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This book draws from Bloomquist's many years and formative experiences as a pastor, theologian, activist, seminary professor, and speaker in a number of settings--both within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and ecumenically and globally. Drawing insights from many sources, Seeing-Remembering-Connecting proposes a new "church in society" framework, so that faith communities can engage and transform the urgent systemic injustices confronting us today. This new framework, seeing-remembering-connecting, evokes ordinary practices that can engage those from diverse faith traditions and from no faith tradition, and points to the heart of what churches have long been about: God is becoming manifest in and through what these verbs imply--as transcendently immanent. Seeing-remembering-connecting is nurtured over the long term in faith communities, as they put together what is fragmentary or forgotten, point to what is true, and empower communities to see, remember, and act in organized actions with others--across boundaries of religion, geography, and self-interest.
Moving Beyond (moving beyond theology, contextualization, and binaries) is needed today globally, based on the author’s personal journey and critical challenges today, which call for new worldviews.
Here ten Lutheran theologians explore Lutheran emphases, themes, and approaches to offer their account of Christian ethics as a way of life in today's world. Writing in dialogue, they raise foundational concerns of biblical and theological sources and norms, of Christian freedom and responsibility, of call and social witness, of justice and formation in prayer. Then in a lively "Table Talk" the participants discuss and debate the tradition's insights and oversights and show how it might illumine today's burning ethical issues, such as homosexuality.
Lutheran tradition has in various ways influenced attitudes to work, the economy, the state, education, and health care. One reason that Lutheran theology has been interpreted in various ways is that it is always influenced by surrounding social andcultural contexts. In a society where the church has lost a great deal of its cultural impact and authority, and where there is a plurality of religious convictions, the question of Lutheran identity has never been more urgent. However, this question is also raised in the Global South where Lutheran churches need to find their identity in a relationship with several other religions. Here this relationship is developed from a minority perspective. Is it possible to develop a Lutheran political theology that gives adequate contributions to issues concerning social and economic justice? What is the role of women in church and society around the world? Is it possible to interpret Lutheran theology in such a way that it includes liberating perspectives? These are some of the questions and issues discussed in this book.
Martin Luther and Buddhism: Aesthetics of Suffering carefully traces the historical and theological context of Luther's breakthrough in terms of articulating justification and justice in connection to the Word of God and divine suffering. Chung critically and constructively engages in dialogue with Luther and with later interpreters of Luther such as Barth and Moltmann, placing the Reformer in dialogue not only with Asian spirituality and religions but also with emerging global theology of religions.
What, in Matthew’s view, should a human being become and how does one attain that ideal? In The Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Exercises: The Making of the Matthean Self, George Branch-Trevathan presents a new account of Matthew’s ethics and argues that the evangelist presents the Sermon on the Mount as functioning like many other ancient sayings collections, that is, as facilitating transformative work on oneself, or “spiritual exercises,” that enable one to realize the evangelist’s ideals. The conclusion suggests some implications for our understanding of ethical formation in antiquity and the study of ethics more generally. This will be an essential volume for scholars studying the Gospel of Matthew, early Christian ethics, the relationships between early Christian and ancient philosophical writings, or ethical formation in antiquity.
Where is Jesus Christ? This fundamental question is the starting point of this book, which investigates the shape of Christian life and ministry in a post-Christendom context. Over the last decades there has been a shift in much of Western theology towards focusing on Christian practices in ministry and theological education. This may be seen as a way to deal with theological anxiety in an era of heightened personal autonomy. In Practicing Baptism Bard Norheim critically analyzes the engagement in Christian practices. As a response to this engagement Norheim develops a missional and diaconal theology for ministry, focusing on the presence of Christ in Christian practices. Fundamentally, this is an attempt to answer a pressing question for today: What do Christians do? Norheim draws on Martin Luther's theology and his notion of the three modes of Christ's presence, the present tense of baptism, and Luther's idea of the marks of the church. Based on this reading of Luther's theology, Norheim suggests that Christian life and ministry could be interpreted through the concept practicing baptism.
In From Pentecost to the Triune God Steven Studebaker puts forth a provocative Pentecostal Trinitarian theology, arguing that the Holy Spirit completes the fellowship of the triune God and therefore shapes the identities of the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit, Studebaker maintains, is not simply a passive end-product of a procession from the Father and Son but, rather, a dynamic person who plays an active role in the Trinity and a constitutional, consummational role in the history of redemption. In the course of his study, Studebaker shows the theological yield of the Pentecostal experience of the Holy Spirit and uncovers the biblical narratives of the Spirit from creation to Pentecost. ...
Doing justice to the complexity of the preaching task and the questions that underlie it, Wilson organizes both the preparation and the content of the sermon around its "four pages." Each "page" addresses a different theological and creative component of what happens in any sermon. Page One presents the trouble or conflict that takes place in or that underscores the biblical text itself. Page Two looks at similar conflict--sin or brokenness--in our own time. Page Three returns to the Bible to identify where God is at work in or behind the text--in other words, to discover the good news. Page Four points to God at work in our world, particularly in relation to the situations described in Page Two.
Debate about the concept of virtue is a persistent theme in academic discourse. One strand of thinking attempts to examine and reconstruct ethical theories with the aim of formulating a new morality or ethics. A second strand of thought, more strongly represented in this work, attempts to explore the social and political world deploying the concept of virtue. Thus, this volume crosses the established borders of academic disciplines in order to provide a richer and more comprehensive understanding of the place of virtues in contemporary western societies. The editors hold that the dominating virtue of our culture and society is the virtue of independence. Yet independence, or individual auton...