Allan Kardec's The Gospel According To Spiritism

In this paper, I will review Charles Ryrie’s book The Holy Spirit. I will detail what I feel the book is about. I will emphasize various points given by the author that stood out to me. Finally, I will give my personal evaluation of the book.

Applying Class Concepts to “Where the Spirit Lives” Provide as many specific examples of each of the following concepts from “Where the Spirit Lives”: Framework: How the dominant group maintains power (Both Pharr and Weber’s frameworks): Institutional Power Political control: laws/policies/criminal justice system - The “Whites” lawfully took the children from their Native land - The school creating rules forbidding native practices of the Indian children Ideological control: control of ideas through education, religion, media, etc. - The ideas and practices of Christianity were completely forced on the Native American people.

Award-winning journalist, Lee Strobel wrote The Case for Christ to retrace and enlarge his journey toward becoming a Christian. Strobel once atheist, and now Christian, shares how he began to look upon the Bible and God. As an atheist, Strobel lived the life of selfishness and only worried to please himself. When his wife began to go to church he wasn’t very pleased until after he saw the positive and attractive change in her. This is the start of his curiosity and investigation about Christianity. He wanted to understand what changed her like this. He wanted to relate with his wife so he decided to study about this and attend church services with her. Strobel began his journey and interviewed thirteen leading scholars who defended their views concerning the historical reliability of the New Testament. Strobel splits the case for Christ into three basic sections: Examining the Record, Analyzing Jesus, and Researching the Resurrection.

Award-winning journalist, Lee Strobel wrote The Case for Christ to retrace and expand his journey toward becoming a Christian. Strobel once declared atheist, and now Christian, shares how he began to look upon the Bible and God. As an atheist, Strobel lived the life of selfishness and only worried to please himself. When his wife began to go to church he wasn’t very pleased until after he saw the positive and attractive change in her. This is the start of his curiosity and investigation about Christianity. To relate with his wife he decided to study about this and attend church services with her. Strobel interviewed thirteen leading scholars who defended their views concerning the historical reliability of the New Testament.

The social gospel was the biggest inspiration and influence for Civil Rights leader, John Lewis. Which is prevalent throughout the first two books, of the March trilogy, written by Andrew Aydin and John Lewis himself. The Bible made its mark on Lewis when he was young farm boy. Leading him to the social gospel which started him down the path of nonviolence, and longing not just for personal reform but for social reform. As the Civil Rights movements became bigger, and as the philosophy of which John Lewis taught spread, others were inspired by the social gospel.

Often times we are at a loss for words when it comes to talking about the person of the Holy Spirit. Beth Felker Jones in her work entitled “God the Spirit” serves as an introduction to the study of the Holy Spirit in a distinctly Wesleyan and Ecumenical Perspective. Jones is working against the notion that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is often the most neglected of all Christian teachings (1). She recognizes her experience within the Wesleyan tradition as one that shapes her pneumatology and this book. She asserts that one of Wesleyan Christianity’s special gifts is it’s “leaning against any tendency to neglect the Spirit” (4). Even with this framework she aims to place the Wesleyan perspective in a larger ecumenical milieu that shows the continuity of a Wesleyan pneumatology with the Tradition of the Church. Overall, her approach is very accessible, as she assumes very little and writes in such a way that allows her to cover large dogmatic topics clearly and concisely. By merit of simply being an introduction only style book, there is the risk of glossing over topics and not providing enough in depth discussion to fully understand and comprehend the doctrine discussed. A reader should feel confident that Jones has indeed provided us with a solid introduction to Wesleyan pneumatology that has the ability to bear fruit and initiate growth in the life of the believer.

Suffering joins people closer to Christ and his sufferings, especially in persecution (1 Pet. 4:1-2, 12-16, 19; 5:8-10; Luke 9:23; Phil. 3:10).

Learning to live authentically is not an easy task, as is attempting to define the notion of authenticity. Staying true to oneself is not something that can be achieved by following some twelve-step program. Rather, it requires one to carefully reflect on day-to-day life. In “The Gospel According to García” by Ariel Dorfman, the character of García challenges his students to do just that, sometimes by unconventional and roundabout means. However, the author presents not the enigmatic García himself, but rather the traumatic effects on his class after this teacher vanishes. Through this depiction, the reader learns that García drilled into his students the qualities of one who leads an authentic life, seemingly based on real experiences earlier in his life when he was pitted against authority.

Anne Fadiman's “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” documents the continuous struggles faced between Western medicine in a California county hospital and traditional beliefs of the Hmong within a refugee family from Laos. Lia Lee, a Hmong baby, suffers from epilepsy and has many episodes of grand mal seizures. To medical professionals, seizures are episodes of abnormal neuronal brain activity. They are often caused by trauma, drug use, hypoglycemia, and hypoxia, but can also be triggered by unidentifiable internal and external causes. To the Hmong, seizures and their associated symptoms are described as qaug dab peg, or “the spirit catches you and you fall down.” This is also the Hmong translation for epilepsy, which, in chapter 3, is described as a disease that holds mystical and spiritual properties for its sufferers. The Hmong believe that epileptics can see things that other people cannot, as they are allegedly able to see into the spirit world. Chapter 4 discusses the perceptions the Hmong held of American doctors and Western medicine. The mistrust the Hmong had in Western medicine was based on a variety of factors, from doctors being

Growing up I thought of church and the bible as something that was out of my reach intellectually. With this being a central thought, I just decided to table the hearing and understanding of the truth of Jesus until I was an adult. As an adult, I have learned a great deal about what Jesus Christ was about and why He died on the cross, however, I did not think of the gospels as hinging on the kingdom of God. I knew Jesus as many people do, as my savior and one who loves me to the point of dying on a cross for my sins. Gordon Fee articulates this well as he explains Jesus' ministry and purpose of His ministry. My understanding of the gospels are now clear in that the kingdom of God is the pearl and gold nugget that we are attempting to obtain

The Case for Christ was written by Lee Strobel and Jane Vogel. The book is almost like a really big essay with a bunch of different sections, each one proving or disproving a certain point. The book focuses on disproving the existence of Jesus Christ but in the process of disproving the existence of Jesus he proves just how real Jesus is. I personally chose this book because I am a Christian and it looked interesting to see why other people who don 't already believe start to believe. Also I feel like the more I know about Jesus the more I know about God, since they are one in the same. I found this book to be extremely interesting because of all the textual and factual based evidence proving that Jesus existed.

The Gnostic Gospels written by Elaine Pagel discusses the origins of the Christian faith and the true reasons behind some of the Christian’s beliefs. Pagel claims that the theological disputes between the Orthodox Church and Gnostics in the early stages of Christianity were largely motivated by the political struggle for leadership of the religion. Orthodox Christians supported texts and interpretations to strengthen their goal which was to create an organization of believers. Gnostics, who was not necessarily seeking authority over Christianity, were eventually overshadowed by the supremacy of the Orthodox. Prior to the discovery of the artifact at Nag Hammadi in Egypt 1945 there were only had texts that support the Orthodox Christians belief, now historians were able to fully evaluate the two groups in a new prospective. Some of the writings found in this newly discovered artifact are believed to be the Gospel of Thomas and Mary Magdalene. Although Mary Magdalene does not have a book in the current bible, it is believed by many gnostic Christians that Jesus came to her in spirit after his death and passed on to her the secret knowledge of enlightenment. The new gospels that were discovered in Nag Hammadi doesn’t emphases on the birth or death of Jesus as the current biblical gospels do, but focuses more on Jesus’ life. Each chapter is devoted to a major theological problem that divides the Orthodox from the Gnostic. Pagel makes a compelling case that theological beliefs

Our experiences of suffering may also help us in our moral conduct as an experience of suffering serves to make us sympathetic to the trials of others. We learn to a) help the afflicted (through consolation and relief) and to B) not inflict harm on others, having experienced suffering ourselves. Furthermore, many spiritual seekers in the past have felt that suffering and spiritual progress are inexorably linked, pointing to St Teresa of Avila and St Francis of AssisiI as examples . I believe that if we can learn from our

Baptism in (or with) the Holy Spirit is a very important, distinctive Christian experience in the life of the believer. The basis is found in the book of Acts, specifically the event of Pentecost.

18Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.