At a time when the Bible and Christianity are considered untrustworthy, will we choose faith or follow the culture?
This book will provide you with the facts and understanding you need to respond to difficult questions biblically and stay rooted in your faith even when others seem to be abandoning theirs.
We are living in unprecedented times when Christian leaders are renouncing their faith and large numbers of believers are falling away. Is this the final apostasy prophesied by Jesus and Paul? And can we do anything to help those struggling with their faith? In Why So Many Christians Have Left the Faith, Dr. Michael L. Brown confronts the problem of "Christian deconstruction" with solid, faith-building answers and honest responses to difficult questions. He addresses:
- What the Bible says about an end-time falling away and whether that is what we are seeing in our day;
- How solidarity with and sympathy for the LGBT movement has brought with it a rejection of biblical values;
- The effect of leadership scandals on the credibility of the gospel;
- How the me-centered gospel is contributing to the current faith crisis by putting God on trial;
- The contemporary objections to the Bible's moral standards;
- The problem of pluralism; and
- What the Bible does and doesn't say about future punishment in hell, while also examining the scriptural statement that "God is love."
Looking at the stories of those who fell away as well as the larger cultural factors, this book offers solid answers to the major attacks against the Bible and helps readers build an unshakable faith.
Despite the popular theology of our day, Christians should not expect to get out of experiencing the tribulation or the end times. Nowhere in the Bible does the Lord promise us this, say Michael Brown and Craig Keener, two leading, acclaimed Bible scholars. In fact, they say, Jesus promises us tribulation in this world.
Yet this is no reason to fear. In this fascinating, accessible, and personal book, Brown and Keener walk you through what the Bible really says about the rapture, the tribulation, and the end times. What they find will leave you full of hope. God's wrath is not poured out on His people, and He will shield us from it--as he shielded Israel in Egypt during the ten plagues. So instead of taking comfort in what God hasn't promised, take comfort in the words of Jesus: He has overcome the world, and we live in his victory.
Over the last hundred-plus years the Pentecostal-Charismatic church has witnessed miraculous conversions. From the Azusa Street Revival, which began in 1906, a movement has grown to bring more people to Jesus than any other movement in history. While secularism continues to be on the rise in today's society, many areas of the world still experience church growth, thanks to Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians. But the Pentecostal-Charismatic church is also plagued with sexual immorality, financial corruption, doctrinal error, personal flakiness, spiritual gullibility, prophetic abuse, and more. In many ways the state of the church today is not too different from how it was long ago in Corinth. To make matters worse, the church hides these acts under the cloak of liberty in the Holy Spirit. Michael Brown sounds a wake-up call to the church and addresses some of the most glaring problems, from inaccurate prophetic words that obscure true ones to ministries using scripturally armed marketing techniques in order to manipulate believers into giving. Brown shows us why we must clean up house so the church can grow, flourish, and fulfill God's kingdom purposes.
