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Taking its cue from Mark Nation's regret that John Howard Yoder refrained from a fuller engagement with the Western philosophical tradition, this book is an effort to explore the possibilities inherent in that conversation. It develops a dialogue between Yoder and the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. The placement of Yoder's work alongside of Levinas' conception of otherness cashes out the embedded hope in Nation's remarks by demonstrating the continuing relevancy of Yoder's thought for current Christian sociopolitical discourse. This book is especially aimed at those who seek to continue exploring the themes and ideas of John Howard Yoder.

Description:Employing studies in population ecology as a framework for understanding the growth of religious movements, Disfellowshiped traces the growth of the Pentecostal movement. The author explores how the Pentecostal movement developed in relationship to Fundamentalism from its roots in the Holiness movement to the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals. Particular attention is given to the various critiques and rebuttals exchanged between Fundamentalists and Pentecostals, exploring how these two movements influenced and shaped one another. This book shows how, despite their mutual antagonism, these two movements held far more in common than in contrast. This book will be of great importance to all those interested in the history of Fundamentalism and the rise of Pentecostalism.Endorsements:""Pentecostalism emerged in the early years of the twentieth century, shortly followed by Fundamentalism. The adherents of the two movements shared an Evangelical heritage and yet they disagreed sharply with each other. Members of each group denounced the other as betrayers of the gospel and worse. Gerald King has analyzed their antagonistic rhetoric and its theological premises, vividly illuminating a world in which the two sides 'disfellowshiped' each other.""--David Bebbingtonauthor of Victorian Nonconformity (Cascade, 2011)""For too long historians, following the lead of a handful of anti-pentecostal preachers from the 1920s, have treated fundamentalism and pentecostalism as totally distinct movements. As Gerald W. King's compelling book reveals, the relationship between pentecostals and fundamentalists has been far more complicated than most scholars realize. Disfellowshiped is a carefully researched book that makes a significant contribution to the religious history of the interwar era.""--Matthew Avery Suttonauthor of Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America (2007)About the Contributor(s):Gerald King is a recent PhD graduate of the University of Birmingham (UK).

For many Americans, Christian missionary efforts have usually involved distant and exotic places. Sometimes, however, we can learn more about missions and interreligious engagement by looking in our own backyard. This collection of essays deriving from a consultation on missionary history and attitudes in colonial Jamestown, Virginia, explores long-standing assumptions related to Christian mission by listening to Native American voices. What were the ideologies and theologies that motivated early Virginia colonists? How did certain understandings of mission and church provide support and legitimacy for invasion and exploitation? What were, and are, the responses of indigenous populations, and how should Christian mission to Native Americans continue in light of this history? This book addresses these still very relevant questions and explores ways in which new understandings of Christian mission are needed in the expanding religious and cultural diversity of the twenty-first century.

""That the God of Israel makes doers of us through the Torah is, in my view, the most beautiful thing we can thank him for: Every lethargy, every melancholy, indifference and moroseness is ended . . . Wherever the Torah claims us as doers, it confronts the nihilism that exclaims: There's nothing I can do. The Torah opposes anti-revolutionary laziness"" (F.-W. Marquardt). This anthology contains a selection of essays by Friedrich-Wilhelm Marquardt (1928-2002), former professor of systematic theology at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. As a student of Karl Barth in the fifties, Marquardt became one of the most influential pioneers in renewing the relationship between Christians and Jews in Germany after the Shoah, as well as a Barth scholar proposing a new perspective on Barth's theology and political radicalism. Accordingly the essays contained in this volume deal with the two main areas of interest in Marquardt's theological journey: Part 1 presents essays dealing with new perspectives in the relationship between Christians and Jews after the Shoah, promoting for example the significance of ""the Jewish No"" to the Messiahship of Jesus for Christian theology, and the relevance of Talmudic studies for Christians. Part 2 presents examples of Marquardt's approach to Barth's theology, emphasizing the relevance of connecting the theological and the political spheres in general, and the socialist horizon in particular in Barth's theological framework. This perspective is supported by an abundance of historical evidence and by deciphering Barth's unpublished ""Socialist Speeches"" from the Safenwil period.

Groans of the Spirit constitutes a rousing challenge to mainline churches and their practice of preaching. In this inventive work, Timothy Slemmons calls preachers beyond the formalism of the New Homiletic, and beyond the ethical proposals that have arisen in the frustrated struggle to transcend it, and toward what the author calls a ""penitential"" (reformed) homiletic. This new homiletical proposal is distinctive in that it faithfully adheres to the Christological content of preaching, finds its inspiration in the promise of the real presence of Christ, and trusts in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, from whom alone the power for the renewal of the mainline church shall come.This book includes a thorough reconsideration of the ""infinite qualitative difference"" between God and humanity in Barth's thought, an important critique of Gadamer's reception of Kierkegaard's concept of contemporaneity, an undelivered lecture on the content of preaching, and two sermons that illustrate Slemmons's important proposals.Groans of the Spirit is a long-considered, calculated, and overdue break with conventional hermeneutics that proposes a vital homiletical pneumatology, which draws the art of the sermon out of the ghetto of mere rhetoric and presents it as it truly is: as theological reflection of the first order, the church's primary language of faith.

The Ecclesial Base Communities (CEBs) emerged in the wake of Latin American liberation theology and are often referred to as "the Church of the Poor." This book, however, addresses whether or not CEBs are indeed the Church of the Poor today. It is an open question now if Pentecostalism has in fact become the new church of the poor. To answer this question Philip Wingeier-Rayo conducted a one-year ethnographic study of both movements in a marginalized barrio in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Using the anthropological method of participant-observer, the author studied a Roman Catholic Church and a Pentecostal Church--just 100 yards apart--compiling surveys, life interviews, and field notes to relay his findings. For those interested in liberation theology, Pentecostalism, new religious movements, or the influence of religion on society, this in-depth ethnographic study will be of great interest.

Spirit and Nature is a collection of essays exploring how the resources of Christian spirituality can inform the practice of a more ecologically sustainable faith. Our current ecological situation calls for people of religious faith to reexamine the way they envision the practice of spirituality. As environmental ethicists have called us to reconsider the human-Earth relationship so that the planet is not seen as simply an endless supply of resources to fill human wants and needs, so these essays call us to reconsider spiritual practice as it relates to Earth's ecology. Rather than viewing spirituality as an escape from the material world, the authors describe the embodiment of the God-quest within the human-nature relationship. Drawing on diverse disciplinary perspectives, these essays examine a variety of topics, including the relationship between Earth and humans in the Bible, the role of nature's beauty in Christian spirituality, the practice of Christian discernment and contemplation in light of the natural sciences, the role of nature in liturgical prayer, and others. These essays consider how scholarship in Christian spirituality can contribute to re-imaging faith in ways that better cherish the Earth's fragile beauty.

Recent studies have increasingly downplayed, and in a few cases even wholly denied, the influence of Martin Luther's theology of Law and Gospel on early English evangelicals such as William Tyndale. The impact of a late medieval Augustinian renaissance, Erasmian Humanism, the Reformed tradition, and Lollardy have all but eclipsed the more central role once attributed to Luther. Whiting reexamines these claims with a thorough reevaluation of Luther's theology of Law and Gospel in its historical context spanning twenty-five years, something entirely lacking in all previous studies. Based on extensive research in the primary sources, with acute attention to the larger historical narrative and in dialogue with secondary scholarship, Whiting argues that scholars have often oversimplified Luther's theology of Law and Gospel and have thus wrongly diminished his very significant, even principal, influence upon first-generation evangelicals William Tyndale, John Frith, and Robert Barnes during the English Reformation of the 1520s and 30s.

A group of authors led by Shaphan, King Josiah's secretary, wrote some three hundred chapters of Scripture--one-third of the Hebrew Bible. For the first time ever, we can learn the names of those who composed Joshua, Isaiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Songs, Daniel, and half the Minor Prophets. (Probabilities throughout the book strongly support these findings.) Moreover, those authors together constitute Dtr, the long-sought editors of Deuteronomy through Second Kings. One of the most important discoveries of The Shaphan Group is that Huldah the prophetess signed many chapters of Hebrew Scripture. Judged from her use of coded writing, Huldah was arguably the most accomplished writer among the group's fifteen authors. She was joined by the Priestly Source and Second Isaiah (both of whom are named), as well as others--unrecognized until now--who risked their lives to shape the Hebrew Bible. The Shaphan Group offers students of whatever age, not only a book full of discoveries, but also a new way to approach Holy Scripture.

Christianity is never just about beliefs but habits and practices-for better or worse. Theology always reflects the social location of the theologian-including her privileges and prejudices-all the time working with a particular, often undisclosed, notion of what is normal. Therefore theology is never ""neutral""-it defends particular constructions of reality, and it promotes certain interests. Following Jesus in Invaded Space asks what-and whose-interests theology protects when it is part of a community that invaded the land of Indigenous peoples. Developing a theological method and position that self-consciously acknowledges the church's role in occupying Aboriginal land in Australia, it dares to speak of God, church, and justice in the context of past history and continuing dispossession. Hence, a ""Second people's theology"" emerges through constant and careful attention to experiences of invasion and dis-location brought into dialogue with the theological landscape or tradition of the church.

Idolatry in the Pentateuch addresses both the manner in which the Pentateuch was produced and how theological intentions can be discerned from the texts that constitute it. McKenzie attempts to read the final shape of the Pentateuch while not ignoring the diachronic complexities within its pages. Using a compositional approach to the Pentateuch, he establishes his methodology, analyzes several idolatry-related texts, and traces the theological intentions through an inner-textual strategy. Moreover, McKenzie briefly considers the history of interpretation through the last few centuries and discusses the state of Old Testament studies as he understands it.

Description:From intellectual inquiry to spiritual practice to social reform, Pietism has exerted an enormous influence on various forms of Christianity and on Western culture more generally. However, this contribution remains largely unacknowledged or misunderstood in Anglo-American contexts because negative stereotypes--some undeserved, others deserved--tend to cast Pietism as a quietistic and sectarian form of religion interested in a narrow set of individualistic and spiritual concerns.In this volume, scholars from a variety of disciplines offer a corrective to this misunderstanding, highlighting the profound theological, cultural, and spiritual contribution of Pietism and what they term the ""pietist impulse."" The essays in this volume demonstrate that Pietism was a movement of great depth and originality that was not merely concerned with the ""pious soul and its God."" Rather, Pietists were from the beginning concerned with issues of social and ecclesial reform, the nature of history and historical inquiry, the shape and purpose of theology and theological education, the missional task of the church, and social justice and political engagement. In addition, the essays collected here fruitfully raise the question of the ongoing relevance of Pietism and the ""pietist impulse"" for contemporary problems and questions across disciplines and in the church at large.Endorsements:""Understanding Pietism is critical for grasping the modern manifestations of Protestantism in Europe and North America. This impressive volume illustrates both the diversity and range of American research on Pietism and its promise for scholars on both sides of the Atlantic.""--Hartmut LehmannMax-Planck-Institut für Geschichte, Göttingen""The editors of The Pietist Impulse have assembled a deep and far-ranging collection on an important theme in the history and practice of Christianity. Leading scholars from a variety of fields investigate a unifying theme in a refreshing number of methodological, chronological, and geographic permutations. These works demonstrate the vitality, the centrality, and the many possibilities of Pietist studies today.""--Katherine Carté EngelTexas A&M UniversityAbout the Contributor(s):Christian T. Collins Winn is Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is author of ""Jesus is Victor!"" The Significance of the Blumhardts for the Theology of Karl Barth (2008) and Series Editor for the Blumhardt Series (Cascade Books). Christopher Gehrz is Associate Professor of History and coordinator of the Christianity and Western Culture program at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota.G. William Carlson is Professor of History and Political Science at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of numerous articles on Baptist General Conference history, Swedish Pietism, religion in the Soviet Union, and comparative evangelical political thought. Eric Holst is a graduate of Bethel Seminary, with an interest in contextual theology and theories of Christian education.

In many ways, the method of comparison in the study of religion is connected to European expansion and empire building. This work explores the early modern origins of the comparative method for the cross-cultural study of religion, beginning with its roots in the earliest missionary contact in the Spanish conquest and concluding with the Victorian anthropologists of the British Empire. Ammon explores the development of the comparative method in religion from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, approaching the history of comparison by tracing its development from the first moments of contact with the New World through the recognized origin of the discipline of anthropology. This work delineates the comparative method from Bartolome de Las Casas to Edward Burnett Tylor, exploring a piece of the story we can tell about the development of the comparative methods and religious transformation in the disciplines of anthropology, ethnology, and comparative religion.

In this second novel of the series, Art West seeks out the meaning of the mysterious symbolic number 666 while exploring sites in Egypt and Turkey. He discovers an inscription in southern Egypt at the Philae Temple in Aswan, which reads, ""He is many men and no man, towering like the sphinx, dead and alive, but who knows what he thinks? Back from the Styx; 666."" Who is this sphinx-like man? Could he be relevant to the twenty-first century? These questions lead Art to investigate possible connections between the Coptic Gospels and Coptic Orthodox beliefs. In the middle of such investigations Art is involved in a harrowing prisoner exchange in Israel at the hands of Hamas, and he discovers the origins of Christians wearing crosses. He also tangles with the notorious terrorist El Tigre.Set in the context of Middle East tensions between Muslims, Christians, and Jews, this fast-paced thriller explores the meaning of eschatological or ""end times"" language for the earliest Christians, who, while trying to spread the kingdom of God, faced the rising tide of the kingdom of Caesar and his emperor cult. Along the way West learns some apocalyptic secrets destined to change his life forever.

Probing the Frontiers of Biblical Studies is a seventeen-chapter anthology on biblical studies. It has been crafted as an extended and respectful thank you note to one of the most insightful scholars of biblical studies, David J. A. Clines of Sheffield University in England. He is credited with providing guidance to, and shaping the thought of, two generations of scholars who focus on essential approaches to understanding the Bible, with particular attention given to the Old Testament and allied literature. The anthology is directed toward those readers with pastoral, analytical, ancient intercultural, as well as contemporary cultural perspectives.Essays address a wide range of topics: the so-called Documentary Hypothesis, prophecy, divination, and magic, the wisdom themes in the Book of Job, the Egyptian influence on New Testament, the issue of non-sexual love between two men during combat conditions, character development in a biblical novella, rhetorical questions and their role in the Psalter, and the ways of God in the world. By combining these various topics, Probing the Frontier of Biblical Studies has addressed many of the outstanding issues in Old Testament study and ancillary disciplines.

Pentecostals and Nonviolence explores how a distinctly Pentecostal-charismatic peace witness might be reinvigorated and sustained in the twenty-first century. To do so, the book examines the nature of the early Pentecostal commitment to nonviolence, and investigates the possibilities that might emerge from Pentecostals and Anabaptists entering into conversation and worship with each other. Contributors engage the arguments surrounding the heritage of Pentecostal pacifism in the United States and then move toward exploring nonviolence and peacemaking as crucial for contemporary Christianity as a whole. Ranging from theology, testimony, and pastoral ministry to interchurch relations, activism, and protest, this diverse collection of essays challenge and invite the whole church to the task of peacemaking while exploring the distinctive, and often neglected, contributions from the Pentecostal-charismatic tradition.

Spirit Christology complements Logos Christology in the same way in which Christ and the Spirit are mutually constitutive. Or at least this should be the case. The history of Christian thought shows that Logos Christology has dominated, resulting in both an eclipse of Trinitarian doctrine and a diminution of pneumatology. Recently there have been calls to reclaim a theology of the Third Article in order to present a Trinitarian theology that is faithful to Scripture, the Great Tradition, and one that is existentially viable. While studies examine various aspects of Spirit Christology there has yet to appear a work that introduces the doctrine, examines the various mutually exclusive proposals, and offers a constructive trinitarian proposal. The present work does just this, introducing the constituent features of a Spirit Christology that is Trinitarian, orthodox, and contemporary. The current work proposes a model of Spirit Christology that complements rather than replaces Logos Christology and does so in a robustly Trinitarian framework. Within contemporary theology a pneumatically oriented approach to Christology is being advanced across denominational and traditional lines. Those wanting to navigate their way through the many competing proposals for a Third Article theology will find a comprehensive map here.

Subversive Spirituality links the practice and study of Christian spirituality with Christian mission. It develops a twofold thesis: grace, spiritual disciplines, and mission practices are inseparably linked in the mission of Jesus, of the early church, and of several historical renewal movements, as well as in a contemporary field research sample; and amidst the collapse of space and time evidenced by our culture's increasingly hurried pace of life, more time and space are needed for regular solitary and communal spiritual practices in church, mission, and leadership structures if Christian mission is to transform people and culture in our time. This requires a subversion of the collapsed spatial and temporal codes that have infected our Christian institutions.Jensen employs methods and approaches from a variety of academic disciplines to explore both spirituality in terms of space and time and mission in terms of deed and word. Specifically, Jensen examines the spirituality and mission of Jesus, the early church, the apostolic fathers, Origen, the Devotio Moderna, the early Jesuits, David Brainerd, and several women in 19th century Protestant missions. He considers the spirituality and mission that have arisen within the postmodern generations born after 1960. Based on the theological, historical, cultural, and field analyses of this study, a model for spirituality and mission is proposed. The model addresses the contemporary collapse of space and time and appears to have widespread applicability to diverse cultures and eras. Jensen's model is applied to the pluralistic and postmodern milieu of North America with recommendations for spirituality and mission in church, mission, and educational structures. A derivative model for teaching and practicing spirituality and mission in the academy, which also has application for non-formal leadership development structures, is also proposed.

Description:Reading Daniel as a Text in Theological Hermeneutics sets out to read the book of Daniel as a narrative textbook in the field of theological hermeneutics. Employing such disciplines as historical criticism, literary criticism, narrative theology, and hermeneutics, this work seeks to maintain an interdisciplinary outlook on the book of Daniel. Two inherently linked perspectives are utilized in this reading of Daniel. First is the perception that the character of Daniel is the paradigm of the good theological hermeneut; theology and hermeneutics are inseparable and converge in the character of Daniel. Readers must recognize in Daniel certain qualities, attitudes, abilities, and convictions well worth emulating. Essentially, readers must aspire to become a ""Daniel."" Second is the standpoint that the book of Daniel on the whole should be read as a hermeneutics textbook. Readers are led through a series of theories and exercises meant to be instilled into their theological, intellectual, and practical lives. Attention to readers is a constant endeavor throughout this thesis. The concern is fundamentally upon contemporary readers and their communities, yet with sensible consideration given to the historical readerly community with which contemporary readers find continuity. Greater concentration is placed on what the book of Daniel means for contemporary readers than on what the book of Daniel meant in its historical setting. In the end, readers are left with difficult challenges, a sobering awareness of the volatility of the business of hermeneutics, and serious implications for readers to implement both theologically and hermeneutically. Endorsements:""Aaron Hebbard's new book is a genuinely interdisciplinary exercise that will be of immense help to scholars in literature, theology, and biblical studies. It offers a wholly new perspective on hermeneutics through a highly creative reading of the book of Daniel that introduces Daniel himself into the company of interpreters as relevant and immediate as Paul Ricoeur and Hans-Georg Gadamer. This is scholarship of the highest quality and sharpest imagination.""--David Jasper, Professor of Literature and Theology, University of Glasgow""A noteworthy student of Daniel once wearily commented that it is hard to say anything new about Daniel. Aaron Hebbard claims to have done so, and he soon persuaded me that he has. Anyone interested in Daniel or in hermeneutics (whether or not they like that word prefaced by the word 'theological') will be intrigued by this book.""--John Goldingay, David Allen Hubbard Professor of Old Testament, Fuller Thological SeminaryAbout the Contributor(s):Aaron B. Hebbard is Associate Professor of Theology and the Arts at Community Christian College in Southern California. He earned his PhD in literature, theology, and the arts at the University of Glasgow.

On Faith, Rationality, and the Other in the Late Middle Ages is an investigation of Nicholas of Cusa that seeks a deeper understanding of this important medieval intellectual and his importance for us today. One of Gergely Bakos's primary aims in this study is to understand Nicholas of Cusa's important and underexamined dimensions of his approach to dialogue with Islam. The framework and the methodology that informs this investigation was inspired by the late Professor Jos Decorte (1954-2001), a Flemish philosopher and mediaevalist at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Bakos carefully exposits his method of approaching medieval thought (Part One) and then applies and tests this method in practice (Part Two). The most extensive part of this study offers a sketch of the historical background of Nicholas's dialogue with Islam and investigates what possibilities this approach offers. All of this is placed in dialogue with two other mediaeval approaches to Islam (Thomas Aquinas and Ramon Lull). The final chapters discuss Nicholas of Cusa's project from a perspective offered by his mystical theology. The book culminates in an exploration of the possibilities of Nicholas of Cusa's approach by testing the framework of the study. Finally, the author evaluates the application of his own approach (Part Three). The study ultimately has two purposes: to contribute to a better understanding of Nicholas of Cusa's thought, on the one hand, and, on the other, to test a particular methodology and interpretative framework for the understanding of mediaeval culture.

Without turning naively to the past, scholars and preachers of the Old Testament are once again making use of figuration--something the church had always done until the modern period. This enlargement of method comes about partly out of disappointment with the exclusive use of historical methods, for to read the Bible theologically for the guidance of its present readers requires more than historical description. The 2006 Tyndale Conference on Biblical Interpretation, held at Tyndale University College in Toronto, Canada, focused on ""figuration in biblical interpretation."" The authors are the conference keynote speakers, Christopher Seitz and Ephraim Radner, as well as Tyndale faculty members in philosophy, history, Bible, and theology. There are also a few additional invited papers illustrating figural interpretation. This volume is a window onto the current hermeneutic ferment within biblical studies, and its title is an invitation to sample and share the excitement!