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Historical writings on Our Lady of Guadalupe, the most revered sacred figure indigenous to the western hemisphere, have tended to focus on the sixteenth-century origins of her cult. But recent publications have increasingly extended Guadalupan studies beyond the origin debates to analyses of the subsequent evolution and immense influence of the Guadalupe tradition.New Frontiers in Guadalupan Studies significantly enhances this growing body of literature with insightful essays on topics that span the early stages of Guadalupan devotion to the milestone of Pope Benedict XIV establishing an official liturgical feast for Guadalupe in 1754. The volume also breaks new ground in theological analyses of Guadalupe, which comprise an ongoing effort to articulate a Christian response to one of the most momentous events of Christianity's second millennium: the conquest, evangelization, and struggles for life, dignity, and self-determination of the peoples of the Americas.

The church in the West has subsisted for five hundred years in a state of ever-increasing multiple identities, many of which claim to be the best representation of the church established by Christ. Often attending novel models of the church are new scriptural interpretive methods that support theological claims. Rarely, however, has an exploration been undertaken to test the impact of this ecclesiological division on the reading of the Bible. A Darkened Reading explores the specific case of the nineteenth-century Church of England and competing interpretations of the book of the prophet Isaiah--a book of great importance in theological history--as a kind of parable of the existential anguish the church has experienced as a consequence of being torn apart.

The Theologically Formed Heart invites the reader to consider the role of theology in the formation of virtues and passions, and, conversely, the role of virtues and passions in understanding Scripture, theology, and living a Christian life. The essays in this volume are offered in appreciation of the teaching, scholarship, and service to the church and world of Professor of Theology David J. Gouwens. They are organized in three sections: theological reflections, Reformed theology in service to the church, and studies in the thought of Soren Kierkegaard. Four important issues are explored from multiple perspectives: the Church's coming to terms with religious pluralism in mission, inter-religious dialogue, theological education, and ecclesial life; the gospel's invitation to welcome communities of difference; Reformed aesthetics in Calvin's rhetoric and in contemporary hymnody; and Kierkegaard's contribution to theology and ecclesial practice. The aims of the book go beyond academic confines. Through reading the different essays, a personality will emerge who illustrates a life of scholarship that yields itself gladly to the God made known in Jesus Christ. Thus, beyond imparting new information, the book may inspire its readers to their own practice of theologically forming their hearts.

The Trinity and the Vindication of Christian Paradox grapples with the question of how one may hold together the ideals of systematic theology, apologetic proof, and theological paradox by building on the insights of Cornelius Van Til. Van Til developed an apologetic where one presupposes that the triune God exists, and then proves this Christian presupposition by demonstrating that philosophies that deny it are self-defeating in the specific sense that they rely on principles that only the Trinity, as the ultimate harmony of unity and diversity, can furnish. A question raised by Van Til's trademark procedure is how he can evade the charge that the apparent contradictions of the Christian faith render it equally self-defeating as non-Christian alternatives. This text argues that for Van Til, Christian paradoxes can be differentiated from genuine contradictions by the way that their apparently opposing elements discernibly require one another, even as they present our minds with an irresolvable conflict. And yet, Van Til failed to sufficiently vindicate the central Christian paradox--the doctrine of the Trinity--along the lines required by his system. Hence, the present text offers a unique proof that God can only exist as the pinnacle of unity-in-diversity, and as the ground of a coherent Christian system, if He exists as three, and only three, divine Persons.

In Theologizing Friendship, the author aims to revitalize Jean Leclercq's defense of monastic theology, while expanding and qualifying some of the central theses expounded in Leclercq's magisterial The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. The current work contributes to a revised and updated status quaestionis concerning the theological relationship between classical monasticism and scholasticism, construed in more systematic and speculative terms than those of Leclercq, rendered here through the lens of friendship as a theological topos. The work shares with Ivan Illich's In the Vineyard of the Text the conviction that the rise of the Schools (Paris, Oxford, etc.) constitutes one of the greatest intellectual watersheds in the history of Western civilization: where Illich's ruminations are largely philosophical and particularly epistemological, the author's are theological and metaphysical.In his novel proposal that within the monastic and scholastic milieux there obtain parallel threefold analogies among friendship, reading, and theology, the author not only offers an original contribution to current scholarship, but gestures towards avenues for institutional self-examination much needed by the contemporary--modern and postmodern--Academy.

For both Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662) and Jurgen Moltmann (b. 1926), understanding what it means to be human springs from a contemplative vision of God. This comparative study explores surprising parallels between the theological anthropology of the seventh-century Byzantine monk and the contemporary German Protestant. Bingaman argues that Maximus and Moltmann root their understanding of the human calling in their Trinitarian and christological reflection, in contrast to many modern theologies that tend to devise an account of human being first, and then try to find ways in which Christ and the Trinity are somehow relevant to this human being.In this constructive work, Bingaman demonstrates the intrinsic connection between Maximus' and Moltmann's views of human being, Christ and the Trinity, the church, and the human calling in creation. Illustrating the richness of these ancient and postmodern theologies in conversation, All Things New lays out future trajectories in theological anthropology, patristic ressourcement, ecologically attuned theology and spirituality, and Orthodox-Protestant dialogue.

The Practice of the Body of Christ begins a conversation between "apocalyptic" interpretations of the Apostle Paul and the contemporary revival in "virtue ethics." It argues that the human actor's place in Pauline theology has long been captive to theological concerns foreign to Paul and that we can discern in Paul a classical account of human action that Alasdair MacIntyre's work helps to recover. Such an account of agency helps ground an apocalyptic reading of Paul by recovering the centrality of the church and its day-to-day Christic practices, specifically, but not exclusively, the Eucharist. To demonstrate this Miller first offers a critique of some contemporary accounts of agency in Paul in light of MacIntyre's work. Three exegetical chapters then establish a "MacIntyrian" rereading of central parts of the letter to the Romans. A concluding chapter offers theological syntheses and prospects for future research.

In March 2012 a small consultation convened on the campus of Princeton Theological Seminary, where James E. Loder Jr. had served for forty years as the Mary D. Synnott Professor of the Philosophy of Christian Education. Members from the Child Theology Movement had begun to read Loder's work and they wanted to go further. So they invited former students of Loder's to meet with them for conversations about things that really mattered to them and to Loder: human beings (and especially children), the church's witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and discerning the work of Spiritus Creator in the postmodern world. The conversations proved rich and rewarding and some would even say they took on a life of their own--serious scholarship set to the music of the Spirit's communion-creating artistry forming new relationships, inspiring new ideas, and sustaining all of it amid much laughter, joy, and hope. These essays, taken from the papers delivered at the consultation, are offered as a means of extending that conversation inspired by Loder's interdisciplinary practical theological science and his discernment of the "logic of the Spirit." They are offered with confidence that the same Spirit continues to work in all persons who hope for the Spirit's redemptive transformation of all creation, beginning with children.

The Eucharist has become the central act of Christian life and worship. Unresolved disagreements about it, however, remain as obstacles to religious unity, and to developing a eucharistic spirituality adapted to the unpredictable standards of a deconstructed, critically driven, postmodern age. Beginning with a reassessment of medieval ""realist"" doctrines of the Eucharist, Beyond the Body argues that the real meaning of the Words of Institution is their use in fulfilling the Last Supper command of Jesus to be remembered. Where traditional doctrines of the Eucharist and their corresponding forms of piety dead-end in intellectual conundrum or disembodied symbolism, that command evokes a world of transformative events with the historical Jesus of the Last Supper as real and constant partner. As an ""antitheology"" the task of this book is to sketch the intellectual footprint of a nonmetaphysical eucharistic faith. Setting aside traditional approaches, however, will have been worth it only if this enables a eucharistic belief that meets the needs of and is fruitful for religious life in general. Its ultimate goal is to refocus eucharistic piety on the liturgical act itself as a transformative event united in time with the person of Jesus in both remembrance and thanksgiving.

Pioneer missionary Timothy Richard served forty-five years in China and became a household name among educated Chinese. Largely forgotten for decades, his amazing life is reintroduced in this most welcome volume. In 1880, Richard first articulated a vision for modern higher education as the basis for overall progress in China. His influence grew, along with high official honors, after 1891 when he became general secretary of the Christian Literature Society and continued as a leader in the Educational Association of China. By the mid-1890s, many Chinese scholars and officials began to embrace his expanding vision and approach to reform.After the 1900 Boxer Uprising, Richard was invited by the Chinese government to represent Protestant missions, advising and mediating the settlement for the losses of life and property, especially heavy in Shanxi. Following his recommendation, which received Imperial approval by June 1901, the province paid a fine, but it was used to found a college of Western learning in its capital city. The Imperial University of Shansi (now Shanxi University), with Chinese and Western Learning Departments, and overseen by Richard and the provincial governor as joint chancellors, was to serve as the model institution in a national system of modern higher education.

The divisions that mark my subject are three. The first is that point where the world begins--where it appears from out of the mystery of non-being. The second lies somewhere between its progeny and its future--the times between beginnings and ends where we, the beneficiaries of our being-here, come together to sing a celebration of the wonder that it happened at all, and then intone the fear of its ending. The third division is a speculation on ends--our own and the ending of the world.I use these divisions to locate a something that comes from nothing onto a historical tradition that imposes a value on the progression of that something, and so requires a judgment on all that has passed. I first discuss these through religious attempts to invest life and history with purpose--for they form the major explanatory traditions of Western culture and are a thematic source of much of its greatest art. I continue with an art-critical approach where themes of process and purpose are located in artworks through their stylistic histories and ambitions. I indicate how present art, when open to reconstitute such themes, could change the nature of today's efforts to give art polemical purposes, and so provide new reasons for its making. I conclude with some stories, unevenly biographical, partly fictional, which I offer as parables for the developed themes and their transformations. This last aim is to elucidate a view of art as providing specific symbols for a cosmology of beginning, living, and ending.

In this book, Ikenna Okafor tackles an interesting and timely topic and demonstrates competence and maturity in developing his insight into Igbo humanism--to make liberation theology from an African perspective into a theology of solidarity and fraternity. With a good narrative style, Okafor critiques the Latin American liberation theological project. And inspired by the hermeneutical implications of ""UBE NAWANNE,"" the evangelical positioning of material poverty and pathos for the poor as defining Christian discipleship is persuasively presented. The potent nwanne idiom guides his critical evaluation of the social teachings and praxis of the Catholic Church.In fact, it is clear that Okafor embarked on a subject matter that is of theological moment and has creative pastoral implications for the Church of Nigeria, the Churches of Africa, and the World Church.

Based on linguistic and thematic links in the narrative, The Turning Point in the Gospel of Mark argues that the twin pericopae of Peter's confession (8:27-38) and the Transfiguration (9:2-13) together function as the turning point of the Gospel and serve in a Janus-like manner enabling the reader to see the author's main focus: the identity of Jesus and the significance of that reality for his disciples. Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah faces backward toward the Prologue (1:1-13) and functions as a mid-course conclusion. The declaration by God on the mountain faces forward and foreshadows the end-course conclusion (14:61-62; 15:39; Son of God). Jesus, in response, teaches that the Son of Man must suffer and die before being raised from the dead (8:31). Christologically, the images of Messiah, Son of Man, and Son of God converge and present Jesus, the crucified, as king, ushering in the kingdom of God in power (9:1 acting as the key swivel between the twin pericopae). When one is confronted with this Jesus, though there remains something elusive about him and the kingdom of God in the narrative, the only wise decision (after calculating the costs, 8:34-38) is to follow.

Matthew's Gospel contains material unique to it among the canonical Gospels. What is the background for this material? Why does the writer of Matthew's Gospel tell the story of Jesus in the way he does--including women in his genealogy, telling the story of the birth of Jesus in his particular way, and including the visit of the magi led by a star? Enoch and the Gospel of Matthew shows that the writer of Matthew was familiar with themes and traditions about the antediluvian patriarch Enoch, including the story of the fall of the angels called "watchers," who transgress their heavenly boundaries to engage in illicit relations with women and teach them forbidden arts. The Gospel writer shows that Jesus brings about the eschatological repair of the consequences of the watchers' fall as told in the Enochic legend. This study focuses on Matthew's genealogy and infancy narrative and also has implications for the study of women in Matthew, since it is often through the stories of women in Matthew that the repair of the watchers' transgression takes place.

Pittsburgh Theological Monograph - New Series General Editor - Dikran Y. Hadidian

To many people, the four Gospels are seen as biographies of Jesus of Nazareth, who was declared by God to be his Son. To many more, these Gospels are works of theology, incorporating the myths, stories, and legends surrounding a then little-known young Jew who lived two thousand years ago. This book explores the reasons why such a comparatively obscure person should be called "Son of God" soon after his death. William Broad sets stories of Jesus against the backdrop of the religions of the time and shows how St. Paul in Greece chose the mythical title "son of a god" for Jesus as being one that would attract the attention of his Gentile hearers and reveal his great significance. However, Broad notes that Jesus was not the first historical person to have been called a son of god. Alexander the Great had been so titled 350 years before. Alexander or Jesus? explores stories of this remarkable king and shows that these tales significantly affected the way the Gospels declared the Divine Sonship of Jesus. It further reveals that Jesus' birth and his epiphany are not the unique events that many believe.

Contemporary philosophy and theology are ever more conscious of the fact that the model of relations between religion and culture developed in modernity is fundamentally flawed. The processes of the secularization of society, culture, and even religion are rooted in the dualistic vision of religion and culture introduced in the late Middle Ages. In seeking a way out, we need to explore domains of culture unaffected by Western European secular thinking.Russian thought is remarkably well prepared to formulate an alternative to secular modernity. Indeed, in Russian culture there was neither a Renaissance nor an Enlightenment. Eastern Christianity retained an integral patristic vision of human nature that had not been divided into separate ""natural"" and ""supernatural"" elements. These pre- and non-modern visions are now gaining exceptional value in the postmodern reality in which we find ourselves. The heritage of Russian Christian thought may serve as a source of inspiration for alternative approaches to religion and culture. In this respect, Russian thought may be compared with nouvelle theologie, Radical Orthodoxy, and other recent movements in Christian postsecular thought. For this reason it remains astonishingly contemporary.

When religious diversity is our reality, radical hospitality to people of other faiths is not a luxury but a necessity. More than necessary for our survival, radical hospitality to religious diversity is necessary if we are to thrive as a global society. By no means does the practice of hospitality in a multifaith world require that we be oblivious of our differences. On the contrary, it demands a respectful embrace of our differences because that''s who we are. Neither does radical hospitality require that we water down our commitment, because faithfulness and openness are not contradictory. We must be able to say with burning passion that we are open to the claims of other faiths because we are faithful to our religious heritage. The essays in this book do not offer simply theological exhortations; they offer specific ways of how we can become religiously competent citizens in a multifaith world. Let''s take the bold steps of radical openness with this book on our side!""If the 2016 presidential election is any barometer, it would seem that the most vibrant segments of the North American church expend much more of their energy attempting to protect their own religious freedoms than understand religious others. If there is any hope for the latter prospect, our seminaries and divinity schools have to lead the way. Fortunately there are colleagues like those writing for this volume who can help us cultivate the virtues, competencies, dispositions, and practices needed for the American ''melting pot'' and global world of the twenty-first century. All theological educators concerned about vital and authentic Christian witness in today''s pluralistic world must read this book!""--Amos Yong, Professor of Theology & Mission, Fuller Theological SeminaryEleazar S. Fernandez is Professor of Constructive Theology at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and President of Union Theological Seminary in the Philippines. He is the editor of Teaching for a Culturally Diverse and Racially Just World (2014) and author of Burning Center, Porous Borders (Wipf & Stock, 2011).

This long-standing series provides the guild of religion scholars a venue for publishing aimed primarily at colleagues. It includes scholarly monographs, revised dissertations, Festschriften, conference papers, and translations of ancient and medieval documents. Works cover the sub-disciplines of biblical studies, history of Christianity, history of religion, theology, and ethics. Festschriften for Karl Barth, Donald W. Dayton, James Luther Mays, Margaret R. Miles, and Walter Wink are among the seventy-five volumes that have been published. Contributors include: C. K. Barrett, Francois Bovon, Paul S. Chung, Marie-Helene Davies, Frederick Herzog, Ben F. Meyer, Pamela Ann Moeller, Rudolf Pesch, D. Z. Phillips, Rudolf Schnackenburgm Eduard Schweizer, John Vissers