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In a society that is increasingly marked by apathy, division, and moral incompetence, how might Christians set about working with others in such a way as to begin to address those challenges that seem to overwhelm our capacity to respond? In Radical Friendship, Ryan Newson argues that the often-neglected practice of communal discernment provides a path to faithful political engagement that is worthy of reconsideration, especially given its ability to create authentic friendships both within and beyond the church. Such friendships, Newson maintains, are capable of fostering a type of competence in people who engage the practice that can counteract those social, political forces that are antit...
"I have come not to bring peace, but a sword." These words of Christ echo in our current times. In recent years, a growing number of commentators have decried a lack of civility in public discourse. Considered in isolation this concern is innocent enough, but no call for civility happens in a vacuum, and there is good reason to be suspicious of civility in our current political context. Calls for civility can encourage passivity and blunt prophetic action against injustice; further, truly heinous policies can be pursued under the guise of civility. And yet civility should not be dismissed outright, especially as presented by its more nuanced defenders, when it is presented as a limited good ...
Beginning with her award-winning book Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (1990), Nancey Murphy has used philosophy of science as a way into, and catalyst for, fresh thinking in cosmology, divine action, epistemology, cognitive neuroscience, theological anthropology, philosophy of mind, and Christian virtue ethics. The essays in this book, written by her students and colleagues, creatively honor Murphy by extending a number of her core insights within their respective disciplines. An introduction provides both an account of Murphy's unique location (an Anabaptist teaching at an evangelical graduate institution) and a summary of her contributions to theology as a philosopher of scienc...
In Christ and the Common Life Luke Bretherton provides an introduction to historical and contemporary theological reflection on politics and opens up a compelling vision for a Christian commitment to democracy. In dialogue with Scripture and various traditions, Bretherton examines the dynamic relationship between who we are in relation to God and who we are as moral and political animals. He addresses fundamental political questions about poverty and injustice, forming a common life with strangers, and handling power constructively. And through his analysis of debates concerning, among other things, race, class, economics, the environment, and interfaith relations, he develops an innovativ...
This book attempts to identify a central problem within the North American evangelical imagination around the issue of religious experience and its relationship to the basic hermeneutical stance of biblical and theological interpretation. The relatively recent emergence of the academic discipline of Christian spirituality offers a new set of methodological insights that may help to mediate the theological impasse between more conservative and progressive perspectives concerning the appropriate role of human experience for evangelical thought and practice. Specifically, we will explore the experience of religious conversion that lies at the center of evangelical spirituality in critical dialogue with the challenges and opportunities brought about by recent philosophical discourse and the postmodern turn, variously understood.
What do we do when a beloved comedian known as 'America's Dad' is convicted of sexual assault? Or when we discover that the man who wrote 'all men are created equal' also enslaved hundreds of people? Or when priests are exposed as pedophiles? From the popular to the political to the profound, each day brings new revelations that respected people, traditions, and institutions are not what we thought they were. Despite the shock that these disclosures produce, this state of affairs is anything but new. Facing the concrete task of living well when our best moral resources are not only contaminated but also potentially corrupting is an enduring feature of human experience. In this book, Karen V. Guth identifies 'tainted legacies' as a pressing contemporary moral problem and ethical challenge. Constructing a typology of responses to compromised thinkers, traditions, and institutions, she demonstrates the relevance of age-old debates in Christian theology for those who confront legacies tarnished by the traumas of slavery, racism, and sexual violence.
For four decades, the Rev. Dr. Jonathan R. Wilson has cultivated an imagination for “kingdom realism” as a pastor, teacher, theologian, and friend. To celebrate his seventieth birthday, Kingdom Come has gathered reflections from fellow theologians, popular authors, poets, and practitioners to mark both the range of Wilson’s influence on the Christian church and the consistency of his prayer and work for God’s kingdom to come here on earth as it is in heaven.
White supremacy and racialized violence have animated much of society and church in the United States. Many people of goodwill are grasping for what to do in the face of such broad-reaching and painful wounds. From tracing the emergence of the modern concept of race to observing the evolution of Confederate monuments, Listening as Hosts: Liturgically Facing Colonization and White Supremacy crafts a picture of these historical dynamics and seeks to offer forms of liturgical resistance for churches and spiritual communities. Pastors, spiritual leaders, churches, and people of no faith at all will find invitations to listen deeply, to discard oppressive expressions of Christianity, and to search for community with one another and with the earth.
Witnessing Whiteness identifies the roots of white supremacy within the Christian church's theology and practice, and argues that the white church has a particular, and fundamental, responsibility to address it. Employing the shared resources of white traditionalist witness theology and black liberationist theology, and attending to the criticisms liberation theology directs at traditionalism, it proposes concrete practices to challenge the white church'sand white theology's complicity in white supremacy.
Atheists are a growing but marginalized group in the American religious patchwork and they have been the target of ridicule and discrimination throughout the nation’s history. This book is the first comprehensive study of anti-atheism in the United States. It traces anti-atheism through five centuries of American history from colonization to the era of Donald Trump and contemporary conspiracy ideologies, such as the atheist New World Order. Describing anti-atheist prejudices and explaining the social and psychological mechanisms behind anti-atheist attitudes, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, religious studies and history with interests in religion in the United States.