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In African American culture, the church is instrumental in establishing and maintaining social order. Professor Paris shows that a study of black church teachings reveals black social ethics. These ethics aren't "abstract moral principles, but sociopolitical quests for liberation and freedom."

William J. Carl III confronts the problem of using theological language in preaching through a combination of serious theological reflection, rhetorical criticism, cultural analysis, and practical homiletical advice. He examines the approaches of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Barth, and Tillich to determine how these theologians brought life to the pulpit and what today's preachers can learn from them. Preaching Christian Doctrine organizes and describes the various approaches to doctrinal preaching developed throughout the history of the church and across denominational lines, making this volume a unique systematic homiletics text dealing with the problem of preaching Christian doctrine today.

This comprehensive, systematic survey of Luther's ethical thought and teaching clearly discusses all the major ethical issues that concerned Luther. Contemporary readers will be especially interested in what the Reformer has to say about the Christian's attitude toward secular society, toward the state, and toward war. The Ethics of Martin Luther offers scholars and nonspecialists alike a much-needed explanation of Luther's ideas.

"... brilliantly reasoned, theologically probing, movingly illustrated ... more than achieves the aim of the author to highlight the often overlooked and sometimes suppressed message of Scripture and interpretation of history: the Christian calling to be a part of the transformation of the social order, a transformation inspired by the prophetic-messianic promise of universal justice and peace as the fruits of the present and coming reign of God." -- Alan Neely, Faith and Mission "The author's aim is to help develop a framework, set an agenda, and clarify criteria for making political choices.... This book is a welcome addition to the literature on political ethics, and a substantial antidote to influential works which, in the name of scientific rationality and realism, legitimate the status quo in the Third World." -- Lee Cormie, St. Michael's College, Toronto "Modest and clear, the book has appeal for many students, church people, and activists. Professional ethicists can find good methodological insights and fresh treatment of historical material." -- Nancy Bancroft, Ethics "The author builds into his Christian political ethic the cross of Jesus Christ, the centrality of effective Christian community life, the need to free the oppressors, the reality of suffering and death, and the dynamic of Christian love.... One is impressed throughout the book by the author's own patience and love in the face of continued oppression, frustration, and the killing of friends." -- Herbert T. Mayer, Currents in Theology and Mission "For many Christians who are profoundly concerned about how to live faith as a reality in today's world, Bonino can offer both a challenge and the beginning of a way to think about and act out that concern in a responsible way." -- Randolph A. Nelson, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota

". . . a liberating book about a liberating theological approach." --Christianity and Crisis "Metaphorical Theology is a brilliant piece of writing which will make an important contribution both to new thinking on he nature of religious language and also to the dialogue between Christianity and Feminist Theology." --Rosemary Radford Ruether Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary "The great virtue of Professor McFague's book is that it tackles [some] crucial problems in an extremely perceptive and creative way . . . .All in all it is a most timely book both for the theological and for the church at large." --Maurice Wiles Regius Professor of Divinity Christ Church, Oxford University

In this comprehensive and thought-provoking study, Terence Fretheim focuses on the theme of divine suffering, an aspect of our understanding of God which both the church and scholarship have neglected. Maintaining that "metaphors matter," Fretheim carefully examines the ruling and anthropomorphic metaphors of the Old Testament and discusses them in the context of current biblical-theological scholarship. His aim is to broaden our understanding of the God of the Old Testament by showing that "suffering belongs to the person and purpose of God".

A classic manual that has gone through more than twenty printings, this book is the first Harmony of the Gospels to use the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. This simple and nontechnical book presents the Gospel materials in parallel columns in order that the Bible reader can compare the varied texts. It does not restrict itself simply to the Synoptic Gospels but includes the Fourth Gospel as well, thus enabling an overview of the major New Testament descriptions of the life and ministry of Jesus.Dr. Heim presents the story mainly in terms of the action involved, while at the same time disclosing the substance of the teaching passages as adequately as possible. He exposes the major parallels in several accounts without tearing texts from their contexts and without constantly breaking up passages and transposing verses. He deliberately focuses on the large movements of thought and action, avoiding minutiae of all kinds. Although footnotes and cross references are held to a minimum, an index is provided for easy location of individual passages.

This book gives today's Lutherans a sense of heritage, identity and continuity, a sense of self-understanding. Readers will see themselves as part of a family. They can identify with the struggles, hopes, and frustrations of wave after wave of immigrants adapting to the strange new world of America and at the same time trying to preserve all they had known and loved and brought with them from the homeland. The genius of the entire volume is that it points beyond family memories to an ongoing and continuing life of which we and our children are a living part.Contributors: Theodore G. Tappert, Eugene Fevold, Fred W. Meuser, H. George Anderson, August R. Suelflow, and E. Clifford Nelson.

In this classic study, Reginald H. Fuller approaches the New Testament resurrection narratives as a critic who is concerned with the historical basis of the Easter proclamation. He starts with the earliest record of the Easter traditions in 1 Corinthians 15 and only thereafter turns to the Easter narratives of the four Gospels. In so doing he attempts to reconstruct the history of the tradition using the tools of tradition and redaction criticism to discover the reasons which gave rise to the various Gospel accounts of Jesus' resurrection. Above all else, Fuller's comprehensive study leads to a clear understanding of what the Easter proclamation, "The Lord is risen," means according to the New Testament.

This useful guide offers a critical appraisal of a theological movement within the church catholic. The authors, a church historian and a systematic theologian, describe Lutheranism as centered in the fundamental principle of the Reformation, "justification by faith apart from works of law."The book focuses on the emergence of this chief article of faith as a proposal of dogma to the church ecumenical, its theological formulation, and its significance for the shaping of piety and doctrine. Each issue is treated in terms of both confessional history and systematic theology. Seminarians, pastors, teachers, and interested laypersons of all traditions will gain ecumenical insights as well as pertinent information from this work.

Here is a book that "tells it like it is" regarding what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ in today's world. It is a book that rigorously affirms the freedom of the Christian person, and just as rigorously refutes those who would restrict or negate this freedom in the name of Christian orthodoxy. The author, whose insights were shaped by the agonies of serving as a pastor during the Hitler years in Germany as well as by the discipline of years of careful research in the area of Christian origins, provides here a survey that gets to the heart of the New Testament message. He is ruthlessly honest with himself, with the New Testament, and with the church, as he strives passionately to show that Jesus means freedom - and that this has been so from the beginning.Despite its roots in the experience of the German church in the decades following World War II, Ksemann's work has a broad and enduring relevance. The crisis with which he is concerned is not uniquely that of the German church but affects Christianity throughout the world. It is his conviction that only if the church proclaims boldly the call to freedom that was the Lord's call, and lives in that freedom, can the church remain true to its Lord and of service to humanity.

What should be the Christian attitude toward money and possessions? Have our own possessions left us blind to the utopian vision of the first Christians? Is anything short of a complete renunciation of possessions a compromise with Christian teaching?In this brief and lucid study, esteemed New Testament scholar and historian Martin Hengel examines the views of property and riches to be found in the teachings of Jesus, the early Christian communities, and the church fathers down to the fourth century. He compares Christian ideals with those to be found in Judaism and ancient philosophy, and sets what was taught alongside what was achieved in practice. A final chapter summarizes the relevance of these findings for Christianity today, and an annotated reading list indicates suggestions for further study.

Blackwell explores the Passion Story in Mark 14:116:8, then offers concrete suggestions for preaching, teaching, and Bible study. He contends that "the story of the cross as contained in Mark's Passion Story provides a significant way to understand the Christian faith at large."

"This book is not only absorbingly readable but important. For its themes engage effectively with main dilemmas not only of formal theology but of current piety and witness." - Amos N. Wilder, Andover Newton Quarterly "This book is immensely valuable for its persuasive illustrations of the parabolic and metaphoric imagination. McFague attends both to the interpretive and the evaluative levels of hermeneutics. Her readings of specific parables, poems, stories, and autobiographies are insightful and relevant to her thesis that what religious language 'says' is 'conceptually imperceivable and inexpressible.'" - Mary Gerhart, Journal of the American Academy of Religion "It is at the very least a fine guide to one important direction that theological hermeneutics might take, and more than that, it testifies confidently to the presence of still unplumbed resources of the biblical word and its secular counterpart that are there for the imagination's appropriation." - Robert Detweiler, Religious Studies Review "Everyone interested in theology will be stimulated by Sallie McFague's mediating theological position and the form of thinking and discourse she espouses. Those interested in the intercourse between theology and literature will be stimulated by the way she links the two and the perceptive way she handles her literary examples. Biblical scholars will undoubtedly note her primacy of the parables as the central corpus of the biblical records. Preachers of the church will be strengthened by the concern McFague has for the Christian community and the importance of the word through the words of the preachers. With this variety of concerns, Speaking in Parables will have a deservedly wide reading and, perhaps even more important, wide discussion." - Ronald E. Sleeth, Perkins School of Theology Journal

The first nontechnical description of the principles and procedures of narrative criticism. Written for students' and pastors' use in their own exegesis.With great clarity Powell outlines the principles and procedures that narrative critics follow in exegesis of gospel texts and explains concepts such as "point of view," "narration," "irony," and "symbolism." Chapters are devoted to each of the three principal elements of narrative: events, characters, and settings; and case studies are provided to illustrate how the method is applied in each instance. The book concludes with an honest appraisal of the contribution that narrative criticism makes, a consideration of objections that have been raised against the use of this method, and a discussion of the hermeneutical implications this method raises for the church.

Professor McCarter here offers an introduction to the art and science of textual criticism for students of the Hebrew Bible. His emphasis is on the work involved in the critical evaluation of a given portion of text. His explanations of critical principles are illustrated with carefully selected examples of the textual phenomena discussed-in Hebrew, with English translations. The book concludes with unique appendices on several kinds of essential but hard-to-find information.

* Provides a simple three-step process to discover the core claim of the sermon * Helps preacher to create sermons that engage head, heart, and hand * Keyed to online sermon samples and other Web-based features