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Historians have traditionally interpreted the American land-grant higher-education movement as the result of political and economic forces. Little attention has been given, however, to any explicit or implicit theological motivations for the movement. This book tells the story of how the Christian belief of many founders of the University of Illinois motivated their educational theory and practice. Constructing a social gospel of labor's millennium (their shorthand for God's kingdom being enhanced through agricultural and mechanical education), they initially proposed that the university would impart a millenarian blessing for the larger society by providing abundant food, economic prosperity, vocational dignity, and a charitable spirit of sacred unity and public service. Rich in primary-source research, Smith's account builds a compelling case for at least one such institution's adaptation of an inherited evangelical educational tradition, transitioning into a new era of higher learning that has left its mark on university life today.

This collection of essays was first presented at the 37th annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, held jointly with the Wesleyan Theological Society at Duke University in March 2008, under the conference theme, "Signs, Sighs, and Significance: Pentecostal and Wesleyan Explorations of Science and Creation." Along with a companion volume of Wesleyan essays published also by Pickwick Publications, the twelve chapters here represent both Pentecostal reflections/responses to the science-religion discussion and Pentecostal contributions to the ongoing exchange by biblical studies specialists, historians, and theologians, among those trained in other disciplines. Together the essayists model an actual dialogue in which Pentecostal scholarly reflection is impacted by science-religion discourses on the one hand, while Pentecostals reach deep into their own tradition to explore how their pre-understandings and commitments might enable them to speak with their own voice into pre-existing conversations on the other hand. This volume thus represents one of the first-hopefully the first of many-in which Pentecostals register their perspectives on a major issue of our time. In a world dominated by science, and at a time when theologies of creation that encourage and require care for creation and the environment are proliferating, The Spirit Renews the Face of the Earth provides a set of Pentecostal perspectives on these important matters.

Description:Polish messianism tells the story of a nation struggling to survive and regain its independence. As narrated by the poets Jan Pawe_ Woronicz and Adam Mickiewicz, its vision of patriotism and civil responsibility, first told two hundred years ago, contains promising resources today for a world facing challenged by pluralism, secularization, nationalism and religious fundamentalism. Yet this messianism has a dark side. The romantic philosophy of history that funded this messianism proved an inadequate defense against Prussian and Russian military might, and failed to inoculate Poles against the rising spirit of nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism that swept Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In seeking to address the problematic and promising feature of Poland's particular messianism, Burnell draws up on the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, arguing that his theology offers a much-needed critique of the myths and values of romantic national messianism. Where such messianism asks how Christ could serve a nation's cause and freedom, Bonhoeffer declared that by it is by following Christ in discipleship that people and nations become truly free. Recently, a new wave of Polish religio-political fundamentalism has appeared, as a response to the rapid secularization of society since the end of the Cold War. Certain members of the Polish clergy have again joined conservative politicians to promote nationalistic, populist, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic attitudes. Bonhoeffer, in contrast, argued for leaders who ennoble and empower those they serve, and modeled how patriots can honor their nation's achievements while freely confessing its failures. His legacy facilitates dialogue and reconciliation in the ongoing struggle against ethnic, religious and national bigotry. Following his lead, the messianic myth of ""Poland, the Christ of the nations,"" can be recast as a call to follow the One who is ""God-for-us"" and ""the-man-for-others"" by standing with the suffering, by speaking for the disenfranchised, and serving alongside other nations in the cause of freedom and justice. Endorsements:""Joel Burnell is not only well-versed in the origins of Polish Messianism, but also in more recent, modern Polish history. Here he succeeds in drawing together this rich history with the insights of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a dynamic, creative, and critical dialogue. His concluding chapter offers solid guidance, not only for Poland, but for anyone interested in navigating the challenging course, as we enter the twenty-first century, between secularism and fundamentalism.""--John W. MatthewsPresident of the International Bonhoeffer Society-English Language Section ""Europe--like other world regions--badly needs models of how faith can interact creatively and not destructively or demonically with national, cultural, and religious traditions so as to create true communities of justice and peace. Joel Burnell's penetrating study on how the thought of one of Europe greatest twentieth-century Christians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, aided the renewal of one of Europe's most enduring and precious traditions, the Polish, will admirably serve this end.""--Keith ClementsFormer General Secretary, Conference of European Churches""This is a book that brings the reader into intimate contact with the hopes and aspirations of a courageous people in their struggles for independence and their eventual post-war and post-communist-control liberation and their eventual taking their place in modern European and world history . . . [It] offers insights not only into the troubled history of the Polish nation but also into the ways in which the theology and ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer can impact a society seeking to be a valued partner in a new European community of nations.""--Geffrey B. KellyLa Salle University, PhiladelphiaAuthor of Reading Bonhoeffer (Cascade Books)About the Contributor(s): Joel Burnell is in a Lecturer in Dogm

In the mid nineteenth century, Reformed churchmen John Nevin and Philip Schaff launched a fierce attack on the reigning subjectivist and rationalist Protestantism of their day, giving birth to what is known as the "Mercersburg Theology." Their attempt to recover a high doctrine of the sacraments and the visible Church, among other things, led them into bitter controversy with Charles Hodge of Princeton Seminary, as well as several other prominent contemporaries. This book examines the contours of the disagreement between Mercersburg and Hodge, focusing on four loci in particular-Christology, ecclesiology, sacramentology, and church history. W. Bradford Littlejohn argues that, despite certain weaknesses in their theological method, the Mercersburg men offered a more robust and historically grounded paradigm for the Reformed faith than did Hodge. In the second part of the book, Littlejohn explores the value of the Mercersburg Theology as a bridgehead for ecumenical dialogue, uncovering parallels between Nevin's thought and prominent themes in Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox theology, as well as recent debates within Reformed theology. This thorough study of one of the most creative movements in American theology offers an alluring vision of the quest for Reformed catholicity that is more relevant today than ever.

This volume is the biography of Paul Tschetter, a leading figure in late nineteenth-century Hutterite history, the "Hutterite Joshua," who convinced 1,250 Hutterites to leave Russia in the 1870s and resettle in Dakota Territory. Tschetter's life elucidates the way that an immigrant community fought for survival in a North American environment that stressed assimilation to radically different political, economic, cultural, and religious values. Janzen provides an in-depth narrative and analysis of Tschetter's influence based on diaries, sermons, hymns, interviews, and other primary materials.

Is the universe ultimately meaningful, ordered to an end of transcendental value? Or is it merely the product of random interactions in which organization emerges only locally and by chance and is conserved only so long as rare and improbable conditions prevail? There can, in fact, be no more important question, for on the resolution of this question depends the significance of all our worldly labors. The Ultimate Meaningfulness of the Universe represents a new departure in this debate, arguing that because it describes rather than explains the universe, mathematical physics is radically incapable of addressing this question. The book argues for a new scientific research paradigm that while incorporating and building on the description of the universe supplied by modern mathematical physics, goes beyond it in a restored discipline of teleological explanation. The book sketches applications in the physical, biological, and social domains, and shows that powerful evidence already points toward the ultimate meaningfulness of the universe.

Doing Justice: Knowing God represents a fundamentally new departure in ethical theory. Drawing on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, John Milbank, and Franklin Gamwell, it argues that that modern and postmodern moral theory is fundamentally inadequate, and that the current crisis of values can be resolved only on the basis of a substantive vision of the Good. But it goes beyond these thinkers to argue that such a vision must be grounded metaphysically in a revitalized doctrine of Being. The result is a radically historicized natural-law ethics. This ethics argues that not only human individuals but human societies and indeed the universe as a whole grow and develop toward God. The fundamental moral law is to act in such a way as to promote this development. The book draws out the implications of this insight for our understanding of the virtues as well as for social justice.

Now and then through the history of the church a great light appears, a prophet who calls the church back to its missional vocation. These reformers are lovers of God, mystics whose lives are utterly given to the divine vision. Yet as Jesus noted, a prophet is often without honor among her own people. In the case of Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874), honor was lost posthumously, for within a few decades after her death her name all but disappeared. Palmer's sanctification theology was separated from its apophatic spiritual moorings, even as her memory was lost. Throughout most of the twentieth century her name was virtually unknown among Methodists. To this day the Mother of the Holiness Movement still awaits her place of recognition as a Christian mystic equal to Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, or Therese of Lisieux. This book locates Palmer's life and thought within the great Christian mystical traditions, identifying her importance within Methodism and the church universal. It also presents a Wesleyan theological framework for understanding and valuing Christian mysticism, while connecting it with the larger mystical traditions in Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox communions. While Palmer was a powerful revivalist in her own day, in many ways she could be the patron saint for contemporary Methodists who are drawn to the new monasticism and who long for the renewal of the church. Saint Phoebe is precisely the one who can help Methodists envision new forms of Christian community, mission, and witness in a postmodern world.

Recognizing that one-third of the world's Christians practice their faith outside Europe and North America, the fourteen essays in Mother Tongue Theologies explore how international fiction depicts Christianity's dramatic movement South and East of Jerusalem as well as North and West. Structured by geographical region, this collection captures the many ways in which people around the globe receive Christianity. It also celebrates postcolonial literature's diversity. And it highlights non-Western authors' biblical literacy, addressing how and why locally rooted Christians invoke Scripture in their pursuit of personal as well as social transformation. Featured authors include Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constantine Cavafy, Scott Cairns, Chinua Achebe, Madam Afua Kuma, Earl Lovelace, V. S. Reid, Ernesto Cardenal, Helena Parente Cunha, Arundhati Roy, Mary Martha Sherwood, Marguerite Butler, R. M. Ballantyne, Rudyard Kipling, Nora Okja Keller, Amy Tan, Albert Wendt, and Louise Erdrich.Individual essayists rightly come to different conclusions about Christianity's global character. Some connect missionary work with colonialism as well as cultural imperialism, for example, and yet others accentuate how indigenous cultures amalgamate with Christianity's foreignness to produce mesmerizing, multiple identities. Differences notwithstanding, Mother Tongue Theologies delves into the moral and spiritual issues that arise out of the cut and thrust of native responses to Western Christian presence and pressure. Ultimately, this anthology suggests the reward of listening for and to such responses, particularly in literary art, will be a wider and deeper discernment of the merits and demerits of post-Western Christianity, especially for Christians living in the so-called post-Christian West.

This book constitutes the second volume of a three-volume study of Christian testimonies to divine suffering: God's Wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian Symbol of Divine Suffering, vol. 2, Evil and Divine Suffering. The larger study focuses its inquiry into the testimonies to divine suffering themselves, seeking to allow the voices that attest to divine suffering to speak freely, then to discover and elucidate the internal logic or rationality of this family of testimonies, rather than defending these attestations against the dominant claims of classical Christian theism that have historically sought to eliminate such language altogether from Christian discourse about the nature and life of God. This second volume of studies proceeds on the basis of the presuppositions of this symbol, those implicit attestations that provide the conditions of possibility for divine suffering-that which constitutes divine vulnerability with respect to creation-as identified and examined in the first volume of this project: an understanding of God through the primary metaphor of love ("God is love"); and an understanding of the human as created in the image of God, with a life (though finite) analogous to the divine life-the imago Dei as love. The second volume then investigates the first two divine wounds or modes of divine suffering to which the larger family of testimonies to divine suffering normally attest: (1) divine grief, suffering because of betrayal by the beloved human or human sin; and (2) divine self-sacrifice, suffering for the beloved human in its bondage to sin or misery, to establish the possibility of redemption and reconciliation. Each divine wound, thus, constitutes a response to a creaturely occasion. The suffering in each divine wound also occurs in two stages: a passive stage and an active stage. In divine grief, God suffers because of human sin, betrayal of the divine lover by the beloved human: divine sorrow as the passive stage of divine grief; and divine anguish as the active stage of divine grief. In divine self-sacrifice, God suffers in response to the misery or bondage of the beloved human's infidelity: divine travail (focused on the divine incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth) as the active stage of divine self-sacrifice; and divine agony (focused on divine suffering in the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth) as the passive stage of divine self-sacrifice.

The Fourfold Gospel, most often associated with Albert B. Simpson, founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, which focuses on the doctrines of Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King, has been identified as a key contributing factor to the birth and development of the modern Pentecostal movement. Through a close observation of the doctrinal themes of select and renowned Evangelical leaders in America (A. J. Gordon of Boston, D. L. Moody of Chicago, A. T. Pierson of Philadelphia/Detroit, and A. B. Simpson of New York), this work shows that the Fourfold Gospel and, therefore, the theological source for modern Pentecostalism, rather than being a marginal movement within late nineteenth-century Evangelicalism was, instead, its very heart.

This work models a creative exercise in ecclesiology based on a Latino/a practical theology of the Spirit, which designs theological discourse based on its encounter with the Spirit in human culture. Hence, it is a theology appreciative of and attentive to the "multiple matrices and intersections" of the Spirit with cultures. Garcia-Johnson offeres an appreciative and critical analysis of the uses of culture among Latino/a theologians, followed by the proposal for a postmodern Spirit-friendly cultural paradigm based on the narratives of the cross and the Pentecost. He develops a practical theology for a Latino/a postmodern ecclesiology based on three native Latino/a theological concepts: mestizaje, accompaniment, and manana eschatology. The resulting ecclesial construct-The Mestizo/a Community of Manana-reflects a transforming manana vision and models the visible cruciform community in which the transforming praxis and historical transcendence of the Christ-Spirit works from within. The work sets forth practical guidelines for implementation of the ecclesial construct in the urban context of devastated communities and offers suggestions for further development in Latino/a theology.

Mark for the Nations is a translation by the author of his Swedish commentary on the Gospel of Mark. It is meant both for students of theology and for pastors, as well as for lay people. Hartman reads Mark's Gospel through the eyes of an early Gentile-Christian reader. For this reason he quotes much material from the Hellenistic world in translation. To some extent this material appears here for the first time in a gospel commentary. The analysis makes use of literary criticism and text linguistics, but avoids the technical terminology. To stimulate a modern reader's understanding of the evangelist's message to his first-century audience Hartman has endeavored to translate traditional terms into slightly more common language.

This volume brings together twelve scholars from a variety of scholarly fields including biblical studies, history, theology, sociology, anthropology, and missiology in a multi-disciplinary exploration of themes related to women's leadership within the three branches of the renewal movement: Holiness, Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions. These scholars - women and men - from both within and outside the traditions, draw on various methodologies including hermeneutics, ethnography, critical theory, and historical analysis to explore the experiences and contributions of women from the movement's inception to the present. They keep before us the challenges that still impact women's full participation as equal partners in ministry and leadership on both the American and global scene. The volume looks at the multiple roots of women's marginalization within the renewal movement while suggesting progressive solutions that take seriously the social locations of Pentecostal and Charismatic congregations and the theological foundations on which the movement has been built. At the same time, it locates these discussions within the broader postmodern realities facing the church as it attempts to faithfully live out its witness to the biblical truth that both male and female are created in the God's image and endowed with the capacity to work creatively toward the unfolding of the Kingdom.

Who will speak for Hagar or Isaac or Sarah or the daughters of Lot? With an interpretive trajectory that moves from the margin to the center, this book gives voice to the marginalized and voiceless in the Abraham Narratives. Further, this approach is based on the premise that there is a continuum of power in the various characters in these narratives and that the most powerful are those who are lodged at the center while those with the least power are on the margin or beyond. The intent of this study is to direct and perhaps re-direct our attention to the text and with fresh eyes seek a sometimes radical realignment of roles and power. It is true that many of the characters focused on in this book are women. This is not, however, only a book about women, though clearly women are the principal characters on the margin.

Although covenant is a major theme in Hebrews, Morrison contends all mention of covenant can be deleted without damaging the coherence of the epistle or its christological conclusions. What role, then, does the covenant motif have in the epistle?The arguments in Hebrews are aimed at a Jewish audience--they ignore the needs and religious options relevant to Gentiles. For the readers, the Sinai covenant was the only relevant conceptual competitor to Christ.First-century Jews looked to the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants as the basis of their obligations to God and God's promises toward them. Although most Jewish writers merged these covenants as if they were one, the author of Hebrews does not--he retains the Abrahamic promises while arguing that the Mosaic covenant is obsolete.The covenant concept supports the exhortations of Hebrews in two ways: 1) it provides the link between priesthood, worship rituals, and other laws, and 2) it enables the author to argue for allegiance to the community as allegiance to Christ.

A strong critique of traditional atonement theology is found in the work of many contemporary feminist theologians. This approach, in large part, is related to the notion of women's experience--a category that is used widely within feminist theology. But what is women's experience and how does it affect feminist theology, particularly views on the atonement? The category of women's experience is pivotal to feminist theology, yet its use may lead to models of atonement that place excessive stress upon the subjective element of Christ's saving work thereby neglecting to address adequately the objective aspects of the cross. This book focuses on the methodological issues regarding the category of women's experience generally, its definition and use in feminist theology, with a more detailed analysis of its use in the context of feminist theologies of atonement. Utilizing the work of a wide variety of feminist theologians in conversation with theologies of experience, this work attempts to understand the role of women's experience as it shapes feminist views on the atonement, noting the strengths and limitations of feminist approaches to soteriology.

""Can poetry matter to Christian theology?"" David Mahan asks in the introduction to this interdisciplinary work. Does the study of poetry represent a serious theological project? What does poetry have to contribute to the public tasks of theology and the Church? How can theologians, clergy and other ministry professionals, and Christian laypeople benefit from an earnest study of poetry? A growing number of professional theologians today seek to push theological inquiry beyond the relative seclusion of academic specialization into a broader marketplace of public ideas, and to recast the theological task as an integrative discipline, wholly engaged with the issues and sensibilities of the age. Accordingly, such scholars seek to draw upon and engage the insights and practices of a variety of cultural resources, including those of the arts, in their theological projects. Arguing that poetry can be a form of theological discourse, Mahan shows how poetry offers rich theological resources and instruction for the Christian church. In drawing attention to the ""peculiar advantages"" it affords, this book addresses one of the greatest challenges facing the church today: the difficulty of effectively communicating the Christian gospel with increasingly disaffected ""late-modern"" people.

C. S. Lewis was concerned about an aspect of the problem of evil he called subjectivism: the tendency of one's perspective to move towards self-referentialism and utilitarianism. In C. S. Lewis and a Problem of Evil, Jerry Root provides a holistic reading of Lewis by walking the reader through all of Lewis's published work as he argues Lewis's case against subjectivism. Furthermore, the book reveals that Lewis consistently employed fiction to make his case, as virtually all of his villains are portrayed as subjectivists. Lewis's warnings are prophetic; this book is not merely an exposition of Lewis, it is also a timely investigation into the problem of evil.

What is the moral criterion for those who hold power positions and authority in governments, corporations, and institutions? Ahn answers this question by presenting the concept of the positional imperative. The positional imperative is an executive moral norm for those who hold power positions in political and economic organizations. By critically integrating the Neo-Kantian reconstructionism of Jurgen Habermas with the Neo-Augustinian reconstructionism of Reinhold Niebuhr, through the method of "co-reconstruction," Ahn identifies the positional imperative as an executive moral norm embedded in all power positions: "Act in such a way not only to abide by laws, but also to come by the approvals of those affected by your positional actions." By uncovering this executive moral norm, Ahn argues that a position holder is not just a professional working for the system, but a moral executive who is willing to take the responsibility of his or her positional actions.

Christian marriage is a permanent union which requires the commitment of both spouses for its maintenance through fulfillment of its stipulations. The failure of the fulfillment of the latter provides legitimate grounds for divorce and remarriage of the innocent party. This work employs a fourfold approach for the development of NT ethical argumentation based on Richard B. Hays' Moral Vision of the New Testament. The author establishes the proper contextual grounds for the NT study through formulation of the Old Testament perspective on marriage as covenant. The relevant NT passages are examined through historical-critical and narrative-critical methods. A critical study of the main Christian traditions leads to an ecumenical formulation of the theological conclusions. Pragmatic implementation of the thesis follows an examination of the contemporary pluralistic context and applications in both Christian communities and the larger society within its legislative system.

""Radical embodiment"" refers to an anthropology and an epistemology fundamentally rooted in our bodies as always in correlation with our natural and social worlds. All human rationality, meaning, and value arise not only instrumentally but also substantively from this embodiment in the world. Radical embodiment reacts against Enlightenment mind-body dualism, as well as its monistic offshoots, including the physicalism that reduces everything to component matter-energy at the expense of subjectivity and meaning. It also rejects against certain forms of postmodernism that reinscribe modern dualisms.David H. Nikkel develops the perspective of ""radical embodiment"" by examining varieties of modern and postmodern theology, and the nature and role of tradition-in terms of linguistic and non-linguistic experience, the religion and science dialogue on the nature of consciousness, and the immanent and transcendent aspects of God.

The Diffusion of Ecclesiastical Authority explores the leadership of the church in Acts from a sociological perspective. Two primary models emerge from a sociologically informed investigation of first-century Greco-Roman and Jewish religious leadership: ""manager-leader"" and ""innovator-leader."" An examination of seven passages in Acts reveals that the leaders of the early church, although initially conforming to cultural expectations, are best described as innovator-leaders whose counter-cultural actions resulted in the empowerment of new leaders and the advancement of the gospel. Through the use of fictive kinship language, the voluntary sharing of authority, the fostering of a sense of mutual dependence on God as the common patron, and the redefinition of what is honorable, the leaders in Acts consistently enabled others to share authority in the church.

Joseph Tuckerman and the Outdoor Church is about the Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, a Unitarian minister who created and led a street ministry in Boston, Massachusetts, between 1826 and 1839 at the behest of his friend and college roommate, William Ellery Channing. Because of Tuckerman's innovative approach to encountering and helping the poor people he met near the Boston wharves, he is considered the father of American social work as well as a prescient, dedicated, and socially active minister whose work led directly to the Social Gospel Movement. The book examines and interprets Tuckerman's theology and ministry of outreach in light of the author's experience as pastor of the Outdoor Church of Cambridge, Inc., an outdoor ministry to homeless men and women in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Outdoor Church offers prayer services and pastoral assistance outdoors in all seasons and all weather in order to be accessible to chronically homeless men and women who, because of shame or embarrassment, hostility or illness, cannot or will not enter conventional churches. Joseph Tuckerman and the Outdoor Church is a unique and gripping look at a radically innovative nineteenth-century minister through the prism of the actual application of his thinking and his example to an ongoing ministry to the chronically homeless men and women of Cambridge.

Psalm 29, a sacred text in Jewish and Christian Bibles, has been understood in a variety of ways through time and in different traditions. This volume presents a sample of the use and meaning derived from a single biblical text. From the earliest translations to contemporary African Independent Churches, this psalm has been an integral part of synagogue and church; but what it has meant and how it is used is a fascinating journey through human culture. Not only the understanding of the written word, but also the liturgical use and the musical adaptations of a biblical text are considered here. This is a book for anyone--scholar, student, or laity--with an interest in the Bible in its many contexts.

Luther's theology of the cross is a direct critique of oppressive power relationships in his day. Luther's early thought challenges specific economic, political, social, ideological, and religious power dynamics; the cross confronts those who enjoy power, prestige, pomp, and profits at the expense of the poor. Ruge-Jones maps the power relationships that Luther's theology addressed and then turns to specific works that challenge established structures of his world. Luther's Latin texts undermine the ideological assumptions and presumptions that bolstered an opulent church and empire. Luther uses the cross of Christ to challenge what he called volatilem cogitatum, "knowledge that is prone to violence." His German writings (directed to a broader, more popular audience) focus this critique of human pretensions into an attack on systems of wealth, status, and power that refuse to look with compassion upon poor Mary, or upon the many domestic servants of Germany. God has respected the ones whom the world disrespects and has thus entered the world to turn it upside down. Also in the German writings, the Lord's Supper calls the powerful to enter into solidarity with the poor--suffering people to whom Christ has given himself. Finally, in his popular pamphlets, visual images show with graphic specificity that throughout his life Christ sought out solidarity with the least. These images contrast brutally with images of a church that has sold its soul to wealth, political influence, military power, and status.

Description:This volume includes nine essays that move Ezekiel's creative reuse of older materials to the foreground of discussion. The essays highlight the transformation of earlier texts, traditions, and theology in Ezekiel. They explore the diverse ways that Ezekiel reshapes Israel's legal texts, rituals, oracles against foreign nations, royal ideology, conception of the individual, remembrance of the past, and hope for the future. The work concludes by noting the subsequent transformation of Ezekiel in scribal transmission and in the New Testament.CONTRIBUTORS:Daniel I. Block, Wheaton College Graduate SchoolTova Ganzel, Bar-Ilan University Paul M. Joyce, St. Peter's College, Oxford UniversityBeate Kowalski, University of Koblenz-LandauThomas Krüger, University of ZurichMichael A. Lyons, Simpson UniversityTimothy Mackie, University of Wisconsin-MadisonJill Middlemas, Århus UniversityPaul R. Raabe, Concordia SeminaryBaruch Schwartz, Hebrew UniversityWilliam A. Tooman, University of St. AndrewsEndorsements:""Tooman and Lyons present a wide range of significant scholars who address the key issue in Exilic and especially Ezekiel studies today--why and how did an almost total transformation of Israel's Religion take place during the Exile. Before exile, it was centered on active royal, ritualistic, and oracular activity; after exile, it centered on priestly-legislated and tradition-centered guidance of practical observance. The authors offer important insights on the concepts of idolatry, divine and human kingship, individual versus corporate moral responsibility, the role of divine holiness, the Exodus tradition, the importance of priestly viewpoints, and the way the Book of Ezekiel was written and enlarged. This single volume brings together all major trends in Ezekiel studies today.""--Lawrence Boadt, CSP, Professor Emeritus, Washington Theological Union""The present volume, edited by two rising Ezekiel scholars, Michael A. Lyons and William A. Tooman, makes a substantive contribution to the burgeoning discussion of the book of Ezekiel by emphasizing the theme of transformation, understood in relation to the text of Ezekiel, the traditions on which it draws and by which it developed, and its theological perspectives. Each essay engages a different aspect of the study of the book, and thereby opens and advances scholarly dialog in its own right."" Marvin A. Sweeney, from the ForewordAbout the Contributor(s):William A. Tooman is Lecturer in Old Testament at University of St. Andrews, Scotland.Michael A. Lyons is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Simpson University. He is the author of From Law to Prophecy: Ezekiel's Use of the Holiness Code.

"What is the purpose of theology for the church?" Systematic theology provides an inroad into this question by offering both a method for doing theology and an explanation for the purpose of that method. However, "system" is itself the product of a specific understanding of knowledge grounded in rational demonstration of facts. This study attempts to address the historical debate over when systematic theology began. Much of the debate is centered on the definition of system and revolves around the use, or lack thereof, of external philosophical categories or language. Specific historical figures have been selected to serve as illustrations of how theological prolegomena functioned in works prior to and following the influence of Enlightenment thought. In the early chapters it will be seen that theology was neither totally saturated with, nor totally devoid of, external philosophical reference points or programmatic intentions. On the contrary, both external points of reference and programmatic intentions have played a role in theology since the church's inception. In other words, certain elements of system (e.g., logic, non-contradiction, organization) have played a role in theological investigation and construction since, at least, the second century. The last two chapters of this study demonstrate that these may not be the same influences that have marked post-Enlightenment systematics. One of the primary characteristics of pre-Enlightenment theology is its intentional focus on the life of the church. Theology, like the Scriptures, was often written for specific circumstances. Enlightenment influences significantly changed the intentions of much of theology in that theological knowledge was studied and displayed for the sake of knowledge itself. The church no longer mattered, or was at best an afterthought, in the realm of what is now seen as the domain of academic theology.

Marxism is one of the revolutionary social-scientific theories that has come to have a prominent place in New Testament studies in the United States. It is often combined with liberation theology and applied to apocalyptic texts. This book argues that the basic presuppositions of these three ideological systems are ultimately at odds with one another. The study then traces the kinds of moves scholars in New Testament studies have made to overcome this problem.

Leaning into the Future seeks to explore what it may mean to believe in the "Kingship" of God and wait for his "Kingdom" by considering the fundamental role the Kingdom of God plays in the theology of Jurgen Moltmann and in the book of Revelation. Part one is devoted to how Moltmann understands "The Kingdom of God" as the fundamental symbol of hope for humanity, and how he sees the presence of God's reign and kingdom in history as hidden and paradoxical. Part two turns to the way the Book of Revelation uses royal and other political language in its portrait of the future and God's presence in history. In this second part, the book also seeks to explore how Moltmann and the Apocalypse may mutually inform each other, how Moltmann may help us read this biblical book today, and how it in turn may overcome some of the weaknesses in Moltmann's proposal.