A self-styled "theological novel," The Cappuccino Club blows the doors off traditional Christian evangelism with a bold new approach to the gospel. Few will read this book with a neutral reaction. Some may throw it in the trash and warn their friends against it. Others will want to give a copy to everyone they know. One thing is certain—the message of Jesus in the gospels will not be the same after this astonishing read. Whatever your interest in Christianity—whether you are an atheist wanting to know more, or a Christian hungry for a deeper understanding of your faith—this book will rock your preconceptions to the core.
In The Cappuccino Club, Michael Phillips takes his readers on a mind-stretching personal experience that explores the age-old conundrum of hell. Many will find The Cappuccino Club a welcome companion to the author's absorbing fantasy Hell and Beyond. You are sure to fall in love with the characters in this unusual novel, as they journey together along unexpected pathways of discovery.
A Sacrifice of Obedience was written through the years 2002 and 2003 as an intended sequel to Make Me Like Jesus. It was never published.
Fifteen years have now passed. As I look at the world around me, it seems less likely than ever that Christians in very large numbers will be drawn to a message about sacrifice or obedience. And I am no different. I resist both imperatives just like everyone else. I had hoped by this time in my life to be a little further along.
But obedience remains the bull’s eye of the Christian faith, and the very personal bull’s eye of my own life. Thus, the time at last seems right to revisit this manuscript and share it with whatever fellow pilgrims there may be on that isolated and occasionally lonely path.
You who read these words may be few. Even in Christendom, where the image of the cross looms large in the imaginations and theologies of its many churches and their members, the actual cross-life of sacrifice and obedience is not so well known.
Yet to such a life we are called. It is the only life to which we are called.
Let us, then, courageously explore together a few high points along the Lord’s earthly Calvary road to see what they have to reveal about that life.
In the antebellum South, Richmond and Carolyn Davidson live lives of ease as wealthy plantation owners. But even though their wealth and livelihood depends on slave ownership, their Christian consciences speak against the practice.
When the Davidsons decide to follow their own moral judgment and God’s will by freeing their slaves, they face consequences they never could have anticipated. Risking their lives as an important link in the Underground Railroad helping runaway slaves escape to the Northern states, the Davidsons must rely on their wits—and God’s protection—to stay alive.
