Books published by Cascade Books

Sound matters. The New Testament''s first audiences were listeners, not readers. They heard its compositions read aloud and understood their messages as linear streams of sound. To understand the New Testament''s meaning in the way its earliest audiences did, we must hear its audible features and understand its words as spoken sounds. Sound Matters presents essays by ten scholars from five countries and three continents, who explore the New Testament through sound mapping, a technique invented by Margaret Lee and Bernard Scott for analyzing Greek texts as speech. Sound Matters demonstrates the value and uses of this technique as a prelude and aid to interpretation. The essays that make up this volume illustrate the wide range of interpretive possibilities that emerge when sound mapping restores the spoken sounds of the New Testament and revives its living voice.""Sound Matters has set itself the awesome task of transforming typographic space into soundscape. In this, the book has succeeded magnificently. Margaret Lee and the nine contributors are to be applauded for their formidable efforts in forging suitably analytical tools and criteria, and for placing sound mapping on a firm empirical basis. More than merely recovering lost or ignored meanings in interpretation, sound mapping, along with a number of other fields, is clearly driving toward a genuinely new paradigm in biblical scholarship.""--Werner H. Kelber, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies, Rice UniversityMargaret E. Lee is retired as Assistant Professor of Humanities at Tulsa Community College. She is the author of ""Sound Mapping"" in The Dictionary of the Bible in Ancient Media (2017) and numerous articles on sound mapping. She is coauthor with Bernard Brandon Scott of Sound Mapping the New Testament (2009). Earlier she also wrote Reading New Testament Greek (1993) with Scott and others.

This collection brings together prominent thinkers from numerous disciplines to address the legacy of Gillian Rose for political theology today. Rose''s work is notorious for its eclectic range, difficult style, and iconoclastic defiance of the conventions of postmodern critical theory. The theologians, religious scholars, ethicists, and theorists in this collection discuss Rose''s relationship to such topics as the Frankfurt School, social theory, feminism, literature, law, Hegel, Kant, and psychoanalysis. They situate her work within the wider context of political theology, as it is understood in religious studies and continental philosophy. Though attentive to the theoretical issues raised by Rose''s work, these essays are also engage the role that work may play in political action today, examining issues such as refugee immigration in Europe, the rise of nationalism, and anticapitalist political organizing. The collection is a vital contribution to the rising body of literature on Rose and her importance to political philosophy, ethics, and theology, but it will also serve as an important orienting guide for readers new to Rose''s work and its demanding style.""This is a most welcome set of essays, perfectly titled as Misrecognitions, taking up, as it does, Gillian Rose''s challenge to conceive of modernity according to its own misrecognitions of itself . . . The book works as an introduction for those new to Rose''s work, exploring some of the ideas by which she is now becoming increasingly well known. But it also feeds the appetite of more experienced Rose readers in challenging aspects of her thinking from across her oeuvre. The collection will ensure her continued participation in philosophical and political debates in a variety of cultural theatres. In sum, the book is the voice of the current generation of Rose scholars, and is to be warmly welcomed and highly recommended.""--Nigel Tubbs, Professor of Philosophical and Educational Thought, University of Winchester, UK""Gillian Rose''s stature grows with every year that passes. Her probing of the fundamental recognitions and misrecognitions of each other''s humanity that are bound up in living under law is the sort of intellectual goad we desperately need in a global political culture rapidly slipping back to tribalism. This excellent collection of studies shows what a resource her thought can be in such a context.""--Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, CambridgeJoshua B. Davis is the dean of the Alabama Integrative Ministry School for the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama and is an adjunct instructor in Religion at Samford University.

This book is a work of theological resistance. It is not so much about the presidency of Donald Trump as it is about what his popularity and rise to power reveal about the state of Christianity and the moral character of the evangelical Right in the United States today. More specifically, it is about the threat of white Christian nationalism, which is the particular form that the nationalist populist movement of Trumpism has adopted for itself. The contributors are all fellows from the Westar Institute's academic seminar on God and the Human Future, and include many of the leading figures in theology and Continental philosophy of religion. This volume provides a form of theopolitical resistance based on intersectionality. The authors recognize how the various forms of oppression interrelate to contribute to a vast, dynamic, and seeming impenetrable network of systemic injustice and marginalization. These essays demonstrate that politics need not be played as a zero-sum game with a winner-take-all mentality, and that a critical theology is as urgently needed and as relevant now as ever. ""An unfortunately crucial collection of bold essays that assail the white Christian nationalism of our terrifying times and offer counter-political theologies of the multitudinous, the minoritarian, and the earthly."" --Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Wesleyan University Jeffrey W. Robbins is a Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Lebanon Valley College (Annville, Pennsylvania). He is a member of the Board of Directors and is a Research Fellow for the Westar Institute where he chairs the ongoing collaborative academic seminar on God and the Human Future. He is the author or editor of nine books, including Radical Theology (2016). Clayton Crockett is Professor and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Central Arkansas. He is the author of Radical Political Theology (2011) and Derrida after the End of Writing (2018), among other books.

The humanities offer insights into the highest (and lowest) capabilities of our own natures and, at their best, they function as prophetic champions of human dignity and as inspired celebrants of beauty. Envisioning God in the Humanities pays tribute to the career of Melissa Harl Sellew, a scholar and teacher who embodies the ideals of these academic disciplines. The collaboration of these essays attests to the potentialities for transcendence that emerge from rigorous and collective reflection on the texts, images, and ideas produced in ancient societies. Taking its cue from Professor Sellew's own distinguished scholarship, this collection of studies begins with analyses of the New Testament Gospels, then moves more broadly toward the religious life of the ancient world as attested both in literature and materiality, among Jews and Christians, Greeks and Romans. Just as Sellew has done throughout her career, so this volume invites us into to the joy of exploring distant societies and, in so doing, into the fuller discovery of one's own self.Courtney J.P. Friesen is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He is author of Reading Dionysus (2015).

The landscape of American religion is changing dramatically, Millennials are dropping out of church, and new experimental types of Christianity such as the Emerging Church are coming to the fore. But what is the future of religion in America, and what role will Millennials play in that? The results of three years of scholarly inquiry, this collection of essays looks at the Emerging Church and Millennial religious responses and seeks to define and explore both phenomena, always on the lookout for their intersection. Bringing together a diverse collection of scholars in theology, sociology, history and comparative religion, this book highlights the importance of both the Emerging Church and the Millennial generation's future for religion.""Reed and Zbaraschuk's The Emerging Church, Millennials, and Religion tackles a thorny problem: How to define a religious movement that refuses to define itself? The Emerging Church movement avoids simple answers; it distrusts charisma, seeks those on the margins, avoids the catchy phrase; it seeks to serve, include, and agitate . . . This movement has the feel of Jesus, the taste of his words, and the passion of his actions. As revolutionary force, the emergent movement is not meant to be domesticated or bureaucratized, and for all that I say thank God!""--Jim Wellman, Professor of American Religion, Culture and Politics, Jackson School of International Studies, University of WashingtonRandall Reed is Professor of Religion at Appalachian State University. He is the author of A Clash of Ideologies (Pickwick Publications, 2010).G. Michael Zbaraschuk is Associate Professor of Religion at Pacific Lutheran University. He is author of The Purposes of God (Pickwick Publications, 2015).

Experiencing racial marginalization in society and pressures for success in family, Asian American Christian young adults must negotiate being socially underpowered, culturally dissonant, and politically marginal. To avoid misunderstandings and conflicts within and without their communities, more often than not they hide their true thoughts and emotions and hesitate to engage in authentic conversations outside their very close-knit circle of friends. In addition, these young adults might not find their church or Christian fellowship to be a safe and hospitable place to openly struggle with all of these sorts of questions, all the while lacking adequate vocabulary or resources to organize their thoughts. This book responds to these spiritual-moral struggles of Asian American young people by theologically addressing the issues that most intimately and immediately affect Asian American youths' sense of identity--God, race, family, sex, gender, friendship, money, vocation, the model minority myth, and community-- uniquely and consistently from the contexts of Asian American young adult life. Its goal is to help young Asian Americans develop a healthy, balanced, organic sense of identity grounded in a fresh and deeper understanding of the Christian faith.""As cultural and generational norms are shifting, Asian American Christians are wrestling with their identity formation and what it means to be thoughtful Christians today. Intersecting Realities is a must-read resource for those Christians who want to live out their faith in a theologically faithful and culturally relevant way."" --Tom Lin, President/CEO of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship""Lee and his colleagues here not only name the oftentimes very painful realities confronted by young Asian Americans, but also provide concrete practical guidelines for navigating a racialized North American world. What is additionally potent for use in CCCU-affiliated institutions and theological seminary classes devoted to race and ethnicity is the vision of scriptural and covenant faithfulness that provides a sure ground upon which to tread in walking out the unavoidably ambiguous choices demanding navigation, and in persisting through the messy outcomes that will follow in our real world. The way forward will not be easy anytime soon, but that is why those serving in and ministering to the present generation of Asian American Christian communities ought to read Intersecting Realities.""--Amos Yong, Professor of Theology & Mission, Fuller Seminary""Intersecting Realities employs the perfect combination of personal narrative, cutting-edge thinking, and sharp biblical reflection to explore today's key issues facing Asian American Christians. Subsequently, it's a readable, intelligent, and applicable book that is both pastoral and prophetic. I'm very grateful for the wisdom shared by each of the contributing authors and know that it will bless its readers.""--Russell Jeung, author of At Home in Exile: Finding Jesus Among My Ancestors and Refugee NeighborsHak Joon Lee is the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary. Lee has published several books, including Shaping Public Theology: The Max L. Stackhouse Reader, The Great World House: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Global Ethics, and We Will Get to the Promised Land: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Communal-Political Spirituality. For over a decade, he has been deeply involved in curriculum projects for pastors and Asian American youths with a view to furthering church renewal and intergenerational bridge-building in a pluralistic society.

This collection brings together prominent thinkers from numerous disciplines to address the legacy of Gillian Rose for political theology today. Rose's work is notorious for its eclectic range, difficult style, and iconoclastic defiance of the conventions of postmodern critical theory. The theologians, religious scholars, ethicists, and theorists in this collection discuss Rose's relationship to such topics as the Frankfurt School, social theory, feminism, literature, law, Hegel, Kant, and psychoanalysis. They situate her work within the wider context of political theology, as it is understood in religious studies and continental philosophy. Though attentive to the theoretical issues raised by Rose's work, these essays are also engage the role that work may play in political action today, examining issues such as refugee immigration in Europe, the rise of nationalism, and anticapitalist political organizing. The collection is a vital contribution to the rising body of literature on Rose and her importance to political philosophy, ethics, and theology, but it will also serve as an important orienting guide for readers new to Rose's work and its demanding style.""This is a most welcome set of essays, perfectly titled as Misrecognitions, taking up, as it does, Gillian Rose's challenge to conceive of modernity according to its own misrecognitions of itself . . . The book works as an introduction for those new to Rose's work, exploring some of the ideas by which she is now becoming increasingly well known. But it also feeds the appetite of more experienced Rose readers in challenging aspects of her thinking from across her oeuvre. The collection will ensure her continued participation in philosophical and political debates in a variety of cultural theatres. In sum, the book is the voice of the current generation of Rose scholars, and is to be warmly welcomed and highly recommended.""--Nigel Tubbs, Professor of Philosophical and Educational Thought, University of Winchester, UK""Gillian Rose's stature grows with every year that passes. Her probing of the fundamental recognitions and misrecognitions of each other's humanity that are bound up in living under law is the sort of intellectual goad we desperately need in a global political culture rapidly slipping back to tribalism. This excellent collection of studies shows what a resource her thought can be in such a context.""--Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, CambridgeJoshua B. Davis is the dean of the Alabama Integrative Ministry School for the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama and is an adjunct instructor in Religion at Samford University.

For centuries, evangelical Protestants and Catholics have hurled harsh epithets at each other. But that has changed dramatically in the last forty years. In 1960, many prominent evangelicals opposed John Kennedy for president because he was a Catholic. Today, Catholics and evangelicals work together on many issues of public policy.This book records one important process in this transformation. In 2004, the board of The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE--the largest representative body of evangelicals in the US) unanimously approved For the Health of the Nation as the official public policy document for its public policy efforts representing 30 million evangelicals. When scholars read this new ground-breaking document, they quickly realized there was widespread agreement between the NAE's official public policy document and the official public policy positions of American Catholics. The result was a series of annual meetings held at Georgetown University and Eastern University that brought together prominent Catholic and Evangelical scholars and public policy specialists to explore the extent of the common ground. This book reports on that dialogue--and its contribution to the increasing Catholic-evangelical cooperation.""While many today are familiar with the new, more positive relationship developing between Roman Catholics and evangelicals, few have expected to find a convergence in the areas of justice and social policy. This collection of essays, edited by Ronald Sider and John Borelli, shows how the two communities are learning from each other in their efforts to address the common good. It's both an honest exploration and a sign of hope.""--Thomas P. Rausch, Emeritus T. Marie Chilton Professor of Catholic Theology, Loyola Marymount University""Catholics and Evangelicals for the Common Good brilliantly weaves theological reflection with political and religious history to articulate the challenges now confronting both communities in the public square. Every essay acutely analyzes the present by way of turning our attention to the future. Dialogue is admirable, but social action is essential. Here are gathered doers of the word and not merely hearers. This volume offers not sound bites and slogans, but moral guidance and intellectual nourishment.""--E. J. Dionne Jr., Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture, Georgetown University""Here is a collection of principled essays written by leading Catholic and evangelical scholars seeking to find common ground on some of the most pressing and divisive issues of our time. This volume is needed, rare, and welcomed. I commend it to thoughtful Christians everywhere.""--Timothy George, founding dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford UniversityJohn Borelli is Special Assistant for Catholic Identity and Dialogue to the President of Georgetown University, a position he has held since 2004. He served sixteen years at the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.Ronald J. Sider is Distinguished Professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry, and Public Policy at Palmer Seminary at Eastern University and the President Emeritus of Evangelicals for Social Action.

For centuries, evangelical Protestants and Catholics have hurled harsh epithets at each other. But that has changed dramatically in the last forty years. In 1960, many prominent evangelicals opposed John Kennedy for president because he was a Catholic. Today, Catholics and evangelicals work together on many issues of public policy.This book records one important process in this transformation. In 2004, the board of The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE--the largest representative body of evangelicals in the US) unanimously approved For the Health of the Nation as the official public policy document for its public policy efforts representing 30 million evangelicals. When scholars read this new ground-breaking document, they quickly realized there was widespread agreement between the NAE's official public policy document and the official public policy positions of American Catholics. The result was a series of annual meetings held at Georgetown University and Eastern University that brought together prominent Catholic and Evangelical scholars and public policy specialists to explore the extent of the common ground. This book reports on that dialogue--and its contribution to the increasing Catholic-evangelical cooperation.""While many today are familiar with the new, more positive relationship developing between Roman Catholics and evangelicals, few have expected to find a convergence in the areas of justice and social policy. This collection of essays, edited by Ronald Sider and John Borelli, shows how the two communities are learning from each other in their efforts to address the common good. It's both an honest exploration and a sign of hope.""--Thomas P. Rausch, Emeritus T. Marie Chilton Professor of Catholic Theology, Loyola Marymount University""Catholics and Evangelicals for the Common Good brilliantly weaves theological reflection with political and religious history to articulate the challenges now confronting both communities in the public square. Every essay acutely analyzes the present by way of turning our attention to the future. Dialogue is admirable, but social action is essential. Here are gathered doers of the word and not merely hearers. This volume offers not sound bites and slogans, but moral guidance and intellectual nourishment.""--E. J. Dionne Jr., Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture, Georgetown University""Here is a collection of principled essays written by leading Catholic and evangelical scholars seeking to find common ground on some of the most pressing and divisive issues of our time. This volume is needed, rare, and welcomed. I commend it to thoughtful Christians everywhere.""--Timothy George, founding dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford UniversityJohn Borelli is Special Assistant for Catholic Identity and Dialogue to the President of Georgetown University, a position he has held since 2004. He served sixteen years at the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.Ronald J. Sider is Distinguished Professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry, and Public Policy at Palmer Seminary at Eastern University and the President Emeritus of Evangelicals for Social Action.

Between the world of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Christianity there appears to be the widest difference. Coates's brief comments on Christianity in his highly acclaimed Between the World and Me make clear that religious faith is alien to his own experience. Still, Christian audiences from congregations to theological schools engaged the text for its analysis of the state of race relations in the United States. In September 2015, Ta-Nehisi Coates tweeted, ""Best thing about #BetweenTheWorldAndMe is watching Christians engage the work. Serious learning experience for me."" This volume takes that tweet as an invitation to theologians, ethicists, and religious studies scholars to engage the book, and as a challenge to do so in a way that is a learning experience for Coates, the authors, and readers.""At its best, theology wrestles with the world we live in and what God calls us to be in the midst of this world. Coates' Between The World and Me was an unrelenting description of this world we inhabit. This collection of essays takes up the theological challenge to listen to Coates and speak with him to discern what faithfulness might look like in a world shaped by the violence of racism. It is a critical read."" --Brian Bantum, Associate Professor of Theology, Seattle Pacific UniversityDavid Evans is Associate Professor of History and Intercultural Studies, and the Director of Cross Cultural Programs at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.Peter Dula is Professor of Religion and Culture, and Chair of the Department of Bible and Religion at Eastern Mennonite University.

The landscape of American religion is changing dramatically, Millennials are dropping out of church, and new experimental types of Christianity such as the Emerging Church are coming to the fore. But what is the future of religion in America, and what role will Millennials play in that? The results of three years of scholarly inquiry, this collection of essays looks at the Emerging Church and Millennial religious responses and seeks to define and explore both phenomena, always on the lookout for their intersection. Bringing together a diverse collection of scholars in theology, sociology, history and comparative religion, this book highlights the importance of both the Emerging Church and the Millennial generation's future for religion.""Reed and Zbaraschuk's The Emerging Church, Millennials, and Religion tackles a thorny problem: How to define a religious movement that refuses to define itself? The Emerging Church movement avoids simple answers; it distrusts charisma, seeks those on the margins, avoids the catchy phrase; it seeks to serve, include, and agitate . . . This movement has the feel of Jesus, the taste of his words, and the passion of his actions. As revolutionary force, the emergent movement is not meant to be domesticated or bureaucratized, and for all that I say thank God!""--Jim Wellman, Professor of American Religion, Culture and Politics, Jackson School of International Studies, University of WashingtonRandall Reed is Professor of Religion at Appalachian State University. He is the author of A Clash of Ideologies (Pickwick Publications, 2010).G. Michael Zbaraschuk is Associate Professor of Religion at Pacific Lutheran University. He is author of The Purposes of God (Pickwick Publications, 2015).

Why worship? In this superb new collection of essays, lay people, clergy, poets, theologians, musicians, novelists, and scholars offer personal, profound, and provocative reflections on their experience of worship in The Episcopal Church. Through their flesh-and-blood stories of longing, loss, and love, we encounter the God who meets us in common prayer. Contributors to the book include: J. Neil AlexanderFred BahnsonMichael BattleLuisa BonillasRodney ClappKim EdwardsMelissa Deckman FallonStephen FowlPaul FrombergKatherine Greene-McCreightCameron Dezen HammonBJ HeyboerRhonda Mawhood LeeIan S. MarkhamDuane MillerJoseph PaganoAmy PetersonSpencer ReeceAmy RichterC. K. RobertsonSophfronia ScottRachel Marie StoneLauren Winner""This gracefully edited collection is a window into the transformative experience of shared liturgy in all its particularity, difficulty, and beauty. May these honest reflections open the eyes of our faith.""--Sara Miles, author of Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion and City of God: Faith in the Streets""If Anglicanism claims to be catholic and reformed, then this winsome volume has the best of both: catholic in liturgy, protestant in testimony. Open this volume and meanwhile open your heart to be strangely warmed by the quirky, the moving, the profound, and the playful.""--Sam Wells, Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, LondonJoseph S. Pagano and Amy E. Richter are Episcopal priests, appointed missionaries for The Episcopal Church, and serve as lecturers in theology at the College of Transfiguration in Makhanda/Grahamstown, South Africa. They are married to each other.

There has been a varied range of studies on Jesus. Though now it seems there is a pause and perhaps opening to new orientation, with the aim not simply to cover old ground or repeat past mistakes. This is a study of Jesus and Christian origins with a primary focus on the Gospels. There have been comprehensive and important contributions, like N. T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God. At the same time, more defined studies have appeared. The purpose here is not to develop particular New Testament themes as such. Rather, in this volume the writers take up Gospel related topics in the context of the early church in order to illuminate specific baselines for New Testament interpretation and to discern directions toward a new paradigm. There is much to do. The need to take account of reception history and so of the ""external evidence"" for the New Testament documents; also eyewitness and oral tradition as embodied in the Gospel accounts. The genre of the Gospels with reference to biography or history has its own importance. The reception and ""authority"" of the Gospels in the early church marks another baseline. Jesus in his Jewish context and in relation to emerging Christianity is also a critical baseline for interpretation. ""Ben Wiebe and the authors in this volume set out a new methodological paradigm for constructing the Jesus of history and the origins of Christianity. They declare that both the four Gospels and early exterior sources are to be probed in this reconstruction. Their focus is on historical and psychological methods, which from their perspective can establish substantial historical authenticity. This work should be on the book list of all pertinent courses and is a must read for those interested in contemporary, international, cutting edge perspectives on these matters."" --Thomas H. Olbricht, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religion, Pepperdine University ""Jesus and Christian Origins penetrates deeply into how New Testament studies are done . . . This book is both an introduction to how history and Jesus fit into the New Testament while at the same contributing to each topic discussed. A remarkable achievement!"" --Scot McKnight, Professor of New Testament, Northern Seminary Ben Wiebe served for over twenty years in ministry and taught courses for McMaster University and Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario) over several years. From 1994 to 2015 he taught for short terms (fourteen times) in India at Union Biblical Seminary in Pune and at South Asia Institute for Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS) in Bangalore. His writing includes the book, Messianic Ethics: Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the Church in Response; essays in journals, including Restoration Quarterly, Interpretation, Horizons for Biblical Theology, Indian Journal of Theology, Dharma Deepika and the Stone-Campbell Journal. He is married to Patti and they are the parents of three children and eight grandchildren. The Hamilton area in Ontario has been home for over three decades.