Beneath the commonplace affirmation that Jesus paid for our sins lie depths of implication: Did God demand a blood sacrifice to assuage divine anger? Is sacrifice (consciously or unconsciously) intended to induce the deity to show favor? What underlies the various metaphors for atonement used in the Bible?Here, Stephen Finlan surveys psychological theories that help us to understand beliefs about sacrifice and atonement and what they may reveal about patterns of injury, guilt, shame, and appeasement. Early chapters examine the language in both testaments of purity and the scapegoat, and of payment, obligation, reciprocity, and redemption. Later chapters review theories of the origins of atonement thinking in fear and traumatic childhood experience, in ambivalent or avoidant attachment to the parents, and in poisonous pedagogy. The theories of Sandor Rado, Mary Ainsworth, Erik Erikson, and Alice Miller are examined, then Finlan draws conclusions about the moral responsibility of appropriating or rejecting atonement metaphors. His arguments bear careful consideration by all who live with these metaphors and their effects today.
"The devil has fallen on hard times. Surveys say that even the majority of Christians doubt Satan's existence. Burdened by doubts, skeptical believers find themselves divorced from Jesus' dramatic confrontation with Satan in the Gospels and from the struggle that galvanized the early church. In [this book], ... blogger and theologian Richard Beck reintroduces the devil to the modern world with a biblical, bold, and urgent vision of spiritual warfare: we must resist the devil by joining the kingdom of God's subversive campaign to interrupt the world with love"--Amazon.com.
Focusing on texts in the Hebrew Bible, and using feminist hermeneutics, Phyllis Trible brings out what she considers to be neglected themes and counter literature.After outlining her method in more detail, she begins by highlighting the feminist imagery used for God; then she moves on to traditions embodying male and female within the context of the goodness of creation. If Genesis 2-3 is a love story gone awry, the Song of Songs is about sexuality redeemed in joy. In between lies the book of Ruth, with its picture of the struggles of everyday life.
This volume offers two of Martin Luthers writings on prayer, excerpted from The Annotated Luther, volume 4. In Little Prayer Book (1522), Luther seeks to reform the theology and practice of prayer in clear and understable language for all people. In A Simple Way to Pray (1535), Luther offers readers insights into his own prayer life and organizes his comments around the seven petitions of the Lords Prayer.
The delay of the Parousia-the anticipated return of Christ-is an issue that has troubled theology since the late writings of the New Testament. This volume, arising from the Oxford Postdoctoral Colloquium on Eschatology, offers a constructive proposal on this issue in a truly interdisciplinary manner.
Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Wheaton College, 2016.
Love in a Time of Climate Change issues a call to readers to develop a loving response to climate change, which harms the poor, threatens future generations, and damages Gods creation. Exploring the theology of creation can help us understand the intrinsic value of creation and assess the physical and spiritual implications of climate changeespecially the disproportionate impact on the most vulnerableand our responsibility to work for climate justice in our time.
Constructive theology, over the last one hundred years, has developed a distinct method and set of concerns. Yet what makes constructive theology an important movement hasnt been explicitly formulated, its history analyzed, or its method clearly delineated. Constructing Constructive Theology offers that history as well as programmatic proposals for constructive theology. This book traces the overall historical arc of constructive theology, from proto-movement through the present. As constructive theology is the method of progressive Christian theology today, understanding it is crucial to undertaking the theological task of the present.
Sixteen church historians here examine Martin Luther in an uncommon way -- not as Reformer or theologian but as pastor. Luther's work as parish pastor commanded much of his time and energy in Wittenberg.After first introducing the pastoral Luther, including his theology of the cross, these chapters discuss Luther's preaching and use of language (including humor), investigate his teaching ministry in depth, especially in light of the catechism, and explore his views on such things as the role of women, the Virgin Mary, and music.
As profound as Martin Luther's ideas are, this giant of church history was concerned above all with practical instruction for daily Christian living. Harvesting Martin Luther's Reflections highlights this concern of Luther, mining his thought in key areas of doctrine, ethics, and church practice. Gathering noteworthy contributions by well-known Luther scholars from Europe and the Americas, this book ranges broadly over theological questions about baptism and righteousness, ethical issues like poverty and greed, and pastoral concerns like worship and spirituality.
The most up-to-date English commentary on the Formula of Concord, A Formula for Parish Practice provides helpful, concise descriptions of key theological debates and a unique weaving of historical and textual commentary with modern Lutheran experience. Covering the entire Formula of Concord the book includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter.
"Women in the Bible aren't shy or retiring; they're fierce and funny and demanding and relevant to 21st-century people. Women in the Bible--some of their names we know, others we've only heard, and others are tragically unnamed. Pastor and provocateur Alice Connor introduces these women and invites us to see them not as players in a man's story--as victims or tempters--nor as morality archetypes, teaching us to be better wives and mothers, but as fierce foremothers of the faith"--Back cover.
Radical Discipleship engages the structural evils of homelessness, mass incarceration, and capital punishment, arguing that to be faithful to the gospel, Christians must become disciples of, not simply believers in, Jesus. Jennifer McBride argues that disciples must work to overcome the social evils that bar beloved community. Unfolding the social and political character of the good news, the book organically connects liturgy with activism and theological reflection enabling a radical discipleship that takes seriously the Jesus of the Gospels.
Since Dietrich Bonhoeffers death in 1945, he has continued to fascinate and compel readers as a theologian, witness, and martyr. In this new biography, Christiane Tietz masterfully portrays the interconnectedness of Bonhoeffers life and thought, theology and politics, discipleship, witness, and resistance, tracing the path from his childhood to his imprisonment and execution. Brief, lucid, and accessible, Tietzs new account brings Bonhoeffers story and work to life in a vivid retelling, unfolding his important and widely read texts in the process. The volume also includes previously unseen pictures.
The postmodern human condition and relationship to God were forged in response to Auschwitz. Christian theology must now address the challenge posed by the Shoah. Grace in Auschwitz offers a constructive theology of grace that enables twenty-first-century Westerners to relate meaningfully to the Christian tradition in the wake of the Holocaust and unprecedented evil. Through narrative theological testimonial history, the first part articulates the human condition and relationship to God experienced by concentration camp inmates. The second part draws from the lives and works of Simone Weil, Dorothee Slle, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alfred Delp, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Sergei Bulgakov to propose and apply a coherent kenotic model enabling the transposition of the Christian doctrine of grace into categories strongly correlating with the experience of Auschwitz survivors. This model centers on the vulnerable Jesus Christ, a God who takes on the burden of the human condition and freely suffers alongside and for human beings. In and through the person of Jesus, God is made present and active in the midst of spiritual desolation and destitution, providing humanity and solace to others.
One of the hallmarks of Luthers theology was its concern for daily life. In the midst of debates about justification and salvation, church authority, and the Lords Supper, Luther himself demonstrated his own powerful sense of vocation. In this refreshing book, Mark D. Tranvik turns attention to the importance of vocation in Luthers life and in doing so discovers renewed insights into this important doctrine. Drawing from the rich experience of twenty years of teaching undergraduates, Tranvik balances the historical roots of Luthers thought and contemporary relevance with skill and vigor.
Much recent scholarship on Paul has searched for implicit narratives behind Pauls scriptural allusions. A. Andrew Das reviews six proposals for grand thematic narratives behind the logic of Galatians: the covenant; the influx of nations to Zion; Isaacs near sacrifice; the Spirit as cloud in the wilderness; the Exodus; and the imperial cult. Das weighs each of these proposals exegetically and finds them wanting, examples of what Samuel Sandmel famously labeled parallelomania. Das reflects on the risks of seeking comprehensive stories behind Pauls letters and offers a path forward.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. His Life Together and Discipleship are considered to be spiritual classics, and few theological works have made as much of an impact as Letters and Papers from Prison upon publication. But who actually is this Bonhoeffer? Do we really know him? In this magisterial collection, leading international scholars discuss and critically interact with the ways in which a variety of significant figures have engaged with Bonhoeffers thought since his death.
Preaching, and the discipline of preaching, is at a crossroads. The changing realities of church and theological education, the diversity of our classrooms, and our increasingly complex community contexts leave us in search of tools to help train a rising generation of preachers for a future whose contours are far from clear. In Ways of the Word, a dynamic team of master preachers, Sally A. Brown and Luke A. Powery, speaks with one voice their belief that preaching is a witness to the ongoing work of God in the world.
The eighth century BCE Isaiah of Jerusalem, the so-called First Isaiah, is one of the most important theological voices in the Bible. J. J. M. Roberts makes good use of his broad comparative knowledge of ancient Near Eastern historical and religious sources in providing a fresh and original interpretation of this prophets genuine oracles. He also does the same for the later traditions about Isaiah and the later oracles of the Isaiah tradition contained in Isaiah 139.
"All translations from the LXX are taken from A New English Translation of the Septuagint"-- title page verso.
At the center of contemporary struggles over aggressive policing practices is an assumed association in U.S. culture of blackness with criminality. Rima L. Vesely-Flad examines the religious and philosophical constructs of the black body in U.S. society, examining racialized ideas about purity and pollution as they have developed historically and as they are institutionalized today in racially disproportionate policing and mass incarceration. These systems work, she argues, to keeps threatening elements of society in a constant state of harassment and tension so that they are unable to pollute the morals of mainstream society. Policing establishes racialized boundaries between communities deemed dangerous and communities deemed pure and, along with prisons and reentry policies, sequesters and restrains the pollution of convicted criminals, thus perpetuating the image of the threatening black male criminal. Vesely-Flad shows how the anti-Stop and Frisk and the Black Lives Matter movements have confronted these systems by exposing unquestioned assumptions about blackness and criminality. They hold the potential, she argues, to reverse the construal of pollution and invasion in Americas urban cores if they extend their challenge to mass imprisonment and the\\ barriers to reentry of convicted felons.
In this volume in the series Reading the Bible in the Twemty-First Century: Insights, Mitzi J. Smith describes the distinctive African American experience of Scripture, from slavery to Black Liberation and beyond, and the unique angles of perception that an intentional African American interpretation brings to the text today. Smith shows how questions of race, ethnicity, and the dynamics of “othering” have resulted in new reading of particular texts, and describes challenges that scholarship raises for the future of biblical interpretation.
Jerusalem, with its turbulent history, is without doubt one of the best-known cities of the world. A long line of foreign powers have ruled over it, from as far back as biblical times. But the city owes its importance not to them but to the fact that it is the birthplace of monotheism. Othmar Keel sketches in broad brush strokes the development of Israelite-Jewish monotheism and its integration of polytheistic symbols and perceptions. Abundant maps and illustrations enhance the volume.
The historical problem of Romans is its double character: concerned with issues of Torah and the destiny of Israel, the letter is explicitly addressed not to Jews but to Gentiles. In The So-Called Jew in Romans, nine Pauline scholars focus their attention on the rhetoric of diatribe and characterization in the opening chapters of the letter, asking what Paul means by the so-called Jew in Romans 2 and where else in the letters argumentation that figure appears or is implied. Each component of Pauls argument is closely examined.
The Holy One in Our Midst: An Essay on the Flesh of Christ aims to defend the doctrine of the extra Calvinisticumthe doctrine that maintains the Son of God was not restricted to the flesh of Christ during the incarnationby arguing that it is logically coherent, biblically warranted, catholically orthodox, and theologically useful. It shows that none of the standard objections are devastating to the extra, that the doctrine is rooted in the claims of Christian Scripture and not merely a remnant of perfect being philosophical theology, and that the doctrine plays an important role in contemporary theological discussion. In this way, James Gordon revives an important Catholic doctrine that has fallen out of favor in contemporary theology. Also, this project aims to integrate biblical, philosophical, and systematic theology by showing that the tools and methods of each distinct discipline can contribute to the goals and aims of the others.
Into the Far Country is an investigation of Karl Barth''s response to modernity as seen through the prism of the subject under judgment. By suggesting that Barth offers a form of theological resistance to the Enlightenment''s construal of human subjectivity as "absolute," this piece offers a way of talking about the formation of human persons as the process of being kenotically laid bare before the cross and resurrection of Christ. It does so by reevaluating the relationship between Barth and modernity, making the case that Barth understands Protestantism to have become the agent of its own demise by capitulating to modernitys insistence on the axiomatic priority of the isolated Cartesian ego.Conversations are hosted with figures including Fyodor Dostoevsky, Rowan Williams, Gillian Rose and Donald MacKinnon in the service of elucidating an account of the human person liberated from captivity to what Barth names "self-judgment," and freed for creative participation in the super-abundant source of life that is the prayerful movement from the Son to the Father in the Spirit. Therefore, an account of Barth''s theology is offered that is deeply concerned with the triune God''s revelatory presence as that which drives the community into the crucible of difficulty that is the life of kenotic dispossession.
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