Bücher veröffentlicht von Pickwick Publications

In the face of today's unprecedented ecological crisis, Christianity is often seen not only as sharing in the guilt of causing this crisis, but also as unwilling and incapable of providing any help in re-envisioning the required new way of life on earth. This view is justified when we consider how modern Christian theology has tended to denigrate the natural world and how the prevalent world-deserting Christian eschatology forms a spirituality that is fundamentally insensitive and indifferent to nature. In light of this, a meaningful Christian contribution to today's world of enormous ecological suffering must lie in envisioning a fundamentally new ecological vision of humanity's relationship to nature as well as providing an ethical energy to transform our current path of self-destruction. In this book, Bryan J. Lee finds, in Jurgen Moltmann's eschatological panentheism, a viable pathway toward a Christian ecological re-envisioning of the relationship between God and humanity and between humanity and nature. Furthermore, Lee demonstrates in a persuasive way how Christian worship can and should be the epicenter of ecological transformation of the society, emphatically interpreting Christian worship as an ecological-eschatological anticipation of God's cosmic perichoresis.

Clarity of vocational practice is key to clergy health. The center of clergy practice is the ministry of Word and Sacrament. What takes place at the pulpit, font or pool, and table is the divine intent and extent of ministry. While this may sound in-house and parochial in the extreme, it is both priestly and prophetic.John Weborg's argument in this book is that the clergy can be made healthy in ministry for ministry by maintaining vocational clarity. The priestly and prophetic acts of Word and Sacrament address the clergy before they address the congregation. Hence what is offered here is a spirituality through practices-the clergy are hearers before preachers, baptized before baptizers, communicants before celebrants.Neither a how-to book nor a work of pastoral theology, Made Healthy in Ministry for Ministry is aimed toward helping clergy appropriate the gifts and graces of the practices they are called and authorized to carry out.

What makes us authentically human? According to Maurice Friedman, world-renowned Martin Buber scholar, translator, and biographer, it is genuine dialogue. "When there's a willingness for dialogue," Friedman says, "then one must 'navigate' moment-by-moment. It's a listening process." Friedman addresses our humanity in ever-unique ways through his dialogue with philosophy, literature, religion, and psychotherapy. At least two things make this book new. Friedman presents his wide-ranging thought directly in five original essays forming an "intertextual compass," which is then elaborated upon by colleagues familiar with his work. Second, a special feature of this book is found at the end of each part which invites readers to engage with questions drawn from and pointing toward Friedman's writing. The book's intended audience includes teachers, scholars, and students interested in dialogical approaches to any of the human sciences. In a time when we are in danger of losing our human birthright, Friedman's interdisciplinary insights point us again to "the touch of the other."

This is the twelfth volume of the hard-copy edition of a journal that has been published online (www.jgrchj.net) since 2000. Volume 1 was for 2000, Volume 2 was for 2001-2005, Volume 3 was for 2006, Volume 4 was for 2007, Volume 5 was for 2008, Volume 6 was for 2009, Volume 7 was for 2010, Volume 8 was for 2011-2012, Volume 9 was for 2013, Volume 10 was for 2014, Volume 11 was for 2015 and Volume 12 is for 2016. As they appear, the hard-copy editions will replace the online materials. The scope of JGRChJ is the texts, language and cultures of the Greco-Roman world of early Christianity and Judaism. The papers published in JGRChJ are designed to pay special attention to the 'larger picture' of politics, culture, religion and language, engaging as well with modern theoretical approaches.

In January 2017 Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, said that it looks as if the world is preparing for war. And Pope Francis noted that war is already being fought piecemeal around the world. In this book we argue that since violence begets violence, we must privilege soft power over military might, if we are to have peace on earth. Gandhi used soft power in India overcame British military might, and King used it to bring about integration in the 1960s. Soft power brought about the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the Kyoto climate agreement, and Iran's agreement to refrain from making nuclear weapons. Soft power involves both dialogue between world leaders and conflict resolution, and privileges diplomacy over war. As General James Mattis said in 2013, "If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition."

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, modern thinkers came to believe that our notion of truth should be objective, certain, and precise. Mathematics became the model for how truth should be conceptualized, and we sought to eliminate ideas that were vague, ambiguous, or contradictory. This inevitably led to our belief that the truth of the Gospel must be conceptualized in the same way, and much of modern theology saw the defense of the Gospel in these terms as its task. The teachings of Jesus, however, are often vague, ambiguous, and even contradictory. Fortunately, a twenty-first century understanding of the human condition has debunked the modern notion of truth, showing it to be truncated at best. Truth, at least as we have access to it, is very different from what our early modern ancestors imagined. This is especially good news since the truth of the Gospel was never compatible with modernity's notion of truth as objective, certain, and precise. Consequently, we are now free to rethink our notion of truth in a way that is compatible with the things that Jesus said and did, and equally compatible with what we now know to be our access to truth given the limits of our human condition. This volume sets out to explore these issues in depth and examine what it might mean for us to speak of the truth of the Gospel in a twenty-first century context.

Sets of seven. 666. The Whore of Babylon and the Seven-headed Beast. How would first-century readers have heard these things? One can get at an answer by asking, How does the Book of Revelation compare with contemporaneous Jewish apocalypses? God's Timetable unlocks the hitherto unseen Jewish background to the Apocalypse based on the seven weeks leading up to Pentecost, the Harvest Feast. The meaning of Revelation suddenly becomes clearer. Stramara situates the Book of Revelation in its original context as a prophetic work regarding the end of the world, the final harvest, and Jesus as the fulfillment of expectations.

Since its inception in 1968, the brain-death criterion for human death has enjoyed the status of one of the few relatively well-settled issues in bioethics. However, over the last fifteen years or so, a growing number of experts in medicine, philosophy, and religion have come to regard brain death as an untenable criterion for the determination of death. Given that the debate about brain death has occupied a relatively small group of professionals, few are aware that brain death fails to correspond to any coherent biological or philosophical conception of death. This is significant, for if the brain-dead are not dead, then the removal of their vital organs for transplantation is the direct cause of their deaths, and a violation of the Dead Donor Rule.This unique monograph synthesizes the social, legal, medical, religious, and philosophical problems inherent in current social policy allowing for organ donation under the brain-death criterion. In so doing, this bioethical appraisal offers a provocative investigation of the ethical quandaries inherent in the way transplantable organs are currently procured. Drawing together these multidisciplinary threads, this book advocates the abandonment of the brain-death criterion in light of its adverse failures, and concludes by laying the groundwork for a new policy of death in an effort to further the good of organ donation and transplantation.

""For Thais, face is a fact,"" writes Flanders. However, ""whether in theology, evangelism, or issues involving sin, salvation, or atonement, Thai Christians and missionaries alike seem either uninterested in or possibly incapable of addressing issues related to face. This glaring incongruity between the value of face for Thais and the lack of intentional engagement within the Thai Christian community is deeply troubling.""Surely, such a lack of careful attention to face is a dangerous posture. Uncritical views of face, furtively attaching to the theology of the Thai church, are potentially detrimental for its life and mission. Such seems to be an unavoidable situation without proper attention to face. Additionally, to ignore face is to run the risk of missing valuable cultural resources, implicit in the Thai experience of face, for the critical task of authentic Thai theological reflection.""This lack of engagement with face raises critical issues with which we must wrestle. How is it that such a central sociocultural issue has not been a more significant part of the Thai Christian vocabulary or experience? How pervasive are these negative attitudes regarding face? What lies behind them? Might this lack of self-conscious engagement with face have any relationship to the persistent Thai perception of Christianity as a foreign, Western religion? How should Christians understand this notion of face and how it relates to the ways we understand and proclaim the gospel?""

Theologies of Power and Crisis provides a case study for Eric Wolf's research directive to better comprehend the interplay of cultural (webs of meaning) and material (webs of power) forms of social life. More specifically, the book demonstrates how theological discourse and practice engage with historical and material relations of power. It has been normative to speak of power in terms of political and economic processes and theology in terms of interpretive and symbolic experiences. This work breaks new ground by linking theological ideas with political-economic processes in terms of the structural relations of power.Ethnographically, this research investigates the theological processes of Hong Kong Chinese Christians during a period of significant social change and crisis, precipitated by the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It shows how local Christians and Christian institutions mediated the significant regional, national, and transnational forces of political-economic change by connecting theological practice to the structural relations of power. The Christian response was a contested process closely intertwined with the broader contested processes of social organization.This study develops an understanding of Christianity that goes beyond ecclesiastical hegemony to encompass struggles over human practice, meaning, and representation in relation to the changing political-economic context. These findings implicate religious ideas and practice as significant to an understanding of social inequalities and powerlessness by connecting ideologies to material conditions. Christian ideas may be used to legitimize an oppressive social order or they may be used to liberate those who are oppressed. Issues related to the policies and practice of development should take seriously the role of religious beliefs and practices.

Motivated by a desire for meaningful work and a life of adventure, women college graduates in North America and Western Europe became student secretaries for the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF). In their role as student secretaries, women worked to create student movements where none had existed, to support fledgling movements, and to embed themselves in movements that already existed. Women thus played an important role in the first decades of the WSCF, when the organization was involved with affiliating national Christian student groups across the globe. Women secretaries extended to students around the world the fellowship and hospitality they had discovered during their times in higher education. The simple fellowship led to creative programs of self-help, refugee relief, and small-group work that formed the basis for outreach in the post-World War I era. As the Federation adapted to a changing student culture, the movement itself became more ecumenical and focused on social issues. The resilience of the Federation can be attributed in large measure to the work of women secretaries in the field who created networks and friendships that persisted during peace and war. The presence of student organizations, such as the WSCF and others, on university campuses today can be traced to the work of women secretaries in the early decades of the WSCF. This book explores some of their stories.

There is a seeming dichotomy in C. S. Lewis's writing. On the one hand we see the writer of argumentative works, and on the other hand we have the imaginative poet. Lewis also found this dichotomy within himself. When he was a rationalist and atheist he found that these two sides of him were pulling in different directions: he believed that his rationalist side could not be reconciled with his imaginative side. Once he became a Christian, he eventually found a means of marrying the two--principally, through story and myth.Within C. S. Lewis studies, there is also a common conception of Lewis as a modern rationalist philosopher, i.e., a rationalist who thinks arguments (and his arguments in particular) are the last answer on the questions he undertakes. Reasoning beyond Reason attempts to take this view to task by placing Lewis back into his pre-modern context and showing that his sources and influences are classical ones. In this process Lewis is viewed through the idea that imagination and reason are connected in an intimate way: they are different expressions of a single divine source of truth, and there is an imagination already present upon which reason works. Lewis's ""transpositional"" view of imagination implicitly pushes towards a somewhat radical position: the imagination is to be seen as theological in its reliance upon something more than the merely material; it necessarily relies on a transcendent funding for its use and meaning. In other words, the imagination is a well-source for what we might normally label ""rational.""

What is the theologia crucis--the theology of the cross--and what are its radical claims? Which theologians stood within this subversive tradition, and is Karl Barth amongst them? In this volume New Zealand theologian Rosalene Bradbury throws light on these--surprisingly contentious--questions. She argues convincingly that tethered to the tradition that gave rise to it, the term theologia crucis references a theological system centered around notions of false and true glory, and an ancient conviction that from the cross of Jesus Christ comes a revelatory and a saving Word. The apostle Paul, Athanasius, a school of medieval mystics, and the Reformer Martin Luther, are all shown to be significant classical representatives of these ideas. Bradbury then argues that seminal twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth exhibits many of the classical crucicentric system's defining characteristics, so that he himself might fairly be deemed a modern theologian of the cross. Until now Barth's pivotal role in this long, thin, crucicentric tradition has been unsung. This book thus sheds important new light on Barth's theology.

This study of the work of noted liberal theologian Gordon Kaufman tracks his career from his first published book, Relativism, Knowledge, and Faith (1960) through his 2006 book, Jesus and Creativity, in light of recent conversations about divine action and modern scientific knowledge. James interprets Kaufman's mature position as a sophisticated reconstruction of divine activity that makes use of recent scientific theory and its naturalistic assumptions in order to revitalize a theocentric frame of reference rooted in classical theological tradition. Though there are costs to be paid in the construction of a theology of "radical naturalism," particularly with respect to the relation between divine action and the human good, Kaufman's program offers a distinctive way forward. After developing a critical analysis of the limitations and possibilities of Kaufman's mature position, James suggests that a christological reconsideration of the meaning of human flourishing offers the prospect of an even more radically naturalistic and theocentric theology.

This collection of essays is committed to the belief that evangelicalism continues to have the historical assets and intellectual (hermeneutical and theological) tools able to contribute to the global church. Evangelicalism possesses assets with explanatory power to address significant theological and cultural issues arising out of the churches in the Global South. Evangelical approaches to contextualization and biblical studies can produce valuable fruit. Therefore in May 2008 over a dozen evangelical scholars (Chinese and Western) from the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan, came together to address issues of Christian and evangelical identity. The "Inter-Cultural Theological Conversation" was titled "Beyond Our Past: Bible, Cultural Identity, and the Global Evangelical Movement." This collection of papers from the conference demonstrates the value of the careful balancing of judicious appropriation of the social sciences and thorough biblical inquiry. Questions of evangelical identity in China and around the world are addressed from the disciplines of history, biblical studies, and systematic theology/contextualization.

Every Tribe and Tongue offers a way, first, to rediscover biblical stories and principles that relate to questions about immigration and societal multilingualism, and, second, to outline possible ways to guide thoughtful engagement in the discourse of the ""public square"" based on the biblical witness. We will try to show that, far from being an afterthought in the Bible, the call to love our neighbors and to gather people of every nation together in the worship of God is at the very core of the gospel message.Two powerful passions animate this book from beginning to end. First, this work is saturated in a deeply rooted love of the diversity of human languages that are one of God's gracious gifts to human beings. Second, this book is dedicated to calling the North American church to take seriously its charge not simply to love the ""stranger and alien"" but to live as ""strangers and aliens"" within the American nation to which it has been called to witness to Jesus Christ.

The Tradition of the Gospel Christians explores the post-Soviet tradition of evangelical Christians originating from the ministry of the Victorian revivalist preacher Lord Radstock in St. Petersburg in the 1870s. In an effort to resolve the current evangelical crises of theology and identity, this study provides an analysis of the tradition's history reflecting on its restorationist tradition, the contours and vectors of its theology, and its practice of biblical interpretation. The historical analysis reveals that the major causes of the crises of identity and theology pertain to the socio-political upheavals, which, in turn, led the tradition to develop strategies to maintain relevance in its changed contexts. The socio-political shifts were also responsible for the lack of emphasis on research and scholarship, which contributed to a difficulty in finding the necessary resources and intellectual virtues to deal with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Building on the discoveries of the historical analysis, Andrei P. Puzynin offers a new historical and theological paradigm by reconstructing the self-identifying narrative and theological framework in critical dialogue with recent developments in Anglo-American evangelicalism and postliberalism. Following the trajectory of the evangelical tradition in the post-Soviet context, a trajectory which relies on Western thought, the book adopts the narrative theological method of reading the world though the lens of Scripture. The self-identifying narrative of the community is reconstructed through a theological reading of the previous identity-constructions, in the light of recent discussions on Christ and the powers. The result of this study helpfully explains the dynamics of Eastern evangelicalism in a traditionally Russian Orthodox setting.

Is theology possible within a Christian university? Beneath the emphasis of contextual, philosophical, and ecclesial pluralism, what is its academic nature? Further, who can participate in it? Recent debates and discussions by theologians that touch upon these questions seem to run in circles: theology is an academic specialty enjoying academic freedom; theology must bolster ecclesial identity, become more catechetical, and serve the church; theology must contribute to and shape public policy. Though such positions recur, they overlook latent but interrelated characteristics embedded within the nature and place of theology within the Christian university that affect them all. Upon analysis of four major theologians, Friedrich Schleiermacher, John Henry Newman, Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., and Edward Farley, I argue that there are two major patterns at work. First, theology is more a sapientia or wisdom than a traditional academic discipline. Second, all descriptions of theology in the university possess an inclusive or exclusive soteriological character. These patterns pervade diverse topics: the relationship of theology to the church authority, a theologian's ecclesial and academic commitments, the preconditions of faith for theological understanding, participation in a religious symbol system, theology as wisdom, and the difference between religion and theology. How one implicitly defines Christian salvation regarding the place of theology in the Christian university opens or closes the practice of theology to those who teach and learn it.

The contributions to the collection Systems Theory and Theology explore the interplay between systems theory, religion and theology, and the symbolic expressions and philosophical foundations of these academic disciplines. This endeavor is rooted in the oeuvre of the late Austrian physicist Alfred Locker (1922-2005), who firmly believed that systems theory would finally emerge, some sixty years after von Bertalanffy's seminal work on General System Theory, as a bridge-building metatheory between the sciences and religion. The essays in this volume show, however, that such conversation transcends the usual form of dialogue among these disciplines. The studies contained in this collection enter into a critical evaluation and reassessment of the dominant postulates of scientific and theological systems and their interaction. Systems Theory and Theology includes treatments of paradoxes (A. Locker), the inner sciences (Zwick), systems of meaning (Krieger), philosophy (Murphy), theology (Sedmak), isomorphies of religious symbols (Zwick), and the bridging of science and religion (M. Locker).

Finding Salvation in Christ brings together some of the most important figures in contemporary theology to honor the work of William Loewe, systematic theologian and specialist in the theology of Bernard Lonergan, SJ. For over three decades Loewe's writings have sought to make classic christological and soteriological doctrines comprehensible to a Catholic Church that is working to integrate individual subjectivity, communal living, and historical consciousness in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Essays included in this volume assess Loewe's reinterpretation of patristic and medieval Christology from Irenaeus to Anselm of Canterbury, and explain the significance of the theology of Lonergan and Loewe for the fields of soteriology, economics, family life, and interreligious theology.While some recent postliberal theologies have polarized the church's relationship with contemporary culture by minimizing similarities between Christianity and other worldviews, the contributors in this volume continue Lonergan's project of integrating the findings of various intellectual disciplines with Christian theology, and use Loewe's historical and systematic work as a guide in that endeavor. While Lonergan's ""transcendental Thomism"" has been criticized by both traditionalists and revisionists, essays in this collection apply Loewe's theological methodology in a variety of ways to demonstrate that time-honored doctrines about Christ can be transplanted into new cultural contexts and gain intelligibility and credibility in this process. Having lived and labored through the far-reaching changes in Catholic thought introduced in recent decades, Loewe's career provides a model for theologians attempting to build bridges between the past and the present, and between the church and the world.

This book is a constructive attempt at formulating a contemporary Pentecostal theology grounded in worship and witness. The theological vision expounded here is grounded in the Pentecostal story with its emphasis upon the fivefold Gospel. The doxological confession of Jesus as Savior, Sanctifier, Spirit Baptizer, Healer, and soon coming King provide the basic organizational structure of a Pentecostal narrative theology. Each chapter takes seriously these central convictions and allows them to shape, form, and reform various theological loci. Important issues such as methodology, hermeneutics, and theology as embodied worship and witness are addressed. The result is a vibrant and integrative theology fueled by a dynamic spirituality.

Many in Victorian England harbored deep suspicion of convent life. In addition to looking at anti-Catholicism and the fear of both Anglican and Catholic sisterhoods that were established during the nineteenth century, this work explores the prejudice that existed against women in Victorian England who joined sisterhoods and worked in orphanages and in education and were comitted to social work among the urban poor. Women, according to some of these critics, should remain passive in matters of religion. Nuns, however, did play an important role in many areas of life in nineteenth-century England and faced hostility from many who felt threatened and challenged by members of female religious orders. The accomplishments of the nineteenth-century nuns and the opposition they overcame should serve as both an example and encouragement to all men and women committed to the Gospel.

Like Leonard Smith's larger study, Religion and the Rise of History, this essay, Martin Luther's Two Ways of Viewing Life, asserts that Luther's well-known ""at-the-same-time,"" simul, or paradoxical way of viewing life does not capture Luther's thought as a whole, because it does not represent his deeply incarnational and dynamic, mystical and holistic, particularizing and historical way of viewing life based on the power of the Word and the Spirit of God either in his own life or in human history.Smith contends (1) that the best way to capture Luther's ""second"" basic way of thinking and of viewing life is through the connected prepositions (connected especially for Lutherans) ""in, with, and under""; (2) that this second basic way was based primarily on the Gospel of John and its great Prologue, which shows how God is acting, creating, and redeeming, and how Jesus is ""the Word become flesh""; and (3) that understanding both of Luther's ways of viewing life is helpful for understanding Lutheran education and ""a Lutheran ethos"" since the sixteenth century. Since this brief essay is written primarly for a general audience, it can easily be used as a text or supplementary reading for a class, seminary, or group discussion.