To suppose that God has a providential plan based on a special covenant with Israel and realised in the atonement presents us with a moral problem. In Ruin and Restoration David Martin sketches a radical naturalistic account of the atonement based on the innocent paying for the sins of the guilty through ordinary social processes. An exercise in socio-theology, the book reflects on the contrast between 'the world' governed by the dynamic of violence as analysed by the social sciences, including international relations, and the emergence in Christianity (and Buddhism) of a non-violent alternative. A 'governing essay' fuses frameworks drawn from Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Jaspers, Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber and explores the relation between the cultural sciences, especially sociology, and theology treated as another but very distinctive cultural science. Six commentaries then deal with the atonement in detail; with the nature of Christian language and grammar, and with its characteristic mutations due to necessary compromises with 'the world'; with sex and violence; and with the liturgy as a concentrated mode of reconciliation.

This book revisits the tradition of Western religious cinema in light of scholarship on St. Paul's political theology. The book's subtitle derives from the account in the Book of Acts that St. Paul was temporarily blinded in the wake of his conversion on the road to Damascus. In imitation of Paul, the films on which Sean Desilets's analysis hinges (including those of Carl-Th. Dreyer, Robert Bresson, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Carlos Reygadas) place a god-blind mechanism, the camera, between themselves and the divine. Desilets calls the posture they adopt "hermeneutic humility": hermeneutic in that it interprets the world, but humble in that it pays particular-even obsessive-attention to its own limits. Though these films may not consciously reflect Pauline theology, Desilets argues that they participate in a messianic-hermeneutic tradition that runs from Paul through St. Augustine, Blaise Pascal, Karl Barth, and Walter Benjamin, and which contributes significantly to contemporary discussions in poststructuralist literary theory, political theology, and religious studies. Desilets's insightful explication of Jean-Luc Nancy's deconstruction of Christianity and Georgio Agamben's recent work on religion makes a substantial contribution to film philosophy and emerging critical trends in the study of religion and film. This book puts forward a nuanced theoretical framework that will be useful for film scholars, students of contemporary political theology, and scholars interested in the intersections of religion and media.

'Communication and Exegesis' helps to demystify communication theory in such a way as to encourage biblical scholars and students to open their minds to new ideas about how humans attempt to communicate with one another. It shows how much exegesis in intuitive and gives a theoretical account and support for the processes which we engage in as we attempt to analyse a text. Contextual presuppositions and biases are also considered and factored into the interpretive process. By using Relevance Theory consistently, rather than employing the eclectic method favoured by some scholars who have dabbled in one linguistic theory or another, the book provides a sound theoretical basis on which to build interpretation of text without demanding a new range of competencies from the reader. 'Communication and Exegesis' does not claim to solve all problems but rather to encourage readers to develop a keener awareness of what communication means. Cognitive approaches are now in the forefront of both anthropological and linguistic studies, and have the potential to be extremely beneficial to biblical studies by opening up new areas for research and reinvestigating some issues perceived as problems in the past.

What is the significance of the body? What might phenomenology contribute to a theological account of the body? And what is gained by prolonging the overlooked dialogue between St. John Paul II and Emmanuel Levinas? Nigel Zimmermann answers these questions through the agreements and the tensions between two of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. John Paul II, the Polish pope, philosopher, and theologian, and Emmanuel Levinas, the French-Jewish philosopher of Lithuanian heritage, were provocative thinkers who courageously faced and challenged the assumptions of their age. Both held the human person in high regard and did their thinking with constant reference to God and to theological language. Zimmermann does not shirk from the challenges of each thinker and does not hide their differences. However, he shows how they bequeath a legacy regarding the body that we would overlook at significant ethical peril. We are called, Zimmermann argues, to face the other. In this moment God refuses a banal marginalisation and our call to responsibility for the other person is issued in their disarming vulnerability. In the body, philosophy, theology, and ethics converge to call us to glory, even in the paradox of lowly suffering.

This is the first of a four-volume ground-breaking study of Christological origins. The fruit of twenty years' research, Jesus Monotheism lays out a new paradigm that goes beyond the now widely held view that Paul and others held to an unprecedented 'Christological monotheism'. There was already, in Second Temple Judaism and in the Bible, a kind of 'christological monotheism'. But it is first with Jesus and his followers that a human figure is included in the identity of the one God as a fully divine person. Volume I lays out the arguments of an emerging consensus, championed by Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham, that from its Jewish beginnings the Christian community had a high Christology and worshipped Jesus as a divine figure. New data is put forward to support that case. But there are weaknesses in the emerging consensus. For example, it underplays the incarnation and does not convincingly explain what causes the earliest Christology. The recent study of Adam traditions, the findings of Enoch literature specialists, and of those who have explored a Jewish and Christian debt to Greco-Roman Ruler Cult traditions, all point towards a fresh approach to both the origins and shape of the earliest divine Christology.

To suppose that God has a providential plan based on a special covenant with Israel and realised in the atonement presents us with a moral problem. In Ruin and Restoration David Martin sketches a radical naturalistic account of the atonement based on the innocent paying for the sins of the guilty through ordinary social processes. An exercise in socio-theology, the book reflects on the contrast between 'the world' governed by the dynamic of violence as analysed by the social sciences, including international relations, and the emergence in Christianity (and Buddhism) of a non-violent alternative. A 'governing essay' fuses frameworks drawn from Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Jaspers, Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber and explores the relation between the cultural sciences, especially sociology, and theology treated as another but very distinctive cultural science. Six commentaries then deal with the atonement in detail; with the nature of Christian language and grammar, and with its characteristic mutations due to necessary compromises with 'the world'; with sex and violence; and with the liturgy as a concentrated mode of reconciliation.

The Burden Of Freedom explains that too many people use past oppression to remain mired in hatred and irresponsibility today. The spirit of oppression has specific telltale effects on individuals, communities, and nations. These are identified by Myles Munroe as a hatred for work, laziness, fear, low self-esteem, selfishness, lack of creativity, low initiative, and distrust of those in authority. To break free from these self-replicating cycles of oppression there must be a mental transformation. Paradoxically, freedom requires the need to impose control on self, require more responsibility than slavery, and the decision to accept a destiny of freedom, recognizing the process and discipline that personal and political freedom require. Simply put, The Burden Of Freedom should be available to every citizen and on the shelves of every high-school, college, and community library in the country.

The topic of panic has been dominated by biological studies in many areas of anxiety research. This collection of papers, resulting from the National Institute of Mental Health Conferences, presents the viewpoints of clinical researchers assessing the state of the anxiety field. Contributors to this volume argue that biological data can be encompassed in psychological theory.

Early Modern Women and the Problem of Evil examines the concept of theodicy-the attempt to reconcile divine perfection with the existence of evil-through the lens of early modern female scholars. This timely volume knits together the perennial problem of defining evil with current scholarly interest in women's roles in the evolution of religious philosophy. Accessible for those without a background in philosophy or theology, Jill Graper Hernandez's text will be of interest to upper-level undergraduates as well as graduate students and researchers.

OUR LORD revealed that the place on earth where He most delighted to be, after the Blessed Sacrament, was \"in the heart and soul of Gertrude, My beloved.\" Therefore, we do not wonder that among all the most remarkable women Saints of the Church, St. Gertrude is the one who carries the extraordinary title "The Great."
The Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great form one of the classics of Catholic writing. And although they would have to be classified as \"mystical literature, \" their message is clear and obvious, for this book states many of the secrets of Heaven in terms that all can understand.
Recorded here are St. Gertrude\'s many conversations with Our Lord, wherein He reveals His great desire to grant mercy to souls and to reward the least good act. In the course of their conversations, He reveals wonderful spiritual \"shortcuts\" that will help everyone in his or her spiritual life. Moreover, the Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great actually open a window onto Heaven, where we can see the specific ways in which prayer, good works and liturgical celebrations on earth have very definite effects in Heaven-among the Saints and Angels and even with God Himself.
The Revelations of St. Gertrude were authorized by Our Lord (pp.536-537) and they have been published in many editions, in various languages; they have inspired both clergy and laity for centuries. Surely the present generation of English-speaking Catholics will profit equally from this new edition of "The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great," who found such high favor with Our Lord that He chose to dwell in her heart in a special manner and to reveal to her many of the intimate secrets of His supernatural love for soul.

Early Modern Women and the Problem of Evil examines the concept of theodicy-the attempt to reconcile divine perfection with the existence of evil-through the lens of early modern female scholars. This timely volume knits together the perennial problem of defining evil with current scholarly interest in women's roles in the evolution of religious philosophy. Accessible for those without a background in philosophy or theology, Jill Graper Hernandez's text will be of interest to upper-level undergraduates as well as graduate students and researchers.

Surprisingly little attention has been given in recent scholarship to the work of Emil Brunner (1889-1966), one of the leading neo-orthodox theologians of the twentieth century. But his influence on modern theology persists to this day, offering a path to philosophical truth through faith. In Believing Thinking, Bounded Theology, Cynthia Bennett Brown explores the nature of and limits to theological thinking in Brunner's work. What results from this study is an encounter with a thoroughly biblical, warmly pastoral, carefully intellectual, and insistently Christocentric exposition of the Christian faith that remains relevant for theology and life today.

Baptists and Lutherans often define the tension of being in the world, but not in terms of two separate realms: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. However, their understanding of these realms and their delicate connection is quite nuanced. Within the Lutheran tradition, the two kingdoms are held in tension, which in turn leads to a precarious interaction of state and church. In the (Ana)Baptist tradition, a much stricter duality is emphasised, resulting in a more radical and separatist stance. 'Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Arnold Koster' analyses and compares the historical development of these two viewpoints, and to discover how these traditions, represented in the lives of two individual followers, responded to the ideological onslaught of neopaganism and the enforced political conformity of the Third Reich. Compared with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, little is known of the Baptist preacher Arnold Koster. His ministry as a pastor of the Baptist church in Vienna lasted from 1928-1960. During the Nazi regime, he consistently preached critically and prophetically against its underlying ideology.

Who is the real Jesus? How can we experience the mystery, compelxity, and richness of his spirituality and teachings in our lives today? In this gently instructive and inspiring guide, Luke Timothy Johnson leads us to a deeper understanding and practice of classic Christian spirituality and faith. Translating his biblical scholarship into simple, elegant language, he offers a compelling and wise reflection on the real Jesus--not the reconstructed historical figure but the resurrected Christ, a living savior we can encounter every day.

Living Jesus elucidates the mystery of Jesus' resurrection and its central role in the Christian experience. It explores the diversity and fullness of the New Testament views of Christ, revealing how each book's perspective can deepen our understanding of Jesus. Profoundly insightful, Living Jesus offers valuable lessons on how we can accept the Gospels' powerful invitation to an authenic Christian spirituality.

Life confronts us with an endless stream of questions. Some are trivial. But some draw us into the deepest dimensions of human inquiry, a place where our decisions have profound implications for life and faith. Is there a God, and if so, how can I know anything about who or what God is? Is the quest for truth an elusive dream? How should I live and what should I value? What happens at the end of my biological existence? These questions lead people of every creed and belief to consider important existential concepts. But many people wrestle with the relationship between faith and reason as they dig into the roots of this theological and philosophical pursuit. Does a shared interest in a common set of questions indicate that philosophy and theology are close kin and allies, or are they competitors vying for our souls, each requiring a loyalty that excludes the other? In this Spectrum Multiview volume Steve Wilkens edits a debate between three different understandings of the relationship between faith and reason, between theology and philosophy. The first viewpoint, Faith and Philosophy in Tension, proposes faith and reason as hostile, exclusive opposites, each dangerous to the integrity of the other. The second, Faith Seeking Understanding, suggests that faithful Christians are called to make full use of their rational faculties to aid in the understanding and interpretation of what they believe by faith. In the third stance, Thomistic Synthesis, natural reason acts as a handmaiden to theology by actively pointing people toward salvation and deeper knowledge of spiritual truths. Bringing together multiple views on the relationship between faith, philosophy and reason, this introduction to a timeless quandary will help you navigate, with rigor and joy, one of the most significant discussions of the Christian community. Spectrum Multiview Books offer a range of viewpoints on contested topics within Christianity, giving contributors the opportunity to present their position and also respond to others in this dynamic publishing format.

In this challenging and engaging discussion, F. Gerald Downing draws on evidence from Ancient Jewish and New Testament scriptures to analyse the changing history of the concept of 'revelation' within Christianity. Through the discussion of central concepts in the philosophy of language, such as reference and identity, Downing provides a comprehensive analysis of our notion of the concept of knowledge through revelation and self-revelation. Formation for Knowing God contains an overview of the history of the debate regarding the methods and extent of God's revelation, specifically his self-revelation. Downing argues that the conviction that God is selfrevealed stems from eighteenth-century Enlightenment debates, and has no roots in the early Christian tradition, from which we learn that God is incomprehensible. Downing rejects the view that it was the primary purpose of Christ's death to show God's love, claiming that this is unsupported by the scriptural evidence. The positive thesis argued by Downing is that what has been revealed to us is not a matter of knowledge but a matter of faith. Downing's Formation for Knowing God will challenge the assumptions of its readers, providing an alternative and thought provoking approach to the nature of knowledge and certainty within Christianity.

This book is an undergraduate introduction to one of the most important works of 20th century Catholic theology. Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) is one of the most significant and challenging of 20th century theologians. His work remains highly influential within the Catholic Church; yet much of it is influenced by his encounter with and study of the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth. His writings, particularly the trilogy beginning with "The Glory of the Lord", then the "Theo-Drama" and concluding with the "Theo-Logic", are both hugely influential and yet not always easy to approach, not least because of their sheer size and scale (comprising some 15 volumes written over nearly 30 years). This guide will set the context for his great trilogy and identify some of the key themes and influence upon it, showing how his reworking of theology around the transcendentals of being, the beautiful, the good and the true, is influenced not just by classical philosophy and theology but also by his involvement with contemporary figures such as Erich Przywara, Karl Barth, and Adrienne von Speyr. "Continuum Reader's Guides" are clear, concise, and accessible introductions to key texts in literature and philosophy. Each book explores the themes, context, criticism, and influence of key works, providing a practical introduction to close reading, guiding students towards a thorough understanding of the text. They provide an essential, up-to-date resource, ideal for undergraduate students.

Pierre-Andre Liege, one of the foremost French theologians of the 20th century, influenced John XXIII and Paul VI, and sat on Vatican II committees with both the future John Paul II and Benedict VI. Fifty years on from Vatican II is a good time to remember the decade of dramatic struggle and pioneering work that preceded it, and review what it accomplished. This book explores the life and work of Pierre-Andre Liege, presenting it to an English speaking readership for the first time. Discussing the impact and profound challenges Liege's work raises for spirituality and church life today, Bradbury tackles issues including: the organisation of parish life rooted in theological criteria; cradle to grave corporate Christian formation; a compelling vision of what the church is for and why, and how should this be expressed in practice. Bradbury argues that for faith to match real life, the church today needs to let go of much baggage, align its talk to its action, and radically re-examine the question of what the church needs to do to conform to the Gospel. This book takes critical issues confronting practical theology and the church, breaking them open in a lively and accessible style.

Our Bodies Are Selves is a look at what it means to be human in a world where medical technology and emerging ethical insight force us to rethink the boundaries of humanity/spirit and man/machine. This book gives us a fresh look at how our expanding biological views of ourselves and our shared evolutionary history shows us a picture that may not always illumine who and where we are as Christians. Offering up Christian theological views of embodiment, the authors give everyday examples of lives of love, faith, and bodily realities that offer the potential to create new definitions of what it means to be a faith community in an increasingly technological age of medicine.

When Lesslie Newbigin returned to Britain in 1974 after years of missionary service, he observed that his homeland was as much a mission field as India, where he had spent the majority of his missionary career. He concluded that the Western world needed a missionary confrontation. Instead of the traditional approach to missions, however, Newbigin realized that the Western world needed to be confronted theologically. From his earliest days at Cambridge University, Newbigin developed the theological convictions that shaped his understanding of the Christian faith, and he used these theological convictions as criteria to evaluate the belief system of Western culture and to provide an answer to its dilemma. The Enlightenment reintroduced humanism and dualism into Western culture, which resulted on the loss of purpose and the rise of skepticism. This book discusses Newbigin's theological convictions and how they factored into both his critique of and his solution to Western culture's spiritual and worldview problems. Donald Le Roy cleverly explains Newbigin's solution to reintroduce the Christian belief system into Western culture in order to restore purpose and truth to Westerners and put them back in contact with true reality through Jesus Christ.

Notions of which behaviours comprised sin, and what actions might lead to salvation, sat at the heart of Christian belief and practice in early modern England, but both of these vitally important concepts were fundamentally reconfigured by the reformation. Remarkably little work has been undertaken exploring the ways in which these essential ideas were transformed by the religious changes of the sixteenth-century. In the field of reformation studies, revisionist scholarship has underlined the vitality of late-medieval English Christianity and the degree to which people remained committed to the practices of the Catholic Church up to the eve of the reformation, including those dealing with the mortification of sin and the promise of salvation. Such popular commitment to late-medieval lay piety has in turn raised questions about how the reformation itself was able to take root. Whilst post-revisionist scholars have explored a wide range of religious beliefs and practices - such as death, providence, angels, and music - there has been a surprising lack of engagement with the two central religious preoccupations of the vast majority of people. To address this omission, this collection focusses upon the history and theology of sin and salvation in reformation and post-reformation England. Exploring their complex social and cultural constructions, it underlines how sin and salvation were not only great religious constants, but also constantly evolving in order to survive in the rapidly transforming religious landscape of the reformation. Drawing upon a range of disciplinary perspectives - historical, theological, literary, and material/art-historical - to both reveal and explain the complexity of the concepts of sin and salvation, the volume further illuminates a subject central to the nature and success of the Reformation itself. Divided into four sections, Part I explores reformers' attempts to define and re-define the theological concepts of sin and salvation, while Part II looks at some of the ways in which sin and salvation were contested: through confessional conflict, polemic, poetry and martyrology. Part III focuses on the practical attempts of English divines to reform sin with respect to key religious practices, while Part IV explores the significance of sin and salvation in the lived experience of both clergy and laity. Evenly balancing contributions by established academics in the field with cutting-edge contributions from junior researchers, this collection breaks new ground, in what one historian of the period has referred to as the 'social history of theology'.

Living Theodrama is a fresh, creative introduction to theological ethics. Offering an imaginative approach through dialogue with theatrical theory and practice, Vander Lugt demonstrates a new way to integrate actor-oriented and action-oriented approaches to Christian ethics within a comprehensive theodramatic model. This model affirms that life is a drama performed in the company of God and others, providing rich metaphors for relating theology to everyday formation and performance in this drama. Different chapters explore the role of the triune God, Scripture, tradition, the church, mission, and context in the process of formation and performance, thus dealing separately with major themes in theological ethics while incorporating them within an overarching model. This book contains not only a fruitful exchange between theological ethics and theatre, but it also presents a promising method for interdisciplinary dialogue between theology and the arts that will be valuable for students and practitioners across many different fields.