Christianity, Otherization, and Contemporary Politics

Christianity, Otherization, and Contemporary Politics PDF Author: Roberto E. Alejandro
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1978707215
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 97

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Christianity, Otherization, and Contemporary Politics, Roberto E. Alejandro argues that the identity politics of the American far-left follow an identity paradigm nurtured in our intellectual history by early Christian thinkers such as Clement of Alexandra, Origen of Alexandria, and Eusebius of Caesarea, who all claimed that a form of “wokeness” gave them special access to truth and thereby an exclusive right to speak it. At one time this argument was a strike at power, but once mixed with power, it became a moral justification for violence against non-Christians. Alejandro warns those engaged in political practice to beware the way our intellectual history, steeped in theological propositions, can operate silently to steer us towards reinforcing problems we intended to resist.

Christianity, Otherization, and Contemporary Politics

Christianity, Otherization, and Contemporary Politics PDF Author: Roberto E. Alejandro
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1978707215
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 97

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Christianity, Otherization, and Contemporary Politics, Roberto E. Alejandro argues that the identity politics of the American far-left follow an identity paradigm nurtured in our intellectual history by early Christian thinkers such as Clement of Alexandra, Origen of Alexandria, and Eusebius of Caesarea, who all claimed that a form of “wokeness” gave them special access to truth and thereby an exclusive right to speak it. At one time this argument was a strike at power, but once mixed with power, it became a moral justification for violence against non-Christians. Alejandro warns those engaged in political practice to beware the way our intellectual history, steeped in theological propositions, can operate silently to steer us towards reinforcing problems we intended to resist.

The Other Jesus

The Other Jesus PDF Author: Greg Garrett
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 1611640873
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 138

Get Book Here

Book Description
According to recent surveys, many Americans associate the label "Christian" with judgmental attitudes, hypocrisy, a fear of hell, and a commitment to right-wing politics. Author Greg Garrett suggests another way, arguing that a faith that focuses solely on personal morality and the afterlife misses much of the point of Jesus' message. This other way of following Christ is not concerned with an array of commandments or with holding the "right" beliefs. Rather it is centered on loving each other and loving God, what Garrett calls "love where the rubber meets the road, where faith meets the world." Personal and moving, the book relates Garrett's experiences growing up in--and leaving--a disapproving conservative church and then finding his way back into a different kind of Christian community, one that is communal, missional, just, and loving. Garrett draws on popular culture to illustrate his spiritual points, showing how authentic Christian truth can be found in unlikely places.

Race Over Grace

Race Over Grace PDF Author: Charles H. Roberts
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9780595747429
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Race over Grace" is a fascinating, critical look at a religion on the margins of modern American culture: the Christian Identity Movement. Embraced as truth by some in militia and far-right racialist groups, and by others not politically involved, Christian Identity is supported by advocates who promote such disturbing beliefs as the Jews being the literal offspring of Satan and that only Caucasians may go to heaven. In this book, Reformed scholar and pastor Dr. Charles H. Roberts examines the historical underpinnings of the movement and its better known exponents, past and present. He provides the reader with a uniquely Biblical, Reformed, evangelical analysis of the major doctrines of the movement.

Finding God in Other Christians

Finding God in Other Christians PDF Author: Lorraine Cavanagh
Publisher: SPCK
ISBN: 0281065861
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 70

Get Book Here

Book Description
As we journey in faith, many of us begin to find God in the context of more than one kind of churchmanship. Even if we feel happy where we are, we may benefit greatly from getting out of our particular church 'comfort zone' in order to encounter God in new ways through Christians whose priorities and styles of worship are at variance with our own. This book calls us to a deeper and more compassionate approach to the challenges of diversity among Christians. It addresses issues such as: Are Christians meant to be more than friends?; Jesus Christ as our common identity; Violence between Christians; Radical hospitality; Dealing with difference; The meaning of God among us, and finally, Christians in Christ and for the world.

The Dialogue Comes of Age

The Dialogue Comes of Age PDF Author: John B. Cobb (Jr)
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451411154
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
Increasingly world religious traditions present not just an intellectual or apologetic challenge to Christians but a daily encounter, a source of religious practices, and even live religious options. How are Christians to relate to these traditions and the neighbors and friends who live by them? This lively and engaging book is a great resource for faithful wrestling with the new realities. Led by theologian John B. Cobb Jr. and historian Ward M. McAfee, the Progressive Christians Uniting has distilled the historical and existential import of both Abrahamic and other traditions and stressed the differences among traditions and the richness they can afford Christian self-understanding. Includes study materials.

Kissing Fish

Kissing Fish PDF Author: Roger Wolsey
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 145683942X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 397

Get Book Here

Book Description
Christianity receives a lot of attention in the media, but the most frequently discussed version represents a type of Christianity that sometimes turns people away from the Church. Kissing Fish presents a postmodern systematic theology of progressive Christianity, a growing movement that reclaims the radical message of the Gospel. This informative, contemplative, and entertaining book will guide you through the beliefs that inspire us to love one another in the transformative way that Jesus proclaimed, including practices that will take your faith to a new level. Kissing Fish is a scholarly yet thoroughly accessible introduction to progressive Christianity. While the intended target audience for this work would seem to be those who have either left the Christian faith or never adopted it at all; the work is filled with pearls of wisdom for all of us, whether associated with Christianity or not. Kissing Fish is a truly remarkable work, serving both as a reminder of the beauty and grace that form the central tenets of the faith, while offering a graceful yet prophetic rebuttal to its more exclusionary tendencies. Kissing Fish is part theological text and part tell-all personal spiritual journey. Imagine a down-to-earth combination of the works of Marcus Borg, Anne Lamott, Jim Wallis, Rob Bell, Shane Claiborne, Diana Butler-Bass, Brian McLaren, Walter Wink, Wes Howard-Brook, and Donald Miller. A profound romp that informs and inspires.

Nonreligious Christianity

Nonreligious Christianity PDF Author: Gerald Coates
Publisher: Paternoster
ISBN: 9780850097382
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 92

Get Book Here

Book Description
If Jesus Christ returned today, how much of "church" would he condone or condemn? Jesus set Himself on a course where He continually clashed with the religious leaders and practices of His day. In this book Gerald Coates contends that "religion" is the greatest hindrance to making Jesus attractive to our family, neighbors, and co-workers. Humorous on one hand, yet confrontational on the other. Non-Religious Christianity will suprise you with its conclusions. It could change your life forever

Aliens and Sojourners

Aliens and Sojourners PDF Author: Benjamin H. Dunning
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812201817
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Get Book Here

Book Description
Early Christians spoke about themselves as resident aliens, strangers, and sojourners, asserting that otherness is a fundamental part of being Christian. But why did they do so and to what ends? How did Christians' claims to foreign status situate them with respect to each other and to the larger Roman world as the new movement grew and struggled to make sense of its own boundaries? Aliens and Sojourners argues that the claim to alien status is not a transparent one. Instead, Benjamin Dunning contends, it shaped a rich, pervasive, variegated discourse of identity in early Christianity. Resident aliens and foreigners had long occupied a conflicted space of both repulsion and desire in ancient thinking. Dunning demonstrates how Christians and others in antiquity capitalized on this tension, refiguring the resident alien as being of a compelling doubleness, simultaneously marginal and potent. Early Christians, he argues, used this refiguration to render Christian identity legible, distinct, and even desirable among the vast range of social and religious identities and practices that proliferated in the ancient Mediterranean. Through close readings of ancient Christian texts such as Hebrews, 1 Peter, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle to Diognetus, Dunning examines the markedly different ways that Christians used the language of their own marginality, articulating a range of options for what it means to be Christian in relation to the Roman social order. His conclusions have implications not only for the study of late antiquity but also for understanding the rhetorics of religious alienation more broadly, both in the ancient world and today.

Taboo or to Do?

Taboo or to Do? PDF Author: Ross Clifford
Publisher: Augsburg Books
ISBN: 1506467350
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Get Book Here

Book Description
Today, some Christians--as part of their own personal growth--and some churches--as part of their desire to reach the 'spiritual but not religious'--are adapting spiritual practices that have their roots in East Asian religions or in disciplines that emerge from New Age and New Spirituality. Other voices within the Church are wary of, and in some cases condemn, involvement with such practices. This book sifts through some of the most popular practices and asks whether or not they should really be considered off-limits for Christians or incompatible with the way of Jesus. Each chapter provides a brief history of the alternative practice in focus, followed by an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses within a Christian framework, and a case study of a church interacting with the practice. Taboo or To Do? includes a Foreword by John Drane.

Solus Jesus

Solus Jesus PDF Author: Emily Swan
Publisher: Front Edge Publishing
ISBN: 1641800186
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 551

Get Book Here

Book Description
If you read one book this year about the future of Christianity, then choose this book. Five hundred years ago the Protestant Reformation claimed the Bible as the authoritative guide for Christian living (“Sola Scriptura!” Only Scripture!). In this groundbreaking work, Emily Swan and Ken Wilson claim the authority of the church is shifting back to where it should be: in Jesus (Solus Jesus!). As co-founders of Blue Ocean Faith, Swan and Wilson are pioneering what it means to be post-evangelical—post-Protestant, even—in a time when such re-imagining is desperately needed. Solus Jesus not only grapples with the authority question in Christianity, but also provides a massive re-think of traditional atonement theories. Leaning on the work of René Girard, they conclude that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus together reveal a completely good, non-violent God who is on the side of the oppressed and scapegoated of this world. As a work of queer theology, the book is intersectional in its understanding of justice, and invites readers to reconsider our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. This book is timely, to say the least. For Christians looking for guidance on how to address distressing issues of injustice; for help understanding how they can faithfully follow Jesus and love their neighbors as themselves; and for practices for how to experience the living Jesus and his Spirit of love—Solus Jesus is the book for you. “Born in a cauldron of faith and pain, Solus Jesus: A Theology of Resistance is a highly original, deeply provocative first stab at a post-evangelical, post-‘gay debate’ pastoral theology,” writes David P. Gushee, author of Changing Our Mind and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University. “Drawing from personal experience and those who have long carved out theologies far from power, Swan and Wilson show how Solus Jesus can open a portal to the divine communion that is possible between all people,” writes Deborah Jian Lee, author of Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women and Queer Christians are Reclaiming Evangelicalism. “Ken and Emily’s book is loving and courageous, compelling and convicting, scholarly and personal all at once. … This book held up a mirror to my heart, asking me to forsake my anxious need for certainty, to repent of all the rivalries that cripple me, and to rest again like a child, at the breast of a God in whose fierce and fearless love there is home for us all,” writes the Rev. Susan K. Bock of Grace Episcopal Church in Mount Clemens, Michigan. “Solus Jesus challenges us to see the authoritative Jesus in a fresh light, so that his life, message, death, and rising summon us to live in a new way as individuals and congregations,” writes Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration. “Around the world, tension and conflict are signaling a shift in our socio-political conditions. To remain relevant, Christianity must have a response to this moment. Grounding themselves in their lived experience, Ken and Emily are leaning into the conversation and offering a powerful response to the travails of our time. A must-read for Christians looking to discern where the Spirit is leading us in the 21st Century,” writes Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, AME Church Planter, Boston.