LITMIR.BIZ

In ascending to heaven, Jesus Christ gave the church the Great Commission to expand the gospel to all nations. Despite this biblical commission, it is still an unfinished task. As leaders of local churches, pastors play a crucial part in this endeavor. Pastoral leadership principles have varied widely throughout history, yet it is interesting to discover the similarities between pastoral leadership principles practiced by John Chrysostom (AD 347-407) in Antioch and Constantinople, and Won Sang Lee (1937-) in Washington, DC. Despite ministering 1600 years apart, both pastors share the same core values: care for people, Christ-like character, biblical preaching, and world missions. This suggests that continued emphasis on these principles will play a significant role in fulfilling the Great Commission, independent of time and place.

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With his Logic of Incarnation, James K. A. Smith has provided a compelling critique of the universalizing tendencies in some strands of postmodern philosophy of religion. A truly postmodern account of religion must take seriously the preference for particularity first evidenced in the Christian account of the incarnation of God. Moving beyond the urge to universalize, which characterizes modern thought, Smith argues that it is only by taking seriously particular differences–historical, religious, and doctrinal–that we can be authentically religious and authentically postmodern.
Smith remains hugely influential in both academic discourse and church movements. This book is the first organized attempt to bring both of these aspects of Smith's work into conversation with each other and with him. With articles from an internationally respected group of philosophers, theologians, pastors, and laypeople, the entire range of Smith's considerable influence is represented here. Discussing questions of embodiment, eschatology, inter-religious dialogue, dogma, and difference, this book opens all the most relevant issues in postmodern religious life to a unique and penetrating critique.

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What is the moral criterion for those who hold power positions and authority in governments, corporations, and institutions? Ahn answers this question by presenting the concept of the positional imperative. The positional imperative is an executive moral norm for those who hold power positions in political and economic organizations. By critically integrating the Neo-Kantian reconstructionism of Jurgen Habermas with the Neo-Augustinian reconstructionism of Reinhold Niebuhr, through the method of «co-reconstruction,» Ahn identifies the positional imperative as an executive moral norm embedded in all power positions: «Act in such a way not only to abide by laws, but also to come by the approvals of those affected by your positional actions.» By uncovering this executive moral norm, Ahn argues that a position holder is not just a professional working for the system, but a moral executive who is willing to take the responsibility of his or her positional actions.

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Despite astute critiques and available resources for alternative modes of thinking and practicing, individualism continues to be a dominating and constraining ideology in the field of pastoral psychotherapy and counseling. Philip Rieff was one of the first to highlight the negative implications of individualism in psychotherapeutic theories and practices. As heirs and often enthusiasts of the Freudian tradition of which Rieff and others are critical, pastoral theologians have felt the sting of his charge, and yet the empirical research that McClure presents shows that pastoral-counseling practitioners resist change. Their attempts to overcome an individualistic perspective have been limited and ineffective because individualism is embedded in the field's dominant theological and theoretical resources, practices, and organizational arrangements. Only a radical reappraisal of these will make possible pastoral counseling practices in a post-individualistic mode. McClure proposes several critical transformations: broadening and deepening the operative theologies used to guide the healing practice, expanding the role of the pastoral counselor, reimagining the operative anthropology, reclaiming sin and judgment, nuancing the particular against the individual, rethinking the ideal outcome of the practices, and reimagining the organizational structures that support the practices. Only this level of revisioning will enable this ministry of the church to move beyond its individualistic limitations and offer healing in more complex, effective, and socially adequate ways.

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How does a Christian render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's? This book is the result of the Bingham Colloquium of 2007 that brought scholars from across North America to examine the New Testament's response to the empires of God and Caesar. Two chapters lay the foundation for that response in the Old Testament's concept of empire, and six others address the response to the notion of empire, both human and divine, in the various authors of the New Testament. A final chapter investigates how the church fathers regarded the matter. The essays display various methods and positions; together, however, they offer a representative sample of the current state of study of the notion of empire in the New Testament.

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Conservative Protestant views of Scripture have not moved much beyond the fundamentalist-modernist controversies of the early twentieth century. Today, discussions must evolve and become transparently conversant with recent scholarly developments. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Authority of Scripture provides contemporary reflections on the most pressing challenges facing inerrancy today. Whatever your current position, this volume will deepen your understanding of the authority of Scripture.
TABLE OF CONTENTS and CONTRIBUTORS:
Foreword by William Abraham / ix Editor's Preface by Carlos R. Bovell / xvii Historical Perspectives
1 No Creed but the Bible, No Authority Without the Church: American Evangelicals and the Errors of Inerrancy –D. G. Hart / 3 2 The Subordination of Scripture to Human Reason at Old Princeton–Paul Seely / 28 3 The Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy, the Inerrancy of Scripture, and the Development of American Dispensationalism –Todd Mangum / 46 4 The Cost of Prestige: E. J. Carnell's Quest for Intellectual Orthodoxy–Seth Dowland / 71 5 «Inerrancy, a Paradigm in Crisis»–Carlos R. Bovell / 91
Biblical Perspectives 6 Inerrancy and Evangelical Old Testament Scholarship: Challenges and the Way Forward–J. Daniel Hays / 109 7 Theological Diversity in the Old Testament as Burden or Divine Gift? Problems and Perspectives in the Current Debate–Richard Schultz / 133 8 «But Jesus Believed That David Wrote the Psalms . . .» –Stephen Dawes / 164 9 Some Thoughts on Theological Exegesis of the Old Testament: Toward a Viable Model of Biblical Coherence and Relevance–Peter Enns / 183 10 Inerrantist Scholarship on Daniel: A Valid Historical Enterprise? –Stephen Young / 204 11 The Implications of New Testament Pseudonymy for a Doctrine of Scripture–Stanley E. Porter / 236
Theoretical Perspectives 12 Issues in Forming a Doctrine of Inspiration–Craig Allert / 259 13 How Evangelicals Became Overcommitted to the Bible and Wha Can Be Done about It–J. P. Moreland / 289 14 Biblical Authority: A Social Scientist's Perspective –Brian Malley / 303 15 Authority Redux: Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, and Theology–Christian Early / 323 16 Scripture and Prayer: Participating in God –Harriet A. Harris / 344 17 «A Certain Similarity to the Devil»: Historical Criticism and Christian Faith–Gregory Dawes / 354 18 Critical Dislocation and Missional Relocation: Scripture's Evangelical Homecoming–Telford Work / 371 List of Contributors / 397

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Christians have sometimes professed that the church ought to be «in the world but not of it,» yet the meaning and significance of this conviction has continued to challenge and confound.
In the context of persecution, Christians in the ancient world tended to distance themselves from the social and civic mainstream, while in the medieval and early modern periods, the church and secular authorities often worked in close relationship, sharing the role of shaping society. In a post-Christendom era, this latter arrangement has been heavily critiqued and largely dismantled, but there is no consensus in Christian thought as to what the alternative should be.
The present collection of essays offers new perspectives on this subject matter, drawing on sometimes widely disparate interlocutors, ancient and modern, biblical and «secular.» Readers will find these essays challenging and thought-provoking.

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Brazil is a rapidly emerging country. Brazilian theology, namely the Theology of Liberation, has become well known in the 1970s and 1980s. The politically active Base Ecclesial Communities and the progressive posture of the Roman Catholic Church contrasted with a steadily growing number of evangelicals, mostly aligned with the military regime but attractive precisely to the poor. After democratic transition in the mid-1980s, the context changed considerably. Democracy, growing religious pluralism and mobility, a vibrant civil society, the political ascension of the Worker's Party and growing wealth, albeit within a continuously wide social gap, are some of the elements that show the need of a new approach to theology. It must be a theology that is both critical and constructive, resisting and cooperative, a theology that is able to give orientation to the churches, valuing and encouraging their contribution in society while avoiding attempts of imposition. The Churches and Democracy in Brazil, the fruit of years of interdisciplinary study of the Brazilian context and its main churches and theology, makes its case for an ecumenically articulated public theology. It seeks inspiration mainly in Luther and Lutheran theology, emphasizing human dignity, freedom, trust, the disposition to serve, and the ability to endure the ambiguities of reality, as well as a fresh interpretation of the doctrine of the two regiments. These are the fundamental elements of what makes human beings full members of the body politic: citizenship, their right to have rights and to be able to effectively live them, together with their corresponding duties, in a move of growing political participation conscious of their religious motivation in view of the commonweal.

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During a forty-year period ending in 2002, leaders of major American churches tried to unite their members, ministries, and public service in a new church they named A Church of Christ Uniting. Participating in this movement were four Methodist Churches, the Episcopal Church, the nation's largest Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the International Council of Community Churches. With a membership of close to twenty million, this church would have been spread throughout the nation more fully than any other church except the Roman Catholic. Leaders of the movement believed that this union would enable church members to experience their Christian life more fully. It would heal divisions that had existed since the Protestant Reformation 450 years earlier and displace the denominational system that was increasingly dysfunctional. By coming together in a new way, these churches could work more effectively at overcoming problems in American life–especially the challenges related to racism. Although the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) closed before converting its vision into a new form of the church, it had a significant effect on these churches and the nation. This is a story that needs to be remembered.

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Lutheran tradition has in various ways influenced attitudes to work, the economy, the state, education, and health care. One reason that Lutheran theology has been interpreted in various ways is that it is always influenced by surrounding social and cultural contexts.
In a society where the church has lost a great deal of its cultural impact and authority, and where there is a plurality of religious convictions, the question of Lutheran identity has never been more urgent. However, this question is also raised in the Global South where Lutheran churches need to find their identity in a relationship with several other religions. Here this relationship is developed from a minority perspective.
Is it possible to develop a Lutheran political theology that gives adequate contributions to issues concerning social and economic justice? What is the role of women in church and society around the world? Is it possible to interpret Lutheran theology in such a way that it includes liberating perspectives? These are some of the questions and issues discussed in this book.

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