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Abiding Faith
Australian theologian Scott Cowdell explores how 'having faith' has changed under the influence of modernity and post-modernity in the West. Following the understanding of faith typical of Saint Paul, the Fathers and the medieval monastic theologians, faith is returned from pious sentimentality and arid philosophy of religion to the realm of 'participating knowing', 'paradigmatic imagination', and personal transformation where it belongs as a 'form of life', shaped by encounter with Jesus Christ and worked out through the Eucharistic community.
René Girard and the Nonviolent God
In his latest book on the ground-breaking work of René Girard (1923–2015), Scott Cowdell sets out a new perspective on mimetic theory and theology: he develops the proposed connection between Girardian thought and theological dramatic theory in new directions, engaging with issues of evolutionary suffering and divine providence, inclusive Christian uniqueness, God's judgment, nonviolent atonement, and the spiritual life. Cowdell reveals a powerful, illuminating, and life-enhancing synergy between mimetic theory and Christianity at its best. With religion widely seen as increasingly violent and intransigent, the true Christian emphasis on divine solidarity, mercy, and healing is in danger ...
Why Church?
An argument for the centrality of the Eucharistic church in an increasingly tribal world. As Western culture has secularized, the church has increasingly become marginalized and is seen as providing support and optional resources, rather than indispensable to the Christian life. In this volume, theologian Scott Cowdell argues for a recovery of the church as the proper context for Christian faith, life, and mission. In Why Church? Cowdell considers how we have arrived at this moment, examining how perceptions of the church have changed in response to increasing individualism and institutional failings. Suggesting that the Eucharistic Church embodies Christ's desire to draw humankind to him, Cowdell shows how the Christian life depends on Christian community. Written with adult formation in mind and from a perspective of generous orthodoxy, Why Church? makes a provocative case for the centrality of the church to Christian life. Discussion questions at the conclusion of each chapter offer provocative conversation starters for any adult education group.
René Girard and Secular Modernity
In René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis, Scott Cowdell provides the first systematic interpretation of René Girard’s controversial approach to secular modernity. Cowdell identifies the scope, development, and implications of Girard’s thought, the centrality of Christ in Girard's thinking, and, in particular, Girard's distinctive take on the uniqueness and finality of Christ in terms of his impact on Western culture. In Girard’s singular vision, according to Cowdell, secular modernity has emerged thanks to the Bible’s exposure of the cathartic violence that is at the root of religious prohibitions, myths, and rituals. In the literature, the psychology, and ...
The Ten Commandments and Ethics Today
"This book discusses the Ten Commandments as found in the Bible and their relevance to ethical and moral decisions in the 21st century."--Provided by publisher.
Mimetic Theory and Its Shadow
Leading Girardian theologian Scott Cowdell seeks to resolve a long-standing challenge to mimetic theory: that it entails a fundamental brutishness—an ontological violence. Girard’s account of scapegoating violence, seen as providing the initial stability for our species to emerge and consolidate, hardly seems compatible with Christian belief in God’s good creation, with violence only appearing after a subsequent Fall. The brilliant but controversial theologian John Milbank has long raised this concern about Girard, grounded in a remarkably sophisticated (though seldom fathomed) philosophical theology. Unpacking Milbank’s program, along with Girard’s recasting of Continental philoso...
Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 1
Violence, Desire and the Sacred presents the most up-to-date inter-disciplinary work being developed with the ground-breaking insights of René Girard's mimetic theory. The collection showcases the work of outstanding scholars in mimetic theory and how they are applying and developing Girard's insights in a variety of fields. Girard's mimetic insight has provided a fruitful way for different disciplines, such as literature, anthropology, theology, religion studies, cultural studies, and philosophy, to engage on common anthropological ground, with a shared understanding of the human person. The aim of this edited collection is to present this interdisciplinary work and to illustrate how Girard's insights provide fertile ground for bringing together disparate disciplines in a shared purpose. As academic work on Girard's insights is growing, this collection would meet the need to show the critical, interdisciplinary applications of these insights.
Church Matters
This selection of essays and addresses, most of them previously published either in books, journals or online between 1996 and 2021, reflects the theological journey of a distinguished Anglican priest and theologian. Written primarily within the Anglican tradition where he has worked as pastor and teacher, the reflections raise significant issues of concern for churches everywhere. Informed by sources as varied as Banjo Paterson and Ignatius of Loyola, the essays throughout raise primary questions of how the church matters in contemporary Australian society, where Christianity and church are increasingly at the margins of people's concerns and where various ways of being church compete for the attention of congregations and their leaders. This 'gift of secularisation', he suggests, is an opportunity for the church to reconsider what is important in its traditions and structures; and asks what may be needed to bring the churches to a fresh understanding of the reasons for their very existence. Informed, challenging, accessible and encouraging, Church Matters is an important book in these difficult times for the churches in Australia and beyond.
Truth and the Reality of God
Belief in the possibility of truth demonstrates a belief in God. Professor Markham places this striking argument, which lies at the very heart of Augustinian theology, within the modern debate about truth and defends its underlying claim. Belief in God is, he claims, an all-embracing world view about the nature of reality of which the possibility of truth is a part. Drawing on the work of St Augustine and St Anselm, Richard Rorty, Don Cupitt, and in particular Alasdair MacIntyre, Markham demonstrates that the necessary assumptions underpinning the realist account of truth must entail the existence of God. Referring to Nietzsche, and again to St Augustine, Markham concludes with the stark choice: either God and truth, or no God and no truth.
