The biblical Jubilee that was celebrated once every fifty years is referred to in Leviticus 25 as the "Sabbath of Sabbaths". Its requirements included that the land lie fallow, all debts be forgiven, captives be freed, and a celebration held. Maria Harris considers the implications of a living Jubilee for today and for the next century. She offers a compelling argument that a living Jubilee is a comprehensive spirituality that would have a positive political, economic, and moral impact on individuals, families, religious congregations, institutions, and nations.

Throughout the centuries the church has taught that the vast majority of humankind will suffer eternal punishment. But is this teaching truly biblical? In this provocative book Jan Bonda scrutinizes church tradition and Scripture -- especially Paul's letter to the Romans -- and concludes that neither Paul nor the prophets to whom he appeals show any trace of supporting the doctrine of eternal damnation. On the contrary, they tell us that God wants to save all people and that he will not rest until that goal has been achieved.

This study illustrates how the isolated prophet or mystic is no longer relevant and that it is only through the formation of prophetic communities of faith that our modern sense of fragmentation can be addressed.

Thomas P. Flint develops and defends the idea of divine providence sketched by Luis de Molina, the 16th-century Jesuit theologian. The Molinist account of divine providence reconciles two claims thought to be incompatible: that God is the all-knowing governor of the universe and that individual freedom can prevail only in a universe free of absolute determinism. The Molinist concept of middle knowledge holds that God knows, though he has no control over, truths about how any individual would freely choose to act in any situation, even if the person never encounters that situation. Given such knowledge, God can be truly providential while leaving his creatures genuinely free.

The innovative strategies, scathing attacks, and lasting impact that marked a sweeping critique of traditional Christian thought

"An important contribution to scholarship on rhetoric and religion because it examines the role of reason and evidence in issues dividing the Deists and Anglicans in matters of Christian spirituality. It sheds light on the role that style and evidence -- especially ridicule and testimony -- played in the controversy". -- Lester C. Olson, University of Pittsburgh

The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists illuminates the major battlefields of a rhetorical war waged for the religious mind of Britain and eventually of Europe and the colonies. Focusing on the works of lesser-known but highly influential Deists whose radically controversial spirit and willingness to absorb enormous personal risks made Deist controversy so intriguing and consequential, lames A. Herrick examines the seventy-year polemic between the English Deists and the Church of England. He contends that Deism owes its enduring significance to the rhetorical acumen, textual resources, and iconoclastic motivation of skilled controversialists who sought nothing less than the destruction of Christianity.

Everyone understands human pain. But many Christians have difficulty comprehending God's pain, especially God's pain in the death of Christ. Is it atonement or child abuse? To speak of God in pain, says Barbara Brown Taylor, is not only to address the biblical stories of Christ's suffering and death, but also to proclaim the God who is present in our pain. This volume of teaching sermons on suffering presents different approaches to the problem of God in pain. In each sermon, Taylor speaks with sensitivity and profound insight as she addresses pain and both its human and divine impact.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Part I: Pain of Life: The Gift of Disillusionment; A Cure for Despair; Learning to Hate Your Family; Divine Anger; Feeding the Enemy; The Betrayer in Our Midst; Buried by Baptism; The Suffering Cup; Pick Up Your Cross; Unless a Grain Falls; The Dress Rehearsal; Surviving Crucifixion; Portents and Signs; and The Delivery Room. Part II: Pain of Death: Believing What We Cannot Understand; Someone to Blame; The Triumphant Victim; The Myth of Redemptive Violence; The Silence of God; The Will of God; The Suffering of God; May He Not Rest in Peace.

BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR, an Episcopal priest in the diocese of Atlanta, holds the Butman Chair in Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia. She is widely sought after as a preacher and guest lecturer, and is the author of five books, including Preaching Life and Bread of Angels.She was named by Baylor University as one of the 12 most effective preachers in the English language.

God's beauty is omnipresent, particularly in the Scriptures, in the liturgy, and in human friendship. In"Enjoying God's Beauty," Father Navone discusses how to find God in the beauty of the world and in all of God's creation.

The joy of seeing the beauty of God in our lives - the eye of love" that is Christian faith and "the look of love" that is Christian contemplation beholding the Beloved in all things - is at the heart of Christian life. In "Enjoying God's Beauty," Father Navone provides an overview of the Christian experience of God's beauty in all things.

"Enjoying God's Beauty" focuses on three approaches to the Christian experience of beauty. The first approach to enjoying God's beauty follows the assumption that wherever there is Christian life, there is Christian Vision and action. The second approach revolves around the Church's Scriptures. Father Navone focuses on the Church's invitation to contemplate in its scriptural iconography true images of God, ourselves, and the world. The third approach involves our experience of life in the Church. Father Navone focuses on the theologies of beauty of Thomas Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards based on their experience within the community of Christian faith. Finally, he examines the healing and integrating Spirit of God's love within the Church and the world and how it invites reflection on the universal scope of Beauty Itself (God).

Just as there is no joy without love, there is no contemplation without beauty. In "Enjoying God's Beauty," Father Navone shows that the power of beauty moves us to gaze with love upon the Beloved, an act in the Christian faith better known as contemplation.

Chapters are "Windows on Beauty," *In a Glass Darkly, - *Beauty Begets Beauty, - *Time to Enjoy, - *To Enjoy Is to Glorify, - *The Look of Love, - *The 'Beautiful' Shepherd, - *Scriptural Icons, - *Sight to the Blind, - *Predestined for Glory, - *Edwards and Aquinas, - *Beauty in Liturgy, - and *Radiant Spirit. -

John Navone, SJ, is Professor of Theology at the Gregorian University in Rome and at the Gonzaga University summer school. He has written three other books published by Liturgical Press: "Toward a Theology of Beauty, Seeking God in Story, " and "Self-Giving and Sharing: The Trinity and Human Fulfillment.""

An invitation to step into the open spaces where the wind of God's Spirit is blowing. It demonstrates that renewal is not a hobby for Christians to enjoy in privacy, but means being driven out on the Cavalry road, public rejection, private struggles, and an encounter with the wonder of God.

Something quite extraordinary has happened in Catholic trinitarian theology in the last thirty years or so: the mystery of the Trinity is being approached by reflection on the paschal mystery of Jesus' death and resurrection. Astonishing though it may seem, the traditional Augustinian-Thomistic treatment of the trinity made no such direct reference to those Easter events, even though it was through them that Jesus' disciples came to proclaim that Jesus is Lord and that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The redemptive significance of Jesus' death and resurrection was clearly recognized, but not its revelatory significance. But here, in a radically new development, the death and resurrection of Jesus is perceived to have properly theological" meaning; it is not just redemptive but revelatory of God's being. A startling revitalized trinitarian theology emerges. "So what does this development contribute to trinitarian theology?" And "Why has this extraordinary development arisen at this stage in the tradition?" The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery answers these questions and examines and assesses this new development in relation to the classical tradition of trinitarian theology and offers a meta-methodological perspective from which to understand it. One of the few theologians who have pursued this innovative line of thought, Anne Hunt in The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery analyzes the works of four contemporary theologians. Francois Durrwell, CSSR,Ghislain Lafont, OSB, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Sebastian Moore, OSB, have all written on this interconnection of the mysteries. Each expressed dissatisfaction with classical Latin trinitarian theology and sought a fuller, richer, and more adequate explication of the mystery. A vividly revitalized theology of the Trinity results, one that is constructed in a distinctly soteriological context. But the trinitarian theology which emerges is not only a soteriology. The triune God emerges with a distinctively "paschal character" when approached in this way and this profoundly affects an understanding of the divine perfections. Both aspects represent significant gains in the contemporary cultural and theological context. The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery is not only significant on a systematic and methodological level, it is also timely. Recent trinitarian theologies (e.g., LaCugna, Johnson, Boff, Weinandy, Coffey) do not deal with the Trinity-paschal mystery connection. Orthodox theology has very little to say about it. Protestant theology has difficulty relating to the classical Roman Catholic tradition. From all these points of view, The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery provides this perspective and so is a valuable and thought-provoking resource that complements and enriches current theologies of the Trinity. As a text for college or graduate student courses, as a scholarship reference, and as a guide for interested educated laity, The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery is an exhilarating and invigorating journey into that most central of the Christian mysteries, our triune God. Chapters are: "Francois X. Durrwell: The Resurrection Rediscovered," "Ghislain Lafont: Death and Being, Human and Divine," "Hans Urs von Balthasar: Love Alone Is Credible," "Sebastian Moore: The Grass Roots Derivation of the Trinity," "Thematic Gains for Trinitarian Theology," and "Methodological Shifts and Their Meta-Methodological Significance." Anne Hunt is principal at Loreto Mandeville Hall, a Catholic girls' school in Melbourne, Australia. She received a doctorate in systematic theology at Yarra Theological Union, Melbourne.

"I Believe in the Holy Spirit" is a major treatise on the topic by one of the great theologians of the century. Yves Congar's book is one of the few comprehensive treatments of the Church's understanding of the Spirit and the working of the Spirit in the life of the Church by a Roman Catholic theologian, providing "indispensable resources for the development of a Spirit-sensitive theology" (Robert Imbelli).

Philosopher Arthur F. Holmes surveys the historical ways of grounding moral values objectively in the nature of reality, pausing along the way to consider such major landmarks in Western thought as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Ockham, the Reformers, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. Holmes is not convinced that we live in a value-free universe, that fact and value are ultimately unrelated, or that we have to create all our own values rather than discovering the good. He explores the fact-value connection in the larger context of metaphysical and theological views. What emerges is a pervasive-and convincing-link between religious and moral beliefs.

This compelling book addresses important questions on the meaning of suffering: Why must we suffer? Does suffering have a purpose? How can we grow through our suffering to find peace, and give peace to others? O'Malley suggests that while reflection and introspection cannot in themselves give meaning to suffering, suffering that is beyond our control can be transformed through action.

Badcock begins by surveying what both the Old and New Testaments have to say about the Spirit. Next he traces the history of the theology of the Spirit, examining a number of crucial episodes and questions in the field of pneumatology in the history of Christian thought, and then proceeds to develop a contemporary theology of the Spirit.

A major work from one of today's leading theologians, Divine Empathy attempts to "think the unthinkable," how God comes forth actively and redemptively to meet the human situation. Apologetic but not polemical, Farley's work sympathetically engages yet moves beyond both the classical tradition as well as contemporary anti-theisms in formulating a concept of God that is strikingly original, intellectually honest, and comprehensive. Farley's treatise employs the "facticity of redemption," the actual experience of freedom and empowerment, as the primordial source for our thinking about God (Part 1), God-symbols (Part 2), and God's activity (Part 3), including the figure of Jesus. Farley's astute analysis leads inexorably to a view of divine creativity and empathy that is one of the more profound religious visions of our time.

Professor Thiselton compares and assesses modern and postmodern interpretations of the self and society on their own terms and in relation to Christian theology. He explores especially claims that appeals to truth constitute no more than disguised bids for power and self-affirmation whether in society or in religion.

In this important volume one finds the ultimate justification for de Lubac's positions against the atheisms of East and West. The book stands as a gloss on this dictum of Thomas Aquinas: 'In every act of thought and will, God is also thought and willed implicitly.' Although this book provoked much controversy at the time of its original publication, de Lubac insisted that its intention was simply to draw on the double treasure of the philosophia perennis and Christian experience in order 'to lend a helping hand to a few people in their search for God.'

This collection of sermons explores the age-old question of why a loving God allows suffering to visit His children. Tull encourages readers to ask why in good times as well as in difficult ones, to examine God's eternal presence in times of blessed joy as well as during sorrow and care. He emphasizes scriptures and anecdotes that illustrate God's comfort and grace during all situations in our lives.

The 'new materialism' argues that science and religious belief are incompatible. This book considers such arguments from cosmology (Stephen Hawking, Peter Atkins), from biology (Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins) and from sociobiology (Michael Ruse), and exposes a number of fallacies and weaknesses. With a carefully argued, point-by-point refutation of scientific atheism, God, Chance and Necessity shows that modern scientific knowledge does not undermine belief in God, but actually points to the existence of God as the best explanation of how things are the way they are. Thus it sets out to demolish the claims of books like The Selfish Gene, and to show that the overwhelming appearance of design in nature is not deceptive.

Following an insightful evaluation of the Gospel evidence, Clifford concludes that the kingdom of God as proclaimed by Jesus is a reality in the light of which we have to come to terms with the modern world-a world where natural catastrophes and humanly created disasters are common occurrences.

With acknowledgment that Christian theology contributed to the persecution and genocide of Jews comes a dilemma: how to excise the cancer without killing the patient? Kendall Soulen shows how important Christian assertions-the uniqueness of Jesus, the Christian covenant, the finality of salvation in Christ-have been formulated in destructive, supersessionist ways not only in the classical period (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus) and early modernity (Kant and Schleiermacher) but even contemporary theology (Barth and Rahner). Along with this first full-scale critique of Christian supersessionism, Soulen's own constructive proposal regraps the narrative unity of Christian identity and the canon through an original and important insight into the divine-human covenant, the election of Israel, and the meaning of history.

Addressing important issues of the day, this series examines how each of the eight major religions approaches a particular theme. Constructed to be comparative, the books are both authoritative and accessible. Each chapter is followed by a selected bibliography. Individual books are ideal for students at university and A level. As a set they form a complete reference collection.

William Placher looks at "classical" Christian theology (Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Martin Luther) and contrasts it with the Christian discourse about God that evolved in the seventeenth century. In particular, he deals with the notion of transcendence that gained prominence in this era and its impact on modern theology and modern thinking today. He persuasively argues that useful lessons can be drawn from premodern thinking about God, especially when viewed within the context of contemporary objections to it. This reexamination, according to Placher, has practical and profound implications for modern theology.