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.

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.

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.

The consensual roots of Christianity found in the common understanding of the faith among the early church fathers is the foundation on which the church can and should build in the twenty-first century. Edited by Kennth Tanner and Christopher A. Hall, the eighteen essays found in this volume span theological and ecclesiastical perspectives that emphasize what the various Christian traditions hold in common. This shared heritage is applied to a wide range of topics--from worship and theology to ethics and history and more--that point the way for the people of God in the decades ahead. Ancient & Postmodern Christianity is created in honor of Thomas C. Oden, who has done much in recent decades to promote these ideas with such signal publications as After Modernity . . . What? and the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, which was launched under his editorial direction. Contributing scholars include Richard John Neuhaus, Alan Padgett, J. I. Packer, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Carl Braaten, Stanley Grenz, Bradley Nassif, Thomas Howard and more. Here is a volume that will set a course needed for succeeding generations to restore and renew a living orthodoxy.

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

Explores contemporary controversies in bioethics from a Hindu perspective. S. Cromwell Crawford breaks new ground in this provocative study of Hindu bioethics in a Western setting. He provides a new moral and philosophical perspective on fascinating and controversial bioethical issues that are routinely in the news: cloning, genetic engineering, the human genome project, reproductive technologies, the end of life, and many more. This Hindu perspective is particularly noteworthy because of India's own indigenous medical system, which is stronger than ever and drawing continued interest from the West. The Hindu bioethics presented in this book are philosophically pluralistic and ethically contextual, giving them that conceptual flexibility which is often missing in Western religions, but which is demanded by the twenty-first century's complex moral problems. Comprehensive in scope and passionate in nature, Crawford's study is an important resource for analyses of practical ethics, bioethics, and health care.

This essential introduction to contemporary constructive theology charts the most important disciplinary trends of the moment. It gives a historical overview of the field and discusses key hermeneutical and methodological concerns. The contributors apply a constructive perspective to a wide range of approaches, ranging from biblical hermeneutics and postcolonial studies to comparative, political, and black theology. What is Constructive Theology? shows how diverse and interdisciplinary constructive theology can be by exploring key themes in the field. The contributors explore the porous boundaries between Christianity and other religions, reflect on contextual, liberation and constructive theologies from Africa and from Black British perspectives, explore the connection between embodiment, epistemology and hermeneutics, and take a constructive approach to the dangerous memories and theologies of colonial histories in Belgium and Native Americans in the United States. This sampler of the field will help you rethink theologies and find constructive alternatives.

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.

This volume provides an overview of the nature and scope of the concept of Sunna both in pre-modern and modern Islamic discussions. The main focus is on shedding more light on the context in which the term Sunna in the major works of Islamic law and legal theory across all of the major madhahib was employed during the first six centuries Hijri.

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.

This book discusses inner peace from an Islamic theological and spiritual perspective, the writings of Said Nursi, a twentieth century Muslim scholar. Inner peace is a topic of great interest in the world at present. While happiness and mental health have been extensively discussed from a psychological and sociological perspective, and while inner peace has been written about from various religious viewpoints, there is very little scholarly work on inner peace from an Islamic theological and spiritual perspective. This book addresses this significant gap. With Islam being the second largest religion in the world, this book provides an important contribution to the literature on a faith tradition which is followed by so many. In addressing the intersection between Islam, spirituality and psychology, this book makes an original contribution to the literature on modern Islamic thinkers like Nursi, and to the broader fields of Islamic studies, and theology, philosophy and well-being studies.

This collection explores the highly contested relationship of religious studies and theology and the place of each, if any, in secular institutions of higher education. The founding narrative of religious studies, with its sharp distinction between teaching religion and teaching about religion, grows less compelling in the face of globalization and the erosion of modernism. These essays take up the challenge of thinking through the identity and borders of religious studies and theology for our time. Reflecting a broad range of positions, the authors explore the religious/secular conceptual landscape that has dominated the modern West, and in the process address the revision of the academic study of religion and theology now underway.

Beyond Theodicy analyzes the rising tide of objections to explanations and justifications for why God permits evil and suffering in the world. In response to the Holocaust, striking parallels have emerged between major Jewish and Christian thinkers centering on practical faith approaches that offer meaning within suffering. Author Sarah K. Pinnock focuses on Jewish thinkers Martin Buber and Ernst Bloch and Christian thinkers Gabriel Marcel and Johann Baptist Metz to present two diverse rejections of theodicy, one existential, represented by Buber and Marcel, and one political, represented by Bloch and Metz. Pinnock interweaves the disciplines of philosophy of religion, post-Holocaust thought, and liberation theology to formulate a dynamic vision of religious hope and resistance.

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church" was a document of outstanding importance which sold millions of copies worldwide. Many critics at the time of publication said the Catechism lacked sufficient coverage of the social teaching of the Catholic Church, teaching on justice, peace and human rights. To remedy this, the Vatican commissioned this remarkable new publication from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Burns & Oates are now its proud publishers. Throughout the course of her history, and particularly in the last hundred years, the Church has never failed, in the words of Pope Leo XIII, to speak the words that are hers with regard to questions concerning life in society. To maintain this tradition, Pope John Paul II has for his part published three great encyclicals that represent fundamental stages of Catholic thought in this area. Moreover, numerous Bishops in every part of the world have contributed to a deeper understanding of the Church's social doctrine as have numerous scholars. This book also shows the value of Catholic social teaching as an instrument of evangelisation because it places the human person and society in relationship with the light of the Gospel. The principles of the Church's social doctrine, which are based on the natural law, are then seen to be confirmed and strengthened in the faith of the Church by the Gospel of Christ. The Pope hopes that the present publication will help humanity in its quest for the common good.