This book offers a close reading of Romans that treats Paul as a radical political thinker by showing the relationship between Paul's perspective and that of secular political theorists. Turning to both ancient political philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero) and contemporary post-Marxists (Agamben, Badiou, Derrida, and Zižek), Jennings presents Romans as a sustained argument for a new sort of political thinking concerned with the possibility and constitution of just socialities.
Reading Romans as an essay on messianic politics in conversation with ancient and postmodern political theory challenges the stereotype of Paul as a reactionary theologian who "invented" Christianity and demonstrates his importance for all, regardless of religious affiliation or academic guild, who dream and work for a society based on respect, rather than domination, division, and death. In the current context of unjust global empires constituted by avarice, arrogance, and violence, Jennings finds in Paul a stunning vision for creating just societies outside the law.

This book offers a close reading of Romans that treats Paul as a radical political thinker by showing the relationship between Paul's perspective and that of secular political theorists. Turning to both ancient political philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero) and contemporary post-Marxists (Agamben, Badiou, Derrida, and centsiYek), Jennings presents Romans as a sustained argument for a new sort of political thinking concerned with the possibility and constitution of just socialities.
Reading Romans as an essay on messianic politics in conversation with ancient and postmodern political theory challenges the stereotype of Paul as a reactionary theologian who invented Christianity and demonstrates his importance for all, regardless of religious affiliation or academic guild, who dream and work for a society based on respect, rather than domination, division, and death. In the current context of unjust global empires constituted by avarice, arrogance, and violence, Jennings finds in Paul a stunning vision for creating just societies outside the law.

"This remarkably fine book is timely and provocative. It is also one of a kind: a book that advances detailed exegesis of the New Testament, above all Paul's Letter to the Romans, by drawing deeply on Derrida's reflections concerned with justice and law, gift or grace, debt, duty, love, hospitality, and forgiveness."--Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California
"Reading Derrida/Thinking Paul: On Justice yields new insights into the ethical and political stakes of Derrida's writings. Jennings shows Derrida and Paul to share a passion for justice and for thinking through the aporias justice's pursuit entails. Jennings' chapters skillfully juxtapose Paul and Derrida on law, violence, gift, faith, hospitality, and pardon. A book-length study of Derrida in relation to Paul is long overdue, and, after reading Jennings' text, reconsidering Derrida's and Paul's implications for contemporary dilemmas of justice becomes a must."--Robert S. Oventile, Pasadena City College

"This remarkably fine book is timely and provocative. It is also one of a kind: a book that advances detailed exegesis of the New Testament, above all Paul's Letter to the Romans, by drawing deeply on Derrida's reflections concerned with justice and law, gift or grace, debt, duty, love, hospitality, and forgiveness."--Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California
"Reading Derrida/Thinking Paul: On Justice yields new insights into the ethical and political stakes of Derrida's writings. Jennings shows Derrida and Paul to share a passion for justice and for thinking through the aporias justice's pursuit entails. Jennings' chapters skillfully juxtapose Paul and Derrida on law, violence, gift, faith, hospitality, and pardon. A book-length study of Derrida in relation to Paul is long overdue, and, after reading Jennings' text, reconsidering Derrida's and Paul's implications for contemporary dilemmas of justice becomes a must."--Robert S. Oventile, Pasadena City College

Homosexuality has been at the forefront of debate in the church for the last quarter century, with biblical interpretation at its heart. In the Man Jesus Loved, Jennings proposes a gay affirmative reading of the Bible in the hope of respecting the integrity of these texts and making them more clear as well as more persuasive. This reading suggests that the exclusion of persons on the basis of their sexual orientation or same-sex practices fundamentally distorts the Bible generally and the traditions concerning Jesus in particular.

The very suggestion that there may be homoeroticism in Hebrew narrative may seem odd given the supposition that the religion and culture of ancient Israel resolutely opposed same sex erotic relationships. The apparent prohibition of homosexuality in Leviticus and the story of Sodom from Genesis have been made to speak for the whole Hebrew Bible. The oddity of this situation has not been lost on some interpreters who have recognized that the story of Sodom tells us no more about attitudes toward what we call homosexuality than the story of the rape of Dina tells us about attitudes toward heterosexuality. Prof. Jennings says that the well-known eroticism of the Hebrew Bible is not confined to heterosexuality but also includes an astonishing diversity of material that lends itself to homoerotic interpretation. In Part one, Jennings examines saga materials associated with David. It is no innovation to detect in the David and JonathanGCOs relationship at least the outline of a remarkable love story between two men. What becomes clear, however, is that the tale is far more complex than this since it involves Saul and is set within a context of a warrior society that takes for granted that male heroes will be accompanied by younger or lower status males.

This provocative volume illuminates a dimension of John Wesley's theology that has received insufficient attention: his deep and abiding commitment to the poor. By focusing on the radical nature of Wesley's "evangelical economics," Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., provides an important corrective to the view that Wesley was concerned with the salvation of souls only, and not also with the social conditions of human beings.

Many books on the Christian doctrine of atonement have been published in recent years. Some point out the difficulties of traditional atonement theories; others attempt a revision of one of the classical three types; others attempt to combine aspects of these types.Jennings attempts something new: by approaching the question of the meaning of the cross through close attention to the biblical passages that serve as the basis of any reflection on the cross of Jesus and an engagement with patristic as well as contemporary discussion. The result is an alternative theology of the cross that grounds the message concerning the cross in the socio-political reality in which it was historically located and points to the way in which this message bears upon contemporary social and ecclesial reality.Jennings's truly fresh understanding for Christians of the meaning of Jesus' death specifically grounds the cross in the concrete political confrontation within which it occurred, relates the message about the cross to the practice of Jesus (thus keeping in relationship the gospels and the theology of Paul), and shows how the cross bears on overcoming of human division and sin, reconciliation to God, and new forms of social reality in the community of the crucified.