LITMIR.BIZ

Rewired begins with the claim that contemporary views of Christian spirituality, particularly in the American evangelical tradition, concentrate too exclusively on the interior and individual nature of spiritual experience. Paul Markham argues that a reexamination of the doctrine of religious conversion is needed within American evangelicalism and finds resources for such a model in the Wesleyan theological tradition and from philosophical and scientific insights into a «nonreductive physicalist» view of human nature. In considering «data» from theology and science, this book represents an integrated work in science and religion.

Подробнее

This work is a fresh, unusually lucid approach to Christian theology and interfaith dialogue from India. Its basic aim is to examine «the Christian consciousness of God's work in history»–redemption history within the entire history of the world. It uses Christian Faith by Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) as its main text, so as to view this theme «in a reversed order from the way it is presented there.» This approach, which centers on God's «new creation» in Christ, leads to an incisive understanding of Christianity's relation to other modes of faith. Throughout, Dr. Kunnuthara compares the thought of another Indian Christian leader steeped in Hindu thought, Pandippedi Chenchiah (1886-1959), to enable renewed interfaith dialogue across a wide spectrum.

Подробнее

When Paul pens his letter to the Roman believers, he writes as a missionary to strengthen a church at the center of imperial power, choosing language that is familiar to his recipients. Paul responds not only to the influence of Judaism but also to the wider culture by contrasting prominent Roman values. David Wallace argues that Paul's gospel in Romans rejects and countervails the significant themes of Virgil's Aeneid, the most well-known prophetic source that both proclaimed Roman ideology and assured Roman salvation. After demonstrating that a close but nonauthoritarian relationship existed between Augustus and Virgil, Wallace examines relevant literary aspects, symbolism, and key imagery of Virgil's epic. A discussion of Paul's contraliterary approach follows, drawing out possible parallels and echoes in Romans against the universal message of the Aeneid.

Подробнее

This study presents the religious dynamics of the Wolaitta Kale Heywet Church in southern Ethiopia from 1937 to 1975. On the basis of detailed research from within southern Ethiopia, E. Paul Balisky demonstrates that the indigenous extension of the Wolaitta Christian movement into southern Ethiopia, through the instrumentality of her evangelists, helped Wolaitta regain her own religious center and subsequent identity after centuries of various forms of colonialism and imperialism.
Wolaitta Evangelists broadens one's understanding of how an imported model of Christianity provided religious answers to the ideals of a particular Ethiopian society and continues to motivate her members to evangelize. The evangelists who went to people of similar culture and worldview were successful in effecting social change. To ethnic groups who had moved beyond their former primal religions, and to those of disparate culture, the evangelists were those who scattered the seed and impacted the religious, social, economic, and political life of southern Ethiopia. Wolaitta Evangelists tells the story of how missionary activity played a role in Wolaitta once again becoming a people.

Подробнее

If prophets are called to unveil and expose the illegitimacy of those principalities masquerading as «the right» and purportedly using their powers for «the good,» then Will D. Campbell is one of the foremost prophets in American religious history. Like Clarence Jordan and Dorothy Day, Campbell incarnates the radical iconoclastic vocation of standing in contraposition to society, naming and smashing the racial, economic, and political idols that seduce and delude.
In this anthology Campbell diagnoses a problem afflicting much of the church today. Zealous to make a difference in the world by acquiring the power of legislation and enforcement, Christians employ society's political science rather than the scandalous politics of Jesus. Although well-intentioned, Christians are, Campbell laments, mistakenly «up to our steeples in politics.» Campbell's prescription is for disciples simply to incarnate the reconciliation that Christ has achieved. Rather than crafting savvy strategies and public policies, «Do nothing,» Campbell counsels. «Be reconciled!»
Yet his encouragement to «do nothing» is no endorsement of passivity or apolitical withdrawal. Rather, Campbell calls for disciples to give their lives in irrepressible resistance against all principalities and powers that would impede or deny our reconciliation in Christ–an unrelenting prophetic challenge leveled especially at institutional churches, as well as Christian colleges and universities.
In sermons, difficult-to-access journal articles, and archival manuscripts, Campbell then develops what reconciliation looks like. Being the church, for example, means identifying with, and advocating for, society's «least one»-including violent offenders, disenfranchised minorities, and even militant bigots. In fact, in Campbell's ordo the scorned sectarian and disinherited denizen is often closer to the peculiar Christian genius than are society's well-healed powerbrokers.
Disciples seeking to discern their calling can hardly do better than taking direction from this «bootleg,» pulpitless preacher.

Подробнее

A Theology of Religious Change asks a simple question with a complicated answer: Why do people change religious faiths? The study invites its readers on a trek through sociological and psychological literature that suggests many causes of religious change. Moving beyond a mere catalogue of motives for conversion, the author explores how a theological account of conversion and the doctrine of election can be broadened, strengthened, and reformulated in light of the complexity of faith's human side. This book seeks to guide pastors, church workers, and theologians in their task of communicating the message of good news effectively by drawing attention to the diverse factors influencing religious change.

Подробнее

The premise of this book lies in its title. God makes himself known to us in a number of ways: through the created order, by way of human conscience, the unfolding of world events, the inherent religious need in man, through his written Word, and ultimately, of course, in the Person of Jesus Christ. Why he does so is a mystery, which we can only assign to sovereign choice. The basis upon which he does so, however, is covenant. This being the case, not only is the idea of covenant a valid hermeneutic by which to understand Scripture, but a vital one without which it would be impossible for us to fully appreciate the divine revelation that is available to us in and attainable to us by the Bible. Many Christians will be familiar with the idea that Christ fulfills the Old Testament prophecies and promises concerning God's people in the Old Testament. But when we begin to see this, too, in terms of covenant, then we begin to more fully understand precisely what it was that Christ fulfilled and what the implications of this are for those of us who are what the Bible calls «in Christ.» Not only did Jesus meet all the requirements of the overarching theme of the Old Testament in general terms, but he filled out to their fullest potential all the intricacies of detail of each of the separate divine covenants that we find there. The benefits of this for us are beyond measure, the comprehension of them is mind-blowing, and the treasures they hold simply await our unlocking of them. Take the key and peer inside. You will not be disappointed.

Подробнее

This book addresses the apparent dislocation of the church and theology from the socio-cultural mainstream and attempts to recover its counterpolitical voice. It argues that early in ecclesiastical history, the tradition's founding and constituent principles were betrayed by a complicity with the prevailing politics of sovereignty that has continued to this day. Following the contours of contemporary theologians who explain the dislocation in terms of a fall in early modernity, an initial subsumption of transcendence by sovereignty is proposed. The genealogy of this fall is then explored in four historical studies focusing on the theopolitical transformations of law, violence, and appeasement from their beginnings in the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea to their culmination in the commodification of life itself. The trajectory is traced through seminal soteriological developments such as the crusade theology of Pope Innocent III, the inversion of the corpus verum and the corpus mysticum, and the conjunction of sovereignty and capital in the mysterious currency of the Bank of England. The narrative culminates in the seemingly paradoxical concurrence of the politics of biopower and the so-called century of the Holy Spirit. Drawing on a radical substratum intimated in the case studies, the final section develops an innovative christological configuration of kenosis or what is termed 'kenarchy.' This provides a re-imagining of the divine distinct from its implication with imperial sovereignty, which could allow theology to make a more effective contemporary political intervention.

Подробнее

In print for over three decades in English and a decade in French, la reverenda doctora Aida Besancon Spencer's Beyond the Curse: Women Called to Ministry is finally available in a fully corrected and updated Spanish version. Praised in Christianity Today as one of the five best books on the topic and selected by Eternity as a book of the year, Mas alla de la maldicion studies the biblical support of women in ministry, treating the Bible as reliable and authoritative. A key source that has helped shape current discussions on the role of women in ministry, the book includes Genesis support for shared tasks as equals, Jesus' and Paul's teachings and practice on women in ministry, the Bible's examples of women in authoritative positions, feminine metaphors for God, and an afterword written by the Rev. Dr. William David Spencer on how husband and wife have practically worked on sharing tasks. o"Here is a technical female biblical scholar who brings strong credentials to set forth a fresh examination of the biblical texts to women in life and ministry." –Southwestern Journal of Theology o"Spencer's book is unique." –The Reformed Journal o"A more truly biblical approach." –Dr. Ward Gasque o"Besancon Spencer handles well the supposedly difficult Pauline passages in 1 Timothy 2." –Alvera Mickelsen

Подробнее

If Schillebeeckx had been Asian, how would he have responded to the phenomenon of religious pluralism? This book attempts to answer that question, beginning with a dialogue with the Vatican Declaration Dominus Iesus and discerning how Schillebeeckx's methodology has been applied in Asian theology. Employing the hermeneutical-critical method, Schillebeeckx asserts that the Word of God did not come «down to us, as it were, vertically in a purely divine statement»–it must be interpreted! In today's context of so many religions, so many cultures, and so many poor, God's Word invites the church to be a «sacrament of dialogue.» Through dialogue the church will be «challenged by other religions and challenge them in return.» Christianity will then be «put in its place, as well as given the place which is its due.»

Подробнее