LITMIR.BIZ

Few questions exert such a great fascination on human conscience as those related to the meaning of life, history, and death. The belief in the resurrection of the dead constitutes an answer to a real challenge: What is the meaning of life and history in the midst of a world in which evil, injustice, and ultimately death exist? Resurrection is an instrument serving a broader, more encompassing reality: the Kingdom of God. Such a utopian Kingdom gathers the final response to the problem of theodicy and to the enigma of history. This book seeks to understand the idea of resurrection not only as a theological but also as a philosophical category (as expression of the collective aspirations of humanity), combining historical, theological, and philosophical analyses in dialogue with some of the principal streams of contemporary Western thought.

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Is Second Corinthians, one of Paul's most personal and passionate letters, better understood as a text or a performance? Using an audience-oriented method, Timothy Milinovich examines the letter as orally performed correspondence, from the view of the authorial (i.e., intended or ideal) audience. What results is an original structural analysis of 2 Corinthians 1:1–6:2, denoting twenty chiastic units and three larger macrochiastic arguments. This arrangement is intended to show what the authorial audience heard, offering a new way of understanding how Paul's letter would have been received–not based on modern thematically determined paragraphs, but on oral patterns consonant with the cultural context of the author and audience. In particular, Milinovich offers insight on the audience response to the climactic exhortation to reconciliation with the apostle in 5:16–6:2. He determines that the structure of the unit is the key to its theological and rhetorical message, which is just as much concerned with the community's relationship with Paul as with God. That is, if they are to fully receive the salvation that God intends for them, the community must be reconciled with their apostle now, at the hearing of this letter.

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The Hebrew/Christian Scriptures include many allusions to pilgrimage customs and practices, yet the information is scattered and requires a considerable amount of reconstruction. It is posited that the pilgrimage paradigm, including the journey motif, has influenced the thought patterns of the writers of both the Old and New Testaments. To follow Jesus' journey to Jerusalem on the three feasts of pilgrimage in Luke-Acts and John, and their relevance to the way he revealed himself and taught his disciples, this work begins with the creation and patriarchal narratives, examining how the pilgrimage paradigm relates to discipleship. Reviewing the history of the people of God including the Exodus, the Exile, and restoration, this book establishes the significance of pilgrimage as a paradigm for Israel that eventually shapes Judaism. Seung Y Lee points us to a neglected fact that the three feasts of pilgrimage have developed their own characters and meanings for the momentous events in the history of Israel, and both Luke-Acts and John reflect the significance of the pilgrimage paradigm for Jesus' self-understanding and his teaching.

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Empathy is generally considered a useful skill for professional students in the helping professions, such as medicine, nursing, teaching, and clergy. This book examines the pedagogical and curricular implications of educating for empathy. Empathy is described as consisting of both cognitive and affective elements. Students may demonstrate empathic abilities on a continuum from an empathic deficit to empathic overload. Mentoring, reflection, journaling, and an understanding of spiritual formation can be helpful to professional students in learning how to engage empathy. For both the professional and the client, empathy can enhance the encounter and the professional relationship. Building on the inherent potential for relationality, professionals engaging empathy bring respectful humility into their encounters that can facilitate intercultural understanding in a diversifying and complex world.

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Johannine Literature offers some of the most beautiful, majestic, and profound theology contained within the entire biblical text. Within its works can be found the highest Christology, the capstone of eschatology, and the heartbreaking struggles of a community committed to Christ. However, it does not always get the attention it deserves in New Testament studies. This book seeks to remedy that by drawing together some of the most respected biblical scholars to bring their expertise to bear on various aspects of Johannine studies that are contained within the Gospel, Epistles, and the Apocalypse. These contributions have been collected as a Festschrift in honor and celebration of the career of Benny C. Aker, a preeminent scholar, teacher, and mentor.

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Believers and teachers of faith regularly know the in-breaking of God's Spirit in their midst, when revelatory experiencing unexpectedly shifts habits of thinking, feeling, and doing toward more life-giving ways of being and becoming. When the moment is right, Spirit breathes new life into dry bones. Though religious educators have much practical wisdom about facilitating learning that is creative and transformative, sharper concepts, cases, and theory can help them do it more critically and assist learners to practice openness to wonder, surprise, and authenticity. The Grace of Playing explains how we can create the conditions for revelatory experiencing by understanding it in light of playing. The notion of playing «as if» can be powerfully reclaimed from ecclesial ambivalence, casual speech, and commercial interests that often lead playing to be associated with childishness, frivolity, or entertainment. This book theorizes adults playing for the sake of faith, drawing on D. W. Winnicott's psychoanalytic theory, a revision of Jurgen Moltmann's theology of play, biblical texts, medieval devotional practices, as well as art and aesthetics that help local faith communities engage in theological reflection. Communal forms of playing in/at God's new creation provide insights into pedagogies in which learners are creating and are created anew.

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This book proposes a theology of preaching from the perspective of the poor. Traditional homiletic methodology concentrates on the «how» of preaching. Pastro maintains that the real question for a renewal of preaching is theological, the «who» of the preaching. The center of the «who» is the Triune God living in the poor community.

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The debate over religious images was fundamental to the development of the Reformation. Even before the Reformation, iconoclasm and the critique of image devotion were marks of religious radicalism. Protestant reformers embraced iconoclasm as a means of condemning Catholic corruption and illustrating their war against idolatry. From Icons to Idols provides an accessible, important edition of primary sources on this critical aspect of the Reformation in England. The documents in this collection track the image debate across the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, highlighting the complexities and diversity of arguments and positions held by both Protestants and Catholics. The documents also demonstrate the variety of individuals who engaged in the debate over images. Included here are bishops and theologians, printers and inquisitors, cardinals and artists, suggesting that the question of idolatry was no mere academic exercise.

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Too often skeptics charge Christians with having a blind faith. Unfortunately, believers have added fuel to the charges of skeptics by speaking of their faith illogically. But the Christian faith is not a blind faith. In fact, biblical faith is never a blind, irrational faith. Christianity rests firmly on the stone that was rejected by the builders, which has become the cornerstone–Jesus Christ (Acts 4:11). Living biblically requires thinking biblically, just as «to think biblically entails to live biblically,» as Winfried Corduan notes in the Foreword.
As followers of Christ, believers cannot separate biblical thinking and biblical living. These two behaviors are eternally connected not only in the person of Jesus Christ, but they stem from the eternal being of God the Father and his eternal truth. Christ mandates that his followers love God with their entire being–heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). How are believers to go about living out this biblical mandate? Christian faith is a warranted belief. This is why it is so essential that Christians recognize the value and importance of philosophy and its proper place in Christendom and in the Christian's walk.

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What happens when North American Mennonite Christians arrive in Islamic Somalia? The answer, according to Peter Sensenig, is that something new emerges: a peace clan. From the first schools and medical work in the 1950s up to the educational partnerships of the present day, Somalis and Mennonites formed a surprising friendship that defied conventional labels. Peace Clan is the story of two deeply traditional communities as they encounter change. How can Somalis apply the profound peacemaking resources of their culture and faith in a society fragmented by violence? And how can modernizing Mennonites make sense of their peace convictions in the context of civil war and military intervention? In struggling with these questions over the course of six decades, Somalis and Mennonites held a mirror up to one another. The author shows how the common quest to transform enmity brings out the best in both communities, and suggests what a fruitful partnership might look like in the present challenges. Students, academics, and lay readers alike will find on these pages a compelling invitation to join the peace clan.

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