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.

Christianity Today 2020 Book Award (Award of Merit, Theology/Ethics) Outreach 2020 Recommended Resource of the Year (Theology and Biblical Studies) The question of what makes life worth living is more vital now than ever. In today's pluralistic, postsecular world, universal values are dismissed as mere matters of private opinion, and the question of what constitutes flourishing life--for ourselves, our neighbors, and the planet as a whole--is neglected in our universities, our churches, and our culture at large. Although we increasingly have technology to do almost anything, we have little sense of what is truly worth accomplishing. In this provocative new contribution to public theology, world-renowned theologian Miroslav Volf (named "America's New Public Intellectual" by Scot McKnight on his Jesus Creed blog) and Matthew Croasmun explain that the intellectual tools needed to rescue us from our present malaise and meet our new cultural challenge are the tools of theology. A renewal of theology is crucial to help us articulate compelling visions of the good life, find our way through the maze of contested questions of value, and answer the fundamental question of what makes life worth living.

"Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."Mathew 11:28 (AKJV)

In the early 1990s, a grassroots coalition of churches in Baltimore, Maryland helped launch what would become a national movement. Joining forces with labor and low-wage worker organizations, they passed the first municipal living wage ordinance. Since then, over 144 municipalities and counties as well as numerous universities and local businesses in the United States have enacted such ordinances.

Although religious persons and organizations have been important both in the origins of the living wage movement and in its continuing success, they are often ignored or under analyzed. Drawing on participant observation in multiple cities, All You That Labor analyzes and evaluates the contributions of religious activists to the movement. The book explores the ways religious organizations do this work in concert with low-wage workers, the challenges religious activists face, and how people of faith might better nurture moral agency in relation to the political economy. Ultimately, C. Melissa Snarr provides clarity on how to continue to cultivate, renew, and expand religious resources dedicated to the moral agency of low-wage workers and their allies.

This is volume 2 of a unique collection, offering a veritable Who's Who of renowned Christian and Muslim scholars that have shaped the course of Christian-Muslim dialogue."Global Christianity in Local Context and Muslim Encounter" is a unique collection of essays in honour of David A. Kerr, well-known for his contributions in the areas of Christian-Muslim dialogue, Ecumenical Studies and Missions. With contributions from recognized experts in these fields, the book provides a platform for examining contemporary Christian-Muslim relations and critical issues facing twenty-first century Christianity.Volume 2 is a veritable Who's Who of renowned Christian and Muslim scholars that have shaped the course of Christian-Muslim dialogue over the last half century. Their contributions in this volume address contemporary and pivotal issues facing Christians and Muslims today, such as Islamophobia, Islamism, Religious Freedom, Inter-religious Challenges and Urbanism, Mission and Economic Globalisation, Suffering and Social Responsibility, and others.

The Christian Right is arguably the most significant social movement in the United States today. In recent years, these religious conservatives have loudly protested a public education system they believe no longer represents their interests or values.

Educators often dismiss critiques based on religious values as irrational or flimsy, failing to appreciate the coherence of these criticisms from the Christian Right's own perspective. While the Christian Right has become ever more sophisticated in its lobbying and powerful in its influence, educators and parents find themselves lacking the background knowledge necessary to respond effectively to its efforts.

Standing on the Premises of God speaks directly to this dilemma, explaining current incarnations of the Christian Right, its leadership, its intellectual and theological foundations, and its tactics, so that those interested in the debates over education will be better prepared to engage them constructively.

Taking the novel approach of framing the Christian Right as a revitalization movement, Detwiler shows how it seeks to effect cultural transformation in order to bring public education-and our society more generally-in line with its worldview. His theoretical model provides insights into why education is so pivotal to the Christian Right and also assesses the religious viability of the Christian Right as a social movement.

This small convenient book puts needed resources into your glove compartment, pocket, or briefcase.

Climate Church, Climate World, originally published in 2018, contends that climate change is the greatest moral challenge humanity has ever faced. Hunger, refugees, poverty, inequality, deadly viruses, war-climate change multiplies all forms of global social injustice. Environmental advocate Rev. Jim Antal calls on the church to meet this moral challenge, to embrace a new vocation so that future generations might live in harmony with God's creation. After illuminating how human beings are responsible for the dangers our planet now faces, Antal proposes how people of faith can embrace new approaches to worship, preaching, witnessing, and other spiritual practices that honor creation and cultivate hope. This revised and updated edition includes a new chapter on political and policy shifts under the Trump and Biden administrations; influence of Greta Thunberg and climate change activists; and updated information on the current science of climate change. Includes a foreword by environmental advocate Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature.

This is the first volume of a unique collection of essays in memory of David A Kerr, offering insights into current trends in Local Theology and Missions."Global Christianity in Local Context" is the first volume of a unique collection of essays in honour of David A. Kerr, well-known for his contributions in the areas of Christian-Muslim dialogue, Ecumenical Studies and Missions. With contributions from recognized experts in these fields, the book provides a platform for examining contemporary Christian-Muslim relations and critical issues facing twenty-first century Christianity.In Volume 1, scholars and Church leaders offer insights into current trends in Local Theology and Missions from the contexts of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe.

Every story entails a way of life and how every way of life implies a big story. In Every Body's Story, Branson Parler focuses on three predominant myths of sexuality in our secular age--individualism, romance, and materialism--and three dominant myths in Christian circles--anti-body theology, legalism, and the sexual prosperity gospel--exploring how those stories shape our practice. Our views of sexuality and our practices around sex are never just about sex. How we use and view our bodies reveals who/what we think God is (or is not) and who we are. If we truly understand the biblical logic of marriage, sexuality, and singleness--that they are meant to embody the gospel--then we will better understand why this witness is so vital. As God's self-giving faithfulness is put on display by both married and single Christians, those formed by our secular age will have to ask: What if it's true? What if there's more? What if God really does love us that much? Rather than viewing our sexuality as an isolated matter of ethics, we can see how the gospel places our sexuality in the context of God's rescue mission of the world.

2011 Winner of the Book Awards Contest in the Discipline of Theology Presented by Alpha Sigma Nu The apostle Paul wrote that "All of you are one in Christ Jesus." Given Paul's vision of God's kingdom defined by the breakdown of all distinctions and relationships of domination-no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female-how do we make sense of ethnic particularity within the church's theological formulations? Racism and God-Talk explores the biblical and religious dimensions of North American racism while highlighting examples of resistance within the Christian religious tradition. Social historians have seldom analyzed the problematic of race from a primarily theological perspective. This volume undertakes a critical examination of explicitly theological and confessional perspectives for understanding and transforming North American racism. Rosario Rodriguez offers insights from Latino/a theology for broader scholarly and social discussions concerning racism, borders, and immigration. The first to analyze race and racism from a Latino/a theological perspective, the volume makes use of a broadened conceptualization of "mestizaje," or mutual cultural exchange, to challenge the church to recognize the effects of racial and ethnic particularity in all theological construction.

What does it mean to evangelize ethically in a multicultural climate? Following his successful Evangelism after Christendom, Bryan Stone addresses reasons evangelism often fails and explains how it can become distorted as a Christian practice. Stone urges us to consider a new approach, arguing for evangelism as a work of imagination and a witness to beauty rather than a crass effort to compete for converts in pluralistic contexts. He shows that the way we lead our lives as Christians is the most meaningful tool of evangelism in today's rapidly changing world.

Susan R. Holman examines the theme of poverty in the fourth-century sermons of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory Nysson. These sermons are especially important for what they tell us about the history of poverty relief and the role of fourth century Christian theology in constructing the body of the redemptive, involuntary poor. Some of the topics explored include the contextualization of the poor in scholarship, the poor in late antiquity, and starvation and famine dynamics. In exploring this relationship between cultural context and theological language, this volume offers a broad and fresh overview of these little-studied texts.

We can heal our communities--one friendship at a time. Everyone wants to do something to improve race relations, but many of us don't know where to start. In Life-Changing Cross-Cultural Friendships, lifelong friends Gary Chapman and Clarence Shuler will show you how. Through important lessons they have learned, you will learn how to begin and grow authentic friendships across racial and ethnic barriers. Each chapter will guide you toward deeper understanding of what it takes to foster cross-cultural friendships. These powerful lessons include: How to overcome the fear of developing cross-cultural friendships How to differentiate true friends from mere acquaintances How Jesus initiated cross-cultural relationships The first two steps to your own cross-cultural friendship Three ways to resolve conflict in a cross-cultural friendship How to make friendships last a lifetime Chapman and Shuler challenge every reader to join a movement, the Cross-Cultural Friendship Challenge, and begin changing the world one friendship at a time.

The author argues that identity politics eliminates Ethiopians' in-between spaces and identities and defines in-between spaces as political, social, religious, and geographical spaces that enable Ethiopians to co-exist with equity, solidarity, and justice. The elimination of in-between spaces and in-between identities creates either-or class, religious, ethnic, and gender categories. Therefore, the author proposes an in-between theology that invites Ethiopians to a new hybrid way of being to resist fragmented and hegemonic identities. The author claims that postcolonial discourse and praxis of in-between pastoral care disrupts and interrogates hegemonic definitions of culture, home, subjectivity, and identity. On the other hand, in-between pastoral care uses embodiment, belonging, subjectivity, and hybridity as features of care and praxis to create intercultural and intersubjective identities that can co-construct and co-create in-between spaces. In the in-between spaces, Ethiopians can relate with the Other with intercultural competencies to live their difference, similarity, hybridity, and complexity.

To seek and find God is everything.
In his forty-three years of seeking after God, Francis Frangipane has learned one simple (yet essential) truth...
It is in seeking God, that we actually find Him.
The deliberate movement of our hearts toward God leads us into far more than a simple answer to our need--it leads us straight to Him. We discover God to be an ally whose wisdom is all encompassing and whose power can transform all things with just one look.
In "I Will Be Found by You" he shares a collection of some of his best writings on the topic, both old and new, to reveal the key to seeking God and possessing a heart after God--the key that unlocks everything important.