In this commentary Kanagaraj examines how John projects the church as God's "new covenant community", which is characterized by two virtues: love and obedience. Impossible to exhibit under the old covenant based on Moses' Law, these qualities became possible by the initiative grace and faithfulness of God revealed in Jesus and demonstrated by the power of the Spirit. God's new community is an inclusive and progressive community because its witness to Jesus in a world that hates and persecutes it has the power to bring in all people so that they may become one flock under one shepherd. Kanagaraj argues that the idea of founding and nurturing a new community was in God's heart even before the time of creation and not just at the time of incarnation.

This dictionary contains nearly thirteen hundred entries, covering the whole field of Old and New Testament studies. The entries range from technical grammatical terms to obscure theological jargon and are often terms that are difficult to find in other dictionaries.

This volume is fittingly a part of James Stalker's trilogy "The Life of Jesus Christ," "The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ," and "The Life of St. Paul," for the apostle Paul is the interpreter of the entire purpose of Christ's coming. This book has been recognized by many as the leading popular biography of the greatest preacher of the Christian church. It is informative and heartwarming in its treatment of the life and ministry of Paul.

Introduction to Sacramental Theology presents a complete overview of sacramental theology from the viewpoint of the body. This viewpoint is supported, in the first place, by Revelation, for which the sacraments are the place where we enter into contact with the body of the risen Jesus. It is a viewpoint, secondly, which is firmly rooted in our concrete human bodily experience, thus allowing for a strong connection between faith and life, creation and redemption. From this point of view, the treatise on the sacraments occupies a strategic role. For the sacraments appear, not as the last of a series of topics (after dealing with Creation, Christ, the Church), but as the original place in which to stand in order to contemplate the entire Christian mystery. This point of view of the body, which resonates with contemporary philosophy, sheds fruitful light on classical themes, such as the relationship of the sacraments with creation, the composition of the sacramental sign, the efficacy of the sacraments, the sacramental character, the role of the minister, or the relationship of the sacrament with the Church as a sacrament. As a result of this approach, the Eucharist takes on a central role, since this is the sacrament where the body of Jesus is made present. The rest of the sacraments are seen as prolongations of the eucharistic body, so as to fill all the time and space of the faithful. This foundation of the theology of the sacraments in eucharistic theology is supported by an analysis of the patristic and medieval tradition. In order to support its conclusions, Introduction to Sacramental Theology examines the doctrine of Scripture (especially St. John and St. Paul), the main patristic and medieval authors (St. Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas...), the response of Trent to the protestant challenges, up to modern authors such as Scheeben, Rahner, Ratzinger, or Chauvet, including the teaching of Vatican II about the Church as a kind of sacrament.

Public Theology is a rapidly growing international field of study which focuses on how Christian belief and practice engage with wider social issues. Yet, whilst the ultimate concern of public theology is the well-being of society, this body of theology has largely developed without integrating the thinking of feminist theology and its insights into womens' lives and experience. Public Theology and the Challenge of Feminism argues that public theology risks re-inscribing traditional constructs of public and private, civic and domestic, and uncritical notions of gender and the work and worth of people. The book brings together both theory and case material to expose how public theology has actively downplayed or ignored feminist perspectives and to reveal how constructive feminism can be for the future of public theology.

William Tyndale is one of the most important of the early reformers, and particularly through his translation of the New Testament, has had a formative influence on the development of the English language and religious thought. The sources of his theology are, however, not immediately clear, and historians have often seen him as being influenced chiefly by continental, and in particular Lutheran, ideas. In his important new book, Ralph Werrell shows that the most important influences were to be found closer to home, and that the home-grown Wycliffite tradition was of far greater importance. In doing so, Werrell shows that the apparent differences between Tyndale's writings from the period before 1530 and his later writings, in the period leading up to his arrest and martyrdom in 1526, are spurious, and that a simpler explanation is that his ideas were formed as a result of an upbringing in a household in which Wycliffite ideas were accepted. Werrell explores the impact of humanist writers, and above all Erasmus, on the development of Tyndale's thought. He also shows how far Tyndale's theology, fully developed by 1525, was from that of the continental reformers. He then examines in detail some of the main strands of Tyndale's thought - and in particular, doctrines such as the Fall, Salvation, the Sacraments and the Blood of Christ - showing how different they are from Luther and most other contemporary reformers. While Tyndale, in his early writings, used some of Luther's writings, he made theological changes and additions to Luther's text. The influences of John Trevisa, Wyclif and the later Wycliffite writers were far more important. Werrell shows that without accepting the huge influence of the Wycliffite ideas, Tyndale's significance as a theologian, and the development of the English Reformation cannot be fully understood.

In his teaching and his writing, Paul L. Holmer (1916-2004), Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota (1946-1960) and Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale Divinity School (1960-1987), made many important contributions to recent American theology. One of the most insightful American students of Kierkegaard of his generation, Holmer perceived early on Wittgenstein's importance for theology, and employed both thinkers to inspire his own fresh consideration of perennial issues in philosophical theology: understanding, belief, faith, the emotions, and the importance of the virtues. While best known for his essays in 'The Grammar of Faith' (1978), Holmer penned numerous other interesting and original essays, some published but many unpublished, which circulated widely in typescript during his tenure at Yale. Following his death, the Holmer family in 2005 donated his papers to the Yale Divinity School Library; in reviewing Holmer's papers, the editors have chosen a selection of his most seminal essays, beyond those in The Grammar of Faith, demonstrating the breadth and range of his contributions. In this, the second volume of The Paul L. Holmer Papers, the editors present pieces that illuminate four significant areas of Holmer's contributions: essays on Kierkegaard; essays on Wittgenstein; Theology, Understanding, and Faith; and Emotions, Passions, and Virtues. Taken together, these essays invite in-depth exploration of the thought of this important American philosophical theologian. This is the second volume of The Paul L. Holmer Papers, which includes also volume 1, 'On Kierkegaard and the Truth', and volume 3, 'Communicating the Faith Indirectly: Selected Sermons, Addresses, and Prayers'.

This book traces the history of the interpretation of the disobedience of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 through the biblical period and the church fathers until Augustine. It explains the emergence of the doctrine of original sin with the theology of Augustine in the late fourth century on the basis of a mistranslation of the Greek text of Romans 5:12. The book suggests that it is time to move past Augustine's theology of sin and embrace a different theology of sin that is both more biblical and makes more sense in the postmodern West and in the developing world.

Worship of the triune God has always stood at the center of the Christian life. That was certainly the case during the sixteenth-century Reformation as well. Yet in the midst of tremendous social and theological upheaval, the church had to renew its understanding of what it means to worship God. In this volume, which serves as a companion to IVP Academic's Reformation Commentary on Scripture series, Reformation scholar Karin Maag takes readers inside the worshiping life of the church during this era. Drawing from sources across theological traditions, she explores several aspects of the church's worship, including what it was like to attend church, reforms in preaching, the function of prayer, how Christians experienced the sacraments, and the roles of both visual art and music in worship. With Maag as your guide, you can go to church-with the Reformers.

2015 Readers' Choice Awards Honorable Mention In these pages renowned Christian musician John Michael Talbot calls the church to greater unity and service under God's authority. Using the metaphors of music, this spiritual meditation draws us into closer union with Jesus and each other by opening our hearts and minds to God's grace. As God the Master Musician crafts us into fine musical instruments, we can "join in the symphony orchestra of the church and make a beautiful music bigger than any one musician for all the people of the world."

The Christian life requires faith. That means that believers are sometimes faced with uncertainty. But is all uncertainty bad? Theologian Joshua McNall encourages readers to reclaim the little word "perhaps" as a sacred space between the warring extremes of unchecked doubt and zealous dogmatism. To say "perhaps" on certain contested topics means exercising a hopeful imagination, asking hard questions, returning once again to Scripture, and reclaiming the place of holy speculation as we cling to a faith that stands distinct from both pervasive skepticism and abrasive certainty. In this day especially, it's time Christians learned to say "perhaps."

By both its supporters and detractors, neoliberalism is usually considered an economic policy agenda. Neoliberalism's Demons argues that it is much more than that: a complete worldview, neoliberalism presents the competitive marketplace as the model for true human flourishing. And it has enjoyed great success: from the struggle for "global competitiveness" on the world stage down to our individual practices of self-branding and social networking, neoliberalism has transformed every aspect of our shared social life. The book explores the sources of neoliberalism's remarkable success and the roots of its current decline. Neoliberalism's appeal is its promise of freedom in the form of unfettered free choice. But that freedom is a trap: we have just enough freedom to be accountable for our failings, but not enough to create genuine change. If we choose rightly, we ratify our own exploitation. And if we choose wrongly, we are consigned to the outer darkness-and then demonized as the cause of social ills. By tracing the political and theological roots of the neoliberal concept of freedom, Adam Kotsko offers a fresh perspective, one that emphasizes the dynamics of race, gender, and sexuality. More than that, he accounts for the rise of right-wing populism, arguing that, far from breaking with the neoliberal model, it actually doubles down on neoliberalism's most destructive features.

Pannenberg on Evil, Love and God examines a much neglected aspect of the theological thought of one of the most original contemporary German theologians, Wolfhart Pannenberg: his theological and philosophical understanding of evil and its relationship to the love of God. The book seeks to correct a widely held misconception that in his theology, Pannenberg has neglected the darker side of the world, concentrating instead on an optimistic picture of the future. This book argues that questions of evil hold a central place throughout Pannenberg's writing and seeks to draw out the implications of his wrestling with these issues. The introduction sets the scene by considering the nature of the question of evil and argues that a theological response must be made as part of a global view of the world and not in isolation from other themes. The succeeding chapters develop this theme through a reading of Pannenberg's theology.

Making Nothing Happen is a conversation between five poet-theologians who are broadly within the Christian tradition - Nicola Slee, Ruth Shelton, Mark Pryce, Eleanor Nesbitt and Gavin D'Costa. Together they form The Diviners - a group which has been meeting together for a number of years for poetry, and theological and literary reflection. Each poet offers an illuminating reflection on how they understand the relation between poetry and faith, rooting their reflections in their own writing, and illustrating discussion with a selection of their own poems. The poets open up issues for deeper exploration and reflection, including: the nature of creativity and the distinction between divine and human creation; the creative process as exploration, epiphany and revelation; the forging of identity through writing; ways in which the arts reflect, challenge and dialogue with faith, and faith can inform and challenge the arts; power and voice in poetry and faith; and ways in which race, gender and culture interact with and shape poetic and theological discourse. This book will be of interest to poets and theologians, to all who read poetry and are interested in the connections between literature and faith, to those seeking inspiration for preaching, liturgy and pastoral care, and to those committed to the practice and nurturing of a contemplative attitude to life in which profound attention and respect are offered to words and to the creative Word at work.

Making Nothing Happen is a conversation between five poet-theologians who are broadly within the Christian tradition - Nicola Slee, Ruth Shelton, Mark Pryce, Eleanor Nesbitt and Gavin D'Costa. Together they form The Diviners - a group which has been meeting together for a number of years for poetry, and theological and literary reflection. Each poet offers an illuminating reflection on how they understand the relation between poetry and faith, rooting their reflections in their own writing, and illustrating discussion with a selection of their own poems. The poets open up issues for deeper exploration and reflection, including: the nature of creativity and the distinction between divine and human creation; the creative process as exploration, epiphany and revelation; the forging of identity through writing; ways in which the arts reflect, challenge and dialogue with faith, and faith can inform and challenge the arts; power and voice in poetry and faith; and ways in which race, gender and culture interact with and shape poetic and theological discourse. This book will be of interest to poets and theologians, to all who read poetry and are interested in the connections between literature and faith, to those seeking inspiration for preaching, liturgy and pastoral care, and to those committed to the practice and nurturing of a contemplative attitude to life in which profound attention and respect are offered to words and to the creative Word at work.

John Wesley has arguably influenced more English-speaking Christians than any other Protestant interpreter. One reason for this wide influence is that Wesley often spoke about the "heart" and its "affections"-that realm of life where all humans experience their deepest satisfactions, as well as some of their deepest conundrums. However, one of the problems of interpreting and appropriating Wesley is that we have been blinded to Wesley's actual views about "heart religion" by contemporary stereotypes about "affections" or "emotions." Because of this, it is rare that either Wesley's friends or his critics appreciate his sophisticated understanding of affective reality. To make clear what Wesley meant when he emphasized the renewal of the heart, Gregory S. Clapper summarizes some recent paradigm-changing accounts of the nature of "emotion" produced by contemporary philosophers and theologians, and then applies them to Wesley's conception of the heart and its affections. These accounts of emotion throw new light on Wesley's vision of Christianity as a renewal of the heart and make it possible to reclaim the language of the heart, not as a pandering or manipulative rhetoric, but as the framework for a comprehensive theological vision of Christian life and thought. The book closes with several practical applications that make clear the power of Wesley's vision to transform lives today.

For centuries Augustine's theory of free will has been used to explain why God is not the author of evil and humans are morally responsible for sin. Yet, when he embraced the doctrines of unconditional election and operative grace, Augustine began modifying his theory of free will. His final works claim his evolved notion of free will remained consistent with his early view, but this claim has provoked significant debate. Some scholars take him at his word, interpreting his teachings on free will in light of his later predestination teachings. Others reject his claim of continuity and warn of great inconsistencies between his early and later works. Few have undertaken a thorough study of Augustine's works to compare his early notion of free will with his later theory of predestination. 'Free To Say No?' is a detailed study of Augustine's work that presents clear evidence in Augustine's own words for a significant discontinuity between his early and later theories - especially the disappearance of the will's freedom to say No - and offers some fascinating insights as to why Augustine proposed such drastic changes.

Few questions exert such a great fascination on human conscience as those related to the meaning of life, history, and death. The belief in the resurrection of the dead constitutes an answer to a real challenge: What is the meaning of life and history in the midst of a world in which evil, injustice, and ultimately death exist? Resurrection is an instrument serving a broader, more encompassing reality: the Kingdom of God. Such a utopian Kingdom gathers the final response to the problem of theodicy and to the enigma of history. This book seeks to understand the idea of resurrection not only as a theological but also as a philosophical category (as expression of the collective aspirations of humanity), combining historical, theological, and philosophical analyses in dialogue with some of the principal streams of contemporary Western thought.

This original and ambitious book considers the terms of engagement between Christian theology and other religious traditions, beginning with criticism of Christian theology of religions as entangled with European colonial modernity. Jenny Daggers covers recent efforts to disentangle Eurocentrism from the meeting of the religions, and investigates new constructive possibilities arising in the postcolonial context. In dialogue with Asian and feminist theologies, she reflects on ways forward for relations between the religions and offers a particularist model for theology of religions, standing within a classical Trinitarian framework.

Both Ephesians 4:11 and I Corinthians 12:29 attest to the distinctiveness of the roles of pastor and teacher; and Nicholas claims that for the majority of recent history, since the rise of Scholasticism, this distinction has been strictly adhered to. The rise of the Scholastic method within theological discourse radically transformed the way theology was envisioned, from its bases and method to its purpose and sources. This change had a far-reaching effect on theology which would contribute to the discipline's self-understanding. Whereas theology was initially more of a meditation on and exposition of God's self-disclosure in the Word, in the new style of theological discourse practiced by the schoolmen, theology increasingly became the methodical parsing of abstract truth which was dissociated from the concrete realities of an embodied Christianity. However, one need not maintain the possibility of distinct roles to the detriment of seeing both offices in a single individual. Indeed the New Testament and the early Fathers consistently exhibit a complete naivete concerning such a divide. The writers of the New Testament and the early Fathers were seen as 'complete personalities', who were unable to envisage the separation of theology and spirituality. Jean Danielou's Doxological Humanism is primarily a discussion of the ways in which academic theology can reacquaint itself with spirituality and the reasons it should. Nicholas turns to the writings of Jesuit theologian, historian and cardinal Jean Danielou and finds an understanding of who we are that necessitates this union. Further, for Danielou, an essential aspect of this unified view of the human person is its doxological nature. To attain the fullest expression of humanity is to participate in the adoration, worship and contemplation involved in the life of prayer.

Alongside a revival of interest in Thomism in philosophy, scholars have realised its relevance when addressing certain contemporary issues in bioethics. This book offers a rigorous interpretation of Aquinas's metaphysics and ethical thought, and highlights its significance to questions in bioethics. Jason T. Eberl applies Aquinas's views on the seminal topics of human nature and morality to key questions in bioethics at the margins of human life - questions which are currently contested in the academia, politics and the media such as: When does a human person's life begin? How should we define and clinically determine a person's death? Is abortion ever morally permissible? How should we resolve the conflict between the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research and the lives of human embryos? Does cloning involve a misuse of human ingenuity and technology? What forms of treatment are appropriate for irreversibly comatose patients? How should we care for patients who experience unbearable suffering as they approach the end of life? Thomistic Principles and Bioethics presents a significant philosophical viewpoint which will motivate further dialogue amongst religious and secular arenas of inquiry concerning such complex issues of both individual and public concern.

Over 40 powerful explanations proving the Bible is still accurate and without error Can God be Tempted? Why don't Christians follow all the Old Testament laws? Is marriage good or bad? All these and more are questions that appear to point out a problem in the biblical text. Too often people focus on what seems to be contradictions or errors in the Bible, using them to create doubt in the minds of believers or act as stumbling blocks in trying to present the Gospel. It is important to resolve these issues to reassure people that the Bible is inerrant.

In what sense is God one? How can those who worship Jesus Christ, his Father, and the Holy Spirit claim to be monotheists? These questions were answered by the early church, and their answering analogies, models, and language have come down to the church today. However, theology is not stagnant, and the twentieth century has seen several new models of the Trinity emerge. Many of these models have focused on the three persons without adequately considering the consequences for the unity of God. The One God seeks to develop an understanding of the unity of the Triune God by examining the positions put forward by Karl Rahner, Millard Erickson, John Zizioulas, and Wolfhart Pannenberg. After carefully presenting and critically examining each of these positions, this book offers a synthesis: an understanding of the unity of God that is historically informed, theologically adequate, internally coherent, and able to explain Christian monotheism in a new century. By affirming both the singular divine essence of God and the genuine, eternal interdependence of distinct divine persons in God, The One God affirms the personal and the natural levels of ontology, both crucial for understanding God, humanity, and the world.

This book explores the issues of power, authority and love with current concerns in the Christian theological exploration of feminism and feminist theology. It addresses its key themes in three parts: (1) power deals with feminist critiques, (2) authority unpacks feminist methodologies, and (3) love explores feminist ethics. Covering issues such as embodiment, intersectionality, liberation theologies, historiography, queer approaches to hermeneutics, philosophy and more, it provides a multi-layered and nuanced appreciation of this important area of theological thought and practice. This volume will be vital reading for scholars of feminist theology, queer theology, process theology, practical theology, religion and gender.