Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives critically surveys and scrutinizes the terrain of liturgical theology through postcolonial optics. In doing so, it breaks new ground by bringing together for the first time liturgical studies and postcolonial criticism. This book provides an important enrichment - and long overdue corrective - to literature on the liturgical ordo, which has not yet learned to engage postcolonial perspectives. The volume also offers useful resources to those familiar with the more established field of postcolonial biblical/theological criticism by expanding the burgeoning academic debate about postcolonialism into the environment of worship. It therefore seeks to be a resource that will bring postcolonial perspectives to a wider audience: the church, much of which has been bypassed by the academic trajectory postcolonial criticism in theology has so far taken. Because of its inter-disciplinary nature, this book advances significant innovative material. The particular ways that material from each discipline is juxtaposed is itself highly original, and the challenges of appropriating postcolonial theological perspectives in Christian worship and liturgical practice will be met by the provision of strategies and resources to face this task. This important work of theology is, therefore, crafted to praxis in assemblies of the church as well as suitable for study in universities and seminary classrooms.

Public Theology is a rapidly growing international field of study which focuses on how Christian belief and practice engage with wider social issues. Yet, whilst the ultimate concern of public theology is the well-being of society, this body of theology has largely developed without integrating the thinking of feminist theology and its insights into womens' lives and experience. Public Theology and the Challenge of Feminism argues that public theology risks re-inscribing traditional constructs of public and private, civic and domestic, and uncritical notions of gender and the work and worth of people. The book brings together both theory and case material to expose how public theology has actively downplayed or ignored feminist perspectives and to reveal how constructive feminism can be for the future of public theology.

Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives critically surveys and scrutinizes the terrain of liturgical theology through postcolonial optics. In doing so, it breaks new ground by bringing together for the first time liturgical studies and postcolonial criticism. This book provides an important enrichment - and long overdue corrective - to literature on the liturgical ordo, which has not yet learned to engage postcolonial perspectives. The volume also offers useful resources to those familiar with the more established field of postcolonial biblical/theological criticism by expanding the burgeoning academic debate about postcolonialism into the environment of worship. It therefore seeks to be a resource that will bring postcolonial perspectives to a wider audience: the church, much of which has been bypassed by the academic trajectory postcolonial criticism in theology has so far taken. Because of its inter-disciplinary nature, this book advances significant innovative material. The particular ways that material from each discipline is juxtaposed is itself highly original, and the challenges of appropriating postcolonial theological perspectives in Christian worship and liturgical practice will be met by the provision of strategies and resources to face this task. This important work of theology is, therefore, crafted to praxis in assemblies of the church as well as suitable for study in universities and seminary classrooms.

Photoshop is the cornerstone of the graphics industry and understanding its 3D capabilities is becoming a requirement for graphic designers, photographers, and creatives alike. Starting with the fundamental tools and ending with advanced resources, Adobe Community Professional Stephen Burns guides you with a clear voice and creative exercises that encourage you to work as you read. Accompanied by a free app that includes video tutorials, interactive models to compare your activity work from the book against, and on-going updates about the latest Photoshopreleases, this book will elevate your art off the page and into a new world of possibilities. (The app is available for the iPad and iPhone in the iTunes App Store, and Android users can find it through Google Play. Just search for 3D Photoshop on either of these platforms and download it to your device.)

Public Theology is a rapidly growing international field of study which focuses on how Christian belief and practice engage with wider social issues. Yet, whilst the ultimate concern of public theology is the well-being of society, this body of theology has largely developed without integrating the thinking of feminist theology and its insights into womens' lives and experience. Public Theology and the Challenge of Feminism argues that public theology risks re-inscribing traditional constructs of public and private, civic and domestic, and uncritical notions of gender and the work and worth of people. The book brings together both theory and case material to expose how public theology has actively downplayed or ignored feminist perspectives and to reveal how constructive feminism can be for the future of public theology.

A groundbreaking collection of writings that place queer ritual at the center of the theological conversation. In this collection of essays, leading scholars in queer theology and liturgical studies explore the ways in which the distinctive theological voices of LGBTQIA+ Christians challenge and expand thinking and practice around worship in new directions. This challenge has expanded in the past decades, as obstacles to the full participation of queer Christians—particularly in marriage and ordination—have fallen. Organized into three main parts, the volume begins with an introduction to queer engagement with ritual practices, continues with a series of case studies that examine queer texts and contexts, and concludes with an examination of the horizons of queer liturgical theology and practice. Throughout the volume, Queering Christian Worship provides new imagination and tools to those who study and curate Christian worship across traditions.

Photoshop is the cornerstone of the graphics industry and understanding its 3D capabilities is becoming a requirement for graphic designers, photographers, and creatives alike. Starting with the fundamental tools and ending with advanced resources, Adobe Community Professional Stephen Burns guides you with a clear voice and creative exercises that encourage you to work as you read. Accompanied by a free app that includes video tutorials, interactive models to compare your activity work from the book against, and on-going updates about the latest Photoshopreleases, this book will elevate your art off the page and into a new world of possibilities. (The app is available for the iPad and iPhone in the iTunes App Store, and Android users can find it through Google Play. Just search for 3D Photoshop on either of these platforms and download it to your device.)

A groundbreaking collection of writings that place queer ritual at the center of the theological conversation. In this collection of essays, leading scholars in queer theology and liturgical studies explore the ways in which the distinctive theological voices of LGBTQIA+ Christians challenge and expand thinking and practice around worship in new directions. This challenge has expanded in the past decades, as obstacles to the full participation of queer Christians—particularly in marriage and ordination—have fallen. Organized into three main parts, the volume begins with an introduction to queer engagement with ritual practices, continues with a series of case studies that examine queer texts and contexts, and concludes with an examination of the horizons of queer liturgical theology and practice. Throughout the volume, Queering Christian Worship provides new imagination and tools to those who study and curate Christian worship across traditions.

Of particular interest to scholars and practitioners across the Anglican Communion with contributions from a wide breadth of scholars. Liturgical Spirituality is a collection of Anglican reflections on the spirituality of the liturgy, inviting readers into the Church s patterns of prayer, seasons of the year, and sacramental action. With contributions from all over the world, from the North Atlantic to Australia, the collection helps develop a comprehensive understanding of contemporary Anglican spirituality."

What does it mean to be engaged in Christian ministry in a shifting spiritual and religious landscape? Stephen Burns invites readers to think anew about the distinctiveness of public practices of pastoral presence. Rather than narrowly defining pastoral care and pastoral theology (pastoral counseling, preaching, youth groups, visits to elders, etc.) and theological academic categories (history, pastoral theology, liturgy, ethics and contemporary sociology), he argues for a new imagination and practice of pastoral presence - a presence that is representative, public, integrated, and expansive. Study guide included.

The SCM Studyguide: Liturgy, 2nd Edition is an introduction to liturgy that considers the basic 'buliding blocks' needed to grasp the subject area. It outlines the essential shape and content of Christian worship and explores a range of liturgical dynamics of which both students of liturgy and leaders of liturgy need to be aware. This 2nd edition of the popular Studyguide is fully revised, updated and expanded. The book takes account of new developments in scholarship, engages with new contexts for liturgical celebration (notably, fresh expressions as part of a mixed economy of church), encompasses recent revisions in liturgy and seeks to broaden the engagement beyond the British context to consider the wider global context.

Feminist practical theology has emerged in the gap between wider feminist and wider practical theology. It celebrates distinctive concerns, arguments, emphases, and questions – unafraid to re-form practical theology in shape and substance, and to guide feminist theology towards the silences and stories of human lives that some professional theologies (including those shaped by feminist commitments) sometimes overlooks. Feminist practical theology is bold in exploration of doctrinal themes in poetic and prayerful modes, characteristically collaborative and in search of alliances with other advocacy perspectives. In the UK, such commitments have been exemplified by Nicola Slee, whom this volume honours. Chapters invite readers into wide ranging conversations that flow from young women’s experiences at university, poetic practice as theology, queer priesthood, theologies of critical masculinities, women presiding in worship, Black and decolonial theologies adjacent to feminist convictions, confrontations with sexual violence, rest and rewilding, and a post-menopausal Mary. Contributors are: Al Barrett, Gavin D’Costa, Deborah Kahn-Harris, Michael N. Jagessar, Sharon Jagger, Rachel Mann, Jenny Morgans, Eleanor Nesbitt, Karen O’Donnell, Mark Pryce, Anthony G. Reddie, Ruth Shelton, Anne Phillips and Alison Wooley.

'The persistent voice of Richard Giles, author of Repitching the Tent and Creating Uncommon Worship amongst other things, has been almost unique in the Anglican tradition in this generation in insisting that it is how you do church - how the liturgy is celebrated and how this is expressed in the way the community gathers in and moves through the building - that challenges and changes the people of God, and offers them the chance of actually becoming the body of Christ in a particular place. Sometimes this voice must have felt like one crying in the wilderness, and it was to Philadelphia in the USA that Richard was eventually called as Dean rather than to an English cathedral. But his writing and speaking as well as what this former town-planner turned priest achieved in the buildings he re-ordered have witnessed to his single-minded determination to share his vision for what might be. This volume marks his considerable achievement with a mixture of reminiscence, reflection and re-envisioning from some of his distinguished colleagues and fellow-practitioners. As Bishop Stephen Cottrell says: 'Richard's vision ... was never just about reordering buildings; it was about reordering Christian communities ...', and the breadth and range of contributions indicate the variety of ways in which he continues to re-imagine, stimulate and encourage the task of making the Body of Christ a reality in a world that takes refuge in words. This book is a real antidote.' David Stancliffe, former Chair of the Liturgical Commission and former Bishop of Portsmouth The Art of Tentmaking honours Richard Giles as a liturgical pioneer. It will appeal to all who practice presidency in Christian worship and have responsibilities for shaping Christian assembly: architects, artists, musicians, as well as clergy and others with focal roles. The international range of contributors come from Anglican, Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Uniting Church traditions: Rosalind Brown, Stephen Burns, Stephen Cottrell, Steven Croft, Carol Doran, Rick Fabian, Dirk Lange, Gerard Moore, Rod Pattenden, Martyn Percy, Melinda Quivik, Richard Vosko and Ian Zass-Ogilvie, and they tackle themes like interpreting space, engaging the arts, shaping ceremonial scences, being hospitable, making for ritual transformation, and liturgical celebration in the service of mission. STEPHEN BURNS is Research Fellow in Public and Contextual Theology in United Theological College, Sydney.

Synopsis: Home and Away provides new vantage points in contextual theology. An initial stream looks at the significance of postcodes as a way of mapping local areas as situations for pastoral ministry and theological reflection. A second, but not ancillary, stream of essays considers the local within a range of glocal and global dynamics. The essays do not unfold a single trajectory of thought about context, and at various points they indirectly question and challenge each other. The pieces meld into an international and ecumenical conversation about contemporary Christian ministry. It includes voices from North America, Europe, and Austral/Asia. Although open ended, and constantly crisscrossing questions from one context to another, the collection is emphatic in its common conviction that attention to very local circumstance is crucial for Christian ministry, just as are wider views of a locality's position in broader flows. Endorsements: "Home and Away details why global needs local and 'away' is anchored in home. Ten essays show why the local postcode-zipcode is an essential starting point for theological reflection that matters." --Dean Drayton, School of Theology, Charles Sturt University Author Biography: Stephen Burns is Research Fellow in Public and Contextual Theology at Charles Sturt University, Australia. His publications include Liturgy (2006), Worship in Context (2006), Exchanges of Grace (coeditor, 2008), The Edge of God (coeditor, 2008), Christian Worship in Australia (coeditor, 2009), Presiding Like a Woman (coeditor, 2010), and Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives (with Michael N. Jagessar, 2011). Clive Pearson is Head of the School of Theology at Charles Sturt University, Australia. His publications include Faith in a Hyphen (editor, 2004), Thirty Years of Korean Ministry in Australia (coeditor, 2004), Scholarship and Fierce Sincerity (with Allan Davidson and Peter Lineman, 2007) and Out of Place (coeditor 2011).

'This Festschrift by former students, friends and colleagues celebrates the many rich aspects of Ann Loades' wide-ranging contributions to the life of the academy, the church and the wider community. Readers are invited into a graceful dance of dialogical reflections on the multi-faceted perspectives and experiences of the Christian tradition. This illuminating collection of essays covers a wide variety of contemporary concerns in theology, spirituality and ethics at both an intellectual and practical level. A treasure trove of insights and ideas, it is a fitting tribute to a career of remarkable achievements.' Ursula King, Professor Emerita of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol 'This is a most well-deserved Festschrift, both for the regard and respect in which its recipient is plainly held, and for the breadth of her lifelong interests which give the book plenty of scope. A large range of topics turns out to be relevant for celebrating the work of one scholar. Feminism and the problem of evil are major themes; and practicalconcerns are never far away.' Helen Oppenheimer 'Reading these essays brings one up to the growing edge of theology and shows its future directions. The essays, contributed by Ann Loades's friends, interlocutors, colleagues, and students, carry forward her own balanced way of doing theology. They integrate hard thinking with lived faith. They respect the "voices from the past" but help restore the lost voices of women. They think critically but refuse to water down the claims of faith. They give the "real" world its due but do not surrender faith's right to criticize secular norms. The book truly is a fascinating tour of topics in current theology, and the diversity--and, indeed, prominence--of contributors is a great tribute to Ann. Highly recommended.' Edward H. Henderson, Professor of Philosophy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 'Exchanges of Grace contains a collection of creative and often unconventional essays in sacramental theology and spirituality. Each essay of the Festschrift can be studied individually but David W. Brown's brilliant introduction renders this book an informative commentary to Ann Loades's constructive theology.' Sven-Erik Brodd, Professor of Ecclesiology, University of Uppsala, Sweden

"Spirit Warriors" is about people who have learned from a 400 year old tradition to combine meditative focus and spirituality to become fearless in the defense of religious freedom, in performance at work, and in the pursuit of joy.

Learn from a lawyer, business men and women, therapists, and teachers who relate their life experiences and describe those practices that led them to success. Simultaneously learn about an Indian religion that does not seek converts but provides some essential lessons for life.

"Mr. Power's book provides the reader with ways to be successful in business and in life." - Alan Lavine, noted business author, author of "From Rags to Riches,"

Mary, Mother of Jesus, has been the focus of much piety and theology down the centuries, and whatever it is she represents has been and remains central to the vitality of Christianity in many parts of the world. Grace is Not Faceless collects the essential writings and addresses on Mary by Ann Loades, one of the most important contributors to contemporary feminist Marian theology, especially from an Anglican perspective. Including both rare and original material spanning more than thirty years, this volume traces the trajectories of Loades' distinctive writings on Mary; for example, her emphasis on Mary in the arts, her attention to the iconology of the Rabbula Gospels, and the key she finds to approaching the Mother of Jesus in Cornelius Ernst's memorable phrase 'grace is not faceless'. It is prefaced with a substantial introduction by Stephen Burns, providing significant context both for the chapters and the wider work of Ann Loades herself.

In Vulnerability and Resilience, vulnerability is not the final word. Rather, resilience provides the cutting edge and living breath in the stories of subjects who are vulnerable. And they have many stories: stories of being trapped in bodies, teachings, and/or situations that make them (and others like them) vulnerable to discrimination, hatred, and rejection; stories of being trapped because of their bodies, theologies, and/or cultures; and stories of being trapped for no-good reason. For subjects who are vulnerable, life is like a maze of traps, and stories of resilience keep them going. The contributors to Vulnerability and Resilience refuse to be trapped. At the intersection of body and liberation theologies, the contributors tell their stories in the hope that they will expose cultures that make individuals and communities vulnerable, and that those stories will encourage vulnerable subjects to be resilient and bring change to theological institutions that conserve vulnerability. Because of the location of the contributors-in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, Caribbean, and Oceania-this book is testimony that vulnerability is present all over the world, and that resilience is a liberating alternative.