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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Christianity > Christian theology > General
With its focus on the traditions and communities that form us
over the course of a lifetime, virtue ethics has richly expanded
our understanding of what the Christian life can look like. Yet its
emphasis on human virtues and habits of mind and life seems
inconsistent with the Reformed tradition's insistence that sin lies
at the heart of the human condition. For this reason, virtue ethics
seems out of place in Reformed theology, especially in the company
of the Reformed tradition's greatest twentieth-century theologian,
Karl Barth.
In this new addition to the Columbia Series in Reformed
Theology, Kirk Nolan argues that Barth's theology actually proves
virtue ethics can be compatible with the Reformed tradition. Rather
than see virtue as an inevitable and natural process of growth,
Barth helps us understand that development in the Christian life
comes through a process of repetition and renewal, and that all
virtue comes solely as a gift from God. Nolan establishes an
important bridge between Reformed moral teaching and the tradition
of virtue ethics.
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Paul on Humility
(Hardcover)
Eve-Marie Becker; Translated by Wayne Coppins; Series edited by Wayne Coppins, Simon Gathercole
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R1,396
Discovery Miles 13 960
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Ships in 7 - 11 working days
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Humility in the modern world is neither well understood nor well
received. Many see it as a sign of weakness; others decry it as a
Western construct whose imposition onto marginalized persons only
perpetuates oppression. This skepticism has a long pedigree:
Aristotle, for instance, pointed to humility as a shameless front.
What then are we to make of the New Testament's valorization of
this trait? Translated from German into English for the first time,
Paul on Humility seeks to reclaim the original sense of humility as
an ethical frame of mind that shapes community, securing its
centrality in the Christian faith. This exploration of humility
begins with a consideration of how the concept plays into current
cultural crises before considering its linguistic and philosophical
history in Western culture. In turning to the roots of Christian
humility, Eve-Marie Becker focuses on Philippians 2, a passage in
which Paul appeals to the lowliness of Christ to encourage his
fellow Christians to persevere. Becker shows that humility both
formed the basis of the ethic Paul instilled in churches and acted
as a mimetic device centered on Jesus' example that was molded into
the earliest Christian identity and community. Becker resists the
urge to cheapen humility with mere moralism. In the vision of Paul,
the humble individual is one immersed in a complex, transformative
way of being. The path of humility does not constrain the self;
rather, it guides the self to true freedom in fellowship with
others. Humility is thus a potent concept that speaks to our
contemporary anxieties and discomforts. Not for sale in Europe.
For the last five decades, Rodney Stark has been one of sociology's
most prolific and important scholars of religion. The theoretical
depth, the scientific rigor, and the clarity of style manifested in
Stark's oeuvreaover 30 books and 140 articlesahave made his work
the standard texts. Stark's research career encompasses a wide
spectrum of the necessary topics in sociology of religion. He has
applied groundbreaking theory and method to issues of
secularization, religion and society, religious movements, social
theory, and the history of religion. Sociology of Religion: A
Rodney Stark Reader mirrors Stark's influential career by
highlighting these very topics. In this anthology, Stark's
significant articles are not only, for the first time, collected
together but also clearly organized according to the thematic
trajectory of Stark's carefully developed theory of religion. This
volume is the essential reader for any scholar, teacher, or student
encountering the work of one of this century's most compelling
sociologists.
James Leatt was nine when the Nationalist Party came to power, and eleven when he saw a documentary of the Allied forces liberating Nazi death camps. For most of his life the shadows of apartheid and the Holocaust have dogged his beliefs about faith, the meaning of life and the moral challenges humankind faces.
Conjectures is a philosophical reflection on his life and times as he grapples with the realities of parish work in black communities, teaching ethics in a business school under apartheid, managing a university in the dying days of the Nationalist regime, and eventually working in higher education in post-apartheid South Africa.
Weaving strands of his personal life with the questions of theodicy and modernity as well as drawing upon the Western philosophical tradition and the wisdom of East Asian traditions such as Taoism and Buddhism, he comes to terms with a disenchanted reality which has no need for supernatural or magical thought and practice.
He has learned to live with questions. If you no longer believe in God and a sacred text, what are your sources of meaning? What kind of moral GPS allows you to find your way? Is what might be called a secular spirituality even possible?
Conjectures traces the author’s search for a secular way of being that is meaningful, mindful and reverent.
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