More than ever before, scholars recognize that nearly every form of religion or spirituality has a vital connection with art. World religions, from Hinduism to The Eastern Orthodox Church, have a long and rich relationship with an array of artistic traditions. In recent decades, the academic study of religion and the arts has burgeoned. Yet a broad and serious consideration of the topic has yet to reach readers. The first comprehensive book of its kind, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts provides expert guidance to artistry and aesthetic theory in religion. Edited by Frank Burch Brown, the Handbook brings together an international team of leading scholars to present an interdisciplinary volume of nearly forty original essays. Readers are presented the main topics, issues, methods, and resources for the study of religious and theological aesthetics. The essays give light to the dynamic interaction of world religions and art making. The volume ranges from antiquity to present day to examine idolatry, aesthetics in liturgy, and the role of art in popular religion. Ranging from music and poetry to architecture and film, the Handbook crosses the boundaries of different faiths and art forms to survey established and pioneering voices within the field. An authoritative text for scholars and students, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts will remain an invaluable resource for years to come.

This book examines Clement's project which brings together ethical, intellectual and spiritual development of a Christian while highlighting the need of search for integrity in the life of faith and reason. Approaches to Clement have traditionally either assessed the philosophical context of his thought or studied the adaptation of Greek legacy into a new Christian context as underpinning Clement's work. In this new study Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski challenges and develops these approaches providing new and refreshing insights into Clement's understanding of Christian perfection.

The recent emergence of "two kingdoms" and "two cities" approaches to Christian social thinking are shown to have a key-and often unacknowledged-connection to Luther's reshaping of the Augustinian paradigm. The project works for a better understanding of Luther's own thought to help understand the convergences and divergences of Christian political theology in the twentieth century and today.In particular, Luther's two-kingdom thinking issued forth in a strong distinction of law and gospel that was also worked out in twofold pairs of Israel and church, general and special revelation, creation and redemption, and especially the outward and inward life. The work traces this legacy through acceptance and modification by Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer, Lutheran and Catholic neoconservatives, Reformed two-kingdom proponents, Augustinian liberals, and finally Oliver O'Donovan. The conclusion reflects on both the historical narrative and its connection to an account of modern liberalism, as well as a theological reflection on hermeneutical decisions of the "twoness" of Christian theology.

Nation and Nurture in Seventeenth-Century English Literature connects changing seventeenth-century English views of maternal nurture to the rise of the modern nation, especially between 1603 and 1675. Maternal nurture gains new prominence in the early modern cultural imagination at the precise moment when England undergoes a major paradigm shift - from the traditional, dynastic body politic, organized by organic bonds, to the post-dynastic, modern nation, comprised of symbolic and affective relations. The book also demonstrates that shifting early modern perspectives on Judeo-Christian relations deeply inform the period's interlocking reassessments of maternal nurture and the nation, especially in the case of Milton. The book's five chapters analyze a wide range of reformed and traditional texts, including A pitiless Mother, William Gouge's Of Domesticall Duties, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Charles I's Eikon Basilike, and Milton's Paradise Lost, and Samson Agonistes. Equal attention is paid to such early modern visual images as The power of women (a late sixteenth-century Dutch engraving), William Marshall's engraved frontispiece to Richard Braithwaite's The English Gentleman and Gentlewoman (1641), and Peter Paul Rubens's painting of Pero and Cimon or Roman Charity (1630). The book argues that competing early modern figurations of the nurturing mother mediate in politically implicated ways between customary biblical models of English kingship and innovative Hebraic/Puritan paradigms of Englishness.

Gregory the Great (bishop of Rome from 590 to 604) is one of the most significant figures in the history of Christianity. His theological works framed medieval Christian attitudes toward mysticism, exegesis, and the role of the saints in the life of the church. The scale of Gregory's administrative activity in both the ecclesial and civic affairs of Rome also helped to make possible the formation of the medieval papacy. Gregory disciplined malcontent clerics, negotiated with barbarian rulers, and oversaw the administration of massive estates that employed thousands of workers. Scholars have often been perplexed by the two sides of Gregory-the monkish theologian and the calculating administrator. George E. Demacopoulos's study is the first to advance the argument that there is a clear connection between the pontiff's thought and his actions. By exploring unique aspects of Gregory's ascetic theology, wherein the summit of Christian perfection is viewed in terms of service to others, Demacopoulos argues that the very aspects of Gregory's theology that made him distinctive were precisely the factors that structured his responses to the practical crises of his day. With a comprehensive understanding of Christian history that resists the customary bifurcation between Christian East and Christian West, Demacopoulos situates Gregory within the broader movements of Christianity and the Roman world that characterize the shift from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages. This fresh reading of Gregory's extensive theological and practical works underscores the novelty and nuance of Gregory as thinker and bishop.

The T&T Clark Handbook of Colin Gunton is a theological companion to the study of Gunton's theology, and a resource for thinking about Gunton's importance in modern theology. Each of the essays brings Gunton's depth to a broad range of contemporary theological concerns. The volume unveils cutting-edge Gunton scholarship for a new generation and at the same time enables readers to see the timely significance of Gunton today. Each of the essays not only introduces readers to key themes in the Gunton corpus, but also provides readers with fresh interpretations that are fully conversant with the contemporary theological problems facing the church. Designed as both a guide for students and a reference point for scholars, the companion seeks both to outline the frameworks of key Gunton debates while at all times pushing forward fresh interpretative strategies concerning his thought.

In and Around Maimonides presents eight highly focused studies on Moses Maimonides and those around him.