This is a rich collection of fifteen articles by European, North American and Asian theologians who are concerned with the concept, life, unity and future of the church. It offers a wealth of broad perspectives on ecclesiology by scholars from Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox backgrounds. The first section, Perspectives on Ecumenical Ecclesiology, comprises reflections on postmodern ecclesiologies as well as on the development and problems concerning ecumenical methods and models of unity. The second section, Communion Ecclesiology and Otherness, provides some pertinent deliberations on how an ecclesiology of communion can integrate otherness. In particular, Zizioulas communion ecclesiology is critically examined, the possibility for a retrieval of Eucharistic theology between Catholics and Orthodox is put forward, and Tillards communion ecclesiology is appraised as offering resources for innerdenominational otherness. The final section, Ecclesiology in Global Contexts, considers critically the possibility of evangelical ecclesiology as an answer to ethnic impaired Christian community. The role of the (Catholic) Church and its values in Europe and vis-a-vis the European Constitution is examined. The Church of Nigerias Constitutional Revision (2005) and its ecclesial- ecumenical implications comes into focus, and three notable concepts of unity, as developed by three Indian scholars, S.K. George, John Sadiq and Karem David, are evaluated. Finally, the Japanese diaspora in the States is appraised as a place where a particular Japanese Christian vision could emerge through the internationalist ecclesiology developed by Japanese Christian missionaries.

This book presents the first comprehensive account of the changing ecumenical relationships between Britain and Serbia. While the impetus for the collection is the commemoration of the Serbian seminarians who settled in and around Oxford towards the end of the First World War, the scope is much broader, including detailed accounts of the relationships between the Church of England and Serbia and its Orthodox Church from the middle of the nineteenth century until World War II. It includes studies of leading thinkers from the period, especially the charismatic Nikolaj Velimirovic. The contributors use many unpublished resources that reveal the centrality of the churches in promoting the Serbian cause through the course of the First World War and in its aftermath.

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aThe authors describe the complex congregation in exceedingly careful detail, including a number of archival photographs that bring the narrative to life. Unlike so many congregational histories, difficult periods of tension and conflict are presented alongside feel-good rehearsals of the glory days....The authors and the congregation should be commended for this unique contribution to the field of congregational studies. The research is comprehensive.a
--"Sociology of Religion""There is much to commend it, and my students will be glad to find such a readable book on their syllabi."--"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion"

"This is an excellent scholarly resource on liberal Protestant church history and is recommended for all congregational libraries."--"Church and Synagogue Libraries"

"A critical history, not a jingoistic celebration....scholarly volume."
--"Spirit"

It was from the pulpit of the Riverside Church that Martin Luther King, Jr., first publicly voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War, that Nelson Mandela addressed U.S. church leaders after his release from prison, and that speakers as diverse as Cesar Chavez, Jesse Jackson, Desmond Tutu, Fidel Castro, and Reinhold Niebuhr lectured church and nation about issues of the day. The greatest of American preachers have served as senior minister, including Harry Emerson Fosdick, Robert J. McCracken, Ernest T. Campbell, William Sloane Coffin, Jr., and James A. Forbes, Jr., and at one time the "New York Times" printed reports of each Sunday's sermon in its Monday morning edition.

For seven decades the church has served as the premier model ofProtestant liberalism in the United States. Its history represents the movement from white Protestant hegemony to a multiracial and multiethnic church that has been at the vanguard of social justice advocacy, liberation theologies, gay and lesbian ministries, peace studies, ethnic and racial dialogue, and Jewish-Christian relations.

A collaborative effort by a stellar team of scholars, The History of the Riverside Church in the City of New York offers a critical history of this unique institution on Manhattan's Upper West Side, including its cultural impact on New York City and beyond, its outstanding preachers, and its architecture, and assesses the shifting fortunes of religious progressivism in the twentieth century.

This book contains fresh insights into ecumenism and, notwithstanding claims of an "ecumenical winter," affirms the view that we are actually moving into a "new ecumenical spring." It offers new theological insights in the areas of Christology, Pneumatology and Trinitarian theology, and discusses developments in ecumenism in the USA, UK, Australia, India, and Africa, as well as in ecumenical institutions such as the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Anglican Roman Catholic Commission (ARCIC).

Dialogue can bring about transformation. That conviction grounds Ikenna Paschal Okpaleke's argument concerning dialogue between groups, and ecumenical and interreligious dialogue in particular. This book examines the fundamental question: What are the additional assets and transformed views which Christian denominations committed to ecumenical dialogue can bring to the table of interreligious dialogue? If Christian dialogue partners, particularly in Nigeria (in this case, Anglicans and Roman Catholics), can change how they perceive one another - moving from antagonism to friendship, division to unity - then they, as ecumenically-transformed Christians, can better engage in fruitful and transforming dialogue with the religious other, particularly Muslims. This book addresses: a) the constituents of communal identity and the impact of dialogue on such identity, b) how the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue has (or has not) transformed the communal identities of the dialogue partners, particularly in the local context of Nigeria, c) the ways in which the perceived advantages of a transformative model of dialogue, shaped by ecumenical encounter and dialogue, can be applied to interreligious encounter and dialogue, and d) how theological reflection interacts with praxis in promoting transformation through dialogue.

Mission Mississippi is the largest interracial ecumenical church-based racial reconstruction group in the United States. Peter Slade offers a sustained examination of whether the Mission's model of racial reconciliation (which stresses one-on-one, individual friendships among religious people of different races) can effectively address the issue of social justice. Slade argues that Mission Mississippi's goal of "changing Mississippi one relationship at a time" is both a pragmatic strategy and a theological statement of hope for social and economic change in Mississippi. Carefully tracing the organization's strategies of biracial church partnerships and sponsorships of large civic events, and intercessory prayer breakfast groups, he concludes that they do indeed offer hope for not only for racial reconciliation but for enabling the mobilization of white economic and social power to benefit broad-based community development. At the same time, he honestly conveys the considerable obstacles to the success of these strategies. Slade's work comes out of the vibrant Lived Theology movement, which looks at the ways theologies go beyond philosophical writings to an embodiment in the grassroots lives of religious people. Drawing on extensive interviews and observations of Mission Mississippi activities, church sources, and theological texts, this book is important not only for scholars not only of theology and race relations but Southern studies and religious studies as well.