LITMIR.BIZ

"It's hard to be the only one." That single sentence from a teenage congregant sums up the conviction that motivated Christian Theology for a Secular Society.
In these dying days of Christendom, the reality that most Western Christians face is living out their faith as a minority in the midst of a culture that is at every level–personal, institutional, and societal–secular in nature. While most living in Western societies still affirm belief in God and often other vaguely recognizable Christian beliefs, these affirmations frequently have little to do with how daily life is lived. The idea that the God best known to us in Jesus Christ is actually in charge of life is foreign. For most, Christianity simply does not form an overarching system of meaning that shapes life. Instead, life is lived largely without reference to God. And to live any other way is often «hard.»
In this volume, Mark McKim sets out to «do» theology in this context. How does one explain the core historic Christian doctrines in a way that makes sense in a secular culture–and in a way that will gain a hearing? What does it mean to be the church in this new situation? Throughout, McKim asks the question, so what? as he relates Christian teachings to a secular society and to what is actually happening in the local church. McKim's goal is to enable the singing of the Lord's song in the new and strange land of a secular society.

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The author would take his readers on a ride from the Self-Revelation of the I-AM that the Lord God is with Moses, through King David, to the I-AM of the Messiah of Israel and of the Incarnation, and to the I-AM of the Dogma of the Church as the People of God. It is argued that the Grace and Truth of the Lord God cannot rightly be grasped in all of their depth in the world without becoming able to integrate both the continuity and the discontinuities of this Revelation with us, even in our own times.

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North American study of the Christian Apocrypha is known principally for its interest in using noncanonical texts to reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus, and for its support of Walter Bauer's theory on the development of early Christianity. The papers in this volume, presented in September 2013 at York University in Toronto, challenge that simplistic assessment by demonstrating that U.S. and Canadian scholarship on the Christian Apocrypha is rich and diverse. The topics covered in the papers include new developments in the study of canon formation, the interplay of Christian Apocrypha and texts from the Nag Hammadi library, digital humanities resources for reconstructing apocryphal texts, and the value of studying late-antique apocrypha. Among the highlights of the collection are papers from a panel by three celebrated New Testament scholars reassessing the significance of the Christian Apocrypha for the study of the historical Jesus. Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier demonstrates the depth and breadth of Christian Apocrypha studies in North America and offers a glimpse at the achievements that lie ahead in the field.

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During the past century, an enormous effervescence of events changed the sociopolitical configuration of the world. The interpretation of these facts helped further deepen the crisis in which modern thought already found itself–and it generated the uncertain and unstable environment in which we live today, the so-called postmodernity, late modernity, or hypermodernity. In this context, one of the most profound impacts is most certainly the one on religion. During the twentieth century, religion proved not to be banished from the human horizon as the masters of suspicion intended. Known as the godless century, the twentieth century saw also a resuscitation of the search for the sense of life and spirituality. With the crisis of modern reason, humankind turned toward consumerism and provisional and «light» practices. The last century represents not only the height of the postmodernization process but also the rescue of the transcendent and absolute, even if it is an absolute without face and identity. It is in this scenario that religious experiences, apparently exiled by modern rationality, begin to occur and multiply again. Mystical experiences will be, then, the basis for highlighting recurrent characteristics with universal import. But they will show a different configuration than before. One will be able to find them not in so-called sacred spaces but in very secular ones; not so much within institutions but at the borders, or even outside them; not configured by a specific tradition but in an interface that makes more than one tradition meet and dialogue.

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How does starting with women's statements that «God was there» in the moment of wartime violence shift the ways we think about religion, conflict, and healing? Religion and health scholar Annie Hardison-Moody examines this interdisciplinary question through several lenses–postconflict feminist theory, practical theology, and feminist and womanist theory and theology. Drawing on participatory fieldwork with a Liberian community in North Carolina, Hardison-Moody argues that religion matters for many survivors of violence, and that this fact must be taken into account in international conversations about women, violence, and healing. Consequently, she looks beyond the institutional forms of religion, instead studying the ways women live and profess healing and transformation as a part of their everyday lives. This, she argues, is the crucial task for postconflict transformation work. Understanding these «everyday» ways women experience and heal from violence is central to advancing our conceptions of healing and peace as they exist in a world rife with conflict. Scholars, activists, and caregivers will be able to draw on this resource as they attempt to understand and practice healing and transformation with those who have experienced violence and trauma.

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A lot has been said about the atonement theology of the theologians, but what of ordinary believers and their church leaders? What, if anything, have they done with «penal substitution» or with «Christus Victor»? How, if at all, have these doctrinal approaches helped ordinary Christians to live more devoted lives or lead good church services? Ben Pugh takes the temperature of the church at various points in its history right up to the present day, noting particular emphases that can be detected in various expressions of personal and corporate faith–whether these be hymns, sermons, magazines, or devotional texts. The book aims not only to describe what the implied atonement theologies of the church have in reality been but also to explore why these have taken the forms that they have. This exploration will shed some fresh light on current debates, building on the findings of the author's earlier work, Atonement Theories: A Way through the Maze.

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Dying Is Not Death examines from a traditional humanistic position the act of dying. The author views death as a universal experience that can and perhaps should force us to explore various technological intrusions upon it. Each chapter is an independent narrative, and some chapters tell stories of those struggling to die when confronted with the medical system's technological artifacts. Recounting different persons' experiences of death, Lee Hoinacki suggests that the medical system's conventional approaches to dying and death can distort our preparation for this most important experience.
Borrowing from Jacques Ellul and Ivan Illich, Hoinacki acknowledges technology as an all-embracing system with powerful symbolic effects on the human condition and argues to a conflict between faith and technology. Indeed, with Ellul, he holds that in order to criticize technology, one must find some «place» outside the technological milieu that would act as a kind of Archimedean lever. One must somehow get to the Beyond to judge where one stands in the world.

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In this volume, an attempt is undertaken to highlight the genesis, progress, and transformation of Asian contextual theology of minjung, introducing its historical point of departure, its development, and its transformation in light of younger Korean and Korean American scholars' endeavors. In this regard, the new Asian contextual theology, which is emerging, strives to integrate both minjung and the wisdom of World Religions into its own framework and direction, assuming the character of a public theology and remaining humble and open before God's mystery while featuring its association with minjung in a holistic way.

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Kenneth Vaux advocates an Abrahamic theology as a dynamic and ethical axis for science and technology and argues for its continuing salience for a vital and humane science. He demonstrates a historical correlation between an Abrahamic theological tradition (monotheism and venturism) and the rise of science.
Vaux illustrates these developments in the work of six scientists: Avicenna, Boyle, Schweitzer, and Teilhard, as well as contemporaries Amartya Sen and Leon Kass. In the course of his discussion, Vaux engages the contemporary dialogue between religion and science.

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The Anabaptist tradition, originating as part of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, has from its beginning presented an alternative approach to Christian faith. Jesus-centered Anabaptist convictions such as pacifism, simple living, and community remain of vital concern for twenty-first-century Christians.
Embodying the Way of Jesus: Anabaptist Convictions for the Twenty-First Century traces the origins and historical expressions of Anabaptist faith and then suggests ways Anabaptist convictions speak to our contemporary world.
Ted Grimsrud proposes a fourfold approach to interpreting Anabaptist theology, considering themes from the Bible, from the tradition's history, from present experience, and from envisioning a hopeful future. What emerges is an engaging portrait of a living tradition that speaks with urgency and relevance to a world badly in need of a message of peace.

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