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This book will attempt to explore faith-based responses to unending injustices by embracing the reality of hopelessness. It rejects the pontifications of some salvation history that move the faithful toward an eschatological promise that, when looking back at history, makes sense of all Christian-led brutalities, mayhem, and carnage.

How does one read the signs of the times? What does it mean to resist? How do we engage faithfully in struggle? Dietrich Bonhoeffer has achieved iconic status as one who epitomizes what it means to struggle and resist tyranny and fascism and how one acts in faithful witness as a religious and political commitment. Bonhoeffer's witness and example is more relevant than ever. A testimony to that is a crucial essay penned by Bonhoeffer in 1942; "After Ten Years" is a succinct and sober reflection, and remains one of the best descriptions ever written about what happened to the German people under National Socialism. This volume presents this timely and unique essay in a fresh translation and a penetrating introduction and analysis of the importance of this essay-in Bonhoeffer's time and now in our own.

Young and Strickland analyze the four largest discourses of Jesus in Mark in the context of Greco-Roman rhetoric in an attempt to hear them as a first-century audience would have heard them. Their analysis uncovers how the discourses are constructed; what issues each discourse seeks to treat; how the argumentation, arrangement, and style of each discourse contributes to its overall purpose; and how the discourse fits into the overall narrative context of the Gospel. The authors demonstrate that, contrary to what some historical critics have suggested, first-century audiences of Mark would have found the discourses of Jesus unified, well-integrated, and persuasive. They also show how these speeches of the Markan Jesus contribute to Mark's overall narrative accomplishments.

Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Boston College, 2016.

In the last thirty years, books on the Trinity have abounded. There seems to be a fascination with this mysterious topic, especially among systematic theologians. The topic has been mined for many different interests, from liberation theology to feminist interpretations of the Christian heritage and from neo-Reformation theology to interreligious dialogue. This book has no intention of adding to the plethora of treatises on the Trinity. The main question with which it is concerned is what is really scripturally tenable with regard to the Trinity and what is unwarranted theological construction or even speculation. Through this question, Schwarz tries to discern whether the theological assertions made about the Trinity are in line with the biblical base from which they are derived, or whether they have veered off in a more or less questionable direction. What takes shape here is a story: how the doctrine of the Trinity developed over the subsequent centuries from the traces in Scripture to a centralized dogma at the heart of Christian teaching. We witness in this an evolution from proclamation to controversy to speculation. What are we to make of this doctrine? How do we articulate the biblical faith today?

Much of the contemporary discussion of the Jesus tradition has focused on aspects of oral performance, storytelling, and social memory, on the premise that the practice of communal reading of written texts was a phenomenon documented no earlier than the second century CE. Brian J. Wright overturns that premise by examining evidence that demonstrates communal reading events in the first century. Wright disproves the simplistic notion that only a small segment of society in certain urban areas could have been involved in such communal reading events during the first century; rather, communal reading permeated a complex, multifaceted cultural field in which early Christians, Philo, and many others participated. His study thus pushes the academic conversation back by at least a century and raises important new questions regarding the formation of the Jesus tradition, the contours of book culture in early Christianity, and factors shaping the transmission of the text of the New Testament. These fresh insights have the potential to inform historical reconstructions of the nature of the earliest churches as well as the story of canon formation and textual transmission.

If the 1960s were a watershed in American politics, they were no less formative a period in political theology, as figures like Jacques Ellul, Karl Barth, Walter Wink, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, and William Stringfellow shed new light on the biblical language of "the powers." In these essays, activist pastor Bill Wylie-Kellermann critically appreciates the legacy of these figures and gives an urgent specificity to the theology of the powers, relating biblical concepts to contemporary struggles for civil rights, clean air, fair housing, safe affordable water, public education, and civic responsibility after the 2016 election, highlighting throughout the vital importance of a community of struggle connected through time and across space. The book's uniqueness lies in its practicality, as biblical and theological analyses arise from, and are addressed to, particular historical moments and given ecclesial and movement struggles. Appendixes present resources for teaching and training people in movement organizing and for thinking through the presence of the powers in our life and ministry.

The title of this book comes from Matthew's Gospel: "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. . . . There will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs." (24:6-8). This locates The End Is Not Yet within popular religious rhetoric about the "end time" and more sophisticated theological discourse on eschatology or Christian hope for a better world premised on faith in God. But is such faith still justified? And if so, how are we to describe and embody it in the life of the world? The framework of the book is the current global historical context with a particular focus on the West, and especially the political and social issues that have been highlighted by the election of Donald Trump. Among these are totalitarianism and democracy, right-wing nationalism, apocalypticism and patriotism, globalization and economic injustice, terrorism and warmongering, and political and prophetic leadership.

Paulos Mar Greogorios: A Reader is a compilation of the selected writings of Paulos Mar Gregorios, a metropolitan of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church of India and a former President of the World Council of Churches. The book deals with his thought in the areas of ecumenism, orthodox theology, philosophy, interfaith dialogue, and philosophy of science. The book will be of special value to the students of ecumenism, Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, Indian philosophy, interdisciplinary studies, and holistic education.

No one disputes today that Jesus must be understood as a participant in the currents of Second Temple Judaism. However, his relation to the institution of the synagogue has received much less attention despite the clear depiction in all four Gospels of the synagogue as the site of his activity and the considerable recent scholarship on the place of the synagogue in Jewish life. Reviewing what we now know about actual synagogues in the land of Israel and what we understand of their public role in Jewish life and culture, Jordan J. Ryan shows that Gospel narratives placed in synagogues accurately reflect the ancient synagogue setting, a fact that points toward the historical plausibility of the setting of these narratives and suggests that synagogue research must be a starting point for their interpretation. Further, he argues that the synagogue setting of Jesuss activities reveals that his efforts at the restoration of Israel were intentionally aimed at the synagogue as an institution of public and political life; that is, Jesus sought to bring the kingdom of God into being by persuading local public synagogue assemblies to participate in it. This book marks an important new direction for research.

Bringing the wisdom of generations of black Catholics into conversation with contemporary scholarly accounts of racism, Christ Divided diagnoses "antiblackness supremacy" as a corporate vice that inhabits the body of Christ. Antiblackness supremacy operates as a unique form of oppression: it arises from the enduring association of blackness with slave status and plays a foundational role in processes of racialization and racial hierarchy in the United States. In fact, since non-black people often amass power at the expense of black people, much of "white supremacy" is more accurately described as "antiblackness supremacy.

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Biblical studies and the teaching of biblical studies are clearly changing, though it is less clear what the changes mean and how we should evaluate them. In this book, Susanne Scholz engages some of the issues as she has encountered them in the field over the last twenty years. She casts a feminist, class-critical eye on the politics of pedagogy, in higher education and in wider society alike, decrypting important developments in "the architecture of educational power." She also examines how the increasingly intercultural, interreligious, and diasporic dynamics in society inform the hermeneutical and methodological possibilities for biblical exegesis, whether the topic is rape in ancient Near Eastern legislation or Eve and Adam in the American Christian right's approaches. In bold strokes, Scholz lays out a program for biblical scholarship and pedagogy that connects to current events and ideas, such as the Title IX debate, inclusive language, or film. Taken as a whole, the fourteen chapters demonstrate that the foregrounding of gender, placed into its intersectional contexts, offers intriguing and valuable alternative ways of seeing the world and the Bible's place in it.

Since his death in 2010, there has been continuing and growing interest in the life, vision, and thought of the late Spanish-Indian mystical theologian Raimon Panikkar. This volume offers a descriptive and critical assessment of Panikkar's life and extensive writings about Christ. The chapters by Erik Ranstrom describe the intellectual and ecclesial development of Panikkar amidst his vast corpus, offering a sympathetic but not uncritical evaluation of his legacy and influence. Ranstrom retrieves Panikkar's early Christology as a key to overcoming various impasses in the theology of religions today. Robinson's chapters introduce an ecumenical and Protestant perspective, including Panikkar's reception in Protestant circles. Robinson also compares and contrasts Panikkar with a range of Indian theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, writing in India during Panikkar's time there and suggests the possibilities of mutual enrichment. The authors' intention is to provide an accessible journey into the fascinating and intimidating world of Panikkar's thought. The conclusion features an ecumenical dialogue between Ranstrom and Robinson, as both scholars seek to further understand and learn from each other's perspectives on this pioneer of interreligious spirituality and theology.

Discovering reliable information about women in early Christianity is a challenging enterprise. Most people have never heard of Bitalia, Veneranda, Crispina, Petronella, Leta, Sofia the Deacon, and many others even though their catacomb and tomb art suggests their authority was influential and valued by early Christian communities. This book explores visual imagery found on burial artifacts of prominent early Christian women. It carefully situates the tomb art within the cultural context of customary Roman commemorations of the dead. Recent scholarship about Roman portrait sarcophagi and the interpretation of early Christian art is also given significant attention. An in-depth review of women's history in the first four centuries of Christianity provides important context. A fascinating picture emerges of women's authority in the early church, a picture either not available or sadly distorted in the written history. It is often said "a picture is worth a thousand words." The portrait tombs of fourth-century Christian women suggest that they viewed themselves and/or their loved ones viewed them as persons of authority with religious influence.

The Protestant Reformation emphasized the centrality of scripture to Christian life; the twentieth-century liturgical movement emphasized the Bible's place at the heart of liturgy. But we have not yet explored the place of the Bible as the subject of critical exegesis in contemporary liturgy, argues Gordon W. Lathrop. He seeks to remedy that lack because it is critical historical scholarship that has shown us the grounding of the text in the life of the assembly and the role of intertextuality in its creation. "Saving" and revitalizing images of the past are at the heart of scripture and are the work of the gathered community. Lathrop finds patterns in biblical narratives that suggest revising our models of the "shape" of liturgy (Dix and Schmemann) and our understanding of baptism, preaching, Eucharist, and congregational prayer. He lifts up the visual imagery at the Dura Europos house church and elsewhere as a corrective to the supersessionist impulse in much Christian typology. He identifies the liturgical imperative as seriousness about the present rather than an effort to dwell in an imagined past. Saving Images is a call for a new, reconceived biblical-liturgical movement that takes seriously both biblical scholarship and the mystery at the heart of worship.

The virgin birth is a much-loved story in the Christian tradition. It is the standard "origin story" of Jesus, marking the incarnation of the Son of God. Today, however, many theologians dispute the tradition of the virginal conception on both historical and scientific grounds.

The Gospel and Epistles of John are often overlooked in discussions of New Testament ethics; indeed, it has been asserted that the Fourth Gospel is of only limited value to such discussions--even that John is practically devoid of ethical material. Representing a range of viewpoints, the essays collected here by prominent scholars reveal the surprising relevance and importance of the Johannine literature by examining the explicit imperatives and the values implicit in the Gospel narrative and epistles. The introduction sets out four major approaches to Johannine ethics today. Essays in subsequent sections evaluate the directives of the Johannine Jesus (believe, love, follow), tease out the implicit ethics of the Gospel's narrative (including its fraught and apparently sectarian representation of hoi Ioudaioi as Jesus's opponents), and propose different approaches for advancing the discussion of Johannine ethics beyond the categories now dominant in critical scholarship. In a concluding essay, the editors take stock of the book's wide-ranging discussion and suggest prospects for future study. The sum is a valuable resource for the student as well as the scholar interested in the question of Johannine ethics.

Throughout the two-thousand-year span of Christian history, believers in Jesus have sought to articulate their faith and their understanding of how God works in the world. How do we, as we examine the vast and varied output of those who came before us, understand the unity and the diversity of their thinking? How do we make sense of our own thought in light of theirs? The Christian Understandings series is an exciting new series that seeks to illuminate precisely these questions. Short, concise, orienting-volumes in the Christian Understandings series "fill in the gaps" for readers as they dive into the exciting and stimulating story of Christian thought.

Helmut Gollwitzer was a direct heir of the theological legacy of the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth. Yet, Gollwitzeræs work is perhaps least appreciated and studied, especially in English, of all of Barthæs immediate "descendants." A Protestant theologian and member of the Confessing Church movement in World War II-era Germany, Gollwitzer studied under Karl Barth at the Universities of Bonn and Basle and was professor of Protestant theology at the University of Berlin. Deeply influenced by his mentor, Gollwitzer appropriated the methodological principles of Barthæs theology and developed in new and particularly contextual directions one of Barthæs most penetrating constructive insights in the doctrine of God. At the same time, Gollwitzer, more than any of Barthæs other interpreters, embraced and extended the sociopolitical impulses and implications within Barthæs theology. In this, Gollwitzer embodies a salient alternative for theological and political discourse, one especially needed in the American context of increasingly intertwined theological and political discourses. This volume, the first book-length study of Gollwitzer available in English, provides a helpful introduction to the life, theology, and political thought of this crucial theologian and public intellectual and makes clear Gollwitzeræs importance to the North American context.

Wolfhart Pannenberg is one of the most important theologians of the second half of the twentieth century. This volume offers the first full historical and thematic survey of Pannenberg's corpus, from his early work on the theology of revelation and Christology, to his writings on anthropology, theology and the university, and the pivotal achievement of his systematic theology. In the process of this survey, it identifies the broad, consistent development in his work across his career, as well as several significant revisions to his positions. As such, the project makes a significant contribution to the theological assessment of his career and will be a useful text for students and scholars in modern and contemporary theology.

Imagine pulling up a chair to the Luther family table after a fine dinner.Imagine being invited to ask Martin Luther questions about . . . almost anything. Imagine Luther talking about his early life, his education, his decision to become a monk, his rediscovery of the gospel, his attacks on scholasticism and the papacy, his journey to the Diet of Worms where he was ordered tobut refused torecant his teaching, his marriage to Katherine von Bora, and much more.Because Luthers friends took notes of many private conversations around the Luther family table, you dont have to imagine Luthers answers. This newly abridged edition of Martin Luthers Table Talk serves up a rich sampling of Luthers wide ranging thoughts on biblical exposition, doctrinal teaching, ministry, the church and the sacraments, pastoral counsel, and life as a Christian. You will also learn much about the political, economic and social world that Luther lived ina world unlike our own.The theological convictions of Luther and other early reformers that shaped the Reformation are often referred to as The Five Pillars of the ReformationWord alone, Faith alone, Grace alone, Christ alone, and Glory to God alone. In the table talks in this volume, you will find these themes woven over and over again into the mealtime conversations around Luthers table. Pull up a chair and spend some time with the great reformer. This volume provides access to selections from Martin Luthers Table Talk, Volume 54 of Luthers Works.Editor Henry F. French has carefully chosen some of the best of Luthers conversations with many guests who frequented the dinner table in the home of Martin and Katie Luther.

As various events have focused attention on Islam, the often-misunderstood faith of one billion people, westerners have shown a new curiosity about it and other religions. This is perhaps in part because religion is such an important factor in geopolitics. Islam needs to be understood on its own terms, apart from extreme expressions, John Kaltner argues. This edition offers information about Islam in an accessible presentation and presents Islam as first and foremost a religion of practices. Showing the deep humanism of Islam and its commitments, Kaltner presents Islam through assertions that counter frequent misconceptions of the faith.

Jason Micheli was diagnosed with a bone cancer so rare and deadly that his doctors didn't classify it with one of the normal four stages. But Micheli wasn't going to let the cancer kill his spirit, his faith, or his sense of humor. This is a funny, no-holds-barred, irreverent-yet-faithful take on the disease that has touched every family.