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The spiritual formation of young people can often focus on encouraging their personal spiritual practices, and perhaps linking them to a local youth group. While both are important, Networks for Faith Formation argues that a far wider set of relationships are needed to help faith grow. The aim of Networks for Faith Formation is to describe and commend eight key networks, relational bonds that nurture and nourish faith. The eight networks are «bedroom practices» (personal faith), church, family, friends, mentors, small groups, events and gatherings, and mission and service. The description of each network draws on biblical studies, practical theology, and the social sciences, and practical ideas for helping young people engage with such networks are included throughout the book. In a context where some overlook the complexity of spiritual formation, Networks for Faith Formation is an important resource for church leaders, youth ministers, and parents seeking to help young people grow in faith. Since relational bonds are key for people of any age, it can also help all within the church understand the need for relationships in spiritual growth.

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God's invitation to join in the love feast of Holy Communion resounds at the very heart of the Christian faith and life. But how are Christians faithfully to gather together in relational bonds of love–in particular, through our daily bread and common cup–amidst a global market economy sustained by social and ecological violence? Drawing on the holiness-communitarian and agrarian-ecological traditions, Rooted and Grounded in Love provides a systematic theological affirmation of holiness as divine wholeness in examining our present industrial agro-economy while also promoting a practical vision for how Christians might participate in the emergence of a more ecologically sustaining, economically charitable, and politically just food system.

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This volume engages the Gospel of Matthew in full awareness of its inherently political character. Weaver situates Matthew's version of the «good news of the kingdom» squarely within the «real world» of first-century Palestine and its occupying power, the Roman Empire. The essays here focus prominently and collectively on the issues of power and violence that not only pervade the historically occupied Jewish community of first-century Palestine, but also are clearly visible throughout Matthew's narrative account. A «lower-level» reading of the Matthean text offers a bleak portrait of the overwhelming power and violence exerted by the Roman occupying authorities and their upper-echelon Jewish collaborators against the wider Jewish community of first-century Palestine. But an «upper-level»/"God's-eye" reading of Matthew's narrative consistently reveals the fundamental irony at the heart of the New Testament as a whole, of the Jesus story broadly conceived, and of Matthew's narrative account in specific. This irony overturns all humanly recognized definitions of «power» and demonstrates the astonishing «politics of God,» which defeats evident power through apparent powerlessness and overcomes violence through nonviolent initiatives.

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The first eleven chapters of Genesis (Adam, Eve, Noah) are to the twenty-first century what the Virgin Birth was to the nineteenth century: an impossibility. A technical scientific exegesis of Gen 1-11, however, reveals not only the lost rivers of Eden and its location, but the date of the Flood, the length of the Genesis days, and the importance of comets in the creation of the world. These were hidden in the Hebrew text, now illuminated by modern cosmology, archaeology, and biology. The internet-friendly linguistic tools described in this book make it possible to resolve the mysterious «firmament,» to decipher the «bird of the air,» and to find the dragonflies of chapter 1. Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Norse, Sumerian, and Sanskrit mythology are all found to support this new interpretation of Genesis. Combining science, myth, and the Genesis accounts together paints a vivid picture of the genetic causes and consequences of the greatest Flood of the human race. It also draws attention to the acute peril our present civilization faces as it follows the same path as its long-forgotten, antediluvian ancestors. Discover why Genesis has never been so possible, so relevant as it is today.

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The creation of humankind in the Image of God is perhaps the most foundational tenet of theological anthropology, yet it is rarely understood in the fullness of what it represents. Too often, focus is placed on the divine image as a condition. A study of the Scriptures suggests that it is better understood not as a condition, but rather as a commission of humanity to a role, specifically a priestly role.
This book delves into the recognition that the Image of God is nothing less than a divine commission over all of humanity to serve as priests within the temple of creation. It examines not only the creation of humankind as a priesthood in the opening chapters of Genesis, but also the echoes of this anthropological interpretation throughout the Scriptures and the resulting ramifications for future biblical and theological studies.

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What is African theology? What are its distinctive traits and characteristics, modes of investigation, and style of expression? Can African theology reach wider and run deeper than simple propositional articulation? What concerns and special circumstances have shaped its outlook? What unique burdens or hurdles imposed by the past must African theology surmount? What challenges and opportunities lie before it? What are African theology's prospects? As a field of Christian engagement, is it condemned to be only an appendage to theology imported from the West and the North? Or does it have a distinctive contribution to make and gifts to share, not just within the continent of Africa, but also with the Christian world at large? These questions exercise the mind and soul of the African church. A worthy capstone to a lifetime of service as a theologian, educator, and ecumenical leader, this volume offers John Samuel Pobee's considered and mature reflections on issues he raised nearly forty years ago when he published Toward an African Theology.

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The Salvation Army has now been around for more than one hundred and fifty years, having celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2015 with an International Congress in London. Over the years both the Army and the world in which it appeared have changed beyond recognition. This is a good time for the movement to stop and look back–not just to celebrate, but to see where it is today. The Army has not evolved in isolation from the world. Bringing its own history with it, it nevertheless belongs to the twenty-first century world as much as William Booth's little East End Mission belonged to nineteenth-century London. This book attempts to explore the interaction between mission and world as it has impacted the Army's beliefs and practices as well as the place it now occupies in the wider world. This critical and analytical study may also be of interest to those beyond the Army's ranks who would like to learn more about this remarkable organization.

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Lesslie Newbigin was arguably the greatest missionary thinker of the twentieth century. After a successful missionary career in south India, Newbigin pioneered missionary engagement with the secular West and resurgent Islam. He also led the way in arguing that the Church's mission can only be understood in light of the doctrine of the Trinity. Over fifty years ago, Newbigin called for the further development of missionary thinking grounded in the Triune being of God. This work is in response to that call. Adam Dodds provides the first in-depth study of Newbigin's trinitarian theology of mission. Dodds constructs a systematic account of the central features of the mission of the Triune God: the Triune being of God, the mission of the Son, the mission of the Holy Spirit, and the mission of the church. This book contributes to our understanding of the work of Lesslie Newbigin, offers a systematic theological account of the mission of the Triune God, and contributes to the retrieval of Christian mission from the theological margins back to a place of central importance to Christian theology.

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Gospel of the Absurd is a project that originates in the anarchic experiences of a crack cocaine addict who was knocked off his high horse by an experience of Jesus. Having spent years as an enemy of the faith, R. Scot Miller came back to faith with the passion of a new convert infused with a subversive's heart for turning the world upside down. In the process of stumbling every bit as much as he learned to walk in the light, Miller begins to understand that the subversive claims of the gospel of Jesus as the Christ are not only the most meaningful response to the absurdity of the world, but that such absurdity demands a community of action that makes the subversive Christ the credible response to a culture and Christendom run amok with power and greed.
Gospel of the Absurd is about an ethic informed by an absurd claim–that being the claim that voluntary sacrifice of privilege is the proper response to human brokenness and the systems of domination that have lured the church into apostasy. Miller then explores whether the church, by prioritizing care ethics over legislative or coercive justice, is the salvific experience Jesus is calling us to engage in.

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Help My Unbelief! is for a small but growing number of Christians who are asking critical questions about their faith, their church's history, and the Bible. Around the 60s CE doubts arose as tensions within Judaism escalated, questions about Jesus and his delayed return were voiced, and Roman persecutions intensified. Jesus was one of a number of itinerant preachers, miracle-workers, and insurrectionaries. What set him apart from others? Using the Gospel of Mark the author demonstrates that doubts existed within the early Christian community. Doubting Christians can take comfort that Mark addressed these issues then and thus provides a guide for living in today's ever-questioning world of faith.

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