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Mark for the Nations is a translation by the author of his Swedish commentary on the Gospel of Mark. It is meant both for students of theology and for pastors, as well as for lay people. Hartman reads Mark's Gospel through the eyes of an early Gentile-Christian reader. For this reason he quotes much material from the Hellenistic world in translation. To some extent this material appears here for the first time in a gospel commentary. The analysis makes use of literary criticism and text linguistics, but avoids the technical terminology. To stimulate a modern reader's understanding of the evangelist's message to his first-century audience Hartman has endeavored to translate traditional terms into slightly more common language.

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The Christian axis has shifted dramatically southward to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, so much so that today there are more Christians living in these southern regions than among their northern counterparts. In the case of Africa, the African Initiated Churches-founded by Africans and primarily for Africans-has largely contributed to the exponential growth and proliferation of the Christian faith in the continent. Yet, even more profoundly, these churches espouse a brand of Christianity that is indigenized and thoroughly contextual. Further, the power and popularity of the AICs, beyond the unprecedented numbers joining these churches, are attributed to their relevance to the existential everyday needs and concerns of their adherents in the context of a postcolonial Africa. At the heart of Christian theology is Christology-the confessed uniqueness of Christ in history and among world religions. Yet this key feature of Christianity, as with other important elements of the Christian faith, may be variously understood and re-interpreted in these indigenous churches. The focus of this study is the amaNazaretha Church, an influential religious group founded by the African charismatic prophet Isaiah Shembe in 1911 in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The movement today claims a following of some two million adherents and has proliferated beyond the borders of South Africa to neighboring countries in Southern Africa. The book addresses the complex and at times ambivalent understanding of the person and work of Christ in the amaNazaretha Church, presenting the genesis, history, beliefs, and practices of this significant religious movement in South Africa, with broader implications for similar movements across the continent of Africa and beyond.

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This study examines the use of the term «sinner» in Luke-Acts. There is at present no scholarly consensus on the identity of the «sinner» in the Synoptic Gospels. Although the term is important in the Gospel of Luke, few works target the role of the sinner in it. Even fewer address the curious absence of «sinner» in Acts.
Luke's narrative of Jesus' mission to «sinners,» together with the comments about Gentiles in the gospel, prepare readers for the mission to Gentiles in Acts. Luke provides a link for readers by demonstrating how a Jewish religious sect made up of fishermen, toll-collectors, and «sinners,» who claimed to have found the Messiah, became a religion with a wide Gentile following. In his use of the term «sinner,» Luke suggests that «repentant Jewish sinners» and «repentant Gentile» followers of Jesus represent a fulfillment of God's promise of universal salvation.

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A rather acrimonious divorce is underway between evangelical theology and foundationalism–especially among younger evangelical proteges less directly connected with the modernist-fundamentalist controversy than are their professors. These primarily younger evangelical thinkers are almost certainly reading and engaging more of Derrida than Descartes; more interested in doing theology and philosophy for the church than for the academy; more in tune with Wesley's than Warfield's theology; more interested in applying the Bible than defending it; more concerned with the hermeneutics of Gadamer and Ricoeur than (Arno) Gabelein and (A.T.) Robertson; more occupied with the philosophical method of Heidegger than Hegel; more moved by the epistemology of Kierkegaard and Barth than by Kant and Bultmann; and finally, more comfortable with postmodern than modern culture. Such major moves are undoubtedly altering the face of evangelical theology–or more accurately, theology done by evangelicals: even more particularly for this study, theological epistemology written by evangelicals. In Revitalizing Theological Epistemology Steven B. Sherman addresses questions about what evangelical theology ought to be doing in light of the changing cultural situation. Should the Christian faith continue to be presented and defended mainly according to Enlightenment principles when growing criticism of modern thought is affecting virtually every discipline? Is this critique merely a matter of the latest societal trend, or is this a much larger phenomenon virtually encompassing the West? Ought evangelicalism and its intellectual leaders to «wait it out» or should they «re-vision» their theology? And if something does require reconsideration, exactly what is it, and what might this re-examination entail? This book is about contemporary evangelical approaches to the knowledge of God, considering–and suggesting–ways Christian philosophers and theologians envision and make use of theological knowledge in the postmodern context.

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Friedrich Schleiermacher, the «father of modern theology,» found his voice first in preaching. This book demonstrates how Schleiermacher moved between the critical reading of Scripture, the proclamation of Christian faith to congregations over a forty-five-year period, and, eventually, the work of theology in all its disciplines. Schleiermacher's Preaching, Dogmatics, and Biblical Criticism is the first work to fully unveil this interaction by focusing on Schleiermacher's 228 known sermons on the Gospel of John. Kelsey shows in detail 1) how the central insights of his theology emerged first in his preaching, and 2) that his dogmatic writings provided a context within which these insights could be related to all the major doctrinal themes of Christian faith. The study concludes by drawing implications for theological reflection and its relation to worship life in our own time.

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It is the thesis of this study that in Calvin's theology, poverty and affliction–not splendor and glory–mark and manifest the kingdom of God on earth. Poverty makes the kingdom visible to the eyes and therefore recognizable as divine. Poverty acts to reveal or disclose that which is spiritual, or that which is «of God» in the Christian faith. This does not mean that Calvin sees the condition of physical poverty as revelatory in and of itself. Rather, poverty and affliction function as agents of divine revelation. They are a condition or a chosen instrument God uses to disclose to humanity the nature of true spirituality, godliness, and poverty of spirit. How this is demonstrated in Calvin's thought depends upon the specific doctrine under examination. This study explores three particular areas in Calvin's theology where his theological understanding of spiritual poverty and physical poverty (or affliction) intersect–his Christology, his doctrine of the Christian life, and his ecclesiology.

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This volume celebrates the unique contributions of Helmut Koester, who has been a leader for fifty years as scholar, professor, editor, and mentor. Having studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Marburg, Koester was a student of both Gunther Bornkamm and Rudolf Bultmann. He began teaching at Harvard Divinity School in 1958, where he is currently John H. Morison Research Professor of Divinity and Winn Research Professor of Ecclesiastical History. He is the chair of the New Testament Editorial Board of Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible and long-time editor of Harvard Theological Review (1975-1999). Among his numerous publications are Trajectories through Early Christianity (with James M. Robinson); Ancient Christian Gospels; History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age; History and Literature of Early Christianity; and The Cities of Paul: Images and Interpretations from the Harvard Archaeology Project (CD-ROM). He was President of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1991 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Humboldt University (Berlin) in 2006.

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Recognizing that one-third of the world's Christians practice their faith outside Europe and North America, the fourteen essays in Mother Tongue Theologies explore how international fiction depicts Christianity's dramatic movement South and East of Jerusalem as well as North and West. Structured by geographical region, this collection captures the many ways in which people around the globe receive Christianity. It also celebrates postcolonial literature's diversity. And it highlights non-Western authors' biblical literacy, addressing how and why locally rooted Christians invoke Scripture in their pursuit of personal as well as social transformation. Featured authors include Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constantine Cavafy, Scott Cairns, Chinua Achebe, Madam Afua Kuma, Earl Lovelace, V. S. Reid, Ernesto Cardenal, Helena Parente Cunha, Arundhati Roy, Mary Martha Sherwood, Marguerite Butler, R. M. Ballantyne, Rudyard Kipling, Nora Okja Keller, Amy Tan, Albert Wendt, and Louise Erdrich.
Individual essayists rightly come to different conclusions about Christianity's global character. Some connect missionary work with colonialism as well as cultural imperialism, for example, and yet others accentuate how indigenous cultures amalgamate with Christianity's foreignness to produce mesmerizing, multiple identities. Differences notwithstanding, Mother Tongue Theologies delves into the moral and spiritual issues that arise out of the cut and thrust of native responses to Western Christian presence and pressure. Ultimately, this anthology suggests the reward of listening for and to such responses, particularly in literary art, will be a wider and deeper discernment of the merits and demerits of post-Western Christianity, especially for Christians living in the so-called post-Christian West.

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Among the theological loci pneumatology is one of the most stimulating, exciting, and difficult topics to study; it is also one of the most rewarding. The identity and mission of the Holy Spirit is pervasive throughout Scripture and the Great Tradition, and within contemporary Christianity it is one of the most popular topics currently being explored. Here ten scholars present twelve essays spanning biblical, hermeneutical, theological, and practical disciplines. The result is not an evangelical pneumatology in systematic fashion, nor is it a comprehensive theology of the Holy Spirit. Rather, this volume presents explorations in pneumatology from a variety of evangelical scholars working in varying contexts (mostly the South Pacific basin) but each wrestling equally with what the Spirit of Truth is saying to the churches today. This is a work of outstanding scholarship with essays by Canadian theologian Gary Badcock and a cast of established and emerging Kiwi-or New Zealand-theologians, which gives the work a unique contextual flavor alongside its ecumenical and evangelical commitment.

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The great American pastor-theologian Jonathan Edwards remains undeniably relevant today, more than 250 years after his death, as attested by the unending flurry of articles, books, and dissertations treating him. Despite this, virtually nothing has been written concerning Edwards's views on worship, a subject central to the Christian faith, and certainly to Edwards himself. This volume explores Edwards's perspective on both public and private dimensions of worship, aspects of which rise from well-understood Puritan categories, and proposes the practice of self-examination as a bridge between public and private devotion.
As Ken Minkema, of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale, writes in the foreword, «Ted Rivera's study is the first that systematically attempts to show us Edwards's views of worship, and so represents an important resource for scholars and religious practitioners alike who are interested in liturgy, 'the practice of piety,' and spiritual growth. Through an engagement with Edwards's own words–in letters, notebooks, and sermons–we learn of Edwards's own spiritual life, and of the nature of private and corporate devotion.»

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