The Unity Factor is rooted in the prayer of Jesus in John 17:20–23, a prayer that presents to us an unreachable goal. How can we ever live out Christ’s plan for us to be one in faith and mission when we are so deeply divided by social, cultural, racial, and doctrinal fault lines? Does it really matter whether or not we strengthen our bonds of mutual love and respect? What real difference does it make if we find ways to stand together and heal our tragic Christian divisions?
Today, a new generation of Christian leaders is asking: “What can we do to express our oneness before God and the world?” The answer to this question is the purpose of The Unity Factor, a book that challenges our easy acceptance of divisions while helping us envision how our future can be better than our recent past.
From the foreword by Timothy George:
"Great things in the kingdom of God often arise from small beginnings--an insignificant mustard seed yields a mighty crop, some kid's leftover lunch feeds a hungry crowd, a small candle on a stand floods the whole room with light. Thus began the quest for Christian unity in modern times. A poor journeyman shoemaker, William Carey by name, traveled to India to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with those who had never heard it. Carey was a Baptist, but he soon realized that he needed the encouragement and support of other Jesus-followers (Christians) in order to fulfill his mission.
This book by John Armstrong stands in the tradition of William Carey, Edinburgh 1910, and the Lausanne Conference at Cape Town 2010. It is a gospel-focused and Scripture-based summons for all believers who stand in the great tradition of Christian faith and life to love one another so that the world might see and know that Jesus Christ is Lord. It is a call for Christian believers of all denominations to demonstrate their love for one another by following Jesus together."
Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art is a new and complete translation of two sections that the Dutch Reformed theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper intended for his larger three-volume work on common grace. During his life Kuyper labored tirelessly, publishing two newspapers, leading a reform movement out of the state church, founding the Free University of Amsterdam, and serving as Prime Minister of the Netherlands. Popular in our time for his devotional work, Kuyper’s Wisdom & Wonder displays his talents as a public theologian, focusing on his comprehensive and Reformed vision of science and art, still relevant for Christians today.
Foreword by Gabe Lyons and Jon Tyson
Introduction by Vincent E. Bacote
Edited by Jordan J. Ballor and Stephen J. Grabill
Translated by Nelson D. Kloosterman
“Abraham Kuyper was a profound theologian, an encyclopedic thinker, and a deeply spiritual man who believed that it is the believer’s task ‘to know God in all his works.’ In a day when secular science is seeking to establish hegemony over all knowing, and when postmodern art is threatening to bring an end to art, Kuyper’s solid, Biblical insights can help to restore perspective and sanity to these two critical areas of human life.”
—Chuck Colson, Founder, Prison Fellowship and the Colson Center for Christian Worldview
“The appearance of this treatise in English translation is for me the beginning of a larger dream come true. Kuyper's writings on common grace are much needed ‘for such a time as this’ and Wisdom & Wonder is a marvelous foretaste of more that is to come!”
—Richard Mouw, President and Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary
“Abraham Kuyper’s Wisdom & Wonder is an eloquent theological antidote to the anti-intellectualist and anti-artistic impulses that infect so much of the contemporary church. Kuyper issues a clarion call for Christians to move beyond Bible study and theology, and beyond church art, to engage in these graced endeavors (science and art) in gratitude to God and out of fidelity to Christian conviction. Though Kuyper wrote these words more than one hundred years ago, they have lost none of their bite and relevance.”
—Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University, and Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia