LITMIR.BIZ

Can there be a greater folly than writing a book about love? But how can we avoid that most basic of all desires and commands? Yet we are very poor lovers, as our history demonstrates. If God is love, though, can we find help in considering the love of Jesus Christ, and the love of Jesus thought of in terms of what T. F. Torrance called «the vicarious humanity of Christ»? This would mean that we realize our inability and the Son of God's ability to love on our behalf and in our place. Such a love mirrors the love of the Son for the Father in the Spirit, a love that reflects his eternal triune love. Therefore, could we have new perspectives on our relationships, the love of ourselves, of God, and the neighbor? How essential is love to being human, and what kind of love? What does it mean to «love your enemies»? What is the relationship between justice and love? And what are the fruits of love, the evidence of genuine love? Christian D. Kettler explores these issues in the context of the living reality of the vicarious humanity of Christ.

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The hour of Jesus is a fundamental theme running throughout John's Gospel (2:4–19:27) referring to Jesus' glorification (7:39; 12:16, 23, 28; 13:31, 32; 16:14; 17:1, 5) in his passion and death (3:14; 8:28; 12:32, 34). Immediately after the culmination of Jesus' hour (19:25-30) John provides a unique account of things that took place following Jesus' death (19:31-34), apparently important to his audience (19:35), in which he recognizes scriptural fulfillment (19:36-37). At first glance, the fulfillment attested by the scriptures explicitly provided seems straightforward and of little significance, simply corresponding with the fundamental elements of the narrative in 19:32-33. Yet such an understanding runs contrary to John's limited use of explicit Scripture citations (compared with the other evangelists) at a most critical moment in the Gospel. Rather, consistent with his allusive and engaging style, the evangelist relies on his audience to utilize the context he provides and the contexts he has presumed throughout his Gospel to perceive the depth and the expansiveness of the fulfillment he has recognized in Jesus' hour. It is through these contexts that we gain greater insight into the fulfillment attested by John 19:36-37, illuminating Jesus' hour and the entire Gospel.

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We have too often missed the point that it is the community of faith, the church, that is called to be a sign, instrument, and in particular a foretaste of the reign of God. So what would an appetizer of God's coming reign look like anyway? The focus of this book is not only on what a church does but how it goes about doing what it does. The common life and shared ministry of the church are a powerful witness to God's loving and reconciling activity. A world wracked with fear, incivility, win-lose competition, and anger calls for churches that manifest the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This book dives into the key leadership behaviors that cultivate transformed and transforming faith communities–skills that every church leader and leadership team need to know, learn, and practice.

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This book is an exercise in a thoroughgoing narrative theology. The social and legal validation of same-sex relationships in the West over the last two decades has presented an immense challenge to the church insofar as it seeks to remain faithful to Scripture. But it is not an isolated ethical problem. It is just one element–albeit a very important one–in the much broader, long-term overhaul and reorientation of Western culture after the collapse of the Christian consensus. The forces of history that are driving this transformation, however, have also alerted us to the historical perspectives that constrained biblical thought. Andrew Perriman suggests that Paul's argument about same-sex behavior, perhaps more clearly than any other issue, highlights the narrative shape of the mission of the early church in the Greek world. By the same token, we must ask how that storyline has been refracted across the boundary of modernity, and how it now shapes the mission of the church as it adapts to its marginalized position in an aggressively secular world.

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In a pluralistic world of competing truth claims, how can one discern what is truly representative of God? How can we live and communicate what is authentically «spiritual?» How do we bridge the religious impasse between believers and a post-Christendom and pluralistic context where individuals may consider themselves to be spiritual, yet are offended by the person of Jesus? Can relativism be an effective means of evaluating truth from falsehood? What role should race, gender, and socioeconomic background play in society and the church? These are just a few of the questions this study addresses in presenting a more balanced, dialogical, and biblical criterion for authentic spirituality. The insights on how to discern, live, and communicate what is authentically spiritual are significant for interreligious and ecumenical dialogue across denominations. These insights contribute a way to more effectively communicate divine truths to all, for it is conversant with various sources of knowledge about God and is accountable to feedback from these sources of truth. For example, tacit knowledge such as that derived from faith, and spiritual gifts, as well as rational, or philosophical claims to truth, along with Western, Eastern, and Southern modes of thinking, are all incorporated.

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Are you living as God's burning bush, without being consumed? Or might you be headed toward burnout? We will rediscover the blessing of this mutual love relationship with God, overflowing to others, as God's sheer gift. Could it be that the first and greatest commandment is for our greatest joy, and not some mysterious burden to fulfill? One metaphor is the vine and the branches from John 15:1-11. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches; apart from the vine the branch can do nothing. God wants to be our supply, our source, in an intimate encounter of the finite with the infinite. God was the source for these heroes of faith: Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Clairvaux, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, John Calvin, and Teresa of Avila. Using a descriptive process called the Classic Three Ways, including the purgative (letting go), illuminative (seeing with the heart), and unitive (intimacy), dating back to around 500 CE, we now add a fourth way, the unitive/active (the dance). From that dance of mutual love, ministry overflows. We do it together; it is participatory, humankind following God's lead. It's not a formula. It's our living God!

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"Christians are called to love Muslims in all their little particularities." This was the advice Duncan Black MacDonald, famous scholar of Islam and teacher of missionaries to Muslim lands, gave to his students. His words from a hundred years ago remain true today. This book invites the reader to explore Islam as a human religion, a religion embodied in what Muslims believe and value. Learning about Islam through the beliefs and values that Muslims hold, the reader will be prepared to engage in fruitful conversation with Muslim neighbors, and better understand their struggles and aspirations. Along the way the reader will learn about Muhammad and the Qur'an, discover the rich history of Islamic civilizations, and learn the ways contemporary Muslims confront the challenges of the modern world. The reader will meet poets, mystics, theologians, and everyday people living out their response to God's call to Islam, to submission and peace, and will compare Muslim beliefs to Christian beliefs, learning how they coincide and differ. By the end the reader will have a richer understanding of Muslims and the religion of Islam, and will have explored the most fruitful ways to relate to the Muslim neighbors they are obliged to love.

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After Jesus glanced at the temple coin, he said, «Render to Caesar.» This book's title and theme are based upon Jesus' command to give allegiance to both the state and God. Coauthor David Bentley is the historian-theologian who reads and translates the coins' messages. Coauthor Brad Yonaka is the geologist-scientist who finds the copper, silver, and gold coins which are on display in nearly one hundred photo-figures throughout the text. Our God is represented by the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam); his divine name has appeared on coins since biblical times. Even the most theologically astute readers will be surprised by our introduction of Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila as «tabernacle-makers» not «tent-makers.» Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, a few ancient Persian empires, the Islamic caliphs, and Qur'anic messages are present in this book. Each stamped their impressions on civilization. When Lincoln added «In God We Trust» during the Civil War, was it as Jesus commanded, a combination of honoring divine and governmental authorities? Or was it a counterfeit trust in dead presidents or self?

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In Jesus and the Politics of Mammon, Phelps uses contemporary critical theory, continental philosophy, and theology to develop a radical reading of Jesus. Phelps argues that theological traditions have on the whole blunted Jesus' teachings, particularly in regard to money and related concerns of political economy. Focusing on the distinction between God and Mammon, Phelps suggests instead that Jesus' teachings result in a politics that is anti-money, anti-work, and anti-family. Although Jesus does not provide a specific program for this politics, his teachings incite readers to think otherwise with respect to these institutions.

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The language of perfection crops up regularly in the Bible, from Noah («a just man and perfect in his generations,» KJV) to Jesus («be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect,» NRSV). Is flawless behavior what God expects, the only standard of righteousness that can satisfy him? Jewish tradition has long questioned this Christian assumption. Since Sanders and the New Perspective on Paul, it has come under increasing challenge from many directions. In Reclaiming Human Wholeness, Kent Yinger provides an in-depth examination of what the Bible intends with this perfection-wholeness language and of its impact on theology and spiritual life. Rather than calling to an unreachable perfection, the God of the Bible desires our flourishing and wholeness.

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