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.

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.''

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.

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 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.

Awry and thought-provoking jaunt through the spiritual terrain of our everyday language -- a lexion of uncommon insight to jar the mind and nourish the soul. "I think of faith as a kind of whistling in the dark, because in much the same way," writes Buechner, "it helps to give us courage and to hold the shadows at bay."

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.

Living in hope, Professor Moltmann points out, is an experiment. Hoping is a risky matter; it can bring disappointment and surprise developments. To live in hope is a mark of the Christian, and is so in every age, so that a theology of hope should not be regarded as a passing fashion. The essays collected in this book are experiments made by Professor Moltmann in conversation with a wider audience. They include the texts of lectures given in America, Asia, Africa and Australasia, as well as in Europe and are marked by the concern of a distinguished theologian that German theology shall learn from other cultures and other movements of thought. Almost all of them were written after 1970 and cover subjects in theology, ethics, philosophy of religion and politics. They also show how the themes of Professor Moltmann's two major books, Theology of Hope and The Crucified God may be applied in practice to the basic issues of our time.

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.

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.

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."

This timely and up to date new edition of Biomedicine and Beatitude features an entirely new chapter on the ethics of bodily modification. It is also updated throughout to reflect the pontificate of Pope Francis, recent concerns including ethical issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic, and feedback from the many instructors who used the first edition in the classroom

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.

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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.

Many readers are convinced that the Psalms are hopelessly "masculine," especially given that seventy-three of the 150 psalms begin with headings linking them to King David. In this volume, Denise Dombkowski Hopkins sets stories about women in the Hebrew Bible alongside Psalms 42-89 as "intertexts" for interpretation. The stories of women such as Hannah, Rahab, Tamar, Bathsheba, Susanna, Judith, Shiphrah, Puah, and the Levite's concubine can generate a different set of associations for psalm metaphors than have traditionally been put forward. These different associations can give the reader different views of the dynamics of power, gender, politics, religion, family, and economics in ancient Israel and in our lives today that might help to name and transform the brokenness of our world. From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God's vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.