Worldview and Perspective on World Christianity

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Genesis 11:1-9 , Jonah 1:4, Daniel 1:6 , Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 17:16-34, Psalm 2:

If one looks at the world scene from a missionary point of view, surely the most striking fact is that, while in great areas of Asia and Africa the church is growing, often growing rapidly, in the lan...

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The World in which Jesus Lived

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William H. Marty

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Genesis 12:1–3, Exodus 3:1–12, Isaiah 53:, Matthew 22:15–22 , John 4:1–42 , Acts 17:16–34

The world of Jesus was not the Old Testament Hebrew world. Like the United States now, Israel was multicultural, including a combination of Aramaic, Greek, and Roman influences. The people looked Jewi...

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Author

Mark A. Noll

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Zephaniah 3:9, Psalm 117:1, 1 Corinthians 14:10, Matthew 28:19, Isaiah 66:18, Revelation 7:9, Acts 2:6-8

One of [Lamin] Sanneh's key arguments is that while the spread of Islam has drawn ever-increasing numbers to the globalizing influence of Arabic, the spread of Christianity binds ever-increasing n...

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Author

Bernice King

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Jonah 3:1–10, Isaiah 49:6, Genesis 12:1–3, Psalm 96:3–4 , Luke 10:25–37, Psalm 96:3–4

Christ is not American. The church is global. Our neighbors are all of humanity. The national anthem is not a gospel song.

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Andrew F. Walls

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Other major world religions are still centered in the same general geographic area from which they originated except for Christianity. Even more intriguing, the center of Christian growth continues to...

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Dallas Willard

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Revelation 21:23, Colossians 3:12, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Titus 2:11-12, Isaiah 61:3, Philippians 4:8, Psalm 27:4

If your salvation does not include living with God in beauty, truth, and goodness, it’s going to be a very dry haul. And so much of our difficulty today for Christians in this world, and for the world...

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Philip Jenkins

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By 2050, only about one-fifth of the world’s 3 billion Christians will be non-Hispanic Whites. Soon, the phrase ‘a White Christian’ may sound like a curious oxymoron, as mildly surprising as ‘a Swedis...

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The Non-Religion

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Timothy Keller

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When Christianity first arose in the world it was not called a religion. It was the non-religion. Imagine the neighbors of early Christians asking them about their faith. “Where’s your temple?” they’d...

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Gracious God, we don’t live as Christ

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Austin D. Hill

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Gracious God, we don’t live as Christ did. Although You give us specific instructions for an ordered way of life that stands out from the rest of the world, we settle for lukewarm Christianity. Our li...

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Ronald Rohlheiser

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Christianity is without doubt the earthiest of all religions. Unlike most other religions, it doesn’t call you out of the physical, out of the body, or out of the world. Rather it tells you that God e...

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What’s Unique about Christianity?

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Matthew 2:1-4, Luke 15:3-7, John 8:1-11, Luke 19:10, John 1:16, Revelation 22:17

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? O...

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The Death of Christendom

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Tod E. Bolsinger

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In one generation, the place of Christianity within culture dramatically shifted as we experienced what theologians and sociologists of religion call the “death of Christendom.” Christendom isn’t Chri...

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Consider the Culture

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The Pastor's Workshop

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One of the areas often missed in a lot of Christian apologetics is the social setting in which a person encounters the gospel. For example, it is far easier to espouse "rational arguments" f...

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One Love—The Life and Music of Bob Marley

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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My Early Soundtrack What music shaped your early life? For most of us, our parents’ musical tastes probably were our starting place. That music made a deep impression on what we like — and don’t like...

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Pursuing the Common Good Throughout History

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Don Everts

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Matthew 22:39, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Romans 15:1-2, Galatians 6:10, Romans 12:10, Acts 20:35, Matthew 25:35-40, Isaiah 58:6-7, Proverbs 19:17, Luke 10:30-37, James 2:15-16, 1 John 3:17, Proverbs 31:8-9, Matthew 25:40, Acts 11:29-30, 2 Corinthians 8:13-15, Acts 2:44-45, Acts 4:32-35, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26

Pursuing the common good has been a strong marker of the Christian church from the very beginning. The early church had many habits that they became known for, of course—including meeting frequently, ...

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C. S. Lewis

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Genesis 1:31, Psalm 139:13-14, John 1:14, 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, Philippians 3:20-21

Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body—which believes that matter is good, that God himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body ...

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Are All Religions Basically the Same?

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Timothy Keller

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Most people who assert the equality of religions have in mind the major world faiths, not splinter sects. This was the form of the objection I got from the student the night I was on the panel. He con...

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The Opiate of the People?

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Augustus Nicodemus Lopes

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Revelation 21:1-2, 2 Peter 3:13, Titus 2:13, Romans 8:18, Isaiah 65:17, Matthew 6:10

Some people call religion the opiate of the people. Karl Marx had Christianity and our eschatological hope in mind when he said that. Some contend that pointing to the future as the Christian’s ultima...

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Author

Benedicta Ward

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1 John 3:18, John 13:1-17, Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 4:18-22, James 1:22, Romans 12:1, Mark 10:15

It is possible also to come at Christianity from a rather different point of view as well, seeing it as something not too difficult but too simple for us, too basic, something to be apprehended theref...

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An Attempted Refutation of the Gospel

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N. T. Wright

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Mark 16:15-16, Philippians 1:6, Acts 16:31, John 1:12-13, Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 1:16

[In the middle of the twentieth century a] young Russian communist went to a meeting one night where he heard a Christian expounding his faith. The communist was angry. How could anyone still believe ...

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MLK Day Prayers for Church Services: Liturgy & Sermon Resources

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The Pastor's Workshop

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Micah 6:8, Amos 5:24, Isaiah 1:17, Galatians 3:28, James 2:1, Ephesians 2:14

Updated for 2026. January 19, 2026 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day— the only U.S. national holiday commemorating a pastor. Under his leadership, non-violent civil rights advocacy achieved leaps f...

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Preaching in a New Key: Crafting Expository Sermons in Post-Christian Communities

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Mark R. Glanville

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Kate's Crisis: Values vs. Church One damp afternoon during the fall of 2016 I was sharing a pastoral conversation with Kate, a professional artist in her late 20s. Over years of meals and convers...

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What is the Christian Imagination Deficit? How Do We Fix It?

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Brian Brown

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There Are No Ordinary Things J. R. R. Tolkien tells a short story about an ordinary fellow who just wants to finish a painting. Over time, he is constantly distracted by the requests of his neighbors...

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The Cave

Author

William Rowley

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1 Corinthians 12:8-12, John 1:, John 17:18, Philippians 2:6-11, 1 John 1:7, Romans 8:1, Colossians 1:13-14

The Cave One of the most famous passages in Plato's Republic is his "Allegory of the Cave," which is found at the beginning of book seven . Socrates imagines the human condition al...

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Author

William Sloane Coffin

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Christians have no business thinking that the good life consists mainly in not doing bad things. We have no business thinking that to do evil in this world you have to be a Bengal tiger, when, in fact...

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What Do You Believe Doc?

Author

D. Michael Lindsay

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1 Peter 1:8-9, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Mark 9:24, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 10:17, Hebrews 11:6

In a quiet hospital room in North Carolina, an eager young doctor with a bright future evaluates his elderly patient with not much future left at all. She has a terminal heart condition, inoperable. A...

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Back in Flatland: Sermon Illustration Tuesday

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Mystery

In 1884, an English schoolmaster named Edwin Abbott Abbott wrote a story about a two-dimensional world called Flatland, inhabited by various shapes (circles, squares, etc.). In Flatland, there is heig...

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Back in Flatland

Author

Austin Fischer

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In this short excerpt, pastor and author Austin Fischer summarizes the late 19th century book Flatland as an analogy for the often-one-dimensional faith that exists our time: tIn 1884, an English sc...

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Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Is God just a nice person who created the world, tells us to be “cool” to people, helps out with some of our problems (but otherwise leaves us alone), lets us do what makes us happy, and then takes us...

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The Unfulfilled Atheist

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Brian Loritts

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Some years ago, I was approached by a young man in our church who described himself as an “unfulfilled atheist.” He wanted to know why he should consider Christianity. I responded to him by asking him...

worldview and perspective on World Christianity

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