LITMIR.BIZ

Principles-based biomedical ethics has been a dominant paradigm for the teaching and practice of biomedical ethics for over three decades. Attractive in its conceptual and linguistic simplicity, it has also been criticized for its lack of moral content and justification and its lack of attention to relationships. This book identifies the modernist and postmodernist worldviews and philosophical roots of principlism that ground the moral minimalism of its common morality premise. Building on previous work by prominent Christian bioethicists, an alternative covenantal ethical framework is presented in our contemporary context. Relationships constitute the core of medicine, and understanding the ethical meaning of those relationships is important in providing competent and empathic care. While the notion of covenant is articulated through the richness of meaning taught in the Christian Scriptures, covenantal commitment is also appreciated in Islamic, Jewish, and even pagan traditions as well. In a world of increasing medical knowledge and consequent complexity of care, such commitment can help to resist enticements toward the pursuit of self-interest. It can also improve relationships among caregivers, each of whose specific expertise must be woven into a matrix of care that constitutes optimal medical practice for each vulnerable and needy patient.

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New Testament studies are witnessing many exciting developments. And Douglas Campbell's groundbreaking publications are an important contribution to future discussions relating to Paul. Familiar problems relating to justification, «old» and «new» perspectives, and much more besides, have been tackled in fresh and exciting ways, setting down challenge after challenge to all those involved in Pauline studies. Campbell's publications therefore demand serious engagement. This book seeks to facilitate academic engagement with Campbell's work in a unique way. It contains numerous chapters critiquing his proposals, while others summarize the key themes succinctly. But it also contains Campbell's own response to the reception of his work, allowing him space to outline how his thinking has developed. In so doing, this work allows readers to be drawn into a vitally important conversation. It is academic theology in the making and constitutes the cutting edge of Pauline studies.

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In the present volume James Robinson completes his trilogy, which deals with the history of divine healing in the period 1906-1930. The first volume is a study of the years 1830-1890, and was hailed as «a standard reference for years to come.» The second book covers the years 1890-1906, and was acclaimed as «a monumental achievement» that combines «careful historical scholarship and a high degree of accessibility.» This volume completes the study up to the early 1930s and, like the other two works, has a transatlantic frame of reference. Though the book gives prominence to the theology and practice of divine healing in early Pentecostalism, it also discusses two other models of healing, the therapeutic and sacramental, promoted within sections of British and American Anglicanism. Some otherwise rigorous Fundamentalists were also prepared to practice divine healing. The text contributes more widely to medical and sociocultural histories, exemplified in the rise of psychotherapy and the cultural shift referred to as the Jazz Age of the 1920s. The book concludes by discussing the major role that divine healing plays in the present rapid growth of global Christianity.

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In the Fray collects David Gushee's most significant essays over twenty years as a Christian intellectual. Most of the essays were written in situations of ethical conflict on the highly contested ground of Christian public ethics. Topics addressed include torture, climate change, marriage and divorce, the treatment of gays and lesbians in the church, war, genocide, nuclear weapons, race, global poverty, faith and politics, Israel/Palestine, and even whether Christian ethics is a real academic discipline. Quite visible in the collection is Gushee's deep research interest in the Nazi era in Germany and how the churches fared in resisting Nazi intimidations and seductions and, finally, the Holocaust. All essays reflect the desire for a church that has learned the lessons of that period–a church with resistance to racism, militarism, nationalism, and other social-ideological toxins, and with the discernment and courage to resist these in favor of a courageous allegiance to the lordship of Christ at the time of testing. Considerable attention is directed to contesting some of the public ethics found in the author's own US evangelical Christian community. Concluding reflections on Gushee's ethical vision are offered in an illuminating essay by senior Christian ethicist Glen Harold Stassen.

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Christian mission has often been a project allied with colonial powers and conquests. Contemporary theologies of Christian mission, however, call for a new approach. In Eyes from the Outside, Kim Lamberty suggests using the metaphor of «accompaniment» to describe one such approach to Christian mission. She explores international protective accompaniment–eyes from the outside–as a constructive way to do Christian mission in conflict zones. Christian missionaries today frequently find themselves in isolated and poverty-stricken parts of the globe, places where violence is common. Based on a case study in Colombia, Eyes from the Outside argues that international protective accompaniment empowers communities, reduces the risk of violence, and corresponds with contemporary theologies of mission.

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What do you believe about women's roles in church leadership? Should women lead groups that include men? Should women preach? Should women be ordained? More importantly, why do you believe what you believe? Plenty of books exist telling women what to think; precious few help women think for themselves, particularly about theological issues. Women, Leadership, and the Bible helps women learn to interpret the Bible and discern for themselves answers to their questions about women's roles in the church, along with any other issue they may face in life. In straightforward, plain language, Dr. Natalie Eastman introduces women to a five-step, easy-to-follow process for studying the Bible and interpreting what they study. [NOTE to designer: if there is not enough space on the back cover then cut the following section in italics] This book encourages women that they can think for themselves and can analyze significant theological issues, despite any hesitations they may have, any conflict surrounding an issue, or any lack of theological training. By the time readers finish this book, they will have a biblically defendable, theologically reasoned, and thoroughly discerned understanding of what they believe Scripture says about women's roles and how that understanding could play out within the church. No longer will they feel as though they have nothing to contribute when the subject of women's roles–or any other of life's theological questions–arises.

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From Dan to Beersheba and Beyond is a series of spiritual observations and opinions from an aging pastor on his first trip to Palestine. Traveling with a study group from Dallas Theological Seminary, this Maine pastor finally gets to experience the biblical places and times he has imagined since childhood and has studied and taught throughout his adult years. Pastor Blackstone shares insights and highlights from this thirty-year dream, joined by his daughter Marnie, the heroine of two previous books, Rendezvous in Paris and Though One Go with Me. Travel with this father-daughter team from the slopes of Mount Hermon in the north to the shores of the Red Sea in the south on this spectacular pilgrimage to the Holy Land of Israel. Journey from the modern city of Tel Aviv in the west to the ancient city of Jericho in the east to explore the biblical people and places that make this land unique. Experience picking five stones from the stream in Elah like David, witness the beauty of the Jezreel Valley from the top of Mount Carmel as Elijah did, climb Masada, and stand on Mount Moriah where the Jerusalem temple once stood. Swim in the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, drink water from the spring where Gideon tested his famous band of three hundred, wade the waters of the Gihon Spring through Hezekiah's Tunnel, and wander the shores of the Mediterranean Sea at Caesarea. Visit the ancient cities of Nazareth, Capernaum, Bethlehem, Chorazin, Bethsaida, Megiddo, Caesarea Philippi, and of course, Dan and Beersheba. If you have ever wanted to make this spiritual journey, From Dan to Beersheba and Beyond will whet your appetite for your own biblical adventure.

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Is culture a theologically neutral concept? The contemporary experts on culture–anthropologists and sociologists–argue that it is. Theologians and missiologists would seem to agree, given the extent of their reliance on anthropological and sociological definitions of culture. Yet, this appears a strange reliance given that presumed neutrality in the sciences is a consistently challenged assumption. It is stranger still given that so much theological energy has been expended on understanding and defining the human person in specifically theological as opposed to anthropological terms when culture is in some sense the expression of this personhood in corporate and material forms. This book argues that culture is not and has never been a theologically neutral concept; rather, it always expresses some theological posture and is therefore a term that naturally invites theological investigation. Going about this task is difficult however, in the face of a longterm reliance on the social sciences that seems to have starved the contemporary theological community of resources for defining culture. Against this it is argued that rich subterranean veins for such a task do exist within the recent tradition, most notably in the writings of John Milbank, Karl Barth, and Kwame Bediako.

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"I was and I am an ordinary theologian, who does not have the Word of God at his disposal, but, at best, a 'Doctrine of the Word of God,'" writes Karl Barth in the preface of Die christliche Dogmatik im Emtwurf. Properly appreciating the complex career of Barth's characterization of what Scripture is theologically can open up constructive lines of inquiry regarding his self-description as a theologian and reader of the Bible. By mining Barth's published and posthumous theological and exegetical writings and sermons, both well-known materials and understudied writings such as the significant «Das Schriftprinzip der reformierten Kirche» lecture, Alfred H. Yuen offers a unique reading of Barth's thoughts on the person and work of the biblical writers by mapping his theological career as a university student, a pastor, a writer, a young professor, and, above all, a «child of God» (CD I/1, 464-65).

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Grace beyond the Grave explores the possibility of the opportunity for repentance and salvation on the other side of the grave. Stephen Jonathan, pastor and theologian, explores posthumous salvation as a viable evangelical alternative to the traditional view that death ends all possibility of salvation, doing so with humanity, integrity, and devotion to Scripture. Jonathan is not dissuaded from asking provocative questions for fear of being thought unorthodox. While scholarly, Grace beyond the Grave will be of benefit to pastors, theological students, and lay people alike. During nearly three decades of a teaching ministry, Jonathan became increasingly conscious that the common, mechanical answers to the more pressing questions are often inadequate and need revisiting. Grace beyond the Grave will both unsettle the «theologically comfortable» and reassure the open-minded in equal measure.

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