LITMIR.BIZ

The nineteenth-century Scottish theologian and church leader Edward Irving has been the subject of a remarkable resurgence of interest among historians and theologians in recent decades. A friend of Thomas Carlyle and a household name in his lifetime, Edward Irving became involved with a group headed by the scion of Drummonds Bank who were convinced there was to be an imminent second coming. Irving became caught up in this idea, and it not only changed his life but resulted in his expulsion from the Scottish Presbysterian Church. His life journey, including his personal loves and losses and early death in 1834, we can trace from his short diary, kept as a young man, and his letters, published here for the first time.

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The narrative material of the Bible often presents characters engaged in actions without providing explicit guidance as to how those actions are intended to be evaluated. For example, Gideon lays out a fleece in an attempt to discern God's will, but is this intended as a model to emulate, or is it intended as a picture of desperation resulting from a lack of faith? Perspective Criticism presents a new approach to solving such quandaries, finding an untapped source of evaluative guidance in the point-of-view crafting of biblical stories.
Point of view has been the forgotten child in the study of biblical narratives. Now, this book gives this literary concept its due, untangling the array of storytelling devices involved in crafting point of view and demonstrating its power in shaping the very fabric of a story. Because the majority of the point-of-view devices found in biblical narratives are also used in cinematic storytelling, the book includes detailed descriptions of movie scenes utilizing these devices to provide pop-culture illustrations of the workings of point of view.

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Meet the Isaiah you never knew. Isaiah Speaks connects this famous prophet to such concerns of modern life as Islam and world religions, family conflicts, worship, and globalization. Whether the topic is modern string theory, current per capita wine consumption, or angel sex, Isaiah has insights to offer. Into a world of religious turmoil, political intrigue, and personal searching, Isaiah brought a message of both judgment and hope. In this book, grounded in biblical and historical research, he does it again. Discussion questions, reflection exercises, and prayers help the modern reader integrate prophetic insights into daily life and faith. Get to know Isaiah better either through using this book for devotional study or for lively conversation with others. Isaiah awaits.

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Volume 3 The Paul L. Holmer Papers: Selected Sermons, Addresses, and Prayers
In his teaching and his writing, Paul L. Holmer (1916-2004), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota (1946-1960) and Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale Divinity School (1960-1987), not only made important contributions to recent American theology, but was also much in demand as a public speaker and preacher. Following his death, the Holmer family in 2005 donated his papers to the Yale Divinity School Library.
In this, the third volume of The Paul L. Holmer Papers: Communicating the Faith Indirectly, the reader will see Holmer's deep concern with the problems and possibilities of the sermon, liturgy, ministry, and spirituality. Inspired by Soren Kierkegaard's reflections on «indirect communication,» and by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Holmer not only reveals his strenuous reflection on the sermon, but also gives concrete examples of his own efforts to communicate, enabling his hearers and readers to «make sense» of their lives.
In the first part of this volume, Holmer reflects upon Kierkegaard's «indirect communication,» a communication not of knowledge but of human capacity. In other pieces Holmer turns to liturgy, ministry, and spirituality. In the second part of this volume, the reader sees Holmer's own challenging, uncompromising practice of religious and Christian communication, in a selection of his sermons, addresses, and prayers. For anyone concerned with sermons, liturgy, spirituality, and the challenges of ministry, Holmer's essays and addresses will prove indispensable.
This is the third volume of The Paul L. Holmer Papers, which includes also volume 1, On Kierkegaard and the Truth, and volume 2, Thinking the Faith with Passion: Selected Essays.

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In an era of seemingly endless war, and similarly endless debates about the nature of marriage, Through with Kings and Armies offers a fresh look at what both war and marriage might mean for Christians. This is a love story: the tale of a sixty-three-year marriage grounded in the love of Jesus Christ and shaped by the conviction that his disciples must witness publicly to their faith in him. As a Presbyterian ministerial student in 1941, George Edwards renounced a draft deferment to register as a conscientious objector, serving at home and abroad for five years. Jean, his childhood friend, turned against war when the Battle of the Bulge left her a widow at twenty-three. After George and Jean fell in love overnight at the end of the war, their pacifist beliefs became the foundation for their life together. A pastor and biblical scholar yoked to a Christian educator, their gifts complemented each other as they organized communities of witnesses against war and racial violence, while raising three children and remaining active in the church that rarely supported their witness.

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This book has two main theses. First, for the biblical/Christian doctrine of sin the root of the human problem is hardness of heart–the corruption of the core self, of the seat of understanding and will. On the other hand, for an important strand of Greek tragedy the root of human harm-doing is the nonculpable blindness and anxiety of finitude that despite the initial nonculpability lead to evil and suffering. The Hardened Heart shows that these two different interpretations of human existence are amenable to a degree of synthesis that leads to this conclusion: hardness of heart and our ordinary finitude together collude to cause sin in its fullness.The second thesis of this volume is that exegetical studies disclose a deconstructive strand in certain biblical texts that represents the finite world that God created as a source of distress and harm-doing in something like the tragic sense. This subdominant deconstructive position challenges the dominant biblical vision, in which the creation came forth from God's creative word as good without qualification.

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Those within the free church tradition have often appealed to the notion of the invisible church to account for the unity of the Body of Christ. A growing number of free church theologians, however, are giving increased attention to the importance of visible ecclesial unity, which immediately raises the perennial problem of the authorities by which unity is maintained. There is also a growing recognition among free church theologians of the need to recognize the authority of tradition in tandem with the authority of Scripture. In this book, Cary affirms these recent developments but then inquires whether a turn toward visible unity, together with an embrace of the authority of tradition, can eventually be coherent without also embracing the authority of an extra-congregational teaching office.
To guide his study, Cary engages the work of two theologians from outside the free church tradition: Robert Jenson and Rowan Williams. He then brings them into contact with the prominent free church theologian James McClendon in order to supplement some of the deficiencies Cary perceives in McClendon's groundbreaking work. Once these deficiencies are addressed, however, the question intensifies whether the free church tradition, as such, can remain a coherent ecclesial option over time.

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Who Is Phaedrus?
This book delivers answers.
Many have said Phaedrus is the most intriguing of Plato's works. Phaedrus is certainly one of the most difficult to follow and fathom. In part this is because the title figure, Phaedrus himself, has remained a mystery.
Who Is Phaedrus? takes us on a tour of this intricate dialogue: a work of philosophy and history, and a work of art.
In Who Is Phaedrus? we see how and why Phaedrus became involved in the most sensational scandals, both religious and political, in ancient Athens; and yet we see Phaedrus come across as a person remarkably contemporary, someone who could walk through a time seam and be wholly understandable as a soul in the twenty-first century.
Perplexed as well as perplexing, Phaedrus, in the final analysis, needs Socrates' timeless philosophy as a salve and therapy, and we follow along as Socrates delivers.

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The Artist's Torah is an uplifting and down-to-earth guide to the creative process, wide open to longtime artists and first-time dabblers, to people of every religious background–or none–and to every creative medium. In this book, you'll find a yearlong cycle of weekly meditations on a life lived artistically, grounded in ancient Jewish wisdom and the wisdom of artists, composers, writers, and choreographers from the past and present. You'll explore the nature of the creative process–how it begins, what it's for, what it asks of you, how you work your way to truth and meaning, what you do when you get blocked, what you do when you're done–and encounter questions that will help you apply the meditations to your own life and work. Above all, The Artist's Torah teaches us that creativity is a natural and important part of the human spirit, a bright spark that, week after week, this book will brighten.

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Whitehead had a place for God in his comprehensive cosmological vision, and his theism has long attracted interest from some Christian theologians. But Whitehead's ideas have much wider use. Some Buddhists have found help in articulating their nontheistic vision and relating it to the current world of thought and action. In this book religious writers in seven different traditions articulate how they can benefit from Whitehead's work. So this volume demonstrates that various features of his thought can contribute to many communities.
According to his followers, Whitehead shows that the deepest convictions and commitments of the major religious communities can be complementary rather than in conflict. Readers of this book will see how that plays out in some detail. A Whiteheadian Hindu can recognize the truth in a Whiteheadian Judaism, and both can appreciate the insights of Chinese Whiteheadians committed to their classical thinking. Perhaps a new day in interreligious understanding has come.

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