Books published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers

The first title in a new Living Well series provides support and practical help for the ill and those who are their caregivers.

* Interdisciplinary focus captures insights from theology, philosophy and psychology * Clearly separates natural, personal, and social evil * Allows readers to wrestle with the nature and dynamics of evil

* State-of-the-art essays on messianic expectation * Includes two maps, a timeline of persons, events, and literature, and a glossary of terms

Long argues that the literary form and dynamics of biblical texts can and should make a difference in the kinds of sermons created from those texts, not only because of what the texts say but because of how they say it. He presents a methodology for taking the literary characteristics of biblical texts into account in the text-to-sermon process and then applies that methodology in separate chapters on preaching on psalms, proverbs, narratives, parables, and epistles.

In this small book, Wink shows that the Christian tradition of nonviolence is needed as an alternative to the dominant and death-dealing "powers" of our consumerist culture and fractured world.

In Writing Faith, Timothy Stanley provides a novel reevaluation of Jacques Derrida's deconstructive account of writing. Derrida's various essays on writing's materiality in books, scrolls, typewriters and digital displays, briefly touched on the question of religion. At times he directed his attention to the mediatic nature of Christianity. However, such comments have rarely been applied to formal aspects of religious texts. In response, this book investigates the rise of the Christian codex in its second-to-fifth-century-CE Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts. By better understanding the religious nature of this technical development, it becomes possible to reframe writing's coincidence with faith. - from publisher.

Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Union Theological Seminary, 2016 under title: The rulers' rape of Eve: sexual violence and subjugation, transformation and resistance in Roman history, myth, and three retellings of Genesis 1-6.

Isaiah in context and through the ages. Reading the book of Isaiah in its original context is the crucial prerequisite for understanding its citation and use in later interpretations, including the New Testament writings, argues Ben Witherington III. Here he offers pastors, teachers, and students an accessible commentary on Isaiah, as well as a reasoned consideration of how Isaiah was heard and read in early Christianity. By reading "forward and backward," Witherington advances the scholarly discussion of intertextuality and opens a new avenue for biblical theology. - Back cover.

"Theologian, pastor, and seasoned activist Rebecca M. M. Voelkel offers a theological vision of embodied love, informed by her own experience, research, and pastoral and organizing work with gay, lesbian, transgender, and genderqueer people. Voilkel lays out a theological vision interwoven with wisdom from social change "movement building," offering principles that will enable allies to work strategically in the coming "progressive wave.""--Page [4] of cover.

At moments in history, individuals have embodied the gospel message with creativity and passion. One such moment began when a returned veteran named Francis Bernardone found a whole new world in a desolate space just outside Assisi: a leper colony. Drawn to discover the incarnate God, and joined by a collaborator as able and determined as he, Francis, and Clare of Assisi's desire to live authentically in gospel simplicity ushered in a revolutionary sensitivity to the presence of God within the human community. Today, eight hundred years later, the first pope to take the name Francis invites us to engage the 'revolution of tenderness' to which we are 'summoned by the God who became flesh.' The example of Pope Francis gives us a new and vivid sense of just how compelling radical sincerity and reverent encounter with others can be. Capitalizing on the legacy of Francis and Clare and the energy of a visionary pope who raises critical questions about how to be faithful to the gospel, The Tenderness of God invites readers into a rich conversation across time and space about how to recapture our humanity and nurture our God-given capacity to live meaningfully and joyfully in communion with others.

Existing Before God introduces readers to one of the most important 19th century Christian thinkers, Soren Kierkegaard. In this volume, Paul R. Sponheim, unfolds Kierkegaards Sickness unto Death a key text outlining the problem of the human condition and the paradoxical heart of authentic Christian faith, the qualitative difference between God and creatures and its synthesis in the God-man. Sponheim also draws out the connections between this text and Kierkegaards larger theological and ethical vision, and the reception and significance of this text in the modern and contemporary theological tradition.

The wrenching situation in the Middle East, recent events have shown, is as complex as it is volatile. In this immensely learned and clarifying volume-here updated and issued in paper for the first time-the Ruethers trace the tortured and contested history of Israel/Palestine from biblical times through the Diaspora, the development of Zionism, the creation of the modern state of Israel, and the subsequent conflict with Arab and Palestinian nationalism. Magisterial in its grasp of the historical, political, economic, and religious roots of the conflict, The Wrath of Jonah also offers convincing analysis of the moral and political dilemmas facing Israelis and Palestinians today. Though they see possibilities for peace, the Ruethers are forthright about what they and others see as Israel''s betrayal of its own original mandate. Their purpose, state the Ruethers, "continues to be to make a modest contribution to truthful historical accountability that must underlie the quest for justice, without which there can be no ''peace.''"

Wilfred Cantwell Smith, maintained in this vastly important work that Westerners have misperceived religious life by making "religion" into one thing. He shows the inadequacy of "religion" to capture the living, endlessly variable ways and traditions in which religious faith presents itself in the world.

This latest work from leading liturgical theologian Gordon Lathrop explores the extent to which the central symbols and interactions of Christian liturgy yield, for their participants, a new proposal for their understanding and experience of the world. In the process, it considers various kinds of world-making, the diverse maps, and the differing senses of "cosmology" in which we all live. Finally, the book examines how certain liturgical reforms can contribute to a refreshed sense of ecological ethics-to a Christian sense of the holiness of the earth itself.

The twentieth century witnessed considerable debate over the question of the possibility of a Christian philosophy. Two major figures of that revival were tienne Gilson and Bernard Lonergan, both of whom read Aquinas in quite different ways on key questions. Nonetheless, this work brings these two authors into conversation. Debates continue in the twenty-first century, but the context has shifted, with Radical Orthodoxy and new atheism standing at opposite ends on the relationship between philosophy and theology. This work will demonstrate how the two thinkers, Gilson and Lonergan, may still contribute to a better understanding of this relationship and so shed light on contemporary issues.

Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Leeds, 2013.