LITMIR.BIZ

Knowing is less about information and more about transformation; less about comprehension and more about being apprehended.
This radical book develops the notion of covenant epistemology–an innovative, biblically compatible, holistic, embodied, life-shaping epistemological vision in which all knowing takes the shape of interpersonal, covenantal relationship. Rather than knowing in order to love, we love in order to know. Meek argues that all knowing is best understood as transformative encounter. Creatively blending insights from a diverse range of conversation partners–including Michael Polanyi, Michael D. Williams, Lesslie Newbigin, Parker Palmer, John Macmurray, Martin Buber, and James Loder–Meek offers critically needed «epistemological therapy» in response to the pervasive and damaging presumptions that those in Western culture continue to bring to efforts to know. The book's innovative approach–an unfolding journey of discovery-through-dialogue–itself subverts standard epistemological presumptions of timeless linearity. While it offers a sustained and sophisticated philosophical argument, Loving to Know's texts and textures interweave loosely to effect therapeutic epistemic transformation in the reader.

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There are a lot of books about leadership out there. I wanted to stir the pot and make some suggestions that I have not heard yet. Leadership is not about sticking qualities all over yourself, like dozens of «yellow sticky notes»: «Today I will learn time management. Tomorrow I will develop integrity.» Mere information is not enough to change us. Data may lead to transformation, but it is not enough to transform us on its own. Leadership is not about «trends» and «buzzwords.» Leadership is about personhood. Personhood is where this transformation truly takes place. Leadership may perseverate into any one of these things (stickies, trends, information, data, and buzzwords), but it is ultimately and ideally about personhood. This may be a philosophical category that the church has left off discussing, but it meant a lot to the ancients. We need to stir some of their depth back into our existence. One's genuine ability to lead comes from one's genuine transformation into the kind of person that is needed for the particular form of leading at hand. Different traits will be called forth from the leader depending on the situation, place, time, and people. It is the person who is the leader and not the trait or characteristic that is the leader. «Being» is critical; not just «doing.» I think a lot of our current reading on leadership is simply about skill-sets. They are important discussions, but that is not all there is. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying you must be perfect to lead. If that were the case, I would not be able to write this book. What I am saying is that your identity is where your true leading comes from, and if you are in a transformational relationship with Jesus the chances are good that your person and identity will deepen over time.

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Do «eschatology» and «peace» go together? Is eschatology mostly about retribution and fear–or compassion and hope?
Compassionate Eschatology brings together a group of international scholars representing a wide range of Christian traditions to address these questions. Together they make the case that Christianity's teaching about the «end times» should and can center on Jesus's message of peace and reconciliation. Offering a peace-oriented reading of the Book of Revelation and other biblical materials relevant to Christian eschatology, this book breaks new ground in its consistent message that compassion not retribution stands at the heart of the doctrine of the last things.
Besides its creative treatment of biblical materials, Compassionate Eschatology also makes a distinctive contribution in how several essays engage the thought of Rene Girard and his mimetic theory. Girard's project is shown to reinforce the biblical message of eschatological peace.

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Colin Gunton argued that Augustine bequeathed to the West a theological tradition with serious deficiencies. According to Gunton, Augustine's particular construal of the doctrine of God led to fundamental errors and problems in grasping the relationship between creation and redemption, and in rightfully construing a truly Christian ontology. Bradley G. Green's close reading of Augustine challenges Gunton's understanding. Gunton argued that Augustine's supposed emphasis of the one over the many severed any meaningful link between creation and redemption (contra the theological insights of Irenaeus); and that because of Augustine's supposed emphasis on the timeless essence of God at the expense of the three real persons, Augustine failed to forge a truly Christian ontology (effectively losing the insights of the Cappadocian Fathers). For all of Gunton's insights (and there are many), Green argues that Augustine did not sever the link between creation and redemption, but rather affirmed that the created order is a means of genuine knowledge of God, the created order is indeed the only means by which redemption is accomplished, the cross of Christ is the only means by which we can see God, and the created order is fundamentally oriented toward a telos– redemption. Concerning ontology, Augustine's teaching on the imago Dei, and the prominent role that relationship plays in Augustine's doctrines of man and God, provides the kind of relational Christian ontology that Gunton sought. In short, Green argues, Augustine could have provided Gunton key theological resources in countering the modernity he so rightfully challenged.

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Ought we conceive of theological ethics as an activity that draws from a community's vision of human goodness and that has implications for the kind of person each of us is to be? Or, can students of the discipline map the ethical implications of what Christians confess about God, themselves, and the world while remaining indifferent to these claims? Habituated by modern moral theories such as consequentialism and deontology, Mark Ryan argues, we too often assume that Christian ethics makes no claim on the character of its students and teachers. It is rather like yet another department store within the shopping mall of ideas and ideologies to which advanced education provides access. By arguing that theological ethics is an activity by nature «political,» the author endeavors to show us that to do Christian ethics is to be habituated into ways of talking and seeing that put us on a path toward the good.
The author thus affirms the claim that theological ethics is a life-changing practice. But why is it so? This book endeavors to display a philosophical basis for this claim, by articulating the political character of practical reason. Through rigorous conversation with G. E. M. Anscombe, Charles Taylor, Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Jeffrey Stout, Ryan provides an account of practical reasoning that enables us to rightly conceive theological ethics as a discipline that ought to change our lives.

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Why and how should we read Old Testament narrative? This book provides fresh answers to these questions. First, it models possible readers of the Bible–religious and nonreligious, professional and nonprofessional–and the reasons that might attract them to it. Second, with the aid of Mediterranean anthropology, it sets out an approach that helps us to interpret a selection of narratives with a cultural understanding close to that of an ancient Israelite. Powerful stories, such as those of Tamar and Judah in Genesis 38, Hannah in 1 Samuel 1-2, Saul and David in 1 Samuel, David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 10-12, and Judith, burst into new light when understood in closer relation to their original audience. Interpreted in this way, these narratives allow us to refresh the memory that links us with pivotal stories in Jewish and Christian identities, they disclose more ample possibilities for being human, they foster our capacity for intercultural understanding, and they provide aesthetic pleasure from their embodying plots of great imaginative power.

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American evangelicalism has recently experienced a new openness to Roman Catholicism, and many evangelicals, both famous and ordinary, have joined the Catholic Church or are considering the possibility. This book helps evangelicals who are exploring Catholicism to sort out the kind of concerns that typically come up in discerning whether to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church. In simple language, it explains many theological misunderstandings that evangelicals often have about Catholicism and suggests the kind of practical steps many take to enter the Catholic Church. The book frames evangelicals becoming Roman Catholic as a kind of «paradigm shift» involving the buildup of anomalies about evangelicalism, a crisis of the evangelical paradigm, a paradigm revolution, and the consolidation of the new Catholic paradigm. It will be useful for both evangelicals interested in pursuing and understanding Catholicism and Catholic pastoral workers seeking to help evangelical seekers who come to them.

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A resurgence of Trinitarian interest gained momentum in the twentieth century and it is showing little sign of abating in the twenty-first century. This research endeavors to critically evaluate Miroslav Volf's ecclesial model for «the church as the image of the Trinity,» one that he presents with the English title, After Our Likeness. Volf proposes a social doctrine of the Trinity, one that is heavily influenced by the theological writings of Jurgen Moltmann, and he puts forward that this nonhierarchical Trinity should be reflected in the structures and theology of the church. If Volf is correct, then a radical reshaping is needed for the church to conform to an egalitarian pattern, one that is «after the likeness» (Gen 1:26) of an egalitarian God. In this critical examination, Kevin J. Bidwell begins by stating the theological influences that are pertinent to Volf's thesis in After Our Likeness and the assumptions that undergird and inform his whole theological paradigm. An important theological excursus is offered to assess the theology of John Smyth, the first English Baptist, who is Volf's representative figure for the location of his own ecclesiology, the Free Church. A critical analysis follows of Volf's engagement with his two chosen dialogue partners who represent both Western and Eastern theological traditions: Joseph Ratzinger and John D. Zizioulas. Volf presents five theses for «the church as the image of the Trinity,» which could be labeled as Volf's Free Church in the image of Volf's revised doctrine of the Trinity. This monograph offers extensive insight into the contemporary debate on the doctrine of the Trinity, but it also assesses many aspects of ecclesiology from both Eastern and Western perspectives.

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Climate change. Radical politics. National debt. Globalization. What do Christians have to say to the big questions we all face? Whatever they try to say, they will be seriously handicapped if they do not know their own story. Finding Pieces of the Puzzle will fill the knowledge gap. It breaks away from the usual manner in which history is written. Here is a sweeping overview of the story of Christianity that takes the reader to parts of the world seldom visited, that watches as the message of Christ encounters cultures as different as ninth century Persia and sixteenth century Kongo. The story is carried from the first to the twenty-first century by a series of mini-biographies–a young woman facing martyrdom, a boy from a little French town who becomes Pope and launches an army, an African-American who uses a successful international trade network to combat slavery. The glory, the confusion, the shame, the holiness of Christianity are all here. As the pieces are slipped into place, the puzzle begins to make sense. Watching Christians of the past face their challenges helps us understand who modern Christians really are.

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What if we are more multiple as persons than traditional psychology has taught us to believe? And what if our multiplicity is a part of how we are made in the very image of a loving, relational, multiple God? How have modern, Western notions of Oneness caused harm–to both individuals and society? And how can an appreciation of our multiplicity help liberate the voices of those who live at the margins, both of society and within our own complex selves? Braided Selves explores these questions from the perspectives of postmodern pastoral psychology and Trinitarian theology, with implications for the practice of spiritual care, counseling, and psychotherapy. This volume gathers ten years of essays on this theme by preeminent pastoral theologian Pamela Cooper-White, whose writings bring into dialogue postmodern, feminist, and psychoanalytic theory and constructive theology.

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