This rhetorical study of the various language strategies and competing worldviews involved in the 140-year argument between Biblical creationists and Darwinian evolutionists focuses on the 1860 Huxley/Wilberforce debate, the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, and the 1981 Arkansas Creation-Science Trial. When Darwin published his Origins of Species in 1859, he initiated a debate about the origin of human life and the role of God in human affairs scarcely equalled in world history. Smout traces the response of Biblical creationists to Darwinian evolutionists. Looking carefully at the stories told and the tactics used by both sides, he analyzes all available accounts of the original debate culminating in the 1860 Huxley/Wilberforce debate, the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, and the 1981 Arkansas Creation-Science Trial. Professor Smout argues that both sides in the controversy use various language strategies to persuade the culture as a whole to see the world that they see and to enact their position as public policy. As Smout illustrates, the problem is that both sides rely on an inadequate conception of language as a namer of timeless realities rather than as an instrument used by human communities to achieve their goals. He attempts to articulate a better view of language and to show how it might help solve intractable arguments such as this. He argues that we should see language as a tool that shapes what we see, and definitions of terms as political acts rather than statements of fact made by disciplinary experts. An important analysis for students and scholars in rhetoric, history, religion, and sociology.

Norgate assesses the way in which the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation for all other Christian doctrines, especially the Christian understanding of salvation. He investigates in detail the approach of the German Lutheran theologian, Isaac A. Dorner (1809-1884) to this question. Analysis of his arguments concerning the priority of the doctrine of God for Christian belief and dogmatics is given. It examines the form of his doctrine of God's triunity, and gives an extensive study of how Dorner's particular account of God's triune identity informs the Christian conception of God's relation to the world, first, as Creator and, second, as Saviour. In this process, it seeks to refocus attention on Dorner as a major figure in the development of modern theology. The relationship between Dorner's doctrines of the triune God and salvation is assessed. Dorner's positive reconstruction of the Christian idea of God as Trinity provides helpful resources in delineating a non-competitive account of God's relation to the world. This means that God is not confused with nor distant from the world. The eternal vitality of God's immanent personality is the basis of His vital economic activity, which culminates in the incarnation of the Son. We follow the main tributaries of Dorner's arguments in System of Christian Faith, beginning with an analysis of his doctrine of God, via his development of the doctrines of creation, humanity, and the incarnation of the God-man. An assessment is given of those doctrines which pertain to the way in which God brings salvation through Jesus Christ: sin, Jesus, and atonement. Norgate concludes by comparing Dorner's achievements with those found in more recent theologies of atonement. "T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology" is a series of monographs in the field of Christian doctrine, with a particular focus on constructive engagement with major topics through historical analysis or contemporary restatement.

Religious poetry has often been regarded as minor poetry and dismissed in large part because poetry is taken to require direct experience; whereas religious poetry is taken to be based on faith, that is, on second or third hand experience. The best methods of thinking about "experience" are given to us by phenomenology. Poetry and Revelation is the first study of religious poetry through a phenomenological lens, one that works with the distinction between manifestation (in which everything is made manifest) and revelation (in which the mystery is re-veiled as well as revealed). Providing a phenomenological investigation of a wide range of "religious poems", some medieval, some modern; some written in English, others written in European languages; some from America, some from Britain, and some from Australia, Kevin Hart provides a unique new way of thinking about religious poetry and the nature of revelation itself.

Overviewing what makes the intersection between emotion and ethics so confusing, this book surveys an older wisdom in how to manage it, using a range of Christian theologians and sources. More important even than 'managing', we begin to see a vision for a better set of affections to grow within and among us. In this vision emerges a practical and nuanced account of what the Christian tradition sometime summarises as 'love'. How may we recover a deep affection for what matters, both within ourselves and together in groups? This book also dialogues with a new movement in moral psychology, 'social intuitionism'. Cameron argues that researchers in this discipline have interests and conclusions that sometimes overlap with Christian sources, even where their respective lenses differ. In this way, the book overviews recent trends in moral psychology against a recent historical and contemporary cultural backdrop, whilst assaying major sources in Christian theology that offer guidance on moral psychology.

The first part of the book is grounded in biblical issues and in historical and philosophical theology. It seeks to establish several schemes of death theology related, for example, to early Christianity's Jewish cultural milieu, to belief in Christ's resurrection and to Christology, to issues of millennial belief and to an emergent liturgical practice. The rise of notions of the soul in relation to medieval thought and practice and the place of death in Reformation theology are both covered, as is the role of the nineteenth century and twentieth century. Finally the rise of biblical theology is considered, especially in the twentieth century. The second part of the book takes up several contemporary models of the theology of death. The first pursues a traditional acceptance of an other-worldly afterlife, the second explores worldly analysis of eternal life as a quality of contemporary existence devoid of any future state. The third develops the worldly model and considers a wider sense of self as a part of an ecological view of the world as a divine creation and explores the meaning of birth, life and death amidst a divine environment. "The Theology of Death" aims to offer some sharply defined schemes to focus thought in a Christian environment in which death, hell and heaven have almost lost their place. The topic of hope is a key element and the book explores the birth and fostering of hope within Christian traditions.

For the first time classic readings on Jesus from outside of Christianity have been brought together in one volume. Jesus Beyond Christianity: The Classic Texts features significant passages on Jesus from Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. The fifty-six selections span two millennia of thought, including translated extracts from the Talmud and the Qur'an, and writings by Mahatma Gandhi and the 14th Dalai Lama.
The volume features fresh translations of important texts, 'Key-Issues' introductions, questions for discussion and guides for further reading. Importantly, each set of readings ends with an entirely fresh reflection from a leading scholar in the field. Every care has been taken to present these often controversial passages in a manner consistent with the aims of their authors; accompanying notes directly address challenging issues.
This unique collection of readings promises to become an essential resource in the study of the world's religions, providing rich guidance for anyone seeking to understand the central convergences and debates between religious traditions.

Hebrew Texts in Jewish, Christian and Muslim Surroundings offers a new perspective on Judaism, Christianity and Islam as religions of the book. Their problematic relation seems to indicate that there is more that divides than unites these religions. The present volume will show that there is an intricate web of relations between the texts of these three religious traditions. On many levels readings and interpretations intermingle and influence each other. Studying the multifaceted history of the way Hebrew texts were read and interpreted in so many different contexts may contribute to a better understanding of the complicated relation between Jews, Christians and Muslims. These studies are dedicated to Dineke Houtman honouring her work as professor of Jewish-Christian relations.

This book explores the roots and relevance of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s approach to black suffering. King's conviction that "unearned suffering is redemptive" reflects a nearly 250-year-old tradition in the black church going back to the earliest Negro spirituals. From the bellies of slave ships, the foot of the lynching tree, and the back of segregated buses, black Christians have always maintained the hope that God could "make a way out of no way" and somehow bring good from the evils inflicted on them. As a product of the black church tradition, King inherited this widespread belief, developed it using Protestant liberal concepts, and deployed it throughout the Civil Rights Movement of the 50's and 60's as a central pillar of the whole non-violent movement. Recently, critics have maintained that King's doctrine of redemptive suffering creates a martyr mentality which makes victims passive in the face of their suffering; this book argues against that critique. King's concept offers real answers to important challenges, and it offers practical hope and guidance for how beleaguered black citizens can faithfully engage their suffering today.

Since the early 1980s there has been a philosophical turn to the analysis of Christian doctrines. This has been stimulated by the renewal of the Philosophy of Religion in the 1960s and 1970s by figures like Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, William Alston, Anthony Flew, Alistair MacIntyre, Marilyn Adams, Robert Adams and others. This new literature is usually dubbed 'philosophical theology', and has a wide range of application to particular doctrines, theological method, and the work of particular theologians in the past, such as Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Louis de Molina, Jonathan Edwards and Karl Barth. Yet there are very few (if any) textbooks devoted to this new work.The renewal of philosophical theology is of interest to theologians as well as philosophers. This textbook on the subject fosters this cross-disciplinary interest and make a literature that has developed in the professional journals and a number of monographs accessible to a much wider readership - particularly a student readership.It fills an important gap in the market, and should have a wide appeal for teachers at University and Seminary level education, as well as to postgraduate courses.

This is a major contribution to the link between theology and philosophy, introducing the core ideas of Michel Foucault to students of theology. Near the end of his life, Michel Foucault turned his attention to the early church Fathers. He did so not for anything like a return to God but rather because he found in those sources alternatives for re-imaging the self. And though Foucault never seriously entertained Christianity beyond theorizing its aesthetic style one might argue that Christian practices like confession or Eucharist share family resemblances to Foucaultian sensibilities. This book will explain how to do theology in light of Foucault, or more precisely, to read Foucault as if God mattered. Therefore, it will seek to articulate practices like confession, prayer, and so on as techniques for the self, situate 'the church as politics' within present constellations of power, disclose theological knowledges as modes of critical intervention, or what Foucault called archaeology, and conceptualize Christian existence in time through mnemonic practices of genealogy. "The Philosophy and Theology" series looks at major philosophers and explores their relevance to theological thought as well as the response of theology.

This text explores the unacknowledged psychological element in Maimonides' work, one which prefigures the latter insights of Freud. It also looks at Maimonidean mysticism and much more.

A number of passages in the Qur'an contain doctrinal and cultural criticism of Jews and Christians, from exclusive salvation and charges of Jewish and Christian falsification of revelation to cautions against the taking of Jews and Christians as patrons, allies, or intimates. Mun'im Sirry offers a novel exploration of these polemical passages, which have long been regarded as obstacles to peaceable interreligious relations, through the lens of twentieth-century tafsir (exegesis). He considers such essential questions as: How have modern contexts shaped Muslim reformers' understanding of the Qur'an, and how have the reformers' interpretations recontextualized these passages? Can the Qur'an's polemical texts be interpreted fruitfully for interactions among religious communities in the modern world? Sirry also reflects on the various definitions of apologetic or polemic as relevant sacred texts and analyzes reformist tafsirs with careful attention to argument, literary context, and rhetoric in order to illuminate the methods, positions, and horizons of the exegeses. Scriptural Polemics provides both a critical engagement with the tafsirs and a lucid and original sounding of Qur'anic language, logic, and dilemmas, showing how the dynamic and varied reformist intepretations of these passages open the way for a less polemical approach to other religions.

This volume provides an ethnographic description of Muslim merit-making rhetoric, rituals and rationales in Thailand's Malay far-south. This study is situated in Cabetigo, one of Pattani's oldest and most important Malay communities that has been subjected to a range of Thai and Islamic influences over the last hundred years. The volume describes religious rhetoric related to merit-making being conducted in both Thai and Malay, that the spiritual currency of merit is generated through the performance of locally occurring Malay "adat," and globally normative "amal 'ibadat. "Concerning the rationale for merit-making, merit-makers are motivated by both a desire to ensure their own comfort in the grave and personal vindication at judgment, as well as to transfer merit for those already in the grave, who are known to the merit-maker. While the rhetoric elements of Muslim merit-making reveal Thai influence, its ritual elements confirm the local impact of reformist activism."