Product Description
What does it mean to live out the theology presented in the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself"? In "Blood and Fire", Margaret M. Poloma and Ralph W. Hood, Jr., explore how understandings of godly love function to empower believers. Though godly love may begin as a perceived relationship between god and a person, it is made manifest as social behavior among people."Blood and Fire" offers a deep ethnographic portrait of a charismatic church and its faith-based ministry, illuminating how religiously motivated social service makes use of beliefs about the nature of God's love. It traces the triumphs and travails associated with living a set of rigorous religious ideals, providing a richly textured analysis of a faith community affiliated with the "emerging church" movement of Pentecostalism, one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic religious movements of our day.Based on over four years of interviews and surveys with people from all levels of the organization, from the leader to core and marginal members to the poor and addicts they are seeking to serve, "Blood and Fire" sheds light on the differing worldviews and religious perceptions between those who served in as well as those who were served by this ministry.