Böcker av Ephraim Radner

"A gift from one of the most creative theologians writing today"What is our calling as Christians regarding the good life and engagement in the public sphere? In Mortal Goods, Ephraim Radner examines how we might more faithfully and realistically imagine our political vocation."In a polarized age when edifying discussions about religion and politics are in short supply, Radner asks us to rethink what we mean by 'the good life.' It begins with a self-imposed challenge to write a letter to his children about what makes life valuable. The letter he eventually pens, after pondering various God-given mortal goods, is worth the price of the book--and has the potential to reorient, rehabilitate, and redeem our present political morass."--Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School"Vintage Radner--erudite and incisive--with a twist: at times conversational and even personal. We find in Mortal Goods themes from Radner's earlier volumes, here with new implications: the thresholds and limits of Christian political engagement, the 'mortal goods' that boundary our pilgrimage from birth to death. If you have not yet read Radner, start here. And if you have read him, continue with Mortal Goods."--Kathryn Greene-McCreight, priest affiliate, Christ Church, New Haven, Connecticut"What is our Christian duty in public affairs? Many of us imagine that we're called to put our shoulder to the wheel of progress. Radner argues otherwise. We are called to honor the beauty of creation and to ameliorate, as best we can, the burden of life after the fall. Radner shows that we need a politics of finitude, one that is grateful and not grudging. A must-read in our difficult times."--R. R. Reno, editor, First Things"At once groundbreaking and deeply traditional, Mortal Goods is a wonder, a gift from one of the most creative theologians writing today. Whether or not one concurs with Radner's conclusions, readers hungry for fresh insights on modern responses to mortal calamity will be deeply enriched by this volume."--J. Todd Billings, Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan; author of The End of the Christian Life

The possibility and purpose of what comes between birth and death is ordered by the pattern of Scripture, but is performed faithfully only in obedience to the limits that bind it.--Jeremy James "Expository Times"

Description:In The World in the Shadow of God, Ephraim Radner argues for a vigorous Christian natural theology and insists that such a theology must, of necessity, be performed poetically. The peculiar character of such a theology is found in its disclosing of the natural limits that indicate indirectly the impinging and more fundamental reality of the divine life. Natural theology represents the encounter between created reality and the "shadow" of God''s creative and revelatory grace. However, the encounter is a morally demanding task for the Christian church if it is to be held accountable to the truth on which its life is based. The first portion of the book offers an extended critical essay on the nature of this sort of natural theology, while the second provides a developed set of examples through poems that display the natural world in light of the truths articulated in the Apostles'' Creed. Those interested in the intersection of theology, literature, history, and the natural world will be challenged by this attempt to renew a basic element of Christian knowledge and culture.Endorsements:"Never sweetly pious, always directly quarried from the particularity of life, Ephraim Radner''s poetry beautifully and movingly reflects the straining, searching, God-desiring pathos of natural theology. Shoes and suitcases speak as eloquently--and as obliquely and uncertainly--as the reliable routines of the lowly ant."--R. R. RenoCreighton University"Radner''s style in the introduction where he wrestles with the nature of natural theology as that which ''beats us on the head'' is one of vast but lightly worn learning in service of spiritual discipline, the life of somehow joyful penitence. The poetry that follows is crafted and careful, full to bursting with Scriptural imagery, gained from a wise American harvest of both the European (one detects the modernism of Rilke, Celan, and Milosz) and global (Burundi, Haiti) traditions where the world viewed up close in God''s holding presence is as cruel as it is colorful. It is as though the wandering children of Israel camp on the northern prairies to dream dreams of wild nature which has possessed the familiar (cats, raccoons, and small children!) One might call this post-Darwinian theology."--Mark ElliottUniversity of St. Andrews, School of DivinityAbout the Contributor(s):Ephraim Radner is Professor of Historical Theology at Wycliffe College, Toronto. He is the author of several volumes on ecclesiology and hermeneutics including The End of the Church (1998).