Books published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers

"Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them." Dennis R. MacDonald offers a provocative explanation of those scandalous words of Christ from the Fourth Gospel--an explanation that he argues would hardly have surprised some of the Gospel's early readers. John sounds themes that would have instantly been recognized as proper to the Greek god Dionysos (the Roman Bacchus), not least as he was depicted in Euripides's play The Bacchae. A divine figure, the offspring of a divine father and human mother, takes on flesh to live among mortals but is rejected by his own. He miraculously provides wine and offers it as a sacred gift to his devotees, women prominent among them, dies a violent death--and returns to life. Yet John takes his drama in a dramatically different direction: while Euripides's Dionysos exacts vengeance on the Theban throne, the Johannine Christ offers life to his followers. MacDonald employs mimesis criticism to argue that the earliest evangelist not only imitated Euripides but expected his readers to recognize Jesus as greater than Dionysos.

Radical Discipleship engages the structural evils of homelessness, mass incarceration, and capital punishment, arguing that to be faithful to the gospel, Christians must become disciples of, not simply believers in, Jesus. Jennifer McBride argues that disciples must work to overcome the social evils that bar beloved community. Unfolding the social and political character of the good news, the book organically connects liturgy with activism and theological reflection enabling a radical discipleship that takes seriously the Jesus of the Gospels.

This commentary on the Historical Writings, excerpted from the Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha, engages readers in the work of biblical interpretation. Contributors from a rich diversity of perspectives connect historical-critical analysis with sensitivity to current theological, cultural, and interpretive issues.Each chapter (Joshua through Esther) includes an introduction and commentary based on three lenses: ancient context, the interpretative tradition, and contemporary questions and challenges.The Historical Writings introduces fresh perspectives and draws students, preachers, and interested readers into the challenging work of interpretation.

Since Dietrich Bonhoeffers death in 1945, he has continued to fascinate and compel readers as a theologian, witness, and martyr. In this new biography, Christiane Tietz masterfully portrays the interconnectedness of Bonhoeffers life and thought, theology and politics, discipleship, witness, and resistance, tracing the path from his childhood to his imprisonment and execution. Brief, lucid, and accessible, Tietzs new account brings Bonhoeffers story and work to life in a vivid retelling, unfolding his important and widely read texts in the process. The volume also includes previously unseen pictures.

Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Princeton Theological Seminary, 2013 under title Forensic Apocalypticism of a Reformed Order: Karl Barth's Exegetically Grounded Doctrine of Justification.

A Visible Witness presents a fresh, innovative perspective on Protestant theology in Latin America liberation theology. The volume underscores the common theological interests to the Roman and Catholic traditions: the praxical nature of theology, Christology, and soteriology. It also highlights how key Protestant theologians challenged Protestant theology in Latin America to develop a Trinitarian hermeneutic for Christology in order to see the work of salvation as the work of the triune God, and to relate Christology and pneumatology in ways that fundamentally shape the praxis of the church.

Understandings of the Church explores the ways imagery is used by biblical writers and early Christian teachers such as Cyprian, Ignatius of Antioch, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen to describe the concept of church. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources is a series designed to present ancient Christian texts essential to an understanding of Christian theology, ecclesiology, and practice. Developed in light of recent patristic scholarship for new generations of students of theology, the volumes will provide a representative sampling of theological contributions from both East and West.

One of the hallmarks of Luthers theology was its concern for daily life. In the midst of debates about justification and salvation, church authority, and the Lords Supper, Luther himself demonstrated his own powerful sense of vocation. In this refreshing book, Mark D. Tranvik turns attention to the importance of vocation in Luthers life and in doing so discovers renewed insights into this important doctrine. Drawing from the rich experience of twenty years of teaching undergraduates, Tranvik balances the historical roots of Luthers thought and contemporary relevance with skill and vigor.

Much recent scholarship on Paul has searched for implicit narratives behind Pauls scriptural allusions. A. Andrew Das reviews six proposals for grand thematic narratives behind the logic of Galatians: the covenant; the influx of nations to Zion; Isaacs near sacrifice; the Spirit as cloud in the wilderness; the Exodus; and the imperial cult. Das weighs each of these proposals exegetically and finds them wanting, examples of what Samuel Sandmel famously labeled parallelomania. Das reflects on the risks of seeking comprehensive stories behind Pauls letters and offers a path forward.

Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination brings together eminent Pauline scholars from diverse perspectives, along with experts of Second Temple Judaism, Hellenistic philosophy, patristics, and modern theology, to explore the contours of the current debate. Contributors discuss what apocalypticism, and an apocalyptic Paul, have meant at different times; examine different aspects of Pauls thought and practice; and show how different implicit understandings of apocalypticism shape different contemporary presentations of the apostles significance.

Foreign missionaries who served in China ran the gamut of Christians, with differing views of their religion and differing ideas of how to spread it. When all foreign missionaries were forced to leave China in 1949 many thought their effort had been in vain. Yet some scholars predict that soon China will be the country with the largest Christian po

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. His Life Together and Discipleship are considered to be spiritual classics, and few theological works have made as much of an impact as Letters and Papers from Prison upon publication. But who actually is this Bonhoeffer? Do we really know him? In this magisterial collection, leading international scholars discuss and critically interact with the ways in which a variety of significant figures have engaged with Bonhoeffers thought since his death.

Preaching, and the discipline of preaching, is at a crossroads. The changing realities of church and theological education, the diversity of our classrooms, and our increasingly complex community contexts leave us in search of tools to help train a rising generation of preachers for a future whose contours are far from clear. In Ways of the Word, a dynamic team of master preachers, Sally A. Brown and Luke A. Powery, speaks with one voice their belief that preaching is a witness to the ongoing work of God in the world.

The literary relationships among the Synoptic Gospels have long attracted scholarly attention which has now generally coalesced into the predominant Two- (or Four-) Source Hypothesis and leading alternatives, the Griesbach (or Two-Gospel) Hypothesis (Mark used Matthew and Luke) and the Farrer Hypothesis (Luke used Mark and Matthew). Thomas J. Mosb here argues that no theory of Synoptic relations is adequate unless it can satisfactorily explain the extensive middle third of Lukes Gospel, the so-called Travel Narrative (9:5119:27), where Luke departs from the order shown in either Matthew or Mark and assembles stories and sayings that develop themes concerning discipleship that are important to Luke. Mosb examines this narrative as a composed narrative, not merely an assembly of materials, and finds that Luke has reordered materials taken from Matthew and from Mark in a very particular manner. He then examines Lukes purposes in the Gospel as a whole, then addresses objections raised by Q advocates to the hypothesis that Luke knew Matthew. At length Mosb offers his own hypothesis of Synoptic relationships, including the relationship between Matthew and Mark.

"Five hundred years ago the Protestant Reformation inspired profound theological, ecclesial, economic, and social transformations. But what impact does the Protestant tradition have today? And what might it have? This volume addresses such questions, focusing on the economic and ecological implications of the Protestant doctrine of grace. In the late twentieth century, a number of Protestant scholars countered Max Weber's famous work on Protestantism and capitalism by arguing that Calvin and Luther were prophetic critics of early capitalist practices. While acknowledging the importance of this scholarship, Terra Rowe argues that a more nuanced approach is necessary. This narrative tends to purify Protestantism of capitalist beginnings and does not account for compelling arguments articulated by proponents of Radical Orthodoxy tying Protestantism--and Protestant grace in particular--to capitalism. These debates now emerge with increasing urgency in the face of growing economic injustice and overwhelming evidence of an ecologically unsustainable economic system, demonstrated most potently by climate change. In the spirit of ecotheology, resonating with the best of the Reformation tradition, this book develops a fresh reading of Luther's theology of grace and his economic ethics in conversation with current reflections on concepts of the gift and gifting practices."--Publisher's description.

Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2014 under title: "Being salvation": a reinterpretation of Rahner's Christ as savior.

"All translations from the LXX are taken from A New English Translation of the Septuagint"-- title page verso.

At the center of contemporary struggles over aggressive policing practices is an assumed association in U.S. culture of blackness with criminality. Rima L. Vesely-Flad examines the religious and philosophical constructs of the black body in U.S. society, examining racialized ideas about purity and pollution as they have developed historically and as they are institutionalized today in racially disproportionate policing and mass incarceration. These systems work, she argues, to keeps threatening elements of society in a constant state of harassment and tension so that they are unable to pollute the morals of mainstream society. Policing establishes racialized boundaries between communities deemed dangerous and communities deemed pure and, along with prisons and reentry policies, sequesters and restrains the pollution of convicted criminals, thus perpetuating the image of the threatening black male criminal. Vesely-Flad shows how the anti-Stop and Frisk and the Black Lives Matter movements have confronted these systems by exposing unquestioned assumptions about blackness and criminality. They hold the potential, she argues, to reverse the construal of pollution and invasion in Americas urban cores if they extend their challenge to mass imprisonment and the\\ barriers to reentry of convicted felons.

Wholly Citizens addresses the relation between the church and the world in light of the Reformation teaching of the two realms - expecially as presented by Luther. Joel Biermann argues that, on the one hand, most interpreters of Luther misappropriate Luther by seeing him as a supporter of a wall of separation. On the other hand, those clamoring for the preservation of the rights of Christians and the church are also out of step with a right understanding of the two realms. Instead, the corporate church and individuals are responsible for the world, and each must speak directly about and to the world in meaningful ways--

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 antithetical to competences formation.Uniquely, Newson explores the contours of communal discernment as a practice that is especially relevant to Christians seeking radical democratic alternatives to political liberalism. Communal discernment is shown to be capable of generating conscientious participation in grassroots politics; additionally, this practice enables Christians to enjoy reciprocal, discerning relationships with people of differing convictional communities. Indeed, communal discernment turns out to be capable of preparing Christians to recognize and celebrate analogues to the practice in the world at large.

This book opens a window into the lives and extraordinary witness of a Christian couple whose faithful life of service has earned the moniker of Ethopias Bonhoeffer. Part One introduces the reader to the extant writings of Gudina Tumsa. Part Two is a highly personal account of Gudina and Tsehays life, witness, and sufferings. The collection concludes with an essay by Samuel Yonas Deressa on the impact of Gudinas vision. Gudina lives on in the many Ethiopian Christians who continue to be inspired by his life and witness.

Convinced that our access to the original sense of Jesus's prayer must be mediated by its history of "effects," David Clark seeks to trace the meaning of one of Christianity's most repeated, and thus most "effective" texts through the early centuries of the faith. Clark begins by arguing that the prayer's original context was in a revival of Jewish prayer, then sets it in the literary context of Gospels that, he argues, represented Jesus as recapitulating Israel's testing in the wilderness in his own temptation. He then traces the prayer's meaning within the narratives of Matthew and Luke and in the Didache, then examines the first full commentary on the prayer, that of Tertullian in the third century CE. Clark attends to the evolution of ideas and themes embodied in the prayer and of the understanding of prayer itself across epic transitions, from Judaism to the teaching of Jesus, from Jesus to the Gospels, and from the Gospels to earliest self-consciously "catholic" Christianity. This is an engaging narrative of the history behind and reception of the Lord's Prayer; it illustrates how a text's reception may help us explore and understand the multivalent meaning of the text itself.