Announcing the Reign of God

This book offers a program for Christian evangelism based on the teachings of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This is a superb resource volume for those wishing to test the soundness of their understanding and practice of Christian evangelism. It is solidly grounded in the ministry of Jesus and illumined by testimonial statements and experiences drawn from a cosmopolitan variety of witnesses. . . [Arias's] key contribution is the rehabilitation of the Kingdom of God as the controlling perspective for the proclamation of the gospel in word and deed. In a style helpful to scholar and nonscholar, he combs biblical sources, especially the Synoptic Gospels, in search of Jesus' own practice. The hermeneutical outlook is clearly dictated by Arias's own battle-tested experience in Bolivia, where he was bishop of the Methodist Church and where he underwent imprisonment as a consequence of his evangelistic practice. After reading this book, dichotomies are inexcusable: - proclamation or social responsibility - intra-church or extra-church evangelization - the conversion of individuals or conversion of communities. [This book] should become at least a minor classic. --Jorge Lara-Braud, Theology Today Chapter titles: The Good News of the Kingdom The Presence of the Kingdom The Imminence of the Kingdom The In-Breaking of the Kingdom The Eclipse of the Kingdom Announcing the Kingdom as Gift Announcing the Kingdom as Hope Announcing the Kingdom as Challenge End of the Eclipse? Mortimer Arias was Methodist bishop in Boliva, Professor of Hispanic Studies and Evangelization at the School of Theology, Claremont, and a member of the World Council of Churches' Commission on world Mission and Evangelism. With his wife, Esther, he coauthored the popular book The Cry of My People.