This is the credo and seminal text of the movement which was later characterized as liberation theology. The book burst upon the scene in the early seventies, and was swiftly acknowledged as a pioneering and prophetic approach to theology which famously made an option for the poor, placing the exploited, the alienated, and the economically wretched at the centre of a programme where "the oppressed and maimed and blind and lame" were prioritized at the expense of those who either maintained the status quo or who abused the structures of power for their own ends. This powerful, compassionate and radical book attracted criticism for daring to mix politics and religion in so explicit a manner, but was also welcomed by those who had the capacity to see that its agenda was nothing more nor less than to give "good news to the poor", and redeem God's people from bondage.

For too long, scholars have published new research on Edwards without paying due attention to the work he took most seriously: biblical exegesis. Edwards is recognized as an innovative theologian who wielded tremendous influence on revivalism, evangelicalism, and New England theology. What is often missed is how much time he devoted to studying and understanding the Bible. He kept voluminous notebooks on Scripture and died with unrealized plans for major treatises on the Bible. More and more experts now recognize the importance of this aspect of his life; this book brings together the insights of leading Edwards scholars on this topic. The essays in Jonathan Edwards and Scripture set Edwards' engagement with Scripture in the context of seventeenth-century Protestant exegesis and eighteenth-century colonial interpretation. They provide case studies of Edwards' exegesis in varying genres of the Bible and probe his use of Scripture to develop theology. The authors also set his biblical interpretation in perspective by comparing it with that of other exegetes. This book advances our understanding of the nature and significance of Edwards' work with Scripture and opens new lines of inquiry for students of early modern Western history.

Conventional patents consist of an abstract followed by a detailed description. The Holy Bible, as a document on moral, civil, physical and spiritual affairs, is not compiled in any definite order. The Creation Sabbath Commandment Law, as God's abstract for inventing the world, formally stipulates God as the claimant, lists the items claimed, and reveals the seal on creation. This abstract, which in a conventional patent application would precede the detailed descriptions, is presented in the twentieth Chapter of the second book of the Bible (Exodus). Details of the methodology, accomplishments, and additional claims that should come after the abstract, are scattered throughout the rest of the Bible - with major details presented in the first Chapter of the first book of the Bible (Genesis). Scanning through these accounts in the Scriptures, and ordering them appropriately, reveals them to be a compilation of the details of God's claim on creation, presented in the format of a conventional patent. Dr. Michael Ebifegha is a scholar with international experience. He obtained a B.Sc. (Hons.) in physics and a M.Sc. in applied geophysics from Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, where he worked as a lecturer in the Department of Physics for five years. In Canada, he earned a M.Sc. in physics, from Carleton University and in 1986, the University of Toronto conferred upon him a Ph.D. in physics. Dr. Ebifegha also holds a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Toronto. He is currently a full-time science and mathematics instructor in the Toronto District School Board. In 1992, while employed by the Toronto Catholic District School Board, he obtained an additional qualification in religious education.

`A book like this is a theological joy in its own right,' remarks the distinguished translator of this full-length study, and his view has been echoed by those who have been able to read the French original. The volume may well become the classic interpretation of Bonhoeffer's thought. Bonhoeffer's writing needs interpreting; after all, the circumstances in which it was produced leave it open to possible misunderstanding.

One of Aquinas's best known works after the Summa Theologica, Summa Contra Gentiles is a theological synthesis that explains and defends the existence and nature of God without invoking the authority of the Bible. A detailed expository account of and commentary on this famous work, Davies's book aims to help readers think about the value of the Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG) for themselves, relating the contents and teachings found in the SCG to those of other works and other thinkers both theological and philosophical. Following a scholarly account of Aquinas's life and his likely intentions in writing the SCG, the volume works systematically through all four books of the text. It is, therefore, a solid and reflective introduction both to the SCG and to Aquinas more generally. The book is aimed at students of medieval philosophy and theology, and of Aquinas in particular. It will interest teachers of medieval philosophy and theology, though it does not presuppose previous knowledge of Aquinas or of his works. Davies's book is the longest and most detailed account and discussion of the SCG available in English in one volume.

This exciting collection of papers is an international, ecumenical, and interdisciplinary study of Jesus' resurrection that emerged from the "Resurrection Summit" meeting held in New York at Easter of 1996. The contributions represent mainstream scholarship on biblical studies, fundamental theology, systematic theology, philosophy, moral theology, and homiletics. Contributors represent a wide range of viewpoints and denominations and include Richard Swinburne, Janet Martin Soskice, Peter F. Carnley, Sarah Coakley, Willian Lane Craig, William P. Alston, M. Shawn Copeland, Paul Rhodes Eddy, Francis Schussler Fiorenza, Brian V. Johnstone, Carey C. Newman, Alan G. Padgett, Pheme Perkins, Alan F. Segal, Marguerite Shuster, and John Wilkins. Combined, they offer a timely, wide ranging, and well balanced work on the central truth of Christianity."

The doctrine of "the covenant of works" arose to prominence in the late sixteenth century and quickly became a regular feature in Reformed thought. Theologians believed that when God first created man he made a covenant with him: all Adam had to do was obey God's command to not eat from the tree of knowledge and obey God's command to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth. The reward for Adam's obedience was profound: eternal life for him and his offspring. The consequences of his disobedience were dire: God would visit death upon Adam and his descendants. In the covenant of works, Adam was not merely an individual but served as a public person, the federal head of the human race. The Covenant of Works explores the origins of the doctrine of God's covenant with Adam and traces it back to the inter-testamental period, through the patristic and middle ages, and to the Reformation. The doctrine has an ancient pedigree and was not solely advocated by Reformed theologians. The book traces the doctrine's development in the seventeenth century and its reception in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Fesko explores the reasons why the doctrine came to be rejected by some, even in the Reformed tradition, arguing that interpretive methods influenced by Enlightenment thought caused theologians to question the doctrine's scriptural legitimacy.

The Future of our Religious Past The Festschrift produced to celebrate Rudolf Bultmann's eightieth birthday contained articles by an international team of distinguished scholars relating to all the major areas in which Dr Bultmann has worked, and made a volume of over eight hundred pages. It was clearly impossible to make the whole of this tribute available in English, but the present book contains a selection of articles ofparticular interest to the English-speaking world. Contributors include, in the section discussing exegetical questions : Nils Dahl on Qumran, Werner Kummel on Jesus and Eschatology, Ernst Kasemann on Atonement, James M. Robinson on Q, Gunther Bornkamm on Matt. 28.16-2o and Hans Conzelmann on the origin of the Johannine Logos. Those writing on theology and philosophy include : Gerhard Ebeling on 'Time and the Word', Ernst Fuchs on Hermeneutics, Friedrich Gogarten on the task of theology and Martin Heidegger on Leibniz.

Though clergy are clearly important religious leaders within American society, their significance extends far beyond the church doors. Clergy are also important figures within American public life. They are so, in part, because houses of worship stand at the center of American civic life. Gathering to worship is a religious activity, but it is also an important public activity in that, beyond its religious qualities, congregational life brings together relatively diverse individuals for sustained periods of time, frequently on a fairly regular basis. Based on data gathered through national surveys of clergy across four mainline Protestant (the Disciples of Christ; the Presbyterian Church, USA; the Reformed Church in America; and the United Methodist Church) and three evangelical Protestant denominations (the Assemblies of God; the Christian Reformed Church; and, the Southern Baptist Convention), Pastors and Public Life examines the changing sociological, theological, and political characteristics of American Protestant clergy. In this book, Corwin E. Smidt examines what has changed and what has stayed the same with regard to the clergy's social composition, theological beliefs, and perspectives related to the public witness of the church within American society across three different points in time over the past twenty-plus years. Smidt focuses on the relationship between clergy and politics, particularly clergy positions on issues of American public policy, norms on what is appropriate for clergy to do politically, as well as the clergy's political cue-giving, their pronouncements on public policy, and political activism. Written in a manner that makes it accessible to pastors and church laity-yet of interest and value to scholars as well-Pastors and Public Life constitutes the first and only published study that systematically examines such changes and continuity over time.

Although the name of Rudolf Bultmann is so well-known, and a considerable number of his writings, and specialist discussions of them, are available in English, there has so far been no thorough basic introduction setting out Bultmann's theology in a comprehensive way. This gap has now been admirably filled by the present book, which derives from a series of lectures given by one of Bultmann's pupils at Marburg in celebration of Bultmann's eightieth birthday. Addressed to an audience of widely differing backgrounds, it presupposes no specialist knowledge, and expounds Bultmann's thought with particular vividness, making full use of quotations from his works.

Although puritans in 17th-century New England lived alongside both Native Americans and Africans, the white New Englanders imagined their neighbors as something culturally and intellectually distinct from themselves. Legally and practically, they saw people of color as simultaneously human and less than human, things to be owned. Yet all of these people remained New Englanders, regardless of the color of their skin, and this posed a problem for puritans. In order to fulfill John Winthrop's dream of a "city on a hill," New England's churches needed to contain all New Englanders. To deal with this problem, white New Englanders generally turned to familiar theological constructs to redeem not only themselves and their actions (including their participation in race-based slavery) but also to redeem the colonies' Africans and Native Americans. Richard A. Bailey draws on diaries, letters, sermons, court documents, newspapers, church records, and theological writings to tell the story of the religious and racial tensions in puritan New England.

Throughout the history of Christianity, there have been theological disputes that caused fissures among the faithful. There were the major ruptures of the Great Schism of 1054 and the Protestant Reformation. Since the Reformation, though, there has been an eruption of new denominations. The World Christian Database now list over 9000 worldwide. And new denominations are created every day, often when a group splits off from an established church because of a dispute over doctrine or leadership. With such a proliferation of denominations, could there possibly be one core Christian message that all churches share?
That's the question that Ted Campbell sets out to answer in this book. He begins his examination of Christian doctrine where it started: in the gospels. He then shows how the gospel has been received and professed by Christian communities through the centuries, from the first "proto-Orthodox" Christian communities right through the modern evangelical, Pentecostal, and ecumenical movements. Campbell shows that, despite all the divisions, there is indeed a single unifying core of the faith that all Christians share. In the process, he offers a brief, well-written, and acceptable history of Christian doctrine that will be ideal for courses in the history of Christian thought.

Most of Bonhoeffer's books are now widely known. Premature as his death was, thoughtful people recognize in him one of the most original thinkers of our time. His spiritual legacy-the most striking part of it the result of his meditations in prison under the Nazis -has begun to influence the preaching of the Universal Church. Plainly, such a theologian deserves a full and first-class study. This is now provided by Professor Godsey, who analyses and comments on all the Bonhoeffer books, including some not yet available in English, and on many of the occasional writings, setting them in the context of Bonhoeffer's life and interpreting their intellectual and spiritual significance.

The Life of St Martin by Sulpicius Severus was one of the formative works of Latin hagiography. Yet although written by a contemporary who knew Martin, it attracted immediate criticism. Why? This study seeks an explanation by placing Sulpicius works both in their intellectual context, and in the context of a church that was then undergoing radical transformation. It is thus both a study of Sulpicius, Martin, and their world, and at the same time an essay in the interpretation of hagiography.

This volume initiates von Balthasar's study of the biblical vision and understanding of God's glory. Starting with the theopanies of the Patriarchal period, it shows how such glory is most fully expressed in the graciousness of the Covenant relationship between God and Israel.

This volume presents a series of studies of representative mystics, theologians, philosophers, and poets and explores the three mainstreams of metaphysics which have developed since the catastrophe of Nominalism.

In Reforming Saints, David J. Collins explains how and why Renaissance humanists composed Latin hagiography in Germany in the decades leading up to the Reformation. Contrary to the traditional wisdom, Collins's research uncovers a resurgence in the composition of saints' lives in the half century leading up to 1520. German humanists, he finds, were among the most active authors and editors of these texts.
Focusing on forty Latin depictions of German saints written between 1470 and 1520, Collins finds patterns both in how these humanists chose their subjects and how they presented their holiness. He argues that the humanist hagiographers took up the writing of saints' lives to investigate Germany's medieval past, to reconstruct and exalt its greatness, and to advocate programs of religious and cultural reform. This literature, says Collins, left a legacy that polemicists and philologists in Catholic Europe would be using for their own purposes by the end of the sixteenth century. These hagiographic writings are thus both reflective and formative of the religious and cultural conflicts that defined this period of European history. To bolster his case, Collins draws not only on the Latin saints' lives, but also on vernacular lives, maps and chorographic documents, personal and professional letters, papal, urban, and municipal archives, painting, sculpture and broadside print, and medieval and early modern histories and chronicles. The result is a fresh, new portrait of the humanism of Renaissance Germany.
With his surprising and insightful conclusions, Collins sheds new light on humanism's appropriation in Germany, particularly in its religious aspect. He approaches the humanists'writings on their own terms and recaptures the creative energy the humanists brought to the task of revising the legends of the saints. His scholarly perspective includes the roles of emperors, princes, abbots, city councilmen, artists, librarians, soldiers, peasants, and pilgrims, showing how humanists reached larger and less learned audiences than many other kinds of writing ever could. The cult of the saints and Renaissance humanism are two topics that have attracted considerable scholarly attention. Reforming Saints considers them as seldom before -- at their intersection.

"Collected writings on the Trinity, Christ, and the Holy Spirit"
In this collection of writings from one of the most well-known theologians of the modern era, Packer strongly defends Trinitarian theology and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ against contemporary challenges. In so doing, he deals with theological issues such as atonement, justification and universalism. He calls for believers to be serious about the Holy Spirit, and his articles on this topic are valuable examples of how to apply theological beliefs to controversial issues within the church.
The articles range from short devotional pieces published in church-sponsored journals, to opinion articles for popular journals like Christianity Today, to major articles for scholarly journals.
Contents
Foreword
1. The Trinity and the Gospel
2. On Covenant Theology
3. Jesus Christ the Lord
4. Jesus Christ: the Only Saviour
5. The Lamb Upon His Throne
6. A Modern View of Jesus
7. The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ
8. What Did the Cross Achieve?
9. Sacrifice and Satisfaction
10. Justification: Introductory Essay
11. The Love of God: Universal and Particular
12. Good Pagans and God's Kingdom
13. The Problem of Universalism Today
14. Evangelicals and the Way of Salvation
15. An Agenda for Theology
16. Shy Sovereign
17. On Being Serious About the Holy Spirit
18. The Spirit and His Work

Many Christians ignore most Old Testament laws as obsolete or irrelevant. Others claim to honor them but in fact pick and choose among them very selectively in support of specific agendas, like opposition to homosexual rights. Yet it is a basic tenet of Christian doctrine that the faith is contained in both the Old and the New Testament. If the law is ignored, an important aspect of the faith tradition is denied. In this book Cheryl Anderson tackles this problem head on, attempting to answer the question whether the laws of the Old Testament are authoritative for Christians today. This question is crucial, because some Christians actually believe that the New Testament abolishes the law, or that the major Protestant reformers (Luther, Calvin, Wesley) rejected the law. Anderson acknowledges the deeply problematic nature of some Old Testament law, especially as it applies to women. For example, Exodus 22:16-17 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29 both deem the rape of an unmarried female to have injured her father rather than the female herself. Deuteronomy requires the victim to marry her rapist. Anderson argues that biblical laws nevertheless teach us foundational values. They also, however, remind us of the differences between their ancient context and our own. She suggests that we approach biblical law in much the same way that Americans regard the Constitution. The nation's founding fathers were privileged white males who did not have the poor, women, or people of color in mind when they agreed that "all men are created equal." The Constitution has subsequently been amended and court decisions have extended its protections to those who were previously excluded. Although the biblical documents cannot be modified, the manner in which they are interpreted in later settings can and should be altered. In addition to her work as a scholar of the Old Testament, Anderson has been a practicing attorney, and has worked extensively in critical, legal, feminist and womanist theory. This background uniquely qualifies her to apply insights from contemporary law and legal theory to the interpretive history of biblical law, and to draw out their implications for issues of gender, class, and ethnicity.

A number of critics and scholars argue for the notion of a distinctly Catholic variety of imagination, not as a matter of doctrine or even of belief, but rather as an artistic sensibility. They figure the blend of intellectual, emotional, spiritual and ethical assumptions that proceed from Catholic belief constitutes a vision of reality that necessarily informs the artist's imaginative expression. The notion of a Catholic imagination, however, has lacked thematic and theological coherence. To articulate this intuition is to cross the problematic interdisciplinary borders between theology and literature; and, although scholars have developed useful methods for undertaking such interdisciplinary "border-crossings," relatively few have been devoted to a serious examination of the theological aesthetic upon which these other aesthetics might hinge.
In A Theology of Criticism, Michael Patrick Murphy proposes a new framework to better define the concept of a Catholic imagination. He explores the many ways in which the theological work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) can provide the model, content, and optic for distinguishing this type of imagination from others. Since Balthasar views art and literature precisely as theologies, Murphy surveys a broad array of poetry, drama, fiction, and film and sets it against central aspects of Balthasar's theological program. In doing so, Murphy seeks to develop a theology of criticism.
This interdisciplinary work recovers the legitimate place of a distinct "theological imagination" in critical theory, showing that Balthasar's voice both challenges and complements contemporary developments. Murphy also contends that postmodern interpretivemethodology, with its careful critique of entrenched philosophical assumptions and reiterated codes of meaning, is not the threat to theological meaning that many fear. On the contrary, by juxtaposing postmodern critical methodologies against Balthasar's visionary theological range, a space is made available for literary critics and theologians alike. More important, the critic is provided with the tools to assess, challenge, and celebrate the theological imagination as it is depicted today.

'Son of Man' is practically the only self-designation employed by Jesus himself in the gospels, but is used in such a way that no hint is left of any particular theological significance. Still, during the first many centuries of the church, the expression as it was reused was given content, first literally as signifying Christ's human nature. Later 'Son of Man' was thought to be a christological title in its own right. Today, many scholars are inclined to think that, in an original Aramaic of an historical Jesus, it was little more than a rhetorical circumlocution, referring to the one speaking. Mogens Muller's 'The Expression 'Son of Man' and the Development of Christology: A History of Interpretation' is the first study of the 'Son of Man' trope, which traces the history of interpretation from the Apostolic Fathers to the present, concluding that the various interpretations of this phrase reflect little more than the various doctrinal assumptions held by its interpreters over centuries.

Rarely did ancient authors write about the lives of women; even more rarely did they write about the lives of ordinary women: not queens or heroines who influenced war or politics, not sensational examples of virtue or vice, not Christian martyrs or ascetics, but women of moderate status, who experienced everyday joys and sorrows and had everyday merits and failings. Such a woman was Monica-now Saint Monica because of her relationship with her son Augustine, who wrote about her in the Confessions and elsewhere. Despite her rather unremarkable life, Saint Monica has inspired a robust controversy in academia, the Church, and the Augustine-reading public alike: some agree with Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who knew Monica, that Augustine was exceptionally blessed in having such a mother, while others think that Monica is a classic example of the manipulative mother who lives through her son, using religion to repress his sexual life and to control him even when he seems to escape. In Monica: An Ordinary Saint, Gillian Clark reconciles these competing images of Monica's life and legacy, arriving at a woman who was shrewd and enterprising, but also meek and gentle. Weighing Augustine's discussion of his mother against other evidence of women's lives in late antiquity, Clark achieves portraits both of Monica individually, and of the many women like her. Augustine did not claim that his mother was a saint, but he did think that the challenges of everyday life required courage and commitment to Christian principle. Monica's ordinary life, as both he and Clark tell it, showed both. Monica: An Ordinary Saint illuminates Monica, wife and mother, in the context of the societal expectations and burdens that shaped her and all ordinary women.

Eschatology is the study of the last things: death, judgment, the afterlife, and the end of the world. Through centuries of Christian thoughtfrom the early Church fathers through the Middle Ages and the Reformationthese issues were of the utmost importance. In other religions, too, eschatological concerns were central. After the Enlightenment, though, many religious thinkers began to downplay the importance of eschatology which, in light of rationalism, came to be seen as something of an embarrassment. The twentieth century, however, saw the rise of phenomena that placed eschatology back at the forefront of religious thought. From the rapid expansion of fundamentalist forms of Christianity, with their focus on the end times; to the proliferation of apocalyptic new religious movements; to the recent (and very public) debates about suicide, martyrdom, and paradise in Islam, interest in eschatology is once again on the rise. In addition to its popular resurgence, in recent years some of the worlds most important theologians have returned eschatology to its former position of prominence. The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology will provide an important critical survey of this diverse body of thought and practice from a variety of perspectives: biblical, historical, theological, philosophical, and cultural. This volume will be the primary resource for students, scholars, and others interested in questions of our ultimate existence.