The Shape of God's Reign

The Shape of God's Reign PDF Author: Philip D. Kenneson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725244578
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 90

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Book Description
About The Ekklesia Project The Ekklesia Project is a network of Christians from across the Christian tradition who rejoice in a peculiar kind of friendship rooted in our common love of God and the Church. We come together from Catholic parishes, Protestant congregations, communities in the Anabaptist tradition, house-churches and more as those who are convinced that to call ourselves 'Christian' means that following Jesus Christ must shape all areas of life. Seeing Christ's Body as our "first family," the Ekklesia Project aims to put discipleship and the Church as an alternative community of practices, worship, and integration at the center of contemporary debates on Christianity and society. For more information about The Ekklesia Project, see its website: www.ekklesiaproject.org About the Congregational Formation Initiative The overarching goal of The Ekklesia Project's Congregational Formation Initiative (CFI) is to develop creative and effective ways of supporting congregations that are committed to making lifelong formation and discipleship central to their life together. To support this goal, the CFI fosters collaboration among pastors, scholars and lay persons to develop, refine and disseminate resources and processes that will help initiate and sustain congregational conversations about the fundamental identity and mission of the church. For more information about CFI, including the place of this study in the overall initiative, see the EP website listed above.

The Shape of God's Reign

The Shape of God's Reign PDF Author: Philip D. Kenneson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725244578
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 90

Get Book Here

Book Description
About The Ekklesia Project The Ekklesia Project is a network of Christians from across the Christian tradition who rejoice in a peculiar kind of friendship rooted in our common love of God and the Church. We come together from Catholic parishes, Protestant congregations, communities in the Anabaptist tradition, house-churches and more as those who are convinced that to call ourselves 'Christian' means that following Jesus Christ must shape all areas of life. Seeing Christ's Body as our "first family," the Ekklesia Project aims to put discipleship and the Church as an alternative community of practices, worship, and integration at the center of contemporary debates on Christianity and society. For more information about The Ekklesia Project, see its website: www.ekklesiaproject.org About the Congregational Formation Initiative The overarching goal of The Ekklesia Project's Congregational Formation Initiative (CFI) is to develop creative and effective ways of supporting congregations that are committed to making lifelong formation and discipleship central to their life together. To support this goal, the CFI fosters collaboration among pastors, scholars and lay persons to develop, refine and disseminate resources and processes that will help initiate and sustain congregational conversations about the fundamental identity and mission of the church. For more information about CFI, including the place of this study in the overall initiative, see the EP website listed above.

The Shape of Our Lives

The Shape of Our Lives PDF Author: Philip D. Kenneson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725244586
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
About The Ekklesia Project The Ekklesia Project is a network of Christians from across the Christian tradition who rejoice in a peculiar kind of friendship rooted in our common love of God and the Church. We come together from Catholic parishes, Protestant congregations, communities in the Anabaptist tradition, house-churches and more as those who are convinced that to call ourselves 'Christian' means that following Jesus Christ must shape all areas of life. Seeing Christ's Body as our "first family," the Ekklesia Project aims to put discipleship and the Church as an alternative community of practices, worship, and integration at the center of contemporary debates on Christianity and society. For more information about The Ekklesia Project, see its website: www.ekklesiaproject.org About the Congregational Formation Initiative The overarching goal of The Ekklesia Project's Congregational Formation Initiative (CFI) is to develop creative and effective ways of supporting congregations that are committed to making lifelong formation and discipleship central to their life together. To support this goal, the CFI fosters collaboration among pastors, scholars and lay persons to develop, refine and disseminate resources and processes that will help initiate and sustain congregational conversations about the fundamental identity and mission of the church. For more information about CFI, including the place of this study in the overall initiative, see the EP website listed above.

A Better Hope

A Better Hope PDF Author: Stanley Hauerwas
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1585586013
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
By his own admission never one to duck a good fight, Stanley Hauerwas has in the past three decades established himself as one of our most important and most disputatious theologians. With A Better Hope, he concentrates on the constructive case for the truth and power of the church and its faith, "since Christians cannot afford to let ourselves be defined by what we are against. Whatever or whomever we are against, we are so only because God has given us so much to be for." Hauerwas here crystallizes and extends profound criticisms of America, liberalism, capitalism, and postmodernism, but also identifies unlikely allies (such as Chicago Archbishop Francis Cardinal George) and locates surprising resources for Christian survival (such as mystery novels). Interlocutors along the way include Reinhold Niebuhr, John Courtney Murray, and, in a significant and previously unpublished essay, social gospeller Walter Rauschenbusch. Never boring and often telling, A Better Hope demonstrates how a thinker so often accused of being "tribal" and "sectarian" is at the same time one of few contemporary theologians read not just by other theologians, but by political scientists, philosophers, medical ethicists, law professors, and literary theorists.

The Sacrifice of Africa

The Sacrifice of Africa PDF Author: Emmanuel Katongole
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802862683
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
In The Sacrifice of Africa Emmanuel Katongole confronts this painful legacy and shows how it continues to warp the imaginative landscape of African politics and society. He demonstrates the real potential of Christianity to interrupt and transform entrenched political imaginations and create a different story for Africa รน a story of self-sacrificing love that values human dignity and "dares to invent" a new and better future for all Africans. --

Reclaiming the Body (The Christian Practice of Everyday Life)

Reclaiming the Body (The Christian Practice of Everyday Life) PDF Author: Joel Shuman
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 144123179X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
We live in an age of incredible medical technology, and with it, a great emphasis on health and well-being. We fully entrust the care of our bodies to the medical profession, often taking its solutions and judgments as gospel. But what role, if any, should our Christian faith play in all this? In Reclaiming the Body, a physician and a theologian take a critical look at some of the assumptions we draw from the medical profession and explore what theology has to say about medicine, our bodies, our health, and the Body of Christ. The authors deal with such issues as suffering, caring for the sick, children and reproductive technologies, medicine and the poor, our obsession with physical perfection, and death and dying.

He Became Poor

He Became Poor PDF Author: Christopher A. Franks
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802837484
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The only comprehensive theological treatment of Aquinas and economic theory. / Drawing on the views of Thomas Aquinas, this book challenges the modern economic tendency toward the "proprietary self" and calls for a renewed and timely appreciation of the virtues of trusting receptivity and humble awareness of our membership in a larger order. Christopher Franks reveals how the summons to become poor bestows a new intelligibility on formerly obscure economic teachings. In the course of his discussion Franks juxtaposes Aquinas with Aristotle, John Locke, and Alasdair MacIntyre. / He Became Poor not only makes a provocative case for taking Aquinas's thoughts on economics more seriously, but also illustrates how the very market conditions of the modern world cloud any attempt to fully understand Aquinas. Franks proffers a convincing argument that questioning market-formed assumptions can actually help us recover the evangelical character of Aquinas's ethics. / Drawing deeply on the views of Thomas Aquinas, He Became Poor challenges the modern economic tendency toward the proprietary self and calls for a renewed appreciation of the virtues of trusting receptivity and humble awareness of our membership in a larger benevolent order. Christopher Franks reveals how the summons to become poor bestows a new intelligibility on formerly obscure economic teachings. In the course of his discussion Franks juxtaposes Aquinas with Aristotle, John Locke, and Alasdair MacIntyre. / This book makes a provocative case for taking Aquinas s thoughts on economics more seriously and illustrates how the very market conditions of the modern world cloud any attempt to fully understand Aquinas. Franks offers a convincing argument that questioning market-formed assumptions can actually help us recover the evangelical character of Aquinas s ethics. / With a style as lucid as it is engaging, Christopher Franks probes by way of an astute interpretation of Aquinas s economic teachings an old revolutionary proposal Christian poverty. This Christ-configured economics is surpassingly relevant as global capitalism is faced with a cataclysmic collapse. The greatest praise I can give this book is that its author has learned much from Dominicans past and present not least from Thomas Aquinas so much indeed that He Became Poor is suffused with the true spirit of Dominican poverty. We have much to learn from this important work. Reinhard Htter / Duke Divinity School

Witness of the Body

Witness of the Body PDF Author: Michael L. Budde
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802862586
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
"Beginning with the persecution of early Christians by the Roman Empire, Witness of the Body explores the place of martyrdom in the church through all ages -- and into the future. Throughout, it reminds readers that Christian martyrdom is neither a quick ticket to heaven nor a cheap political ploy, but rather the firm and faithful witness of Christ's church in a hostile world."--From publisher description.

Performing the Faith

Performing the Faith PDF Author: Stanley Hauerwas
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 149822296X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
""Folksy, eclectic, disarmingly humble, and astonishingly wide-ranging, Hauerwas offers us a provocative reading of Bonhoeffer that, not surprisingly, assimilates him closely to John Howard Yoder. At the same time, Hauerwas replies to recent criticisms of his work by Jeffrey Stout. Contending that truth depends on performance far more than on theory, Hauerwas steps forward as a pacifist gadfly for a more truly faithful church and a more recognizably democratic society."" --George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary ""This book shows how lively and fecund Hauerwas's thought remains. A dazzling performance, capable of entertaining and instructing professional theologians as much as those who think the world might be a better place without theologians in it."" --Paul J. Griffiths, University of Illinois at Chicago ""Stan Hauerwas has done it again! He is able skillfully to blend into his book the passion for truth and justice of two of his greatest influences, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and John Howard Yoder. He takes these heroic advocates for peace into his own present-day struggle for the soul of the American nation. Hauerwas, an admirable Christian pacifist himself, dares Christians to be the 'Jesus people' they claim to be and to follow Jesus into the gospel path of nonviolence."" --Geffrey B. Kelly, author of Liberating Faith: Bonhoeffer's Message for Today ""Never totally predictable. Always a fresh perspective. And yet once again in these essays--on narrative, politics, Bonhoeffer, and the church--we hear the engaging, discerning, and brilliant voice we have come to know as Stanley Hauerwas."" --Mark Thiessen Nation, Eastern Mennonite Seminary ""Contending with and learning from the witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose life is often thought to provide a Christian alternative to pacifism, Hauerwas deepens the account of Christian nonviolence he has been articulating for decades. His theology is strengthened and clarified by his encounter with the exemplary figure of Bonhoeffer."" --Alan Jacobs, Wheaton College ""Without loss of the provocative edge that has made him a vital and distinctive Christian voice, Hauerwas's Performing the Faith allows him to cast a retrospective eye on his work. At the same time, in a brilliant essay under the title of the book, he develops a profoundly important description of faithfulness."" --Dennis O'Brien, University of Rochester Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School, Duke University.

Foolishness to Gentiles

Foolishness to Gentiles PDF Author: Michael L. Budde
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725264323
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
What happens to the Gospel when you put other loyalties into positions of power in Christian life and practice? You get deformations, distortions, and caricatures of Christianity - killing in the name of love, defense of worldwide systems of domination, idolization of the nation instead of the membership in the global body of Christ, and baptism of exploitative and destructive economic ideologies. You get much of what world sees as contemporary Christianity, in other words. Too often, however, the inadequacies of contemporary Christian life, especially in the United States, are seen as separate issues in need of 'improvement' or 'reform.' Foolishness to Gentiles invites readers to see the pathologies of the churches not as a series of disconnected problems, but predictable outcomes of deep defects of Christian formation, commitments and theology. Having mortgaged so much of the integrity of the Gospel in the pursuit of imperial and national citizenship, and having allowed the powers of race and capital to divide the unity of the church, Foolishness to Gentiles calls Christians into deeper reflection, repentance and redirection. In a series of essays (new and previously unpublished, previously unpublished in English, and published previously in specialized venues), Foolishness to Gentiles opens doors to deeper theological and socio-political reflection, and some guideposts for more adequate practices of Christian discipleship in a variety of contexts and circumstances.

The Child in American Evangelicalism and the Problem of Affluence

The Child in American Evangelicalism and the Problem of Affluence PDF Author: David A. Sims
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1556359578
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
This work presents an evangelical theology of the child nurtured in the context of American evangelicalism and affluence. It employs an eclectic theological-critical method to produce a theological anthropology of the affluent American-evangelical child (AAEC) through interdisciplinary evangelical engagement of American history, sociology, and economics. Sims articulates how affluence constitutes a significant impediment to evangelical nurture of the AAEC in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Thus, the problem he addresses is nurture in evangelical affluence, conceived as a theological-anthropological problem. Nurture in the cultural matrices of the evangelical affluence generated by technological consumer capitalism in the U.S. impedes spiritual and moral formation of the AAEC for discipleship in the way of the cross. This impediment risks disciplinary formation of the AAEC for capitalist culture, cultivates delusional belief that life consists in an abundance of possessions, and hinders the practice of evangelical liberation of the poor on humanity's underside. The result is the AAEC's spiritual-moral lack in late modernity. Chapter 1 introduces the problem of the AAEC. Chapters 2 and 3 provide a diachronic lens for the theological anthropology of the AAEC through critical assessment of the theological anthropologies of the child in Jonathan Edwards, Horace Bushnell, and Lawrence Richards. Chapters 4 and 5 constitute the synchronic perspective of the AAEC. Chapter 4 presents an evangelical sociology of the AAEC, drawing upon William Corsaro's theory of interpretive reproductions, and chapter 5 constructs an evangelical theology of the AAEC through critical interaction with John Schneider's moral theology of affluence. Chapter 6, Whither the AAEC?, concludes with a recapitulation of the work and a forecast of possible futures for the AAEC in the twenty-first century.