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The twentieth century witnessed renewed interest in a Roman Catholic theology of the word. The contributions of Karl Rahner and sacramental theologian Louis-Marie Chauvet demonstrate the Roman Catholic conviction that the word is fundamentally sacramental: it has the capacity to bear Gods presence to humanity..Rhodora Beaton examines the work of Rahner and Chauvet to articulate the relationship between word and sacrament within the context of language, culture, and an already graced world as the place of divine self-expression, and analyzes the implications for Trinitarian theology, sacramentality, liturgy, and action.

This book offers a critical analysis and reinterpretation of Karl Barths theology of culturethe least studied aspect of his workrevealing his significance for contemporary work in theology of culture by applying his approach to the study of popular culture and entertainment. Grounding the study in Barths eschatology, which proves more amenable to secular culture than other models, DeCou shows that Barths approach recognized that the freedom of theology is qualified by the freedom of the Word and the freedom of secular culture. Barth therefore offers a middle way for evaluating and analyzing culture and religious forms. This book thus opens up a new avenue of interpretation of Barth and applies the insights of Barths theology in fresh ways to the structures of contemporary culture and its products.

What is the connection between Christian doctrine and concrete social action? This question marks the often unarticulated divide between systematic theology and liberation theology, each often emphasizing one primarily or formally over the other. Examining the work of Karl Barth, T. F. Torrance, and Jon Sobrino, here Nathan Hieb contests this bifurcation, specifically around the nodal points of the crucifixion, or the doctrine of atonement, and the context of suffering. This book is an innovative study that bridges the boundaries of method, doctrine, and praxis, creating a strong theological and action-oriented relationship between systematic and liberation theology.

Presuming that the heart of Pauls gospel announcement was the news that God had raised Jesus from the dead (as indicated in 1 Thessalonians 1:9b-10), Pillar explores the evidence in Pauls letter and in aspects of the Roman imperial culture in Thessalonica in order to imagine what that proclamation would have evoked for its first hearers. He argues that the gospel of resurrection would have been heard as fundamentally anti-imperial: Jesus of Nazareth was executed by means of the epitome of imperial power. The resurrection thus subverts and usurps the empires immense power.

Kevin W. McFadden shows that Paul wrote the letter to remind Roman Christians of his gospel because of his vocation as apostle to the Gentiles. The letter simultaneously demonstrates the guilt of the world and calls Pauls audience to live out the implications of the gospel. The theme of judgment thus appears in two distinct ways. Paul opposes justification by works of law, but simultaneously affirmsas did most of the early Christian movement, McFadden arguesa final judgment according to works. These are not contradictory observations but belong together in a cohesive understanding of Pauls theology and of his purpose in the letter.

Sean D. Burke shows that eunuchs bore particular stereotyped associations regarding gender and sexual status as well as of race, ethnicity, and class. Not only has Luke failed to resolve these ambiguities; he has positioned this destabilized figure at a key place in the narrativeas the gospel has expanded beyond Judea, but before Gentiles are explicitly namedin such a way as to blur a number of social role boundaries. In this sense, Burke argues, Luke intended to queer his readers expectations and so to present the boundary-transgressing potentiality of a new community.

In the subsistence agricultural social context of the Hebrew Bible, children were necessary for communal survival. In such an economy, childrens labor contributes to the familys livelihood from a young age, rather than simply preparing the child for future adult work. Ethnographic research shows that this interdependent family life contrasts significantly with that of privileged modern Westerners, for whom children are dependents. This text seeks to look beyond the dominant cultural constructions of childhood in the modern West and the moral rhetoric that accompanies them so as to uncover what biblical texts intend to communicate when they utilize children as literary tropes in their own social, cultural, and historical context.

Was Esther uniquean anomaly in patriarchal society? Conventionally, scholars see ancient Israelite and Jewish women as excluded from the public world, their power concentrated instead in the domestic realm and exercised through familial structures. Rebecca S. Hancock demonstrates, in contrast, that because of the patrimonial character of ancient Jewish society, the state was often organized along familial lines. The presence of women in roles of queen consort or queen is therefore a key political, and not simply domestic, feature.

Memory and Covenant applies new insights into the meaning and function of social memory to analyze the two major religions of the Pentateuch (D and P) and their relationship to one another. Ellman shows that for the deuteronomic tradition, memory is an epistemological and pedagogical means for keeping Israel faithful to its God and Gods commandments, even when Israelites are far from the temple and its worship. The pre-exilic priestly tradition, however, understands that the covenant depends on Gods memory, which must be aroused by the sensory stimuli of the temple cult.