LITMIR.BIZ

Most academics agree with Peter Berger that pluralism theory appears more accurate than secularization theory in accounting for the societal changes that accompany modernization. Yet Berger's earlier book Many Altars of Modernity gives limited attention to the implications of the pluralist paradigm for religious discourse, in particular for evangelicals. According to Berger–who wrote the first chapter in this book–while pluralism leads to less certainty about faith and creates «secular spaces,» it also, more positively, clarifies the importance of trust in God, highlights the nature of religious institutions as voluntary associations rather than birth rights, and challenges Christians to know what they believe in. Subsequent chapters respond to the first. Four responses are theoretical (e.g., challenging the concept of secular spaces, exploring social constructionism) and four are contextual (e.g., describing anti-pluralist forces in India, challenging feminists to pluralism, examining women's responses to pluralism, and exploring values in Brazil and China). The ideas are easily accessible to the lay reader and are intended to initiate a much-needed conversation about the implications of pluralist theory. We conclude that pluralism is challenging for Christian faith but, as Peter Berger says, in most ways it is «good for you.»

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The role of Evangelical Christianity in American public life is controversial. The mythology of America as a «Christian nation» and the promissory note of secularism have proved inadequate to cope with the increasing pluralism, the resilience of spirituality, and the wariness toward formal religion that mark our post-secular age. Christianity and democracy have a complex history together, but is there a future where these two great traditions draw the best out of one another? What does that future look like in a heterogeneous society? Sanders argues that democracy is stronger when it allows all of its religious citizens to participate fully in the public sphere, and Christianity is richer when it demonstrates the wisdom of God from the ground up, rather than legislating it from the top down. In this reality, the Evangelical church must return to Christianity's prophetic roots and see itself as a «community in exile,» where participation in the political is important, but not ultimate–where the substantive work of the church happens «after the election.»

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Suicide, for years, has been a public health crisis in the Western world. Yet more and more states and countries are allowing physician assisted suicide or euthanasia. Have you wondered whether it is actually wrong to end your life if you are mortally ill? Susan Windley-Daoust engages in an extended discussion with a game dialogue partner who thinks that there are five good reasons to employ physician-assisted suicide–and proves those common reasons (or «tricks of the heart») may be well-intended, but make no moral or spiritual sense. She argues that PAS is based in medical ignorance, a utilitarian understanding of the human, and a spiritual vacuum–and the Christian Church needs to engage these realities quickly and directly by recovering the art of dying well. This book is written to all those considering the issue, from those considering PAS as an option in their own lives, to those called upon to vote on the legality of PAS in their states, to those who minister to the dying.

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From the birth of Christianity and with the Christian churches' separation from Judaism, a tragic misunderstanding of marriage and divorce has occurred. Not only have we lost the understanding of biblical marriage counsel and wisdom, we have also lost the process of marriage and its biblical allowances for separation of man and wife under certain conditions. Christianity often fails to understand the biblical practice of marriage, as well as divorce and remarriage. Our Lord employed rabbinic teaching to uplift the status of women in his temple discourses with Jewish sects, such as the Sadducees and many groups of Pharisees. Unless we understand the Semitic discussion within those groups and properly translate Our Lord's response to these questions, his teaching is held in tension with that of the epistles of Paul. Jesus and Paul are dealing with different case studies together with different communities of faiths, which affects how we should interpret the general message contained in the text. These misinterpretations of this vital information have needlessly ruined the lives of many innocent victims. It is long overdue for the Christian Church to reevaluate her response to this growing problem. There is a blessing for those who will receive this teaching.

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The ethics of the Bible can be summarized in one word: love. Love became flesh in the person of Jesus–in the narrative of his life, his teachings, his death, and his resurrection. Jesus was the «Word of God» (John 1:1). Splendors of Godly Love brings a fresh perspective on age-old Christian concepts to guide us through life. Chris van der Merwe is a literary scholar who carefully analyzes biblical texts and explores the richness of their content. He reflects on seven Christian values and explains how faith, hope, righteousness, truth, humility, and joy are all connected to the central Christian virtue of love. While talking about some of the tough choices that present-day Christians have to make, and the emptiness that so many of us experience, he delves deep into the truths of the biblical texts and shares with his readers some of the wonderful wisdom of poets and writers from all over the world. He argues that the emptiness of our existence can be filled with meaning only if we seek to reflect the splendor of God's love in our daily lives.

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We shouldn't be too surprised if Jesus, the Son of David, was also a song writer. The Lord's Prayer is a psalm, and reading the prayer as a psalm opens up its meaning.
To read the Lord's Prayer as a psalm, you have to be able to read a psalm as a psalm. So this book is first of all an adventure in reading the Bible's poetry–the psalms, of course, but also much of the prophets' testimony. The Old Testament's poetry is rich in themes important to the Lord's Prayer: heaven and earth, kingship and covenant, prophetic teaching and repentance, priesthood and redemption.
Jesus brilliantly brings these strands together in the prayer through which he taught his disciples to pray. Much richer than a «laundry list» of petitions, the prayer beautifully affirms the counter-cultural kingdom of the only true God. It commits us to merciful behavior and full dependence upon–and contentment with–God's provision. The prayer is a plea that the rift between God's authority and this earth would be healed . . . all organized around images of Israel's experiences in the Exodus.

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Honest rituals are ceremonial actions that celebrate what is actually happening in people's lives. Religious rituals, however, often celebrate beliefs and doctrines (e.g., the birth of Christ, God's forgiveness of sins, or the gifts of the Holy Spirit) that have little to do with people's experience.
Martos argues that early Christian rituals were grounded in experiences such as conversion, community, commitment, and self-giving. Lacking a vocabulary to name such experiences, the authors of the New Testament and other early documents resorted to metaphors such as baptism into Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit, forgiveness by God, and the presence of Christ during worship. By the fourth century, however, those metaphors were taken to be unexperienced metaphysical realities rather than experienced realities. The medieval schoolmen developed philosophical explanations of what went on in church rituals, and the Catholic Church continues to teach that its sacraments are automatically effective despite growing evidence to the contrary.
What if religious rituals were to regain their original authenticity? What if the guiding value in designing church ceremonies was honesty rather than liturgical correctness? After liberating the reader from doctrinal constraints, Martos invites Catholics into a re-visioning of the traditional sacraments and a reawakening of ritual imagination in non-Western cultures.

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What if our actual lives aren't 'written' like a simple story? Nor like a book that flows neatly and sequentially from 'chapter-to-chapter' via a rigidly linear plot. But written, instead, through a series of creative interludes or moments. Further still, what if our lives shouldn't simply happen to us? But, rather, be lived through our affirmative acts of seeking 'life.' As part of an ongoing, active quest. A human quest for deeply spiritual lives of continuously 'becoming.'
In Unbinding the Perpetual Soul, Jeffrey C. Tucker writes via a series of essays. These diverse, accessible, engaging, creative, and provocative essays are organized around our human quests for 'being.' For to 'be' entails continuous and challenging, but highly rewarding, quests for things such as identity, wellbeing, belonging, truths, things sacred, healing, transcendence, and meaning. Questing is not an easy journey, to be sure. But it's life changing. It's exhilarating. It's exciting and rewarding. And while far from certain in its destination, one thing is for sure: you'll be a better, healthier, and far more actualized person in the process. You'll be more spiritually 'whole' and grounded. So join in this quest, if you will. An inclusive, soulful, unbinding, and life-giving one at that.

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Fecund philosophical reflections on the conceptual metaphor «rhizome» invite us to reformulate the theological engagements today with a renewed spirit. Notably, the subaltern theological engagements make use of this new move in gleaning the fruits of heterogeneity, multiple origins, horizontality, interconnections, and intersectionality. This conscious rhizomatic move is exemplified as a constructive post-colonial move and a useful tool for meaningful subaltern resistance. This move takes us beyond the entrapment of western binary opposites to the challenging cultural and political spaces of hybridity and liminality. Uncovering the underrated cultural and political spaces of subaltern religious experience is an apocalyptic/eschatological activity. Such an apocalyptic activity demands deep theological meditation and committed attention toward the multiple and heterogeneous themes like Casteism, Vedic taxonomy, Dalit spatial discourses, sacred grove, ecological crisis, racism, globalization, neoliberalism, infinite debt, resistance, etc. Such trans-disciplinary reflections contribute to the larger body of subaltern theopoetics. As a rhizome connects any point to any other point, these themes are interconnected, and intertwined rhizomatically!

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There are many differing theological perspectives in the church today. The church is often too quick to tell people they are wrong theologically–rather than pursuing a conversation that allows the body of Christ to wrestle with various theological assumptions. In God is Not Black and White, Robert Snitko seeks to disrupt the disunity within a diverse church. In a very theological yet practical way, this book roots itself in the Apostle's Creed as the foundation for Christianity, noting that Christians as a whole ought to agree on the gospel of Christ, the Trinity, and the incarnation as primary doctrines. When it comes to secondary doctrinal issues, church history proves that individuals have come to various theological conclusions. Perhaps one's theological interpretation comes from presuppositions such as upbringing, cultural context, life circumstances, or even experience. Whatever the case may be, we need to put an end to division in the church–as we seek unity within a theologically diverse church. This book urges Christians to have a theological conversation that pursues unity–as we seek to love one another in the gospel through restoration, healing, and reconciliation.

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