Some say Christianity is white man's religion. . . . And it is true that there is a long and ugly history of abuse of African-Americans at the hands of Anglo Christians. Afrocentric interpretations of history often point to slavery, lynchings and the like as proof that Christianity is inherently antiblack. But Craig Keener and Glen Usry contend that Christianity can be Afrocentric. In this massively researched book, they show that racism is not unique to Christianity. More important, they show how "world history is also our history and the Bible is also our book." Black Man's Religion is one of the first of its kind, a pro-Christian reading of religion and history from a black perspective. Fascinating and compelling, it is must reading for all concerned for African-American culture and issues of faith.

The essays in this volume examine some of the fundamental doctrinal convictions of Martin Luther and the Reformation legacy, as well as the maturation and development of these convictions in the theology of Karl Barth. The broad evangelical vision that spans its various confessional tributaries is presented in the essays of this volume. Together these studies serve as a cumulative argument for the ongoing coherence, meaning, and consequence of that vision, one that at its heart is constructive and ecumenical rather than narrowly polemical. Kimlyn J. Bender examines a variety of topics such as the relation of Christ and the Church as understood in the theology of Luther and Barth, the centrality of Christ to an understanding of all the solas of the Reformation, the place and significance of the Reformers in Barth's own thought, and Barth's theology in conversation with distant descendants of the Reformation often neglected, including Baptists in America, Pietists in Europe, and Barth's own complicated relationship with Kierkegaard. Bender concludes his discussion by presenting constructive proposals for a Church and university "on the way" and thus ever-reforming.

Within the scope of the English-language literature on Buddhism, the codes of behavior mandated by Buddhist doctrine represent an infrequently discussed topic. The selections here consist of essays on Buddhism by 17 scholars and practitioners, who address the ongoing evolution of Buddhist doctrine as reflected in its cultural, temporal, political, and geographical accommodations from the earliest days, to the present, and into the future. Past precedent is used as a means of clarifying the precise role of the precepts in the modern world as Buddhists face the 21st century and continue to encounter diverse cultural contexts.

Scholars, practitioners, and students alike will find instructive the theoretical as well as practical issues that are covered, including textual criticism, hermeneutics, cross-cultural studies, theories of action, psychology, death and dying, feminism, business management, challenges to the Western scientific paradigm, and religion in popular culture. Three main questions are explored from diverse perspectives: What was and is the significance of the precepts; how can they best be applied, and creatively adapted, to changing social conditions to best fulfill the original intentions of the Buddha; and how are we to determine present upayic demands to avoid violating those intentions? As many argue in these pages, there is much more at stake in the issue of sila/vinaya than simple guidelines for an obsolete lifestyle to be discarded at will. Rather, the case can be made that they represent an intrinsic part of Buddhist cultivation, even a sine qua non of successful, consummate practice.

The areas of discussion include the nature and method of theology, Scripture and its interpretation, Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity, moral theology, and the reading and use of theological dialogue partners. The essays are written by eminent systematic theologians, theological ethicists, and biblical scholars from a wide range of Christian traditions. The contributors to this volume appraise, extend and apply different aspects of the conception of theological theology. That theology should in fact be thoroughly theological means that theological discourse gains little by conforming to the canons of inquiry that govern other disciplines; it should rather focus its attention on its own unique subject, God and all things in relation to God, and should follow procedures that allow it to access and bear witness to these realities.

This book is a critical study of the role played by architecture and texts in promoting political and religious ideologies in the ancient world. It explains a palace as an element in royal propaganda seeking to influence social concepts about kingship, and a text about a temple as influencing social concepts about the relationship between God and human beings. Applying the methods of analysis developed in built environment studies, the author interprets the palace and temple building programs of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, and Solomon, King of Israel. The physical evidence for the palace and the verbal evidence for the temple are explained as presenting communicative icons intended to influence contemporary political and religious concepts. The volume concludes with innovative interpretations of the contributions of architectural and verbal icons to religious and political reform.

This timely book aims to change the way we think about religion by putting emotion back onto the agenda. It challenges a tendency to over-emphasise rational aspects of religion, and rehabilitates its embodied, visceral and affective dimensions. Against the view that religious emotion is a purely private matter, it offers a new framework which shows how religious emotions arise in the varied interactions between human agents and religious communities, human agents and objects of devotion, and communities and sacred symbols. It presents parallels and contrasts between religious emotions in European and American history, in other cultures, and in contemporary western societies. By taking emotions seriously, A Sociology of Religious Emotion sheds new light on the power of religion to shape fundamental human orientations and motivations: hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, loves and hatreds.

The endeavour to prove God's existence through rational argumentation was an integral part of classical Islamic theology (kalam) and philosophy (falsafa), thus the frequently articulated assumption in the academic literature. The Islamic discourse in question is then often compared to the discourse on arguments for God's existence in the western tradition, not only in terms of its objectives but also in terms of the arguments used: Islamic thinkers, too, put forward arguments that have been labelled as cosmological, teleological, and ontological. This book, however, argues that arguments for God's existence are absent from the theological and philosophical works of the classical Islamic era. This is not to say that the arguments encountered there are flawed arguments for God's existence. Rather, it means that the arguments under consideration serve a different purpose than to prove that God exists. Through a close reading of the works of several mutakallimun and falasifa from the 3rd-7th/9th-13th century, such as al-Baqillani and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi as well as Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, this book proffers a re-evaluation of the discourse in question, and it suggests what its participants sought to prove if it is not that God exists.

The Muslim thinker al-Ghazali (d. 1111) was one of the most influential theologians and philosophers of Islam and has been considered an authority in both Western and Islamic philosophical traditions. Born in northeastern Iran, he held the most prestigious academic post in Islamic theology in Baghdad, only to renounce the position and teach at small schools in the provinces for no money. His contributions to Islamic scholarship range from responding to the challenges of Aristotelian philosophy to creating a new type of Islamic mysticism and integrating both these traditions-falsafa and Sufism-into the Sunni mainstream.
This book offers a comprehensive study of al-Ghazali's life and his understanding of cosmology-how God creates things and events in the world, how human acts relate to God's power, and how the universe is structured. Frank Griffel presents a serious revision of traditional views on al-Ghazali, showing that his most important achievement was the creation of a new rationalist theology in which he transformed the Aristotelian views of thinkers such as Avicenna to accord with intellectual currents that were well-established within Muslim theological discourse. Using the most authoritative sources, including reports from al-Ghazali's students, his contemporaries, and his own letters, Griffel reconstructs every stage in a turbulent career. The al-Ghazali that emerges offers many surprises, particularly on his motives for leaving Baghdad and the nature of his "seclusion" afterwards. Griffel demonstrates that al-Ghazali intended to create a new cosmology that moved away from concerns held earlier by Muslim theologians and Arab philosophers. This new theology aimed to provide a framework for the pursuit of the natural sciences and a basis for Islamic science and philosophy to flourish beyond the 12th century.
Al-Ghazali's Philosophical Theology is the most thorough examination to date of this important thinker.