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John Calvin (1509-64) was the pinnacle of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation in Europe. As we celebrate the five hundred-year anniversary of his birth, it is worthy to explore Calvin's covenant theology, which may be one of the best windows to understand and evaluate his theology as a whole. In recent years, the Federal Vision has been surfaced in the American conservative Reformed and evangelical circles. It has strong hermeneutical, theological, and practical attachment with Calvin. Although Calvin was a covenant theologian, he firmly maintained the evangelical distinction between law and gospel, especially in his exposition of justification by faith alone (sola fide) and salvation by grace alone (sola gratia) with a balanced emphasis of believers' covenantal obedience. Moreover, we will find out that Calvin not only applied the distinction between law and gospel to soteriology but also in the depiction of redemptive history. In Calvin, the distinction between law and gospel was foundational for the depiction of biblical vision of eschatology in the Garden of Eden before the Fall and under the Old Covenant. However, the exponents of the Federal Vision deny any validity of the distinction between law and gospel in hermeneutics, theology, and practice while they identify themselves with those of Calvin. In that sense, we may identify the Federal Vision not with the Protestant Reformation and Calvin but as consistent monocovenantalism in which they deny the distinction between law and gospel and apply that monocovenantal principle consistently to their understandings of hermeneutics, soteriology, the doctrine of double predestination, and sacramental theology.

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For many years I have had an interest in the equality of women and men, particularly in the church, where it has been woefully lacking for the most part. More recently Fundamentalist theologians have become increasingly blatant in asserting that the Bible teaches subordination of women to men both inside and outside the church. I have argued that this idea results from an irresponsible proof-texting from the Bible. I am convinced that, when taken as a whole, looking at all passages referring to women, the Bible supports the complete equality of women with men. I have undertaken to demonstrate this fact by looking carefully at the stories of women in the Bible, both named and unnamed, who were not submissive to men and who refused to settle for the role which their society attempted to assign them. I have taken these passages from the Bible and interpreted them within the context into which they are placed, to the degree that this can be determined. My goal was to find every story in the Bible in which a woman stepped out of her societal role and did something only men were supposed to do. I leave to the reader to decide whether or not I have succeeded.

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Big on style, slight on substance: that has been a common charge over the years by critics of John Updike. In fact, however, John Updike is one of the most serious writers of modern times. Myth, as this book shows, unlocks his fictional universe and repeatedly breaks open the powerful themes in his literary parables of the gospel. Myth and Gospel in the Fiction of John Updike also includes a personal tribute to John Updike by his son David, two essays by pioneer Updike scholars Alice and Kenneth Hamilton, and an anecdotal chapter in which readers share Updike discoveries and recommendations. All in all, weight is added to the complaint that the master of myth and gospel was shortchanged by the Nobel committee.

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Luther's theology and practice have inspired and continue to inspire so many across confessional and even religious alignments worldwide, or else excite those for whom he displays a coveted, untamed audacity in living out convictions; it is the fabric, the texture that makes Luther a figura with the capability of being transfigured. Luther's theology–his view of language and understanding of creation, incarnation, the cross; his affirmation of freedom from ecclesial, economic, and/or political encroachments; his eschatology, and so forth–is seen in a new light in societies in which modernization does not necessarily mean secularization and the spirit is not set in dual opposition to things material. The dispute as to whether Luther is a late medieval theologian or a beacon of modernity is rendered largely superfluous when the Reformer is read and interpreted in contexts that do not share the peculiar cultural and political history of Europe, its orthodoxies, its pietisms, its enlightenments, and its secularisms. Transfiguring Luther lifts up and presents the significance of the Reformer–his figure as it is transfigured into diverse contexts, absorbing new contents instead of the traditional bastions that are remarkably in tune with the spirit of the Reformation, thus rekindling it.

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For religious communities to have integrity and credibility they must flourish as places of love and respect. Every aspect of church life is defined and protected by essential boundaries: boundaries around space, time, thought, speech, will, emotion, and behavior–both for clergy and church members. Lack of awareness and attention to boundary keeping diminishes the integrity of the church and harms its mission, whereas insight and vigilance about best practices lend freedom and energy to the calling of the church to care for others and to reach out to the world. In a flourishing Christian community, a wide array of boundaries must be recognized, celebrated, and navigated–from the boundaries that define and protect us as individual persons to role boundaries and the boundaries that define essential communal functions, such as worship.
This book is no conventional account of boundaries. It takes a comprehensive approach to the challenge of understanding and creating healthy boundaries. It applies the lessons from the emerging field of behavioral ethics to the rich and rewarding complexity of boundaries in church life, helping us to be more loving and responsible in how we think, speak, and act, so that the church can be true to its identity and mission.

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In his enthronement sermon as archbishop of Canterbury in 1942 William Temple famously declared the ecumenical movement to be «the great new fact of our era.» In this book Martin Camroux tries to face honestly how hope met reality. By the end of the century the enthusiasm had largely dissipated, the organizations that represented it were in decline, and organic unity looked further away than ever.
One significant ecumenical merger took place in Britain–the creation in 1972 of the United Reformed Church, which saw its formation as a catalyst for ecumenical renewal. Its hopes, however, were largely illusory. With the failure of its ecumenical hope the church had little idea of its purpose, found great difficulty establishing an identity, and faced a catastrophic implosion in membership.
This first serious study of the United Reformed Church also includes groundbreaking analysis of the unity process, the mixed fortunes of Local Ecumenical Projects and how the national ecumenical organizations withered. All of this is put in the wider context of religion in British society including secularization, individualism, and post-denominationalism.
What failed was not ecumenism but a particular model of it and the book ends with a commitment to a renewed ecumenical hope.

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While the traditional Christian engagement with environmental ethics too often begins and ends with Genesis, this project joins numerous recent efforts by biblical scholars to identify new foundations on which Christians can make ethical choices about creation. Wisdom literature, a largely untapped resource, offers a unique point of entry for environmental ethics. Despite their marginalization in ethical debates on the environment, the biblical sages have a great deal to say about the inseparability of God's creation and righteous living–observations that must then be brought into conversation with a host of contemporary disciplines. As the crisis of environmental degradation permeates the lived experience of more and more Christians, it is increasingly critical to have solid and biblically defensible foundations from which to make moral choices about the environmental behavior of individuals, corporations, and nations.

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The stuff that comes after modernism isn't all bad. Postmodernism, not needing everything to be buttoned up, can leave things dangling; it can pay attention to the obscure, marginal, and particular. The postmodern dynamic invites one to revisit biblical texts that do not fit into tidy, cherished theological constructs: I call these texts the «minority reports.» Popular theology infers that God is just pretending when he changes his mind or gets frustrated, saddened, and affected by humans–this understanding is guided by concepts of God's omni-attributes. But these wise and well-intentioned concepts fail to portray a God who will not be domesticated. Certain biblical narratives trace YHWH's hiddenness, suffering, changeability, and «hostility»–this awkward «shadow side» of YHWH is sometimes selectively overlooked. The fear of God is gone. Instead we have the ever-tolerant, universal God who is in danger of evaporating into «spirit,» «light,» and «love.» As a theologian I use Hebrew block logic: competing truths in the Bible are kept intact; synthesis isn't necessarily sought. God chooses us and we choose God; God is self-sufficient, all-powerful, and all-knowing, needing no creature. Yet he chooses to limit his «omni-ness» in the human arena and makes himself vulnerable to humans. He hyphenates his name with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob–and the church–at a risk.

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Idealistic farm girl Teresa can't wait to leave home, to escape the ugliness. College offers her a soft landing place, but her history and genetics haunt her. Later, propelled by shame and possibilities, she rides away on her motorcycle. But one cannot escape the wounds of the past, or the God of creation. A fighter, Teresa finds inspiration in a little known place–five thousand year old poetry known as the Psalms. Immerse yourself in Teresa's world; see the battles of the world unfold in her path. Can love overcome fear? Can hope overcome depression? How does one find hope? Is healing possible? This inspiring true story includes helpful sidebars containing how-to information and assurance. Here is a close-up of the Holy Spirit in action.
P.S.
I wrote this book for you. I don't know you, but I know suffering intimately.
If this book helps you find what I've found, my suffering will have been worth it. You see, I never thought life could be good; joy possible; hope present; or that healing would be around the corner. I believed I might as well be dead. If people knew who I really was, they would despise me.
Now, I am glad to be alive. I am more than a survivor. The journey has been worthwhile. For a quick glimpse of my life, go to www.newpathways.us.

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The confessing church in our time treats lightly the doctrinal deposit of its theological inheritance. The clamor of competition for the reconstruction of belief-systems has too often neglected older and more secure moorings. In a postmodern age that countenances individual belief-idiosyncrasies and accords them sanctity, the answer to the ordinary man's question, «What is the gospel?» is often clouded and confused. Against doctrinal uncertainties and insecurities, The Immediacy of God brings back into prominence a number of foundational issues related to the doctrines of God and salvation, of theology and soteriology. In doing so, it anchors its thought-structure in the basic apologetic presupposition that God is, and in the fundamental hermeneutical principle of divine covenantal purpose.
The originality of Vickers' argument lies in its proposal of new perspectives on its chosen subject-range and, as it becomes necessary for the elucidation of biblical belief, its critical response to proposals for new theological paradigms. The organizing core of the book's argument is its proposition regarding the immediacy of God in his being, his knowledge, his will, and his actions. That core proposition spills its influence to aspects of human salvation. On such levels, questions are raised that strike to the heart of the meaning of the divinely instituted redemptive process. Divine actions within that process are understood to be «immediate,» rather than «mediate.» Redemptive actions of God are «immediate» in the sense that no mediating causes exist between those actions and their effects and outcomes in the human condition.

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