"God, the Future of Man" focuses on religion and secularisation, viewed from various vantage points: secularisation and God-talk; secularisation and the church's liturgy; secularisation and the church's new self-understanding; and, finally, secularisation and the future of humankind on earth in light of the eschaton (church and social politics). These thought-provoking reflections are presented against the backdrop of Schillebeeckx's hermeneutic premises. In the concluding chapter his reflections on secularisation culminate in a God concept that can function fruitfully in a modern culture that assigns the future pride of place: God as the future of humankind. Written in a period pregnant with Cultural Revolution and religious change, the book foregrounds the pivotal issue of secularisation in a thought-provoking way. With feverish urgency he reflects on various forms of religiosity in the modern world. His contribution to the debate could just as well have been written today.

This textbook assists students, teachers, and scholars in understanding and articulating major themes and issues arising from Spirit Christology, an interdisciplinary and international area of study. In the last half century, Spirit Christology has developed into a critical and productive theological framework for reading Scripture, mining the implications of Christ's person and work, thinking about God, and laying out the shape of the Spirit's works in the life of the church and in the world. Highlighting voices from many countries and theological traditions, the book chapters are structured to show how various authors engaging Spirit Christology have contributed compelling answers to critical questions raised in biblical studies, church history, systematic theology, and practical theology. Topics include the role of the Spirit of God in the gospels' descriptions of Jesus, the place of the anointing of Jesus in the history of the church, the relationship between Logos (two-natures) and Spirit Christologies in contemporary theology, and the productivity of Spirit Christology as a lens for reflecting on and fostering spiritual practices/disciplines and ethical engagement in the world. This textbook offers pedagogical features: - Study questions for discussion - Glossary of terms

"Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books of truly vital literary scholarship, each with its own distinctive form. "Shakespeare Now!" recaptures the excitement of Shakespeare; it doesn't assume we know him already, or that we know the best methods for approaching his plays. "Shakespeare Now!" is a new generation of critics, unafraid of risk, on a series of intellectual adventures. Above all - it is a new Shakespeare, freshly present in each volume. In "Godless Shakespeare", Mallin argues that there is a profound absence of, or hostility to, God in Shakespeare's plays. It is clear that Shakespeare engaged with and deployed much of his culture's broadly religious interests: his language is shot through with biblical quotations, priestly sermonizing, Christian imagery and miracle-play style allegory. However, he claims that a counter-discourse also emerges in the works, arguing against God, or the idea of God. This is a polemical account of the absence of God and of belief in the plays, and of how this absence functions in theatrical moments of crux and crisis. Following Dante's three part structure for the "Divine Comedy" - the first part (Inferno) represents expressions of religious faith in Shakespeare's plays, the second (Purgatorio) sets out more sceptical positions, and the last (Paradiso) articulations of godlessness. The discussion focuses on the moral and spiritual dilemmas of major characters, developing the often subtle transitions between belief, scepticism and atheism and suggesting that there is a liberating potential in unbelief.

The book is the first attempt to make a systematic analysis of the Russian ecclesiastical policy in the diocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the period of 1878-1914. It is based mainly on unedited materials from the archives of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sofia, Athens, Belgrade and Istanbul. Using the existing publications on the political aspects of the Eastern question, the author presents a new understanding of the role of Russia in the East Mediterranean region at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries.

The transatlantic relationship between nineteenth-century American Reformed theology and German Protestant thought has largely been neglected in American religious studies. The German Roots of Nineteenth-Century American Theology explores the influence of mediating theology (Vermittlungstheologie) on Reformed thought in the United States. Annette Aubert offers the first detailed examination of German theological influences on Mercersburg's Emanuel Vogel Gerhart (1817-1904) and Princeton's Charles Hodge (1797-1878). Aubert discusses the influences of Ernst Hengstenberg, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and the German mediating theologians, especially in terms of theological method and the doctrine of atonement in light of nineteenth-century modernism and scientific theories. By reassessing Hodge's theological method and Gerhart's significant contributions, she shows how systematic theology, in an age of modern science, could no longer strictly adhere to past definitions of theology and dogmatic works. This book shows how Gerhart and Hodge engaged with the ideas of their German counterparts to articulate theological definitions and methods. Showing that reformed theologians in nineteenth-century America profited enormously from the dogmatic, historical, and biblical works of German scholarship, Aubert's work makes an important contribution to both transatlantic religious and Protestant theological studies.

This book is a consideration of major contemporary African American and Jewish theological understandings of God, human nature, moral evil, suffering, and ethics, utilizing the work of James Cone and Emil Fackenheim. Specifically, it examines how profound faith in a just God is sustained, and even strengthened, in the face of particularly horrific and long-standing evil and suffering in a community. The constructive portion of the book explores theological possibilities by focusing on the concepts of human freedom, resistance, and responsibility--all grounded in divine gift--as an effective and meaningful response to oppression and despair.

One of Sheed's most popular books, this ideal volume for the layman shows the practical aspects of theology in the life of a Christian believer. Logic, clarity, and simplicity permeate this eminently readable book.

This book explores the different dimensions of Christian love. It argues that all expressions of love are wrestling with the challenge of otherness and hence with the experience of transcendence. The development of Christian concepts of love is discussed with particular reference to the different horizons and the variety of approaches to love in the Bible, Augustine, medieval theology, Protestant agape-theology, Catholic approaches to desire, and contemporary philosophy and sociology. The discussion of the rich and often problematic heritage of expressions of personal, communal and religious love enables this study to develop a critical and constructive theology of Christian love for our time. This book demonstrates the diversity in the Christian tradition of love and thus offers a critical perspective on previous and present impositions of homogenous concepts of love. The book invites the reader to an in-depth examination of the potential of Christian love and its particular institutions for the development of personal and communal forms of Christian discipleship. The traditional separation between agape love and eroticism is overcome in favour of an integrated model of love that acknowledges both God's gift of love and the potential of every woman, man and child to contribute to the transformative praxis of love in church and society.

Engaging recent developments within the bio-cultural study of religion, Shults unveils the evolved cognitive and coalitional mechanisms by which god-conceptions are engendered in minds and nurtured in societies. He discovers and attempts to liberate a radically atheist trajectory that has long been suppressed within the discipline of theology.

The term 'Judeo-Christian' in reference to a tradition, heritage, ethic, civilization, faith etc. has been used in a wide variety of contexts with widely diverging meanings. Contrary to popular belief, the term was not coined in the United States in the middle of the 20th century but in 1831 in Germany by Ferdinand Christian Baur. By acknowledging and returning to this European perspective and context, the volume engages the historical, theological, philosophical and political dimensions of the term's development. Scholars of European intellectual history will find this volume timely and relevant.

This study explores the interplay between the commendation of enjoyment and the injunction to fear God in Ecclesiastes. Previous studies have tended to examine these seemingly antithetical themes in isolation from one another. Seeing enjoyment and fear to be positively correlated, however, enables a fresh articulation of the booka (TM)s theology. Enjoyment of life lies at the heart of Qoheleta (TM)s vision of piety, which may be characterized as faithful realism, calling for an authentic engagement with both the tragic and joyous dimensions of human existence. Winner of the 2007 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise

The scriptures of the Faiths use models to depict what God is like; namely Father, Mother, Husband, Judge, Lover, Friend, shepherd and so on. Science also uses models to advance its knowledge, and in a scientific age a model of God as the Cosmic Scientist interacting with the traditional could communicate well. It would imply that the world is a laboratory created by God in order to test whether humanity will obey his laws and live up to the values which he embraces. Using material drawn from science and six world faiths, the book shows the difference and similarity between divine and human experiments and argues that God will bring the experiment to a successful conclusion.

Entrance
Introduction to Worship in Islam
Allah, the creator of the world could have made us believe and forced us to worship Him but He wants us to worship Him by our free will. He created this sense of freedom in our minds. He loves the people who out of their own free will chose to believe and worship Him. It feels as if we are choosing but actually He is choosing. The fortunate are the chosen ones They are granted the wisdom to be aware of Him and worship Him. Only when we identify our creator we may identify ourselves and our destiny. Where do we fit in His grand scheme of things.
The book is an introduction to Islam for new Muslims. Non-Muslims may certainly benefit from it because here we have collected all the basic information about the practice and the spirit of Islam. Our effort is to inspire without euphoria. Here we present the simple facts of Islam. We focused on providing information in enough detail to be useful. Yet we kept an inspirational tone to encourage further study. We tried to narrate in an interesting course rather than cut and dry facts. We added several short stories to give an inside feel for the spirit of Islam. We took guidance from other books. Particularly, the old books and presented the information in a similar way.
The stories from old time of ignorance may be sad. The real tragedy of ignorance is our own era. What we have become even after enormous knowledge He has given us. Human feelings do not change with technical progress. In past, life was difficult and easy in different ways as compare to life of today. We can still feel the same hunger, pain, and suffering. We can still experience injustice, corruption, and consequent upheavals.
The book is about recognizing Him and knowing our own place with respect to Him. He wants us to worship Him, making our best effort to please Him. The knowledge of religion is like any other knowledge you have to struggle to learn it. Yet, this knowledge is very different than the knowledge of other worldly sciences. The true religion is not invented or discovered by hearsay, calculation, or observation. He designed the knowledge of religion to be delivered by His selected Prophets. He granted them knowledge of unseen what is beyond this world. He sent them to show us what we can never learn by research and development. He delivered His message in a real life drama. The whole lives of the prophets are examples for us. He prepared the scene before they were born. He protected them, trained them, and brought them to full power. He let them deliver the message, loud and clear. He did it not just once but many times to prove to us that without His corrective message we will soon get corrupted.
In this enormous theater of time and space, our life span is just a moment. His message is directed towards us as a nation and also as an individual. He is directly calling you. He knows you, He loves you. He promised if you walk towards Him, He will run towards you. He knows, you recall Him and one day you shall return to submit. He waited for you for a million years. He can wait for another million but He selected this moment to be your turn on the stage.
You may enter now
May Allah (SWT) accept your worship and enter you in His protection. Ameen
Sohail

A Profound and Stirring Call to Action in Our Troubled World from One of America's Great Religious Leaders

"Conscience may be understood as the hidden inner compass that guides our lives and must be searched for and recovered repeatedly. At no time more than our own is this need to retrieve the shards of broken conscience more urgent." from the Introduction

This clarion call to rethink our moral and political behavior examines the idea of conscience and the role conscience plays in our relationships to government, law, ethics, religion, human nature and God and to each other. From Abraham to Abu Ghraib, from the dissenting prophets to Darfur, Rabbi Harold Schulweis probes history, the Bible and the works of contemporary thinkers for ideas about both critical disobedience and uncritical obedience. He illuminates the potential for evil and the potential for good that rests within us as individuals and as a society.

By questioning religion's capacity and will to break from mindless conformity, Rabbi Schulweis challenges us to counter our current suppressive culture of obedience with the culture of moral compassion, and to fulfill religion s obligation to make room for and carry out courageous moral dissent."

Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology explores the role that the singular plays in the theories of science of Robert Grosseteste, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Marsilius of Inghen, and Pierre d’Ailly. Confronting the scientific status of theology, Lee argues that the main issue is how to provide a “rational ground” for existing singulars. The book exposes how, on the eve of modernity, existing singulars were freed from the constraints of rational ground.