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A challenging critique of contemporary Neo-Darwinism, advocating a new balance between science and spirituality in understanding creation.

In this engaging and practical book Mark Pike and Thomas Lickona show how C.S. Lewis' wisdom for nurturing good character, and his much-loved Chronicles of Narnia, inspire us to virtue. Drawing upon the Judeo-Christian virtues of faith, hope and love and 'Narnian' virtues such as courage, integrity and wisdom, they present an approach to contemporary character education validated by recent research. An introduction to C.S. Lewis' thought on character and faith is followed by practical examples of how to use well-known passages from the Narnia novels as a stimulus for rich character development at home and in the classroom.

A social history based on new research of the expansion and subsequent decline of colleges of education in Great Britain.

Beyond Feminism.

First published in 1930, Swallows and Amazons secured Arthur Ransome's reputation as one of the most influential children's authors of all time, yet prior to writing fiction he had had a turbulent career as a journalist and war correspondent in revolutionary Russia. In this refreshing account of Ransome's work, Alan Kennedy sets out to explain his enduring appeal, combining literary criticism with psychological expertise. Not only did Ransome apply a careful narrative theory to his works, his use of symbolism aligning them more with the modernist tradition than with the event-driven children's literature of contemporaries such as Richmal Crompton and Enid Blyton, but his novels are also more than usually autobiographical. This Kennedy ably demonstrates with reference to three particular challenges Ransome faced in a seriously conflicted life: his father's untimely death, his abandonment of his infant daughter in order to escape his catastrophic first marriage, and the innumerable compromises that kept him alive during his Russian exile. A Thoroughly Mischievous Person: The Other Arthur Ransome is the first study to tackle this matter systematically, giving casual and scholarly readers alike new insights into this fascinating figure.

A comprehensive study of the life and thought of an influentialAnglican and Baptist minister.

In Divine Audacity, Peter Dillardpresents a historically informed and rigorous analysis of the themes ofmystical union, volition and virtue that occupied several of the foremosttheological minds in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Inparticular, the work of Marguerite Porete raises complex questions in theseareas, which are further explored by a trio of her near contemporaries. Theirrespective meditations are thoroughly analysed and then skilfully brought intodialogue.What emerges from Dillard's synthesis ofthese voices is a contemporary mystical theology that is rooted in Hugh ofBalma's affective approach, sharpened through critical engagement with MeisterEckhart's intellectualism, and strengthened by crucial insights gleaned fromthe writings of John Ruusbroec. The fresh examination of these thinkers - oneof whom paid with her life for her radicalism - will appeal to philosophers andtheologians alike, while Dillard's own propositions demand attention from allwho concern themselves with the nature of the union between the soul and God.  

The global outbreak of Covid-19 appears to be unprecedented in a world which has not suffered a serious pandemic for a century, while society had almost forgotten the enormous impact of highly infectious diseases throughout history. Pestilence, however, has played a major role in ending the Golden Age of Athens, wrecking Justinian's plans to restore the Roman Empire to its former glory, and killing untold millions in Latin America after the Spanish invasion. Despite its importance, historians have tended to minimise the role of infectious disease, partly because of a lack of scientific knowledge. This has resulted in a distorted view both of the past and of the danger of disease to modern society. In Armies of Pestilence, R.S. Bray, a distinguished biologist and an able historian, corrects this view with an exploration of the influence of disease on history. The book surveys the principal epidemics around the world and across the centuries, including scholarly discussion around those which cannot be certainly identified. In each case, Bray examines the origins of the outbreaks, as well as the symptoms, the mortality rate and the social and economic turmoil left in their wake. Bray pays special attention to the infamous organism that caused the Black Death, Yersina pestis, as well as other grimly familiar bogey-men of pestilential history including malaria, smallpox, typhus, cholera and influenza, and AIDS. Government responses to outbreaks are assessed, and the inability of governments to deal effectively with disease is a recurring theme. The relationship between disease and war, with the former often responsible for more deaths than the latter, is also considered in detail, as was the case during the last great influenza pandemic of 1918-19, at the end of the First World War

A compelling analysis of the connection between violence and the sacred, using Rene Girard's mimetic theory to point the way towards Christian reconciliation.

A philosophical examination of religion and society, offering a closely reasoned challenge to the dominant Western discourse of secular liberalism.

A collection of essays in memory of the curator and scholar Terence Mitchell, exploring the history and archaeology of Ancient Persia.

A critique of contemporary bioethical thought, drawing on the Patristic tradition to develop a Christian anthropology that offers an alternative approach to bioethics.

A new collection of essays exploring the questions raised by children's fiction, from textual puzzles to historical and cultural conundrums.

A new and provocative approach to origins that trancends the traditional 'evolution-versus-creation' debate, and offers a vision of evolution as the unfolding of God's creative power.

A new and expanded edition of the classic introduction to the development of Western Philosophy, from the Ancient Greeks to the 20th Century.

Moving beyond a chronological record, this account places sport within the wider context of British life, examining its social, political, financial and international implications. It discusses the roles and styles of play that have marked the varying stages of British social history, and their influence on our contemporary experience.

George MacDonald (1824-1905) was writing at a time of Evangelical unease. In a society ravaged by Asiatic cholera, numbed by levels of infant mortality, and fearful of revolution and the toxicity of industry (to name but a few of the many challenges), the 'gospel' proclaiming eternal damnation for unbelievers was hardly good news; rather, Christianity was increasingly viewed as the source of bad news and a tool of state oppression. MacDonald agreed: in his view, the church had become a vampire, sucking the blood of her children instead of offering them Eucharistic life. In contrast, like Christ, MacDonald offers us a child. Although at first sight a familiar Romantic incarnation, in MacDonald's theology 'the child' becomes an unlikely icon challenging the vampire's kingdom and confronting the foundations of much of Western theology. John R. de Jong's meticulously researched study of MacDonald's work - especially his 'realist' and fantasy novels - in its Victorian context is of more than historical interest. In light of the growth of fundamentalist expressions of Christianity, we are encouraged to consider embracing MacDonald's radical solution to religious vampirism: becoming children.

David Martin was one of the world's leading commentators on secularization theory. He was also a committed and lifelong reader of English poetry. Christianity and 'The World' develops Martin's argument against simplistic secularization narratives with reference to the history of poetry, a topic with which few social theorists have been concerned. Martin shows the enduring but ever-changing centrality of Christian thought and practice, in its many different forms, to English poetry. Always mindful that the most important aspects of poetry's history can be captured only by attending to the minutest particulars of individual poems and poets, Martin's study sheds unexpected light on a wide range of English poets, from Spenser and Shakespeare to T.S. Eliot and Geoffrey Hill. The result is a study at once informed by an authoritative sociological perspective on secularization and richly coloured by the singular intensity of Martin's own reading life.

Maximus the Confessor's combustive historicalera, committed doctrinal reflection, and loud and influential voice took him ona turbulent career of traveling and writing around the Mediterranean. Maximuswas a spiritual teacher, an ascetic and a contemplative, but he was also apolemicist, a crafter of dogma, an embattled Christologian, a premeditatingrhetorician. In this study, Luke Steven binds togetherthese two disparate sides of the man and his writings by showing thatthroughout his oeuvre the Confessor positions imitation as the key toknowledge. This lasting epistemology characterizes his earlier ascetic andspiritual works, and in his later works it prominently defines his dogmaticChristological method - that is, the means by which he communicates andpersuades and brings people to understand and encounter Jesus Christ, the onewith two natures, divine and human. This multifaceted study offers a deepassessment of Maximus's forebears, new insight on the animating assumptions ofhis thought, and an unprecedented focus on the rhetoric and method of hischristological writings.  

Even in the twenty-first century, criticaland creative engagement with modern and postmodern philosophy is a rarity inOrthodox circles. The collection of essays presented here by ChristophSchneider makes a significant contribution to overcoming this deficit. Eightscholars from six different countries, working on the intersection betweenOrthodox thought and philosophy, present their research in short and accessibleform. The topics covered range from political philosophy to phenomenology,metaphysics, philosophy of self, logic, ethics, and philosophy of language.The authors do not all promote one particularapproach to the relationship between Orthodox theology and philosophy. Nevertheless, taken together, their work demonstrates that Orthodox scholarshipis not confined to historical research about the Byzantine era, but cancontribute to, and enrich, contemporary intellectual debates.  

Jean-Jacques von Allmen's work was animated bythree key insights: the Church both learns and becomes what it truly is when itgathers to worship; worship tells the story of God's salvation history andinvites God's people into it; and by doing so, the church offers the world botha stern warning and a hopeful promise. The Swiss Reformed pastor and professoris among the most admired liturgical theologians of the twentieth century, buthis work is largely and lamentably unknown to most worship leaders. In Church at Church, Ron Rienstra provides an introduction tothis important thinker. He offers methodological and biographical context andthen explores von Allmen's most generative insights concerning the church as itengages in its most foundational activity: worship. Viewed through the lens ofthe Nicene marks, Rienstra's exploration yields the outlines of a 'liturgicalecclesiology', a way to help the church think more deeply about its identityand to help its leaders shape the worship they prepare and lead today. 

In his commentary, John Paul Heil presents two new proposals regarding Paul's letter to the Galatians. First, he demonstrates an entirely new chiastic structure embracing the entire letter, based on strict linguistic and textual criteria rather than on conceptual or theological themes. This chiastic structure accords with the view that Galatians was originally performed orally in a setting of communal worship. Second, Heil offers a new proposal for a key theme that runs throughout Galatians, as expressed by the subtitle of this book - 'Worship for Life by Faith in the Crucified and Risen Lord'. Here, 'worship' is considered to be a comprehensive concept that includes liturgical, cultic, or ritual worship as well as the moral behaviour that is to complement it as ethical worship in accord with the biblical tradition. 'Life' refers both to the present way of living as well as to future eternal life. 'Faith' refers to the acceptance of divine grace available to the believer because of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The complex nature of Christian communion with a personal God requires a nuanced expression. Since its inception, the early church affirmed God's unknowable nature and also participation in God through Christ. The church fathers employed the language of theosis in talking about union with God and human transformation in the likeness of God. However, the term theosis or deification is a broad category and requires precise explanation to avoid human dissolution into the divine in the mystical union it attempts to describe. In Triadosis, Eduard Borysov offers a new approach to the conundrum of the imparticipable divine nature and the prospect of personal union between human and the Trinity. Most significantly, he proposes that if God is Trinity, then we are created and restored in the image of the same tri-personal God.