"Spirituality" often takes us out of the public world to a more inward (so-called "mystical") space, while "politics" calls us beyond ourselves to the more material realities of social embodiment. These are false options, yet many forms of modern theology have succumbed to these temptations. They mimic Alasdair MacIntyre's therapists and managers while protesting against one side or the other. These essays provide a new way of envisioning the relationship between spirituality and social embodiment. Some authors provide re-readings of pre-modern theology: New Testament texts (R. Williams), Bernard (Jones), Aquinas (A. Williams), Julian of Norwich (Bauerschmidt), Luther (Yeago). Some authors address our circumstances more directly, demystifying "inwardness" (R. Williams) or criticizing consumer spiritualities (Jones), re-locating the Church and the state we are in (Lash), or assessing competing African-American spiritualities (Jennings). All seek ways to place our spiritualities and politics before the God who desires to redeem us, body and soul.

A Spiritual City provides a broad examination of the meaning and importance of cities from a Christian perspective. * Contains thought-provoking theological and spiritual reflections on city-making by a leading scholar * Unites contemporary thinking about urban space and built environments with the latest in urban theology * Addresses the long-standing anti-urban bias of Christianity and its emphasis on inwardness and pilgrimage * Presents an important religious perspective on the potential of cities to create a strong human community and sense of sacred space

Tens of millions of Christians live in China today, many of them leading double lives or in hiding from a government that relentlessly persecutes them. Bob Fu, whom the "Wall Street Journal "called "The pastor of China's underground railroad," is fighting to protect his fellow believers from persecution, imprisonment, and even death. "God's Double Agent" is his fascinating and riveting story.
Bob Fu is indeed God's double agent. By day Fu worked as a full-time lecturer in a communist school; by night he pastored a house church and led an underground Bible school. This can't-put-it-down book chronicles Fu's conversion to Christianity, his arrest and imprisonment for starting an illegal house church, his harrowing escape, and his subsequent rise to prominence in the United States as an advocate for his brethren. "God's Double Agent "will inspire readers even as it challenges them to boldly proclaim and live out their faith in a world that is at times indifferent, and at other times murderously hostile, to those who spread the gospel.

We have seen progress in recent decades toward Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of beloved community. But this is not only because of the activism and sacrifice of a generation of civil rights leaders. It happened because God was on the move. Historian and theologian Charles Marsh partners with veteran activist John Perkins to chronicle God's vision for a more equitable and just world. Perkins reflects on his long ministry and identifies key themes and lessons he has learned, and Marsh highlights the legacy of Perkins's work in American society. Together they show how abandoned places are being restored, divisions are being reconciled, and what individuals and communities are doing now to welcome peace and justice. Now updated to reflect on current social realities, this book reveals ongoing lessons for the continuing struggle for a just society. Come, discover your part in the beloved community. There is unfinished work still to do.

Despite the crucial role of religion in most societies, religious activism remains largely uninvestigated. Based on empirical evidence, this book also addresses many theoretical issues arising in the study of social movements.

"Preeeeep." The sound of the peepers, tiny frogs an inch or two long, penetrated the dusk. Beneath the jack pines at the edge of a small pond in the northern Michigan woods, the males were calling their mates. A professor and a group of ecology students sat speechless as closer and closer, louder and louder, more and more peepers joined in chorus. There was just light enough to see them, crawling up a bracken fern to find a singing perch, filling their throats with air like tiny balloons about to burst and then giving forth at close range an ear-splitting 'preeeeep.; . . . Now we were immersed in the peepers' lives, not ours. And when the concert ended and the peepers had gone away, we laughed together for the sheer joy and power of life displayed for a moment in the grand efforts of one tiny creature to be fruitful and multiply." Combining compelling stories with both biblical and scientific investigation, Redeeming Creation addresses the ecological crisis we face today. population explosion rain forests stripped bare destruction of animal habitat the death of entire species depletion of the ozone layer global warming The authors, four biologists and teachers, believe that we can face these dilemmas with hope. Moving beyond a mere survey of the planet's ills, they bring Scripture into fruitful dialogue with current scientific findings and commitments. They both inspire and inform our individual and corporate response to God's creation.

Thoughtful and informative, this essay is an analysis of the basis and nature of human rights. Arguing that human rights is an issue that is often invoked but seldom intelligently considered, this record examines concrete, immediate, moral, and social issues, including birth control, taxation, welfare, private behavior, and military service. Noting the inadequacies of non-Christian positions--such as the radical-humanist, utilitarian, and self-realization approaches--this account develops an original thesis in which the absolute ground for rights is the will and grace of God.

This book defends the fundamental place of the marital family in modern liberal societies. While applauding modern sexual freedoms, John Witte, Jr also defends the traditional Western teaching that the marital family is an essential cradle of conscience, chrysalis of care, and cornerstone of ordered liberty. He thus urges churches, states, and other social institutions to protect and promote the marital family. He encourages reticent churches to embrace the rights of women and children, as Christians have long taught, and encourages modern states to promote responsible sexual freedom and family relations, as liberals have long said. He counsels modern churches and states to share in family law governance, and to resist recent efforts to privatize, abolish, or radically expand the marital family sphere. Witte also invites fellow citizens to end their bitter battles over same-sex marriage and tend to the vast family field that urgently needs concerted attention and action.

It has all the hallmarks of a best-selling fictional thriller:

"If Trayvon was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?" --President Barack ObamaThe 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager in Florida, and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, brought public attention to controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. The verdict, as much as the killing, sent shock waves through the African-American community, recalling a history of similar deaths, and the long struggle for justice. On the Sunday morning following the verdict, black preachers around the country addressed the question, "Where is the justice of God? What are we to hope for?" This book is an attempt to take seriously social and theological questions raised by this and similar stories, and to answer black church people's questions of justice and faith in response to the call of God.But Kelly Brown Douglas also brings another significant interpretative lens to this text: that of a mother. "There has been no story in the news that has troubled me more than that of Trayvon Martin's slaying. President Obama said that if he had a son his son would look like Trayvon. I do have a son and he does look like Trayvon." Her book will also affirm the "truth" of a black mother's faith in these times of stand your ground.

"Sexuality and the Christian Body" addresses the challenges to traditional Christianity by gay and lesbian Christians and their critics within the church. This controversial book will be welcomed for the radical new insights it provides into Christian arguments about the body.

Rogers starts by offering description and rigorous analysis of both conservative and liberal conceptions of the body within the church, exposing similarities between apparently opposing positions. Drawing on the work of Barth, Geertz, Aquinas and others, he then goes on to constructively reconnect doctrines like incarnation, election, and resurrection with race, gender and sexual orientation. In a final section he offers arguments for the fittingness in the Christian tradition of marriage-like homosexual relationships.

How may people of faith respond wisely, constructively, and courageously to the challenges of a time of terror? How might religious reasons in public debate be a force for reconciliation rather than violence and hatred? In a world in which religious arguments and religious motivations play such a huge public role, there is an urgent responsibility for interpreting what is happening, and engaging with religious views which are commonly regarded as alien, threatening or dangerous. In Apocalypse Now?, Duncan Forrester argues that disorders and atrocities which include the Gulag, the Holocaust, 9/11, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and the Tsunami disaster have shown us that we stand not at the end of history but in the midst of an apocalyptic age of terror which has striking similarities to the time in which Christianity was born. Moving between two times of terror - the early Centuries of Christianity, and today - Forrester asks how religious motivations can play a positive role in the midst of conflicts and disasters. Reading the 'signs of the times' to try to understand what is happening in today's age of terror, Forrester argues that there are huge resources in the Christian tradition that can be productively deployed for a more constructive and faithful response. We are at a turning point - this is a book which should be read.

"It's not a process," one pastor insisted, "rehabilitation is a miracle." In the face of addiction and few state resources, Pentecostal pastors in Guatemala City are fighting what they understand to be a major crisis. Yet the treatment centers they operate produce this miracle of rehabilitation through extraordinary means: captivity. These men of faith snatch drug users off the streets, often at the request of family members, and then lock them up inside their centers for months, sometimes years. Hunted is based on more than ten years of fieldwork among these centers and the drug users that populate them. Over time, as Kevin Lewis O'Neill engaged both those in treatment and those who surveilled them, he grew increasingly concerned that he, too, had become a hunter, albeit one snatching up information. This thoughtful, intense book will reframe the arc of redemption we so often associate with drug rehabilitation, painting instead a seemingly endless cycle of hunt, capture, and release.

Humanity's relationship to nature is central to the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, an influential priest and scientist of the twentieth century. Teilhard believed that spiritual development must be viewed alongside material development and that evolutionary theory lies at the heart of humanity's understanding of its place in the world. 'Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on People and Planet' argues that Teilhard's cosmic mysticism and intense interest in both cosmological and evolutionary sciences are highly relevant to current debates about how best to construct a meaningful spirituality. The book offers a critical revision of Teilhard's thought in the light of current debates in evolutionary science, eco-theology and environmental ethics. The essays present fresh interpretations of Teilhard's work and point to the significance of his thought in the contemporary study of science and religion.

Reflecting on his past, President John Adams mused that it was religion that had shaped his family's fortunes and young America's future. For the nineteenth century's first family, the Adamses of Massachusetts, the history of how they lived religion was dynamic and well-documented. Christianity supplied the language that Abigail used to interpret husband John's political setbacks. Scripture armed their son John Quincy to act as father, statesman, and antislavery advocate. Unitarianism gave Abigail's Victorian grandson, Charles Francis, the religious confidence to persevere in political battles on the Civil War homefront. By contrast, his son Henry found religion hollow and repellent compared to the purity of modern science. Religion helped Abigail's great-grandson Brooks, a Gilded Age critic of capitalism, to prophesy two world wars. Globe-trotters who chronicled their religious journeys extensively, the Adamses ultimately developed a cosmopolitan Christianity that blended discovery and criticism, faith and doubt. Drawing from their rich archive of art and letters, Sara Georgini, the series editor for The Papers of John Adams, demonstrates how pivotal Christianity-as the different generations understood it-was in shaping the family's decisions, great and small. Spanning nearly four centuries of faith from Puritan New England to the Jazz Age, Household Gods tells a new story of American religion, as the president's family lived it.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. This innovative volume focuses on the significance of early Christianity for modern means of addressing poverty, by offering a rigorous study of deprivation and its alleviation in both earliest Christianity and today's world. The contributors seek to present the complex ways in which early Christian ideas and practices relate to modern ideas and practices, and vice versa. In this light, the book covers seven major areas of poverty and its causes, benefaction, patronage, donation, wealth and dehumanization, 'the undeserving poor', and responsibility. Each area features an expert in early Christianity in its Jewish and Graeco-Roman settings, paired with an expert in modern strategies for addressing poverty and benefaction; each author engages with the same topic from their respective area of expertise, and responds to their partner's essay. Giving careful attention toboth the continuities and discontinuities between the ancient world and today, the contributors seek to inform and engage church leaders, those working in NGOs concerned with poverty, and all interested in these crucial issues, both Christian and not.

The contemporary Church of England is wrestling with issues around the relationship between its worship and mission and relating both to wider society. Much of this hinges on an understanding of the nature of the Church. Gabriel Hebert's seminal book Liturgy and Society (1935) took as its subtitle, "The Function of the Church in the Modern World". For many this book inspired engagement with Eucharistic worship, with new patterns emerging, paving the way for further liturgical reform in the second half of the twentieth century. Eucharist Shaping and Hebert's Liturgy and Society re-examines Hebert's work, doing so uniquely in the light of the current dialogue about Church, liturgy and mission. Andrew Bishop argues that Hebert's contribution has been overlooked latterly and that a re-appreciation opens up fruitful ways of thinking and acting, making this book a distinctive contribution to a lively debate. If the options are reaction or novelty, Eucharist Shaping and Hebert's Liturgy and Society shows how Hebert's thinking subtly undermines both.

Christianity Today Book Award Winner Outreach Resource of the Year (Multicultural) ASM (American Society of Missiology) Book of the Year Award Globalization is speeding up our world, extending our relationships globally and bringing us closer together in positive and not-so-positive ways. The church and many Christians, however, remain largely unaware of its seductive power, resulting in a failure of vision for mission in today's world. This up-to-date resource by a veteran leader in global development work with World Vision orients readers to the history of globalization and to a Christian theological perspective on it, explores concrete realities by focusing on global poverty, and helps readers reimagine Christian mission in ways that announce the truly good news of Christ and God's kingdom. Diagrams and sidebars that incorporate the voices of global partners are included. This is the second book in a new series that reframes missiological themes and studies for students using/featuring the common theme of mission as partnership with Christians.

Ecumenism: A Guide for the Perplexed is a brief but comprehensive introduction to the methods, achievements, and future prospects of the modern ecumenical movement. The authors begin the volume by charting out a serviceable definition of ecumenism, a term that has long been a source of confusion for students of theology and church history. The authors then concisely review the chronology of the first century of the modern ecumenical movement, highlighting the major events, figures, accomplishments, and impasses. This historical survey is followed by critical examinations of several significant challenges for contemporary ecumenical theology and practice. The authors conclude the volume by commenting upon the difficulties and prospects that the ecumenical movement might anticipate as it enters this new millennium.

The United Methodist Church has been in conflict over lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender inclusion issues since 1972. That year, in response to the gay liberation and gay rights movements, wording was added to the UMC Book of Discipline (the compilation of denominational policies and doctrines) characterizing homosexuality as "incompatible with Christian teaching." Since then, United Methodist ministers have been forbidden to perform same-sex commitment ceremonies (and United Methodist churches forbidden to host them), a rule has been passed that non-heterosexual United Methodist ministers must be celibate, and the UMC has forbidden the funding of any program or organization "supporting" homosexuality. These policies have been met with significant resistance by those fighting for GLBT inclusion. In this groundbreaking book, Udis-Kessler examines this struggle, analyzing both sides of this divisive debate among one of the most prominent religious organizations in the United States.

Author and pastor David Kim shares his experiences with loneliness as a Korean American immigrant and delivers compelling research about belonging that includes the revolutionary five anchors for developing meaningful relationships. Even though we are connected more than ever--through social media, video calls and texts, and advanced travel opportunities--we're also drowning in loneliness and isolation. As discipleship pastor of WestGate Church in Silicon Valley, David Kim decided to research the reasons why--and uncovered surprising answers. When Kim moved to America from South Korea as a child, he experienced isolation during his school years. Differences in language, food, and culture spiked an immense desire for an accepting, supportive community. As an adult, he read widely about belonging, and in his survey of more than 1,300 Christians, he discovered that the number-one struggle shared by them is loneliness. Left to ourselves, Kim says, we naturally drift away from God and others, and we begin to believe the lies of the enemy: You are all alone. No one else feels this way. No one cares about you. How could they? God has abandoned you. You were just imagining things before. In Made to Belong, Kim combats those lies with the incredible hope found in the revolutionary Five Practices for Meaningful Connection: Priority: People first, no regrets. Chemistry: What, you too? Vulnerability: Dangerously safe. Empathy: I hear and see you. Accountability: I can't carry it, but I can carry you. True belonging takes intentional effort, but Kim reminds us that we are made to belong--to each other and to Jesus. Through sound wisdom from the Bible, proven research from the social sciences and his own data, and examples from his pastoral ministry and moving personal anecdotes, Kim shows us that we are uniquely designed by God to belong to one another for our flourishing.

A new way for Christians to think about sexuality Author Miguel De La Torre, a well-respected ethicist and professor known for his innovative readings of Christian doctrine, rejects both the liberal and conservative prejudices about sex. He instead develops an ethic that is liberative yet grounded soundly in the Bible; a sexuality that celebrates God s gift of great sex by fostering intimacy, vulnerability and openness between loving partners. In A Lily Among the Thorns, De La Torre examines the Bible, current events, history and our culture-at-large to show how and why racism, sexism, and classism have distorted Christianity s central teachings about sexuality. The author shows how the church s traditionally negative attitudes toward sex in general and toward women, people of color, and gays in particular have made it difficult, if not impossible, to create a biblically based and just sexual ethic. But when the Bible is read from the viewpoint of those who have been marginalized in our society, preconceived notions about Christianity and sex get turned on their heads. Taking on hot-button topics such as pornography, homosexuality, prostitution, and celibacy, the author examines how reading from the margins provides a liberating approach to dealing with issues of sexuality.