Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte first began publication in 1925 and can claim to be one of the most tradition-rich historical book series. It presents research on the history of Christian churches and dogmas through the ages but also publishes papers on related disciplines such as archeology, history of art and literary studies. One of the series' leading features is its consistent striving to combine historical-methodical precision with systematic contextualization of each examined topic. In recent years the series has increasingly publishedstudies on themes relating to the history of Christian culture and ideas, viewed within a methodically open perspective on the history of Christianity.

Taking a theologically oriented method for engaging with historical and cultural phenomena, this book explores the challenge, offered by revolutionary Shi i theology in Iran, to Western conventions on theology, revolution and religion 's role in the creation of identity.

Offering a stringent critique of current literature on political Islam and on Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, the author suggests that current literature fails to perceive and engage with the revolution and its thought as religious phenomena. Grounded in the experience of unconditional faith in God, Shi'i thinkers recognize a distinction between the human and the divine. Concerned with the challenge of constructing a virtuous society, these thinkers pose a model of authority and morality based on mediation, interpretation and participation in the experience of faith. Ori Goldberg considers this interpretative model utilizing a broad array of theoretical tools, most notably critical theologies drawn from Jewish and Christian thought. He draws on a close reading of several texts written by prominent Iranian Shi'i thinkers between 1940 and 2000, most of which are translated into English for the first time, to reveal a vibrant, complex discourse.

Presenting a new interfaith perspective on a subject usually considered beyond the scope of such research, this book will be an important reference for scholars of Iranian studies, political Islam, theology and cultural studies.

Analyzing the intersection between Sufism and philosophy, this volume is a sweeping examination of the mystical philosophy of Muhyi-l-Din Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 637/1240), one of the most influential and original thinkers of the Islamic world. This book systematically covers Ibn al-'Arabi's ontology, theology, epistemology, teleology, spiritual anthropology and eschatology. While philosophy uses deductive reasoning to discover the fundamental nature of existence and Sufism relies on spiritual experience, it was not until the school of Ibn al-'Arabi that philosophy and Sufism converged into a single framework by elaborating spiritual doctrines in precise philosophical language. Contextualizing the historical development of Ibn al-'Arabi's school, the work draws from the earliest commentators of Ibn al-'Arabi's oeuvre, Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi (d. 673/1274), 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Kashani (d. ca. 730/1330) and Dawud al-Qaysari (d. 751/1350), but also draws from the medieval heirs of his doctrines Sayyid Haydar Amuli (d. 787/1385), the pivotal intellectual and mystical figure of Persia who recast philosophical Sufism within the framework of Twelver Shi'ism and 'Abd al-Rahman Jami (d. 898/1492), the key figure in the dissemination of Ibn al-'Arabi's ideas in the Persianate world as well as the Ottoman Empire, India, China and East Asia via Central Asia. Lucidly written and comprehensive in scope, with careful treatments of the key authors, Philosophical Sufism is a highly accessible introductory text for students and researchers interested in Islam, philosophy, religion and the Middle East.

In our post-Christian, pluralistic society, responding to the perception that Christians are prejudiced, anti-intellectual, and bigoted has become a greater challenge than ever before. The result is often intimidation, withdrawal, and even doubts among God's people about what we really believe. Bestselling author and teaching pastor at Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram, wants to change that. In Why I Believe, he gives compelling answers to questions about - the resurrection of Christ - the evidence of an afterlife -the accuracy and intellectual feasibility of the Bible - the debate between creation and evolution - the historicity of Jesus - and more The solid, biblical, logical answers he shares will satisfy the honest doubts that every believer experiences now and then, and will provide practical, thoughtful answers that can be shared with family and friends. This is the perfect resource for churches, small groups, and individuals who long not only to really know what and why they believe, but also to be equipped to explain the intellectual justification for their faith in everyday language.

As environmental destruction begins to seriously affect humans, it has become increasingly relevant to reflect on the essential elements of the Jewish and Christian theologies of creation. The essays in this volume explore key aspects of creation theology, which poses the question of the origin of the world and of man. Creation theology is rooted in the concept of man who owes his existence to God and who is placed in a cosmos which God created as "good." At the same time, the essays show that even back in antiquity, the creation discussion held high potential for ideological criticism.

Seeing is an act of relating. Being in relation, according to much of feminist theology, can be an ethical activity. This book is based on the assumption that seeing can be an ethical way of relating to the other. Through looking, on the one hand, at films that describe women artists who see another person, and, on the other, at feminist theology, this book puts forward an original view of the act of seeing as a gesture of respect for and belief in another person's visible and invisible sides, which guarantees the safekeeping of the other's memory.

Through analysis of the Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad, which pledge protection to diverse faith communities, this book makes a profoundly important contribution to research on early Islam by determining the Covenants' historicity and textual accuracy. The authors focus on the Prophet Muhammad's relationship with other faith communities by conducting detailed textual and linguistic analysis of documents which have received little scholarly consideration before. This not only includes decrees of the Prophet Muhammad, 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, and Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, but also of important Muslim rulers. They present their findings in relation to contemporaneous historical writings, historic testimonies, official recognition, archaeological evidence, historic scribal conventions, date-matching calculations, textual parallelisms, and references in Muslim and non-Muslim sources. They also provide new and revised translations of various Covenants issued by the Prophet Muhammad which were attested by Muslim authorities after him. The authors argue that the claim of forgery is no longer tenable following the application of rigorous textual and historical analysis. This book is essential reading for Muslims, Christians, Jews, Samaritans, and Zoroastrians, as well as anyone interested in interfaith relations, Islamophobia, extremist ideologies, security studies, and the relationship between Orthodox and Oriental Christianity with Islam.

This book attempts to equip the reader with a holistic and accessible account of Islam and evolution. It guides the reader through the different variables that have played a part in the ongoing dialogue between Muslim creationists and evolutionists. This work views the discussion through the lens of al-Ghazali (1058-1111), a widely-known and well-respected Islamic intellectual from the medieval period. By understanding al-Ghazali as an Ash'arite theologian, a particular strand of Sunni theology, his metaphysical and hermeneutic ideas are taken to explore if and how much Neo-Darwinian evolution can be accepted. It is shown that his ideas can be used to reach an alignment between Islam and Neo-Darwinian evolution. This book offers a detailed examination that seeks to offer clarity if not agreement in the midst of an intense intellectual conflict and polarity amongst Muslims. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Science and Religion, Theology, Philosophy of Religion, Islamic Studies, and Religious Studies more generally. *Winner of the International Society for Science & Religion (ISSR) book prize 2022 (academic category)*

This is a creative scholarly argument revisiting the substance, understanding, and implications of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo for contemporary theology and philosophy. Paul J. DeHart examines the special mode of divine transcendence (God's infinity) and investigates areas where accepting an infinite God presents challenging questions to Christian theology. He discusses what "saving knowledge" or "faith" would have to look like when confronted by such an unlimited conception of deity, and ponders how the doctrine of God's trinity can be brought into harmony with radical notions of transcendence, as well as ways the doctrine of creation itself is threatened when the radical otherness of the creator's mind is not maintained. DeHart engages with a diverse range of figures: Jean-Luc Marion, Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Kathryn Tanner, John Milbank and Rowan Williams, to illustrate his conviction. This volume deals with deep conceptual issues, indicating that creation ex nihilo remains a lively topic in contemporary theology.

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

This is the first volume of Robert Cumming Neville's magnum opus, Theology as Symbolic Engagement. Neville is the premier American systematic theologian of our time. His work is profoundly influenced by Paul Tillich, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the American pragmatists John Dewey and Charles Sanders Pierce. From Tillich he takes the notion of religion, art, and morality as symbol, and the notion that religion is the substance of culture and culture the form of religion. Thus, theology is symbolic engagement with cultural forms, and Neville explores the ways that such engagement occurs among various religious traditions. One of the most important tasks in theology is to devise ways of testing, correcting, or affirming claims that we had been unable to question before. This book will argue that "system" in theology is not merely correlating assertions, but rather building perspectives from which we can render the various parts of theology vulnerable for assessment. In fact, one of the unique features of this book is its engagement with other religions. Such dialogue has been a feature of Neville's work from the beginning. Theology as Symbolic Engagement breaks the boundaries of systematic theology and moves away from the static character that characterizes such enterprises from Barth onward. Instead, Neville's book showcases the dynamic character of all theology. The hallmark of this entire project is its effort to show theology to be hypothetical and to make it vulnerable to correction.

This book offers a new understanding of sacrifice as a response to love and an entering into the self-giving life of God.Most ideas of sacrifice, even specifically Christian ideas, as we saw in the Reformation controversies, have something to do with deprivation or destruction. But this is not authentic Christian sacrifice. Authentic Christian sacrifice, and ultimately all true sacrifice (whether one is conscious of it or not) begins with the self-offering of the Father in the gift-sending of the Son, continues with the loving "response" of the Son, in his humanity, and in the Spirit, to the Father and for us, and finally, begins to become real in our world when human beings, in the power of the same Spirit that was in Jesus, respond to love with love, and thus begin to enter into that perfectly loving, totally self-giving relationship that is the life of the triune God.The origins of this are in the Hebrew Bible, its revelatory high-points in Jesus and Paul, and its working out in the life of the Church, especially its "Eucharistic Prayers". Special attention will be paid to the atonement, not just because atonement and sacrifice are often synonymous, but also because traditional atonement theology is the source of distortions that continue to plague Christian thinking about sacrifice.After exploring the possibility of finding a phenomenology of sacrificial atonement in Girardian mimetic theory, the book will end with some suggestions on how to communicate its findings to people likely to be put off from the outset by the negative connotations associated with 'sacrifice'.

The Reign of God constitutes the first detailed and systematic critical engagement with Oliver O’Donovan’s political theology. It argues that O’Donovan’s theological account of political authority is not tenable on the basis of exegetical and methodological problems. The book goes on to demonstrate a way to refine O’Donovan’s theology of political authority by incorporating insights from his earlier work in moral theology. This can provide a cogent basis for thinking that the Christ-event redeems the natural political authority embedded in the created order and inaugurates its new historical bene esse in the form of Christian liberalism.

Philosophical interest in forgiveness has seen a resurgence. This interest reflects, at least in part, a large body of new work in psychology, several newsworthy cases of institutional apology and forgiveness, and intense and increased attention to the practices surrounding responsibility, blame, and praise. In this book, some of the world's leading philosophers present twelve entirely new essays on forgiveness. Some contributors have been writing about forgiveness for decades. Others have taken the opportunity here to develop their thinking about forgiveness they broached in other work. For some contributors, this is their first time writing on forgiveness. While all the contributions address core questions about the nature and norms of forgiveness, they also collectively break new ground by raising entirely new questions, offering original proposals and arguments, and making connections to the topics of free will, moral responsibility, collective wrongdoing, apology, religion, and our emotions.