{"product_id":"the-church-event-call-and-challenge-of-a-church-protestant-9780800663322","title":"The Church Event: Call and Challenge of a Church Protestant","description":"\u003cp\u003eOften nowadays one hears affirmations of spirituality and even religious life but rarely of institutional religion. Is the church dying?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNoted theologian Vtor Westhelle urges an emphatic no and traces the church crisis to an \"ecclesiological deficit,\" a lack of serious reflection on the real role of church as an ideal community and an institutional reality. He finds real consensus among the Reformers on what church should mean, and he traces the competing historical notions of church, their relations to the sources of Protestant religious conviction, and the gradual erosion of a sense for what it is the church actually \"represents.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWesthelle advances a new model of church, grounded in Trinitarian thought, social anthropology, and biblical reflection. He then shows how this notion of church well positions Christian communities to deal with the public sphere, religious pluralism, globalization, and communal prayer. In doing so, Westhelle claims a space for Protestant Christianity in today's world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWesthelle, Vitor:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003eUntil his untimely death in 2018, \u003cb\u003eVitor Westhelle\u003c\/b\u003e was professor of systematic theology at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. A prolific writer and teacher, he was author of several books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Scandalous God: The Use and Abuse of the Cross\u003c\/i\u003e (Fortress, 2006), and co-editor of several others.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Augsburg Fortress Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51259962851602,"sku":"9780800663322","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_435060b9-6d2e-4a48-956a-41fe8ff1424e.jpg?v=1746633352","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-church-event-call-and-challenge-of-a-church-protestant-9780800663322","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}