Entering the New Theological Space

Entering the New Theological Space PDF Author: John Reader
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317142748
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This book presents theological reflections on the changing nature of church mission and Christian identity within a theology of 'blurred encounter' - a physical, social, political and spiritual space where once solid hierarchies and patterns are giving way to more fluid and in many ways unsettling exchanges. The issues raised and dynamics explored apply to all socially-produced space, thus tending to 'blur' that most fundamental of theological categories - namely urban vs. rural theology. Engaging in a sharper way with some of the helpful but inevitably broad-brush conclusions raised by recent church-based reports (Mission-shaped Church, Faithful Cities), the authors examine some of the practical and theological implications of this research for the issue of effective management and therefore church leadership generally. Speaking to practitioners in the field of practical theology as well as those engaged in theological and ministerial training, key voices encompass dimensions of power and conflict, and identify some of the present and future opportunities and challenges to church/faith-based engagement and leadership arising from blurred encounters. Contributors - practitioners and theorists - cover a wide spectrum of interdisciplinary professional contexts and academic/denominational interests. Contributors include: John Atherton, John Reader, Helen Cameron, Martyn Percy, Malcolm Brown, Karen Lord, Clare McBeath and Margaret Goodall.

Entering the New Theological Space

Entering the New Theological Space PDF Author: John Reader
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317142748
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents theological reflections on the changing nature of church mission and Christian identity within a theology of 'blurred encounter' - a physical, social, political and spiritual space where once solid hierarchies and patterns are giving way to more fluid and in many ways unsettling exchanges. The issues raised and dynamics explored apply to all socially-produced space, thus tending to 'blur' that most fundamental of theological categories - namely urban vs. rural theology. Engaging in a sharper way with some of the helpful but inevitably broad-brush conclusions raised by recent church-based reports (Mission-shaped Church, Faithful Cities), the authors examine some of the practical and theological implications of this research for the issue of effective management and therefore church leadership generally. Speaking to practitioners in the field of practical theology as well as those engaged in theological and ministerial training, key voices encompass dimensions of power and conflict, and identify some of the present and future opportunities and challenges to church/faith-based engagement and leadership arising from blurred encounters. Contributors - practitioners and theorists - cover a wide spectrum of interdisciplinary professional contexts and academic/denominational interests. Contributors include: John Atherton, John Reader, Helen Cameron, Martyn Percy, Malcolm Brown, Karen Lord, Clare McBeath and Margaret Goodall.

God and the Cosmos

God and the Cosmos PDF Author: Harry Lee Poe
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830839542
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Theologian Harry Lee Poe and chemist Jimmy H. Davis argue that God's interaction with our world is a possibility affirmed equally by the Bible and the contemporary scientific record. Rather than confirming that the cosmos is closed to the actions of the divine, advancing scientific knowledge seems to indicate that the nature of the universe is actually open to the unique type of divine activity portrayed in the Bible.

A Philosophy of Christian Materialism

A Philosophy of Christian Materialism PDF Author: Christopher Baker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317187121
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
A Philosophy of Christian Materialism offers a new religious engagement with the public sphere via means of interdisciplinary analysis and empirical examples, developing what the authors call a Relational Christian Realism building upon interaction with contemporary Philosophy of Religion. The book argues that the current discourse on public religion is inadequate in addressing the issues now to be faced, including: material religious practice in the sphere of education; the growth of alternative political movements and the developing awareness of environmental concerns and urban social justice. Key concepts that support this strategic analysis are: entangled fidelities (the form of a materialist religious practice); the possibility of a relational Christian realism (including new developments in how we interpret key categories of doctrine including God and creation, salvation and humanity), and the post-secular public sphere (including the emerging phenomenon of postsecular rapprochement - namely the coming together of both religious and secular actors in methodologies and politics of pragmatism as well as ethical discourse for the sake of the public commons). Co-authored by theologians in both the USA and the UK, this book represents an exciting contribution to philosophy and practice of religion on both sides of the Atlantic and aspires to be sufficiently interdisciplinary to also appeal to readerships engaged in the study of modern political and social trends.

Consultancy Skills for Mission and Ministry

Consultancy Skills for Mission and Ministry PDF Author: David Dadswell
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334048621
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Consultancy is increasingly being used to support mission and to help church leaders and workers in the challenges they face in their work. Helping churches and workers understand their situation and develop effective strategies demands skilful consultants who can handle issues of context and theology, the characteristics of voluntary sector organisations, and mission in a post-modern world. This guide to being a church consultant offers rigorous, practical consultancy theory and tools as well as pointing to a rich range of methods and models for further investigation. By integrating the insights of practical theory, organizational studies, the social sciences and a range of helping skills, consultants will be able to support those who are leading change in churches in processes which are more explicit and carefully thought through than is often the case. This book encourages consultants to develop their own model and practice built on a healthy cycle of sound theory, evaluated practice and thoughtful feedback.

The Naked Preacher

The Naked Preacher PDF Author: Jason C. Boyd
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334056446
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
This new volume in the SCM Research series argues that both preaching and Action Research are inherently exposing practices. They require a deep level of self-consciousness, and a willingness to hold oneself up to critique and comment. But at their best they are both formed within a deep and supportive critical community. Applying a methodology rooted in Action Research as way of Doing Theology (ART), and drawn from the author's own research within a specific 'community of practice', "The Naked Preacher" demonstrates for preachers and ministers new ways to be critically and constructively self-aware. It also offers an important contribution for practical theologians with an interest in action research and critical reflection.

Race

Race PDF Author: J. Kameron Carter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199882371
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
In Race: A Theological Account, J. Kameron Carter meditates on the multiple legacies implicated in the production of a racialized world and that still mark how we function in it and think about ourselves. These are the legacies of colonialism and empire, political theories of the state, anthropological theories of the human, and philosophy itself, from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment to the present. Carter's claim is that Christian theology, and the signal transformation it (along with Christianity) underwent, is at the heart of these legacies. In that transformation, Christian anti-Judaism biologized itself so as to racialize itself. As a result, and with the legitimation of Christian theology, Christianity became the cultural property of the West, the religious ground of white supremacy and global hegemony. In short, Christianity became white. The racial imagination is thus a particular kind of theological problem. Not content only to describe this problem, Carter constructs a way forward for Christian theology. Through engagement with figures as disparate in outlook and as varied across the historical landscape as Immanuel Kant, Frederick Douglass, Jarena Lee, Michel Foucault, Cornel West, Albert Raboteau, Charles Long, James Cone, Irenaeus of Lyons, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor, Carter reorients the whole of Christian theology, bringing it into the twenty-first century. Neither a simple reiteration of Black Theology nor another expression of the new theological orthodoxies, this groundbreaking book will be a major contribution to contemporary Christian theology, with ramifications in other areas of the humanities.

Discourses on Religious Diversity

Discourses on Religious Diversity PDF Author: Martin D. Stringer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317149742
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Religious diversity is an ever present, and increasingly visible, reality in cities across the world. It is an issue of immediate concern to city leaders and members of religious communities but do we really know what ordinary members of the public, the people who live in the city, really think about it? Major news items, inter-religious violence and notorious public events often lead to negative views being expressed, especially among those who would not consider themselves to have a religious identity of their own. Martin Stringer explores the highly complex series of discourses around religion and religious diversity that are held by ordinary members of the city; discourses that are often contradictory in themselves and discourses that show that attitudes to religion vary considerably depending on context and wider local or national narratives. Drawing on examples from UK (particularly Birmingham, one of the UK's most diverse cities), Europe and the United States, Stringer offers some practical suggestions for ways in which discourses of religious diversity can be managed in the future. Students in the fields of religious studies, sociology, anthropology and urban studies; practitioners involved in inter-religious debates; and church and other faith leaders and politicians should all find this book an invaluable addition to ongoing debates.

Keeping Faith in Faith-Based Organizations

Keeping Faith in Faith-Based Organizations PDF Author: Dean Pallant
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1621891887
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
The world's poorest people are struggling to access quality, affordable health care. Change is urgently required. Faith-based organizations deliver more than 40 percent of health services in many of the poorest places. This book argues FBOs can--and must--deliver quality health services without sacrificing their faith in the process. Dean Pallant asks an awkward question: "If its faith does not drive an FBO, whose faith does?" Pallant visited Salvation Army health ministries in more than forty countries in four years, and this book records his global reflections structured around a practical theological model of enquiry. His goal is to identify a faithful future for hundreds of Salvation Army hospitals and clinics and thousands of congregation-based health ministries. Pallant finds answers in the work of Karl Polanyi, John Wesley, Stanley Hauerwas, William Booth, and Luke Bretherton, among others. Pallant challenges the bio-medical definition of health and proposes a comprehensive appreciation of people as "healthy persons"--the people God created us to be. Pallant's proposals are bold and far-reaching for the Salvation Army and other FBOs. They are insightful and challenging for everyone--of whatever faith--committed to improve the health of the poorest people.

Spaces of Modern Theology

Spaces of Modern Theology PDF Author: S. Jungkeit
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137269022
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
As stories of borders, territorial disputes, and migration have escalated in recent years, so too space has emerged as a critical concept in theoretical literature. This book explores the imagination of space at the dawn of modern, liberal theology in the writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher. Schleiermacher wrote against the backdrop of expanding European colonialism and nationalism, providing a powerful ethics of space for a rapidly shrinking planet. Selectively appropriated, Schleiermacher's spaces of modern theology can be a valuable contribution to contemporary attempts to theorize the importance of space and place in human geographies.

The Faith of Girls

The Faith of Girls PDF Author: Anne Phillips
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9781409421986
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Exploring the spirituality and faith of girls on the verge of adolescence, Phillips presents fresh insights into children's spirituality and their transition to adulthood. Phillips has listened to girls' speaking on the themes of self, God, church and world, and reflected on their experiences and understandings in the light of current thinking, all placed into dialogue with a feminist approach to contemporary theology and the bible. This book will appeal to all those exploring areas of youth ministry, pastoral care, Christian education, nurture and childhood studies, psychology and theology.