeping on hand. This book will become a handy reference for those who confuse all the heretical -isms; one chapter per heresy makes it easy to find what you're looking for. The only criticism I have is that the last part of every chapter was devoted to seeing how each heresy was present today and how to avoid it, and this seemed a little forced in some of the chapters. For example, chapter 4 on Eutychianism, the author was forced to concede that this was not a prevalent heresy today, even though he continued from there to tell the reader how to avoid it.
 Fantastic!!! May 24, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
What a great little book!
As someone that works with the cults, I found their indepth but clear explanations and discussions essential to understanding some of the issues involved in early church doctrines. The authors are very fair to those that held less orthodox beliefs, suggesting that many 'heretical' beliefs began out of a desire to provoke thought and get to the meat of a dogma or belief.
I would recommend this to any Bible student, seminarian, pastor or interested lay person. It's a real gem with lots of information and clarity.
Rogmaministries@tiscali.co.uk
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