Mormonism is the predominant religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 30s.
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.68 million adherents involved in evangelism and an annual Memorial attendance of over 20 million. Jehovah's Witnesses are directed by the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, a group of elders in Warwick, New York, United States, which establishes all doctrines based on its interpretations of the Bible. They believe that the destruction of the present world system at Armageddon is imminent, and that the establishment of God's kingdom over the earth is the only solution for all problems faced by humanity.
In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter.
The Community of Christ, known from 1872 to 2001 as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), is an American-based international church, and is the second-largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement. The church reports 250,000 members in 1,100 congregations in 59 countries. The church traces its origins to Joseph Smith's establishment of the Church of Christ on April 6, 1830. A group of members including his eldest son Joseph Smith III formally established the current church on April 6, 1860 in the aftermath of the 1844 death of Joseph Smith.
The local churches are a Christian movement which was started in China. As per the movement all Christians "who have left the denominations, the divisive sects, and stand on the proper ground are a local church in their locality." Members of the group believe that Christian believers should emphasize the subjective experience of Christ as well as Bible interpretation concerning Christ and the church. Assemblies identifying as "local churches" can be found worldwide and have several million members.
Nondenominational Christianity consists of churches which typically distance themselves from the confessionalism or creedalism of other Christian communities by not formally aligning with a specific Protestant denomination. Often founded by individual pastors, they have little affiliation with historic denominations, but typically adhere to evangelical Protestantism, and are a type of Protestantism.
Westernization (US) or Westernisation (UK), also Europeanization/Europeanisation or occidentalization/occidentalisation, is a process whereby societies come under or adopt Western culture in areas such as industry, technology, politics, economics, lifestyle, law, norms, mores, customs, traditions, values, mentality, perceptions, diet, clothing, language, alphabet, religion, and philosophy. During colonialism it often involved spread of Christianity.
The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and popular culture.
A martyr is a person who is killed because of their testimony of Jesus and God. In years of the early church, this often occurred through death by sawing, stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word "martyr" comes from the Koine word -> μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness" or "testimony".
Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service, usually religious. The word consecration literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different groups. The origin of the word comes from the Latin stem consecrat, which means dedicated, devoted, and sacred. A synonym for to consecrate is to sanctify, a distinct antonym is to desecrate.
Stanley Martin Hauerwas is an American theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual. Hauerwas was a longtime professor at Duke University, serving as the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School with a joint appointment at the Duke University School of Law. In the fall of 2014, he also assumed a chair in theological ethics at the University of Aberdeen. Before moving to Duke and the University of Aberdeen, Hauerwas taught at the University of Notre Dame. Hauerwas is considered by many to be one of the world's most influential living theologians and was named "America's Best Theologian" by Time magazine in 2001. He was also the first American theologian to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in over forty years. His work is frequently read and debated by scholars in fields outside of religion or ethics, such as political philosophy, sociology, history, and literary theory. Hauerwas has achieved notability outside of academia as a public intellectual, even appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony is a 1989 book authored by the theologians Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon. The book discusses the nature of the church and its relationship to surrounding culture. It argues that churches should focus on developing Christian life and community rather than attempting to reform secular culture. Hauerwas and Willimon reject the idea that America or any other country is a Christian nation, instead believing that Christians should see themselves as "resident aliens" in a foreign land, using the metaphor of a colony to describe the church. Instead of conforming the world to the gospel or the gospel to the world, they believe that Christians should focus on conforming to the gospel themselves.
Prima scriptura is the Christian doctrine that canonized scripture is "first" or "above all" other sources of divine revelation. Implicitly, this view acknowledges that, besides canonical scripture, there are other guides for what a believer should believe and how he should live, such as the created order, traditions, charismatic gifts, mystical insight, angelic visitations, conscience, common sense, the views of experts, the spirit of the times or something else. Prima scriptura suggests that ways of knowing or understanding God and his will that do not originate from canonized scripture are perhaps helpful in interpreting that scripture, but testable by the canon and correctable by it, if they seem to contradict the scriptures.
In Christianity, missional living is the adoption of the posture, thinking, behaviors, and practices of a missionary in order to engage others with the gospel message. The missional church movement, a church renewal movement predicated on the necessity of missional living by Christians, gained popularity at the end of the twentieth century due to advocates like Tim Keller and others in the Gospel and Our Culture Network. Advocates contrast missional living with the concept of a select group of "professional" missionaries, emphasizing that all Christians should be involved in the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.
Ahn Sahng-hong was a Korean Christian minister and founder of the Witnesses of Jesus Church of God.
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief is a bestselling book by Francis Collins in which he advocates theistic evolution. Collins is an American physician-geneticist, noted for his discoveries of disease genes, and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP). He currently serves as the director of the US National Institutes of Health. In the book, Collins describes briefly the process by which he became a Christian.
A fresh expression of church is one of over a thousand new Christian churches or congregations that have developed within one or more Christian denominations and organisations in the United Kingdom and abroad, including the Church of England, Methodist Church, United Reformed Church, Church of Scotland, The Salvation Army, Church Mission Society, 24/7 Prayer, Ground Level Network, Congregational Federation, Christian Witness Ministries Europe and Anglican Church Planting Initiatives.
John Sirgood (1822–1885) was a Christian fundamentalist lay preacher, shoemaker and draper.
Phil Cooke is an American writer, television producer, and media consultant based in Burbank, California, as well as a critic of some aspects of contemporary American and American-influenced Christian culture. He is an evangelical Christian and, as Scott McClellan of Collide Magazine wrote, "At times, Cooke may appear to be Christian media's biggest critic but, as he is quick to point out, he criticizes because he loves."
Christian privilege is any of several advantages bestowed upon Christians in some societies. This arises out of the presumption that Christian belief is a social norm, that leads to the marginalization of the nonreligious and members of other religions through institutional religious discrimination or religious persecution. Christian privilege can also lead to the neglect of outsiders' cultural heritage and religious practices.
