Saints and holy (and not so holy) individuals out of whom they are fashioned have held a perennial fascination for sinful, wayward mankind. Over the last forty years, Peter Brown has transformed historians' ways of looking at early Christian saints, with a new, anthropologically orientated approach. His ideas are tested and modified in novel ways in this book which takes a broad view of the cult of saints in its first millennium.

This book offers an in-depth exploration of the international phenomenon of enlightened paternalist capitalism and social engineering in the golden age of capitalism in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France. Erik de Gier shows how utopian socialist, religious, and craft-based ideas influenced the welfare work and educations programmes offered by paternalistic businesses in different ways from nation to nation, looking closely at sites like the Pullman community in Chicago and Port Sunlight in the UK. De Gier brings the book fully up to date with a brief comparison to contemporary welfare capitalism in our highly flexible working world.

The legacy of late medieval Franciscan thought is uncontested: for generations, the influence of late-13th and 14th century Franciscans on the development of modern thought has been celebrated by some and loathed by others. However, the legacy of early Franciscan thought, as it developed in the first generation of Franciscan thinkers who worked at the recently-founded University of Paris in the first half of the 13th century, is a virtually foreign concept in the relevant scholarship. The reason for this is that early Franciscans are widely regarded as mere codifiers and perpetrators of the earlier medieval, largely Augustinian, tradition, from which later Franciscans supposedly departed. In this study, leading scholars of both periods in the Franciscan intellectual tradition join forces to highlight the continuity between early and late Franciscan thinkers which is often overlooked by those who emphasize their discrepancies in terms of methodology and sources. At the same time, the contributors seek to paint a more nuanced picture of the tradition's legacy to Western thought, highlighting aspects of it that were passed down for generations to follow as well as the extremely different contexts and ends for which originally Franciscan ideas came to be employed in later medieval and modern thought.

Irenaeus' theology of the Holy Spirit is often highly regarded amongst theologians today, but that regard is not universal, nor has an adequate volume of literature supported it. This study provides a detailed examination of certain principal, often distinctive, aspects of Irenaeus' pneumatology. In contrast to those who have suggested Irenaeus held a weak conception of the person and work of the Holy Spirit, Anthony Briggman demonstrates that Irenaeus combined Second Temple Jewish traditions of the spirit with New Testament theology to produce the most complex Jewish-Christian pneumatology of the early church. In so doing, Irenaeus moved beyond his contemporaries by being the first author, following the New Testament writings, to construct a theological account in which binitarian logic did not diminish either the identity or activity of the Holy Spirit. That is to say, he was the first to support his Trinitarian convictions by means of Trinitarian logic. Briggman advances the narrative that locates early Christian pneumatologies in the context of Jewish traditions regarding the spirit. In particular, he argues that the appropriation and repudiation of Second Temple Jewish forms of thought explain three moments in the development of Christian theology. First, the existence of a rudimentary pneumatology correlating to the earliest stage of Trinitarian theology in which a Trinitarian confession is accompanied by binitarian orientation/logic, such as in the thought of Justin Martyr. Second, the development of a sophisticated pneumatology correlating to a mature second century Trinitarian theology in which a Trinitarian confession is accompanied by Trinitarian logic. This second moment is visible in Irenaeus' thought, which eschewed Jewish traditions that often hindered theological accounts of his near contemporaries, such as Justin, while adopting and adapting Jewish traditions that enabled him to strengthen and clarify his own understanding of the Holy Spirit. Third, the return to a rudimentary account of the Spirit at the turn of the third century when theologians such as Tertullian, Origen, and Novatian repudiated Jewish traditions integral to Irenaeus' account of the Holy Spirit.

This reference provides a thorough survey of the theology of and from Africa. The first part of the work presents a historical overview of African theology, while the second part includes citations for more than 600 books and articles. The citations are grouped in topical chapters, and each entry is accompanied by a descriptive and evaluative annotation. The entries focus on works published from 1955 to 1992, and cover sources that exemplify the importance of social and cultural analyses and the various types of African theology. Most of the sources have been published in Africa, the United States, or Great Britain. While most are in English, many are in French. Young begins with a narrative discussion of the history of African theology. This section includes chapters on the Christianization of African traditional religion, the Africanization of Christianity, and the impact of Black theology in South Africa. The annotated bibliography follows. The bibliography is divided into four chapters, which contain entries on historical and social analysis, traditional religion in Africa, African theology during different periods, and Black South African theology. The volume concludes with indexes of names, titles, and subjects.

Black women in America have carved out a distinctive and instructive faith stance that is influential well beyond the historic black church. Diana L. Hayes, a leading commentator and forger of womanist thought, especially in the black Catholic setting, here offers strong brew for what ails the church, the Christian tradition, and the world. Hayes specifically shows how womanist commitments in the Christian tradition provide a specific critical lens for seeing the strengths and weaknesses of a Christianity that has often flourished at the expense of or neglect of African Americans. As sometime strangers and sojourners in their own church, black women have a unique take on the church's stance on race, class, and gender issues. Yet their unquestioned devotion lends a hope and optimism often missing from critical thought and, as Hayes shows in this powerful volume, invites the church itself to a new conversion and role. Her book unfolds in four parts: Introduction: Standing in the Shoes My Mother Made -Part 1: Faith and Worship -Part 2: Ministry and Social Justice -Part 3: The Public Face of Faith -Part 4: A Womanist Faith Challenge Contents Adobe Acrobat Document Preface Adobe Acrobat Document Introduction Adobe Acrobat Document Chapter 1 Adobe Acrobat Document Samples require Adobe Acrobat Reader Having trouble downloading and viewing PDF samples? "In Standing in the Shoes My Mother Made, Diana Hayes combines personal reflection and commitment with theological analysis to enrich our grasp of womanism, to deepen our understanding of black Catholic experience, to widen our horizons and hearts for a more inclusive ecclesial life." -M. Shawn Copeland Associate Professor of Systematic Theology Boston College

David S. Cunningham offers a sustained account of the relationship between rhetoric and Christian theology. He addresses various kinds of deconstructionist and literary interests, and discusses the grammatical, probabilistic, audience-centred concerns of Christianity's oldest theologians.

Readers' Choice Award Winner "For God so loved the world . . ." We believe these words, but what do they really mean? Does God choose to love, or does God love necessarily? Is God's love emotional? Does the love of God include desire or enjoyment? Is God's love conditional? Can God receive love from human beings? Attempts to answer these questions have produced sharply divided pictures of God's relationship to the world. One widely held position is that of classical theism, which understands God as necessary, self-sufficient, perfect, simple, timeless, immutable and impassible. In this view, God is entirely unaffected by the world and his love is thus unconditional, unilateral and arbitrary. In the twentieth century, process theologians replaced classical theism with an understanding of God as bound up essentially with the world and dependent on it. In this view God necessarily feels all feelings and loves all others, because they are included within himself. In The Love of God, John Peckham offers a comprehensive canonical interpretation of divine love in dialogue with, and at times in contrast to, both classical and process theism. God's love, he argues, is freely willed, evaluative, emotional and reciprocal, given before but not without conditions. According to Peckham's reading of Scripture, the God who loves the world is both perfect and passible, both self-sufficient and desirous of reciprocal relationships with each person, so that "whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

In the early years of contesting patriarchy in the academy and religious institutions, feminist theology often presented itself as a unified front, a sisterhood. The term "feminist theology," however, is misleading. It suggests a singular feminist purpose driven by a unified female cultural identity that struggles as a cohesive whole against patriarchal dominance. Upon closer inspection, the voice of feminist theology is in fact a chorus of diverging perspectives, each informed by a variety of individual and communal experiences, and an embattled scholarly field, marked by the effects of privilege and power imbalances. This complexity raises an important question: How can feminist theologians respect the irreducible diversity of women's experiences and unmask entrenched forms of privilege in feminist theological discourse? In Feminist Theology and the Challenge of Difference, Margaret D. Kamitsuka urges the feminist theological community to examine critically its most deeply held commitments, assumptions, and goals-especially those of feminist theologians writing from positions of privilege as white or heterosexual women. Focusing on women's experience as portrayed in literature, biblical narrative, and ethnographic writing, Kamitsuka examines the assumptions of feminist theology regarding race and sexuality. She proposes theoretical tools that feminist theologians can employ to identify and hopefully avoid the imposition of racial or sexual hegemony, thus providing invaluable complexity to the movement's identity, and ultimately contributing to current and future Christian theological issues. Blending poststructuralist and postcolonial theoretical resources with feminist and queer concerns, Feminist Theology and the Challenge of Difference makes constructive theological proposals, ranging from sin to christology. The text calls feminist theologians to a more rigorous self-critical approach as they continue to shape the changing face of Christian theological discourse.

The ancient Hebrew prophet Daniel lived in the fifth century BC and accurately predicted the history of the nation of Israel from 536 BC to AD 1948. He also predicted the date of the death of the Messiah to occur in AD 32, the date of the rebirth of the nation of Israel to occur in AD 1948, and the Israeli capture of the Temple Mount to take place in AD 1967 Commentary from the ancient rabbis and the first century church reveals how the messianic rabbis and the disciples of the apostles interpreted his prophecies. Daniel also indicated where the Antichrist would come from, where he would place his international headquarters, and identified the three rebel nations that will attack him during the first three-and-a-half years of the Tribulation. Brought to you by Biblefacts Ministries, Biblefacts.org