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Saying Yes to God is written to help maturing Christians better recognize the voice of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit. The book is a practical resource for those looking for fresh insight to break through barriers and personal limitations in their relationship with God. In effect, this book offers hope to all those who earnestly want to know God better and to live Christ-centered, Spirit-led lives. Readers will not feel judged or shamed, but will hear a gentle but firm and persistent call to believe that God truly is at work in their lives, calling and leading them. Not only can they learn to recognize the Spirit's voice better, but they can learn how to work with God in tremendously satisfying and fruitful ways. This book's particular contribution lies in its simple presentation of important spiritual concepts, use of illustrations drawn from the author's spiritual life coaching practice and global teaching ministry, and special emphasis on how to love others better as an outflow of one's faith and personal relationship with God.

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How do children read the Bible? This book makes a major contribution to this underexplored area by analyzing how children interpret Bible stories, focused around an empirical investigation of one group of eleven- to fourteen-year-old children, and their readings of the Gospel of Luke. The first section of the study establishes the nature of the text and the readers in this project: exploring the Gospel of Luke as a narrative of Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection, and then looking at the developmental traits of children as readers. The next section offers a model account of how biblical scholars can investigate empirical readings of Scripture, by describing the methods used to bring together one group of child readers and Luke. The third section then analyzes the resulting multitude of interpretations that the children offered in their reading of the book, concentrating on the key trends in their interpretive strategies. It critiques the children's readings of Luke, but it also points to some of the surprising and beneficial results of reading Luke using the interpretive strategies of a child.

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"How can you be a Christian and a philosopher at the same time?" This question has haunted Vance Morgan ever since it was posed by a good friend almost thirty years ago. Freelance Christianity is rooted in Morgan's conviction that, far from being fundamentally opposed, truly philosophical energies and a commitment to a vibrant, lived faith are complementary, mutually supporting, and marks of a healthy quest for the divine. This book brings together his training as a philosopher and experience as a person of faith in an investigation of how the life of faith can be lived with a rigorous commitment to the pursuit of knowledge in real time.

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Can a Lutheran be sociopolitically radical? Can a radical be theologically and faithfully Lutheran? This book answers yes. Written by teacher-scholars from five ELCA colleges, Radical Lutherans/Lutheran Radicals follows Martin Luther, Soren Kierkegaard, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothee Soelle, and others as they sink deep roots in the Lutheran Christian tradition while simultaneously resisting the status quo with their words, their deeds, and sometimes their very lives. Each chapter shows how the Lutheran theologian returns to the roots of Luther's life and writing and puts them toward radical social and political ends, including critiques of cultured Christianity; resistance to state or market; preferential options for the poor and suffering; deep commitments to peace, justice, and ecological sustainability; and direct nonviolent resistance. The book highlights theological themes popularized by Luther (justification by grace, two-kingdoms thinking, theology of the cross, and vocation) and then shows how these theological staples–when deeply and creatively retrieved–can inform political protest, intentional living, and other countercultural movements. The compelling claim throughout is that Luther's theology at its root has resources for radical political participation and social transformation, as exemplified by the writings and lives of these radical Lutherans/Lutheran radicals.

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Since the Second Vatican Council the place of Mary in theology and generally in the life of the Church has been at times muted. This is perhaps understandable given the debates concerning Mary's «place» in the documents of Vatican II. In an ecumenical age, it was argued, the church needed a less triumphalist Mariology and piety with a greater focus on Mary as model disciple. In certain respects this has led to a dichotomy between the continued Marian piety of many faithful (and, truth be told, the piety of the post-conciliar popes) and a theological timidity concerning Mary. This collection of chapters seeks to address the current situation of Mariology. Taken as a whole these chapters represent a welcome call for renewal and reawakening in Mariology. The collection is also delightfully eclectic, both in terms of topics covered and in terms of the denominational and academic backgrounds of the authors.

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It is difficult to be hopeful in the midst of daily news about the effects of climate change on people and our planet. While the Christian basis for hope is the resurrection of Jesus, unfortunately far too many American Protestant Christians do not connect this belief with the daily witness of their faith. This book argues that the resurrection proclaims a notion of hope that should be the foundation of a theology of creation care that manifests itself explicitly in the daily lives of believers. Christian hope not only inspires us to do great and courageous things but also serves as a critique of current systems and powers that degrade humans, nonhumans, and the rest of creation and thus cause us to be hopeless. Belief in the resurrection hope should cause us to be a different sort of people. Christians should think, purchase, eat, and act in novel and courageous ways because they are motivated daily by the resurrection of Jesus. This is the only way to be hopeful in the age of climate change.

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There is widespread understanding of the close connection between religion and the ecological crisis, and that in order to amend this crisis, theological resources are needed. This monograph seeks to contribute to this endeavor by engaging the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His theology is particularly suitable in this context, due to its open-ended nature, and to the prophetic and radical nature of the questions he was prepared to ask–that is why there are many other attempts to contextualize Bonhoeffer's theology in areas that he himself has not directly written about. In this monograph, Steven van den Heuvel first of all addresses the question of how to translate Bonhoeffer's theology in a methodologically sound way. He settles on a modified form of the general method of correlation. Then, secondly, van den Heuvel sets out to describe five major concepts in Bonhoeffer's work, bringing these into critical interplay with discussions in environmental ethics and eco-theology. In making the correlations he thoroughly describes each concept, situating it in the historic and intellectual background of Bonhoeffer's time. He then transposes these concepts to contemporary environmental ethics, describing what contribution Bonhoeffer's theology can make.

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This is the first comparative study of the self and no-self in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. In spite of doctrinal differences within these three belief systems, they agree that human beings are in a predicament from which they need to be liberated. Indian religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, share the belief that human nature is inherently perfectible, while the epistemological and psychological limitation of the human being is integral to Christian belief. Regarding the immortality of the human being, Hinduism and Christianity traditionally and generally agree that human beings, as atman or soul, possess intrinsic immortality. On the contrary, Buddhism teaches the doctrine of no-self (anatta). Further, in their quest to analyze the human predicament and attempt a way out of it, they employ different concepts, such as sin and salvation in Christianity, attachment (tanka) and enlightenment (nirvana) in Buddhism, and ignorance (avidya) and liberation (moksa) in Hinduism. This volume seeks to show that that behind these concepts are deep concerns related to human existence and its relationship with the whole creation. These common concerns can be a basis for a greater understanding and dialogue between Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists.

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This book is a collaboration between a biblical scholar (Mary Ann Beavis) and a practical theologian (HyeRan Kim-Cragg) who are concerned with the way that the Bible is portrayed and interpreted in popular culture, including but not limited to the movies. This concern points to a need for a conversation, examining what the Bible actually says, in order to uncover transformations and distortions of the biblical stories in the wider culture–including Christian culture. Our conversation is counter-cultural, not in an oppositional way, but taking an alternative posture that aims to provide different insights by drawing from and closely looking at the Bible. The chapters take a Christian canonical approach, articulating «what the Bible says» (and doesn't say) with regard to culturally pervasive themes such as sin and salvation, Christ and Antichrist, heaven and hell, in contrast to popular understandings as disseminated in (primarily) film, advertising, television, etc. We hope that together we will open up fertile academic, ecclesial, and secular space for disclosing loaded cultural and ideological views towards offering positive and intriguing insights embedded in the Bible.

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The world needs leaders who are prepared to dismantle injustice. Through the story told in the Song of Solomon, you will learn to use the one tool that heals both victim and oppressor: God's love. This once popular interpretation of the Song of Solomon details a young woman's struggle between submitting to King Solomon as his sex slave and accepting her beloved Shepherd's invitation to come away. The scholars who subscribed to this interpretation believed the Song of Solomon was a rallying cry to dismantle the injustices perpetuated by the unpopular King Solomon against his Northern Kingdom. Was this interpretation buried in modern times to justify slavery and segregation? You will need to judge for yourself. The book is divided into eight lessons, each ending with a suggested spiritual practice. The reader gets a solid understanding of the Song of Solomon wrapped around an unforgettable parable: the story of an African-American baseball coach turned congressional representative, who, influenced by the Song of Solomon, spent his life dismantling injustice. The Disorderly Parable Bible Studies teach the way Jesus taught, by using stories of everyday people and things to illustrate spiritual truths.

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