Who was Paul of Tarsus? Radical visionary of a new age? Gender-liberating progressive? Great defender of orthodoxy? In Remembering Paul, Benjamin L. White offers a critique of early Christian claims about the real Paul in the second century C.E.a period in which apostolic memory was highly contestedand sets these ancient contests alongside their modern counterpart: attempts to rescue the historical Paul from his canonical entrapments. Examining numerous early Christian sources, White argues that Christians of the second century had no access to the real Paul. Rather, they possessed mediations of Paul as a personaidealized images transmitted in the context of communal memories of the Apostle. Through the selection, combination, and interpretation of pieces of a diverse earlier layer of the Pauline tradition, Christians defended images of the Apostle that were important for forming collective identity. As products of memory, images of Paul exhibit unique mixtures of continuity with and change from the past. Ancient discourses on the real Paul, thus, like their modern counterparts, are problematic. Through a host of exclusionary practices, the real Paul, whose authoritative persona carries authority as the first window into Christianity, was and continues to be invoked as a wedge to gain traction for the conservation of ideology.

This book will show you the importance of fighting the enemy in the spirit, and why being equipped with God’s warfare weapons is one of the most life-changing experiences of all.

Christians have an enemy who will do everything in his power to alter, edit, stop, delay, and abort their God-given destiny. Satan and his demonic kingdom have one purpose: to kill, steal, and destroy.

The enemy does not want our God-ordained prophetic destiny to be fulfilled in this very hour. This is why we need to pray like never before and arm ourselves with the arsenal of heaven like the ambassadors and soldiers of the Lord we are. Fire Prayers will equip you to pick up your weapons of warfare and fight the good fight of faith.

Filled with powerful teachings, Fire Prayers will equip you with a spiritual warfare arsenal that will leave Satan and his kingdom trembling and unable to manipulate, control, or dominate you; hinder your relationship with Jesus; or thwart your destiny.

Readers will learn:

• Prayer is the key for blocking the enemy’s attacks
• Why it is so important to fight the kingdom of darkness
• How they can live a life free of spiritual chains

Good luck getting through an entire day without experiencing the impact of Catholicism. Woken up by an alarm or checked the time? The mechanical clock was invented in the tenth century by a monk who became pope. A bowl of cereal for breakfast? Your milk is safe thanks to Louis Pasteur, a devout Catholic whose research was driven by a love of God and humanity. Knock on wood? It's actually an ancient Catholic practice invoking the power of the Cross when facing trouble or danger.

Thirty years ago, Alvin Plantinga gave a lecture called "Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments," which served as an underground inspiration for two generations of scholars and students. In it, he proposed a number of novel and creative arguments for the existence of God which have yet to receive the attention they deserve. In Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God, each of Plantinga's original suggestions, many of which he only briefly sketched, is developed in detail by a wide variety of accomplished scholars. The authors look to metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, ethics, aesthetics, and beyond, finding evidence for God in almost every dimension of reality. Those arguments new to natural theology are more fully developed, and well-known arguments are given new life. Not only does this collection present ground-breaking research, but it lays the foundations for research projects for years to come.

This is a new edition of the one volume Butler. Drawn from the original twelve volume work known as Butler's Lives of the Saints, this new edition has selected one principal saint as the focus of attention for each day of the calendar year. And now, for the first time, many saints have been included who were canonised during the Pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

The Alpha Guide is a companion to either the Alpha Film Series or Alpha with Nicky Gumbel. This guide is divided up by session with an easy-to-read outline so that guests can follow along during each talk. With simple bullet-point organization and plenty of room for notes, the guide functions as an invaluable resource to the guest during Alpha, and as a reference tool for individual reflection long after Alpha. It is considered an essential resource for Alpha guests as well as the host and helpers on Alpha. Alpha creates an environment of hospitality where people can bring their friends, family, and work colleagues to explore the Christian faith, ask questions, and share their point of view. Alpha makes it easy to invite friends to have spiritual conversations which explore life's biggest questions in a safe and respectful way. Alpha's approach to hospitality, faith, and discussion is designed to welcome everyone, especially those who might not describe themselves as Christians or church-goers. Each session includes time for a large group meal, short teaching, and small group discussion.

Most readers first encounter Augustine's love for Scripture's words in the many biblical allusions of his masterwork, the Confessions. Augustine does not merely quote texts, but in many ways makes Scripture itself tell the story. In his journey from darkness to light, Augustine becomes Adam in the Garden of Eden, the Prodigal Son of Jesus' parable, the Pauline double personality at once devoted to and rebellious against God's law. Throughout he speaks the words of the Psalms as if he had written them. Crucial to Augustine's self-portrayal is his skill at transposing himself into the texts. He sees their properties and dynamics as his own, and by extension, every believing reader's own. In Christ Meets Me Everywhere, Michael Cameron argues that Augustine wanted to train readers of Scripture to transpose themselves into the texts in the same way he did, by the same process of figuration that he found at its core. Tracking Augustine's developing practice of self-transposition into the figures of the biblical texts over the course of his entire career, Cameron shows that this practice is the key to Augustine's hermeneutics.

Between 1920 and 1994, the Catholic Church was Rwanda's most dominant social and religious institution. In recent years, the church has been critiqued for its perceived complicity in the ethnic discourse and political corruption that culminated with the 1994 genocide. In analyzing the contested legacy of Catholicism in Rwanda, Rwanda Before the Genocide focuses on a critical decade, from 1952 to 1962, when Hutu and Tutsi identities became politicized, essentialized, and associated with political violence. This study-the first English-language church history on Rwanda in over 30 years-examines the reactions of Catholic leaders such as the Swiss White Father Andre Perraudin and Aloys Bigirumwami, Rwanda's first indigenous bishop. It evaluates Catholic leaders' controversial responses to ethnic violence during the revolutionary changes of 1959-62 and after Rwanda's ethnic massacres in 1963-64, 1973, and the early 1990s. In seeking to provide deeper insight into the many-threaded roots of the Rwandan genocide, Rwanda Before the Genocide offers constructive lessons for Christian ecclesiology and social ethics in Africa and beyond.

Constructive interreligious dialogue is only a recent phenomenon. Until the nineteenth century, most dialogue among believers was carried on as a debate aimed either to disprove the claims of the other, or to convert the other to one's own tradition. At the end of the nineteenth century, Protestant Christian missionaries of different denominations had created such a cacophony amongst themselves in the mission fields that they decided that it would be best if they could begin to overcome their own differences instead of confusing and even scandalizing the people whom they were trying to convert. By the middle of the twentieth century, the horrors of the Holocaust compelled Christians, especially mainline Protestants and Catholics, to enter into a serious dialogue with Jews, one of the consequences of which was the removal of claims by Christians to have replaced Judaism, and revising text books that communicated that message to Christian believers.
Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, many branches of Christianity, not least the Catholic Church, are engaged in a world-wide constructive dialogue with Muslims, made all the more necessary by the terrorist attacks of September 11. In these new conversations, Muslim religious leaders took an important initiative when they sent their document, ''A Common Word Between Us, '' to all Christians in the West. It is an extraordinary document, for it makes a theological argument (various Christians in the West, including officials at the Vatican, have claimed that a ''theological conversation'' with Muslims is not possible) based on texts drawn from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Qur'an, that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers share the God-given obligation to love God and each other in peace and justice.
The Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies brought together an international group of sixteen Jewish, Catholic, and Muslim scholars to carry on an important theological exploration of the theme of ''learned ignorance.''

Before he was a civil rights leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a man of the church. His father was a pastor, and much of young Martin's time was spent in Baptist churches. He went on to seminary and received a Ph.D. in theology. In 1953, he took over leadership of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Atlanta. The church was his home. But, as he began working for civil rights, King became a fierce critic of the churches, both black and white. He railed against white Christian leaders who urged him to be patient in the struggle-or even opposed civil rights altogether. And, while the black church was the platform from which King launched the struggle for civil rights, he was deeply ambivalent toward the church as an institution, and saw it as in constant need of reform. In this book, Lewis Baldwin explores King's complex relationship with the Christian church, from his days growing up at Ebenezer Baptist, to his work as a pastor, to his battles with American churches over civil rights, to his vision for the global church. King, Baldwin argues, had a robust and multifaceted view of the nature and purpose of the church that serves as a model for the church in the 21st century.

How can we transmit a living, personal Catholic faith to future generations? By coming to know Jesus Christ, and following him as his disciples.

As we emerge from a pandemic into a post-Christian world, these are times of immense challenge and enormous opportunity for the Catholic Church in the United States. Consider these statistics:

Marc se ou kunsdosent Simon kom kuier en hulle wys die hele land vir hom. Ma se Mara en haar oppasser Anna kom kuier in Jerusalem en Mara begin al meer haar Joodse afkoms verwelkom. Dit is Yoshi se bar mitzvah? Die dae is vir die Kriges soms donker, maar soms ook wondermooi. Shir-HaShirim - 'n hooglied? Dikwels nie. Tog is daar altyd 'n lied om te sing. Die hooglied van Israel is die elfde boek in die reeks. 

This volume outlines the author's scepticism about the veridity of some Old Testament history and provoked an open dispute with Samuel Chandler. Many of the theological ideas presented here are embedded in innovatory and persuasive ideas about ethics, language, anthropology and epistemology.

God made your heart for love, joy, peace, and wholeness. But pastors say that more than 90% of their congregations struggle with unforgiveness - and unforgiveness can make us forget what we were made for. What if the most pervasive sin of our day is invisible, hidden deep inside our hearts? What if it affects every aspect of our lives and relationships so quietly and insidiously that most of us miss it altogether? Bruce Wilkinson believes unforgiveness is that sin. Through the teachings of Jesus, The Freedom Factor reveals the link between our suffering and our unforgiveness. But it also shows how to forgive - for real and forever. The story doesn't have to end with the pain of our wounds. Whatever happened to us happened. But the God who made your heart has shown a way past the wounds, back to the life and love that we were made for - a path toward freedom.

The new NLT Large Print Premium Value Thinline Bible, Filament-Enabled Edition has a comfortably readable text, an attractive layout, and an affordable price in a thin and easy-to-carry size. And while it has the same low price of basic text Bibles, the NLT Large Print Thinline now offers much more. It not only features a bold new design and the trusted and much-loved New Living Translation (NLT) but also includes the groundbreaking Filament Bible app. This app enables you to use your mobile phone or tablet to connect every page to a vast array of related content, including study notes, devotionals, interactive maps, informative videos, and worship music.

The Filament Bible app turns this Bible into a powerful study and devotional experience, offering more to expand your mind and touch your heart than you can possibly hold in your hand.

And there is no additional cost for the Filament Bible app. No additional purchase. No additional size or weight.

Of course, you can use this Bible without the app, but when you want to dig deeper, grab your phone or tablet and open the Filament Bible app. It’s so easy to use.

Enchantment and Creed in the Hymns of Ambrose of Milan offers the first critical overview of the hymns of Ambrose of Milan in the context of fourth-century doctrinal song and Ambrose's own catechetical preaching. Brian P. Dunkle, SJ, argues that these settings inform the interpretation of Ambrose's hymnodic project. The hymns employ sophisticated poetic techniques to foster a pro-Nicene sensitivity in the bishop's embattled congregation. After a summary presentation of early Christian hymnody, with special attention to Ambrose's Latin predecessors, Dunkle describes the mystagogical function of fourth-century songs. He examines Ambrose's sermons, especially his catechetical and mystagogical works, for preached parallels to this hymnodic effort. Close reading of Ambrose's hymnodic corpus constitutes the bulk of the study. Dunkle corroborates his findings through a treatment of early Ambrosian imitations, especially the poetry of Prudentius. These early readers amplify the hymnodic features that Dunkle identifies as "enchanting," that is, enlightening the "eyes of faith."

In this book, Colleen Conway looks at the construction of masculinity in New Testament depictions of Jesus. She argues that the New Testament writers necessarily engaged the predominant gender ideology of the Roman Empire, whether consciously or unconsciously. Although the notion of what constituted ideal masculinity in Greek and Roman cultures certainly pre-dated the Roman Empire, the emergence of the Principate concentrated this gender ideology on the figure of the emperor. Indeed, critical to the success of the empire was the portrayal of the emperor as the ideal man and the Roman citizen as one who aspired to be the same. Any person who was held up alongside the emperor as another source of authority would be assessed in terms of the cultural values represented in this Roman image of the "manly man."
Conway examines a variety of ancient ideas of masculinity, as found in philosophical discourses, medical treaties, imperial documents, and ancient inscriptions. Manliness, in these accounts, was achieved through self-control over passions such as lust, anger, and greed. It was also gained through manly displays of courage, the endurance of pain, and death on behalf of others. With these texts as a starting point, Conway shows how the New Testament writings approach Jesus' gender identity. From Paul's early letters to the Gospels and Acts, to the book of Revelation, Christian writings in the Bible confront the potentially emasculating scandal of the cross and affirm Jesus as ideally masculine. Conway's study touches on such themes as the relationship between divinity and masculinity; the role of the body in relation to gender identity; and belief in Jesus as a means of achieving amore ideal form of masculinity. This impeccably researched and highly readable book reveals the importance of ancient gender ideology for the interpretation of Christian texts.

Damascius was head of the Neoplatonist academy in Athens when the Emperor Justinian shut its doors forever in 529. His work, Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles, is the last surviving independent philosophical treatise from the Late Academy. Its survey of Neoplatonist metaphysics, discussion of transcendence, and compendium of late antique theologies, make it unique among all extant works of late antique philosophy. It has never before been translated into English.
The Problems and Solutions exhibits a thorough?going critique of Proclean metaphysics, starting with the principle that all that exists proceeds from a single cause, proceeding to critique the Proclean triadic view of procession and reversion, and severely undermining the status of intellectual reversion in establishing being as the intelligible object. Damascius investigates the internal contradictions lurking within the theory of descent as a whole, showing that similarity of cause and effect is vitiated in the case of processions where one order (e.g. intellect) gives rise to an entirely different order (e.g. soul).
Neoplatonism as a speculative metaphysics posits the One as the exotic or extopic explanans for plurality, conceived as immediate, present to hand, and therefore requiring explanation. Damascius shifts the perspective of his metaphysics: he struggles to create a metaphysical discourse that accommodates, insofar as language is sufficient, the ultimate principle of reality. After all, how coherent is a metaphysical system that bases itself on the Ineffable as a first principle? Instead of creating an objective ontology, Damascius writes ever mindful of the limitations of dialectic, and of the pitfalls and snares inherent in the very structure of metaphysical discourse.

Ranging from the medieval period to the present day, this is a brief history of church music as it has developed through the English tradition. Described as "a quick journey", it provides a broad historical survey rather than an in-depth study of the subject, and also predicts likely future trends.

A reply to Mathew Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation, this text when first published provoked criticism for the author's free-thinking beliefs and led to many exchanges of opinions with other theologians.

The book provides an original and important narrative on the significance of canon in the Christian tradition. Standard accounts of canon reduce canon to scripture and treat scripture as a criterion of truth. Scripture is then related in positive or negative ways to tradition, reason, and experience. Such projects involve a misreading of the meaning and content of canon -- they locate the canonical heritage of the church within epistemology -- and Abraham charts the fatal consquences of this move, from the Fathers to modern feminist theology. In the process he shows that the central epistemological concerns of the Enlightenment have Christian origins and echoes. He also shows that the crucial developments of theology from the Reformation onwards involve extraordinary efforts to fix the foundations of faith. This trajectory is now exhausted theologically and spiritually. Hence, the door is opened for a recovery of the full canonical heritage of the early church and for fresh work on the epistemology of theology.

In the English-speaking world Ernst Kasemann's name is associated primarily with the renewed quest for the historical Jesus which he helped to initiate in the mid-1950s. In addition he is well known for his passionate theological commitment, and for the highly polemical character and sheer difficulty of his writing. There is less appreciation of the breadth of Kasemann's interests, the system of his thought, and the key role of his understanding of Pauline theology within the whole. This study, the first of any length to be written in English, seeks to redress this imbalance. Dr Way traces Kasemann's views from his doctoral dissertation to his magnum opus, the Commentary on Romans. From its context in German Protestant theology, Kasemann's Pauline interpretation is systematically analysed and emphasis is given to the major theological themes which identify the continuing significance of his interpretation to biblical scholars and the Church. Certain unpublished lectures and letters are referred to in tracing Kasemann's views, and the influence of this most provocative of Rudolf Bultmann's students on contemporary New Testament scholarship is assessed.