LITMIR.BIZ

"My freshman year of college was a battle," writes Katie, a college student and a strong Christian. The transition from high school to college is one of the most pivotal times in a young person's life. After departing from under the protective wings of their parents, young adults often have trouble holding firm to the Christian faith.
Stand Your Ground is an introduction to apologetics for young adults in high school or college. The book includes thirteen chapters that confront the overwhelming intellectual attacks Christian college students face on university campuses.
Dean Hardy takes readers on a spiritual and intellectual journey, addressing such issues as the nature of truth and reality, the investigation of other worldviews, the evidence for Christianity, critics' arguments against Christianity, and the relationship between apologetics and evangelism.

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Are meaning and purpose still possible in life?
The age of philosophy and its pursuit of the good of happiness came to an end with nihilism. The philosophers equated the good with intellect, which led to divided descriptions of this value. Philosophy is divided by divided loves–Plato's love of pure intellect and Aristotle's love of nature and constructs of value–which is why it led to nihilism in the end. But it is possible to go beyond the ravages of nihilism by setting aside these divided loves for the sake of love itself, the power that makes itself known through the desirability of life.
At Smith's House examines the possibilities of «love itself» in twelve informal, entertaining conversations between two old friends. It begins by dissecting the divided concepts of value produced by philosophy and its infatuation with intellect. Then it describes the difference between «love itself» and the divided loves seen in philosophy as well as in institutional doctrine. Finally it discusses the restoration of unity to the church and goodness to culture through the formulation Deus caritas est, which provides a means of going beyond nihilism and the demise of philosophy.

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Historical Jesus research remains trapped in the positivistic historiographical framework from which it emerged more than a hundred and fifty years ago. This is confirmed by the nested assumptions shared by the majority of researchers. These include the idea that a historical figure could not have been like the Gospel portrayals and consequently the Gospels have developed in a linear and layered fashion from the authentic kernels to the elaborated literary constructions as they are known today. The aim of historical Jesus research, therefore, is to identify the authentic material from which the historical figure as a social type underneath the overlay is constructed. Anthropological historiography offers an alternative framework for dealing with Jesus of Nazareth as a social personage fully embedded in a first-century Mediterranean worldview and the Gospels as cultural artifacts related to this figure. The shamanic complex can account for the cultural processes and dynamics related to his social personage. This cross-cultural model represents a religious pattern that refers to a family of features for describing those religious entrepreneurs who, based on regular Altered State of Consciousness experiences, perform a specific set of social functions in their communities. This model accounts for the wide spectrum of the data ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth while it offers a coherent framework for constructing the historical Jesus as a social personage embedded in his worldview. As a Galilean shamanic figure Jesus typically performed healings and exorcisms, he controlled the spirits while he also acted as prophet, teacher and mediator of divine knowledge.

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The Epistle of Jesus to the Church is a commentary on the book of Revelation that assumes Jesus was the author and John the reporter of the words and events described. Here one will not find an explanation of an anti-Roman message written by John in hidden codes and apocalyptic motifs to fool Roman authorities. John the apostle and prophet was the faithful scribe, who did not create the message but faithfully and accurately described all that he saw and heard. This commentary follows the principle that the Scriptures explain themselves, because the Revelation is a word from Jesus to his church–a word that is grounded in the Scriptures. The Epistle of Jesus to the Church has been written with teachers, students, and pastors in mind. The interpretation of the book of Revelation is thorough; difficult passages are addressed, and plausible answers are provided to the questions posed by in-depth study of the biblical book. This is a commentary for personal study or classroom instruction, one that may be confidently used to preach and teach the Revelation of Jesus to the church.

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In this new introduction to the Apostle Paul and his gospel, written especially for lay readers, for beginning students, and for those unsure about what to make of Paul, Michael J. Gorman takes the apostle seriously, as someone who speaks for God and to us. After an overview not only of Paul's radical transformation from persecutor to proclaimer but also of his letter-writing in the context of Paul's new mission, Reading Paul explores the central themes of the apostle's gospel: Gorman places special emphasis on the theopolitical character of Paul's gospel and on the themes of cross and resurrection, multiculturalism in the church, and peacemaking and nonviolence as the way of Christ according to Paul. Gorman also offers a distinctive interpretation of justification by faith as participation in Christ–an interpretation that challenges standard approaches to these Pauline themes. Reading Paul demonstrates that the apostle of faith, hope, and love speaks not only to our deepest spiritual needs but also to the challenging times in which we live.

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While some of the chapters focus on systemic issues, others probe the depths of individual Gospel passages. The author's keen eye for textual detail, archaeological data, comparative materials, and systemic overviews make this volume a joy for anyone interested in understanding Jesus in his own context. The volume is organized into three interrelated parts: 1) political economy and the peasant values of Jesus, 2) the Jesus traditions within peasant realities, and 3) the peasant aims of Jesus.

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In Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary, theologian Stanley Hauerwas and political theorist Romand Coles reflect about possibilities and practices of radical democracy and radical ecclesia that take form in the textures of relational care for the radical ordinary. They seek to shift political and theological imaginations beyond the limits of contemporary political formations (such as global capitalism, the mega-state, and empire), which they argue are based upon both the denial and production of death.
Hauerwas and Coles call us to a revolutionary politics of «wild patience» that seeks transformation through attentive practices of listening, relationship-building, and a careful tending to places, common goods, and diverse possibilities for flourishing. Both authors translate back and forth across–as well as dwell in the tensions between–the languages of radical democracy and of trial, cross, and resurrection. Engaging each other through a variety of genres–from essays, to letters, to cowriting and dialogue–Hauerwas and Coles seek to enact a politics that is evangelical in its radical receptivity across strange differences and that cultivates power in relation to vulnerability.
The authors argue that there is a strong relation between hope and imagination, as well as between imagination and the encounter with and memory of those who have lived with receptive generosity toward the radical ordinary. Hence, throughout this book they think extensively in relation to specific lives and practices: from Ella Baker and the early Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee organizing efforts for beloved community and civil rights, to L'Arche communities founded by Jean Vanier, to contemporary faith-based radical democratic organizing efforts in dozens of cities by the Industrial Areas Foundation. Pushing and pulling each other into new and insightful journeys of political imagination, this conversation between a radical Christian and a radical democratic trickster spurs us toward a politics that acknowledges, tends to, and enacts the powers of the radical ordinary.

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In the 1930s, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer anticipated the restoration of the church after the coming second world war through a new kind of monasticism, a way of life of uncompromising adherence to the Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ. Since then, the renewal of Christian monasticism has become a great spiritual movement. Imbued with a love for God and neighbor, and with a healthy self-love, people are going to monasteries to deepen their relationship with God, to pray, and to find peace. While some monastic institutions are suffering a decline in traditional vocations, many Christians are exploring monastic lifestyles. This book introduces The Community of the Transfiguration in Australia, the story of a new monastic community and an inspiring source of hope for the world at another time of spiritual, social, and ecological crisis.

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Various thinkers have attempted to explain the Earth-altering (even ecocidal) features in modern life. Jacques Ellul, for instance, a French intellectual, became famous for his exposition of «technique.» But «technique» does not adequately address the institutional incubation out of which «technique» itself arises.
In these essays, Paul Gilk stands on the shoulders of two American scholars in particular. One is world historian Lewis Mumford, whose career spanned fifty years. The other is classics professor Norman O. Brown, who brought his erudition into a systematic study of Freud.
From these intellectuals especially, Gilk concludes that the accelerating ecocidal characteristics of «globalization» are inherent manifestations of perfectionist, utopian, predatory institutions endemic to civilization. Our great difficulty in arriving at or accepting this conclusion is that «civilization» contains no negatives. It is strictly a positive construct. We are therefore incapable of thinking critically about it.
A corrective is slowly emerging from Green intellectuals. Green politics, says Gilk, is not utopian but «eutopian.» It is not aimed at perfectionist immortality but rather at earthly wholeness.
Yet the ethical message of Green politics confronts a society saturated with utopian mythology. The question is to what extent and at what speed ecological and cultural breakdown will dissolve civilized, utopian certitudes and provide the requisite openings for the growth of Green, eutopian culture.

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The Clarity of God's Existence examines the need for theistic proofs within historic Christianity, and the challenges to these since the Enlightenment. Historically (and scripturally), Christianity has maintained that unbelief is inexcusable. If failing to know God is a sin, the implication is that humans can and should know God. Humans should know God because his eternal power and divine nature are clearly revealed in the things that are made. And yet, Anderson argues, more time is spent on avoiding the need for clarity to establish inexcusability than on actually providing an argument or proof. Proofs that rely on Aristotle or Plato and that establish a Prime Mover or designer are thought to be sufficient. But the adequacy of these, not only to prove the God of theism, but also to prove anything at all, has been called into question by Enlightenment thinkers like David Hume. After considering the traditional proofs, and tracing the history of challenges to theistic proofs (from Hume to Kant and down to the twentieth century), Anderson argues that the standard methods of apologetics have failed to sufficiently respond. Classical Apologetics, Evidentialism, Presuppositionalism, Reformed Epistemology, and others fail to adequately answer the challenges of the Enlightenment. If this is the case, what is the outcome for Christianity?
Anderson offers an explanation as to why traditional proofs have failed, and for what is necessary to offer a proof that not only responds to Hume and Kant but also establishes the clarity of God's existence. The traditional proofs failed precisely in not aiming at the clarity of God's existence, and they failed in this because of a faulty view of the goal of Christian life. If the blessed life is to be attained in a direct vision of God in heaven, then there is little to no reason to ask for more than the bare minimum required to get into heaven (justification). Furthermore, if the highest blessing is this direct vision, then the glory of God revealed in his work is considered as less important and even set aside. By way of contrast, if God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly revealed in his works, and the blessing comes in knowing God, then it is of the utmost importance for Christianity to demonstrate the clarity of God's existence.

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