Books published by Cascade Books

What is our destiny? The final end of humanity and the universe is a subject of perennial interest, especially for Christians. What are we promised? Will anyone finally be left out of God's intentions to bless humanity? What sort of transformation will be needed to enter the presence of God? These questions have been at the heart of Christian teachings about last things.The 2013 Pro Ecclesia Conference of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology focused such issues on the theme ""Heaven, Hell . . . and Purgatory?"" The six essays in this volume cover a range of topics of interest to Catholic, Evangelical, and Orthodox theology.""'What will happen to me when I die?' Stated thus baldly, the question sounds naive; but a theologian who has nothing to say to it is no theologian. Happily, the contributors to this volume are able to address it well in light of Scripture, reason, and church teaching. A wonderful, ecumenically informed resource for pastors, catechists, and just about anyone concerned with the topic of human destiny.""--Joseph L. Mangina, Professor of Theology, Wycliffe CollegeMichael Root is Professor of Systematic Theology at The Catholic University of America and Executive Director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. He was formerly the Director of the Institute for Ecumenical Research, Strasbourg, France.James J. Buckley is Professor of Theology at Loyola University Maryland. He has contributed to and edited (with Frederick Bauerschmidt and Trent Pomplun) The Blackwell Companion to Catholicism (2007). He is associate director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology.

What can God and eros have to do with each other? Against Nietzsche's claim that Christianity poisoned eros, God and Eros rereads the mystery of human love as an ecstatic sharing in the mystery of the triune God who is Love. Body, sex, and affectivity, far from being locked in a lower order called ""nature,"" instead belong to a sacramental order that is permeated by the call to love.In presentations designed to appeal to a general audience, the faculty of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne, approach this mystery through the lens of St. John Paul II's ""theology of the body,"" with the goal to both introduce and more clearly illumine its major features. In particular, emphasis is placed on how a theology of the body is not just about ""sex."" Rather, it is above all about how each and every person--no matter what her state of life--is stamped by the watermark of being-from and being-for. Working within this broader perspective, God and Eros offers the reader a lively, engaging, and at times challenging tour of the full ""ethos of the nuptial mystery.""""Did Nietzsche have it right? Has Christianity poisoned eros? Melbourne's JP II Institute demonstrates the opposite: the Christian faith treats eros as the great 'wing-giver,' motivating every human project, and it honors the body as the sacramental marker of this restlessness for the mystery of Love. In a world preoccupied with sex, this book takes us to the true profundity of the human person.""--Hans Boersma, J. I. Packer Professor of Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, BC""This comprehensive, profound, and stimulating account of the relationship between God and human love in all its fullness is an exceptional book for exceptional times. Inspired by the theological vision of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, the authors have crafted their beautifully written account in dialogue with our secular age and in answer to the contemporary crisis in the Church with regard to sexual ethics. God and Eros heralds the beginning of a new era in theology and pastoral practice.""--D. Vincent Twomey, Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology, Divine Word Missionaries, IrelandDr. Colin Patterson is Lecturer in Moral Theology and Psychology, John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne.Dr. Conor Sweeney is Lecturer in Sacramental Theology and Postmodern Philosophy, John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne. He is the author of Sacramental Presence after Heidegger: Onto-Theology, Sacraments, and the Mother's Smile (Cascade, forthcoming).

Beginning with her award-winning book Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (1990), Nancey Murphy has used philosophy of science as a way into, and catalyst for, fresh thinking in cosmology, divine action, epistemology, cognitive neuroscience, theological anthropology, philosophy of mind, and Christian virtue ethics. The essays in this book, written by her students and colleagues, creatively honor Murphy by extending a number of her core insights within their respective disciplines. An introduction provides both an account of Murphy's unique location (an Anabaptist teaching at an evangelical graduate institution) and a summary of her contributions to theology as a philosopher of science whose corpus more than any other epitomizes the paradigm shift in philosophy sometimes called ""Anglo-American postmodernity."" Subsequently, fourteen essays provide unique engagements with Murphy on subjects including divine action, the interaction between science and theology, epistemology, the nature of humanity, and political theology. In its entirety, Practicing to Aim at Truth provides the first in-depth interaction with and extension of Nancey Murphy's unique school of thought, providing a resource both for those wishing to extend her research program as well as those wishing to understand it charitably in order to critique it.""Thoughtful and inspiring, this volume is a fitting tribute to the enduring academic accomplishment of Professor Nancey Murphy--a leading Christian voice in postmodern Anglo-American philosophy and non-foundational theology. The collection of illuminating essays evinces a thorough engagement with the rich legacy of Murphy's creative scholarship in all its breadth and complexity. The book is a compelling affirmation of the lasting importance of Murphy's stimulating contributions to the contemporary development of philosophical theology."" --Parush R. Parushev, Vice-Rector of the International Baptist Theological Study Centre, Amsterdam""Newson and Kallenberg are to be congratulated for putting together this stimulating collection of essays, brimming with philosophical and theological insights that expand on numerous significant conversations we've come to associate with Nancey Murphy's creative work. This is a most fitting tribute!"" --Joel B. Green, Dean of the School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary ""Perhaps no scholar has contributed more to the formation of religion/science as a disciplined field than Nancey Murphy. This beautifully structured collection offers the best introduction to her life's work, stretching from the methodology of science and religion to theological anthropology, and from cosmology and Christian theology to the ethical and political implications of her thought. The essays demonstrate the encyclopedic nature of Murphy's scholarship and the enduring significance of her thought.""--Philip Clayton, Ingraham Professor, Claremont School of TheologyRyan Andrew Newson (PhD) teaches in the department of religion and philosophy at Campbell University in North Carolina. He is the coeditor of The Collected Works of James Wm. McClendon, Jr. (2014) and author of several scholarly articles.Brad J. Kallenberg is Professor of Theology at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. He is the author of Ethics as Grammar (2001), Live to Tell (2002), God and Gadgets (2011), By Design (2013), and numerous scholarly articles.

With candor, passion, and deep love for her work, Lucy Forster-Smith takes us across the threshold as a chaplain on a college campus. This vocational narrative braids the story of her faith journey that began on a porch when she was a four-year-old, was shaken by a sexual assault as a seminarian, and through healing and grace brought her to claim a call to ministry with students. With delightful humor and an infectious love for her work, Forster-Smith invites the reader into her world. Crossing Thresholds is a theological narrative, weaving together the story of faith in the context of the professional life of a college chaplain. Lighting on the power of spiritual awakening at a college, once named as the number one institution of higher education that ""ignored God on a regular basis,"" Forster-Smith jars loose the assumptions about the avowedly secular campus. Her journey of healing and grace illuminates and guides to cross the threshold of the campus's soul. ""Lucy Forster-Smith served for two decades as an exemplary college chaplain at Macalester, and she captures in this book the many rewards, challenges, and complexities of that work. Anyone who wants a window into the spiritual life on a modern college campus would benefit from reading Lucy's memoir.""--Brian Rosenberg, author of Little Dorrit's Shadows""Crossing Thresholds is an invitation to that place of authenticity where self, role, and meaning meet. Only rarely are we gifted by such access to the inside experience of a professional role--whatever the profession--in a manner that transcends artifice. Not only chaplains, but all who care about living faithfully in a complex world, will savor this intelligent, informing, story-filled, and evocative book that reminds us how much is at stake for self and world in the conversation between generations.""--Sharon Daloz Parks, author of Big Questions, Worthy Dreams""Lucy Forster-Smith blends spiritual memoir with deep theological reflection to provide an engaging and in-depth look at life as a college chaplain. Lucy captures a 'day in the life' by stepping outside of the designated sacred space and into the quotidian rhythms of a campus community. . . . Lucy Forster-Smith makes a compelling case for the power of mere presence. Wherever and whenever people are present with open hearts and open hands, hope and healing abide!""--Jonathan Walton, author of Watch This!""In these pages, Lucy Forster-Smith shares her personal stories of wonder, vocation, and brutal pain, elemental in the spiritual life that created the influential religious leader she is today. Through vivid and instructive anecdotes, the book also introduces the readers to the complex landscape of today's college campuses where pluralism, secularism, and politics intersect with religious traditions and spiritual seeking. Colleges and universities are training grounds for future citizens, so we can be glad that Forster-Smith is in the trenches, helping young students to find their deepest personal callings and inspiring values that will create more just communities in the future.""--Paul Raushenbush, religion editor of The Huffington PostLucy A. Forster-Smith is the Sedgwick Chaplain to the University and Senior Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University. From 1994 to early 2014 she served as the Chaplain of Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota. Her recent book, College & University Chaplaincy in the 21st Century: A Multifaith Look at the Practice of Ministry on Campuses across America (2013), has launched broad discussion on the vocation of chaplains in higher education.

How did the visual, the oral, and the written interrelate in antiquity? The essays in this collection address the competing and complementary roles of visual media, forms of memory, oral performance, and literacy and popular culture in the ancient Mediterranean world. Incorporating both customary and innovative perspectives, the essays advance the frontiers of our understanding of the nature of ancient texts as regards audibility and performance, the vital importance of the visual in the comprehension of texts, and basic concepts of communication, particularly the need to account for disjunctive and non-reciprocal social relations in communication. Thus the contributions show how the investigation of the interface of the oral and written, across the spectrum of seeing, hearing, and writing, generates new concepts of media and mediation.

It is surely not coincidental that the term "soul" should mean not only the center of a creature's life and consciousness, but also a thing or action characterized by intense vivacity ("that bike's got soul!"). It also seems far from coincidental that the same contemporary academic discussions that have largely cast aside the language of "soul" in their quest to define the character of human mental life should themselves be so--how to say it?--bloodless, so lacking in soul. This volume arises from the opposite premise, namely that the task of understanding human nature is bound up with and in important respects dependent upon the more critical task of learning to be fully human, of learning to have soul. The papers collected here are derived from a conference in Oxford sponsored by the Centre of Theology and Philosophy and together explore the often surprising landscape that emerges when human consciousness is approached from this angle. Drawing upon literary, philosophical, theological, historical, and musical modes of analysis, the essays of this volume vividly remind the reader of the power of the ancient language of soul over against contemporary impulses to reduce, fragment, and overly determine human selfhood.

This is a book about the enormous changes that took place at Baylor University from 1991 to 2003, as seen through the perceptive eyes of its provost at the time, Donald D. Schmeltekopf. On the front end was the charter revision, a change that permanently restructured the legal governance of the university. On the back end was Baylor 2012, a grand vision for the university issued by the Board of Regents on September 21, 2001. There were several critical crossroads along the way to what has now been created at Baylor, a Christian research university, one of a kind among church-related universities in the Protestant orbit. These memoirs tell the story of this transformation from the perspective of one who was leading at the crossroads.""With Baylor at the Crossroads, Don Schmeltekopf has provided a splendid record of how best to negotiate the tough choices all church-related schools face today. . . . Don's service is instructive to all of us who care deeply about the life of faith and its inextricable relationship to the life of reason."" --Mark R. Schwehn, Professor of Humanities in Christ College, Valparaiso University ""Having watched and written about Baylor's remarkable rise to a research university while simultaneously strengthening its Christian character, I hungered for the story of that ascent by its architect, Provost Donald Schmeltekopf. My hunger was satisfied by this exciting account that reads like a novel while offering important teachings about how schools might achieve quality with soul.""--Robert Benne, Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion Emeritus, Roanoke College""Schmeltekopf's vision, integrity, and courage helped drive Baylor forward during a period of enormous change. . . . May this memoir guide and inspire a new generation of academic leaders at Baylor and beyond.""--Wilson D. Miscamble, Professor of History, University of Notre Dame ""A must-read for anyone interested in the past struggles of Christian higher education and its future prospects. We all need to learn the lessons Schmeltekopf can teach.""--David Solomon, H. B. and W. P. White Director Emeritus, Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture""As its chief academic officer, Donald Schmeltekopf presided over the transformation of Baylor University from a regional school known chiefly for its undergraduate teaching into an international research university known also for its integration of firm Christian faith with rigorous academic research. Schmeltekopf's memoirs of his years as the Baylor provost provide excellent insight into this revolutionary event.""--Ralph C. Wood, University Professor of Theology and Literature, Baylor UniversityDonald Schmeltekopf is provost emeritus of Baylor University. He was provost of Baylor from 1991 to 2003. Prior to coming to Baylor, he served five years as vice president and provost at Mars Hill College, and two years as a program officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the coeditor of five books, including The Baylor Project: Taking Christian Higher Education to the Next Level (2007).

A number of distinguished biblical scholars and theologians come together in this volume to honor the life and work of Andrew T. Lincoln. The title of this volume reflects Andrew Lincoln's lifelong interests in Christian origins, the reception of biblical texts in believing and scholarly communities, and the embodiment of the gospel in believing communities made possible by the Spirit. These essays cover exegetical matters, theological interpretation, and theology and embodiment. Several essays engage directly with Lincoln's monographs, Truth on Trial, and Born of a Virgin?

The present book reflects on the life, work, and legacy of an exceptional and enigmatic woman: the philosopher and French Jewish mystic Simone Weil. It constitutes a testimony so unique that it is impossible to ignore.In a Europe where authoritarian regimes were dominant and heading, in a sinister manner, toward World War II, this woman of fragile health but indomitable spirit denounced the contradictions of the capitalist system, the brutality of Nazism, and the paradox of bourgeois thought. At the same time, her spiritual journey was one of zeal and sorrow--that of a true mystic--but her radical intransigence and passion for freedom kept her from actually approaching the institutional church.Curious and insatiable, she wanted to experience, in the flesh, the suffering of society's least fortunate and the truths of other religions. The reader will need to develop a discerning empathy for Simone Weil's sensibility, beyond her particular passion and zeal, in order to appreciate her in depth.But undeniable are this truly singular woman's authenticity, her capacity to suffer, her identification with the other, her inner passion, her almost magical perception of the depths of the human spirit. And that is why her story merits being told as one of the great witnesses of our age.""Following her pointed observation that 'witnesses are fountains from which theology springs forth,' Bingemer offers a rich theological reflection on some of the central themes emerging from the life and thought of Simone Weil, one of the twentieth century's most intriguing mystics. The book brings Weil into the heart of the Christian theological tradition, while recognizing her desire to remain clear of any institutional determination. It is an important contribution to Weil studies, and to contemporary mystical theology.""--Catherine Cornille, Newton College Alumnae Chair, Boston College""The always fascinating enigma of Weil and the wellspring for social justice represented by Brazil's most spiritually creative theologian of liberation come together in this superbly translated theological biography . . . [A] highly compelling meditation on the fragility and necessity of intellectual work in the face of the suffering of the marginalized.""--Peter Casarella, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Notre Dame""The voice of Simone Weil--a key figure of the French philosophy of the twentieth century--is given to us to listen to by Bingemer. With skill and clarity she brings us into a thought without concessions, rooted in Christ (without entering into the Catholic Church), and committed to the insignificant people of our world. A good resource for contemporary researchers. 'A paradoxical testimony!'""--Thierry-Marie Courau, Dean of Theologicum, Institut Catholique de Paris""Only a scholar who has passionately journeyed with Simone Weil over a lifetime could have produced this book. By any measure what Bingemer offers is exceptional. The beauty of Weil's intellect, heart, and life come alive in Bingemer's hands. This elegantly written book presents an intimate, compelling portrait of Weil that invites readers to consider how we too might give witness to the light intellectually and compassionately."" --Nancy Pineda-Madrid, Associate Professor of Theology & U.S. Latino/a MinistryBoston College School of Theology and MinistryMaria Clara Bingemer is Full Professor of Systematic Theology at the Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is the author of A Face for God (2014), among other books. She has written many books and articles on Simone Weil's thought, including the essay ""Affliction and Option for the Poor: Simone Weil and Latin American Liberation Theology"" (in R. Rozelle and L. Stone, eds., The Relevance of the Radical).

The landscape of Christian spirituality in the West is no longer lush with green grass and wild flowers blooming. Instead, across the country we find dry terrain where churches no longer can expect interested seekers--yet most of our solutions for addressing this predicament link to anxiety around our performance and personality. Rather than going back to the boardroom to cook up new techniques for a trendier church, let's ask more meaningfully rooted questions. Do we know how to be present in our neighborhoods? Do we know how to be present in community? Do we know how to be present to the in-breaking kingdom of God? There is a growing groundswell discovering that we have become uprooted and detached from each other in the way we express being the church. We need a subterranean movement that plunges below the surface into a way of being the people of God that carries an unwavering incarnational creed. Dan White Jr. uses crisp criticism, narrative theology, and tangible practices to uncover a hopeful pathway for being radically rooted in God's world.""Dan White has penned a well-written, distinctly prophetic book on incarnational mission. In it he calls us to a life beyond the standard cultural obsessions and to a faithfulness that is rendered through rootedness, abiding, witness, and service. A welcome addition to the books on prophetic missionality."" --Alan Hirsch, author and activist""For too long the church has caved in to the desires of a world addicted to self-destructive speed and geographic displacement. But no longer, says White. God is seeking to re-place his people, to invite us into the radical act of stopping in a restless world, to be deeply rooted, to be witnesses to the life our world could experience if it truly surrendered to Christ. This inspiring and practical guide will help you in that monumental endeavor.""--Michael Frost, author, Incarnate: The Body of Christ in an Age of Disengagement""Want a sneak peak into the future of the church in North America? Read this book. Better yet, want to join in this bold new future? Join with others and create local practices as inspired by this incredible resource. Rooted in courageous practice, White has written a pioneering guide that pinpoints the cancerous defaults of the contemporary church, while also casting a practical vision for how we can all join in God's abundant future."" --Tim Soerens, coauthor of The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches Are Transforming Mission, Discipleship, and Community""The bias toward up is powerful in church culture. As leaders, we want to be up-and-comers and eventually at the top. If our grand vision isn't realized, we pull up stakes and move on. In this fine book, White makes an impassioned case for down. 'Up-rootedness' abstracts us, but 'rootedness'--in community, place, and the unfolding work of God--is the truly radical trajectory of the church. It's difficult to imagine a more important message.""--John Pattison, coauthor of Slow ChurchDan White, Jr. co-planted Axiom Church when five families dove into the city of Syracuse, New York, to cultivate communities in diverse neighborhoods. He is also a church strategist with the V3 Movement, coaching cohorts from around the country through an eighteen-month missional training system. Finally, he is also cofounder of the Praxis Gathering. Dan finds deep delight in dwelling around the table with good coffee and a good conversation. He blogs at danwhitejr.com.

Transforming Wisdom offers an extensive, multidisciplinary introduction to pastoral psychotherapy from some of the most respected practitioners in the field. With special attention to theological perspectives on the practice of psychotherapy, this collection of essays will be useful to students seeking an orientation to the art and science of pastoral psychotherapy as well as to seasoned professionals looking to refresh and renew their practice. As the subtitle, Pastoral Psychotherapy in Theological Perspective, suggests, this book is intended to represent the field of pastoral psychotherapy as a mental-health discipline that maintains intentional dialogue with its theological roots. Even as pastoral psychotherapy has developed from the ancient notion of the cure of souls to the current search for a psychology of happiness, therapists grounded in faith communities seek a practice that is respectful of all persons, mindful of the deep wisdom that emanates from the true self, or soul. While many contributors write from a psychoanalytic or psychodynamic perspective grounded in Christian theological idioms, diverse theoretical perspectives, including Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Buddhist Mindfulness, and Jungian understanding of individuation, are represented.

Everywhere there are voices calling for a new Reformation, marked by a return to the older sources of Christian wisdom, and for drinking anew the inspiration of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the church fathers, those from the monastic tradition and the medieval Christian mystics.This anthology of original sources in contemporary English, structured in a meditational mode, could well be the rich resource you are looking for in hearing the ancient Christian wisdom. Here are the deep wells of theological and spiritual insight that could guide you in walking a renewed path of faith in our precarious world. These voices from the past may well help you in living against the tide of late modernity with its rationality and utilitarianism that cannot sustain a well-lived and well-loved life. This book could sustain the hope for a renewed world through life lived in the presence of the healing and empowering God.

The relation between life and death is a subject of perennial relevance for all human beings--and indeed, the whole world and the entire universe, in as much as, according to the saying of ancient Greek philosophy, all things that come into being pass away. Yet it is also a topic of increasing complexity, for life and death now appear to be more intertwined than previously or commonly thought. Moreover, the relation between life and death is also one of increasing urgency, as through the twin phenomena of an increase in longevity unprecedented in human history and the rendering of death, dying, and the dead person all but invisible, people living in the industrialized and post-industrialized Western world of today have lost touch with the reality of death. This radically new situation, and predicament, has implications--medical, ethical, economic, philosophical, and, not least, theological--that have barely begun to be addressed. This volume gathers together essays by a distinguished and diverse group of scientists, theologians, philosophers, and health practitioners, originally presented in a symposium sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.

Homiletics is taking a theological turn. But what does the preaching task look like if we think of it not so much as a mastery of technique, but an exercise in theological method? Homiletical Theology in Action: The Unfinished Theological Task of Preaching tries to envision the work of homiletics as theological in root and branch. By placing theological questions at the center of the process, the authors, some of the leading lights of the field of homiletics, try to show how their work as preachers and homileticians is a thoroughgoing theological activity. By beginning with troublesome texts and problematic doctrines, they seek to show how preachers and homileticians engage in theology, not as consumers, but as producers--and in the thick of the kinds of questions that preachers have to ask. Practitioners and theological educators alike will catch a glimpse of how they too are residential theologians in their own preaching praxis.""Scholars and preachers alike will want this new contribution to homiletical theology. The homiletical theology movement explores how preaching is itself a form of doing theology, and not just a consumer of the work of systematic theologians. The preacher can be a creative theologian and not just one who applies the theologies of academic theologians. In this fast-moving volume, seven eminent scholars of preaching--all of whom are gifted in theology--think in exciting and critical ways about homiletical theology in three modes: description, confessional, and analytical.""--Ronald J. Allen, Professor of Preaching and Gospels and Letters, Christian Theological Seminary ""Preachers describe, confess, and analyze a multitude of theologies. Like Jacob, we wrestle with a vast and powerful presence until we receive a word that may be painful, provisional and unfinished, but also a deep blessing. Homiletical Theology in Action graciously urges us to name God again and again into our cultures and communities. This book is an invitation to join a theological conversation that will shape the future of homiletics."" --Sarah Travis, Minister-in-Residence, Knox College""After decades of emphasis on rhetorical methodologies, the scholarly pendulum is now swinging back toward more directly theological considerations. This provocative, diverse, and rewarding collection of essays contributes significantly to a new definition of preaching as an intrinsically theological activity."" --Michael Knowles, G. F. Hurlburt Chair of Preaching, McMaster Divinity College""Homiletic Theology in Action: The Unfinished Task of Preaching is the second in a series of books that seeks to rekindle an appreciation for homiletics as an inherently theological act and to expand that perspective in response to new questions raised within a changing context. In this volume, scholars do the work of describing the process of theological reflection that results in proclamation, examining how the theological 'confessions' of certain faith traditions give shape to that process of theological reflection in preaching, and questioning long-held assumptions about the interplay of scripture, tradition, rhetoric, and human situation in a move toward homiletical theology in the contemporary context. These scholars bring years of experience in practicing theology through preaching. As preachers wrestling with issues of context, tradition and text, each one walks us down her or his own homiletic pathway to demonstrate theology in action. This book moves the discussion of homiletical theology to a more practical level, giving students and practitioners new ways of thinking about what happens each time a preacher takes on the task of proclaiming gospel to the world through preaching. This text is for anyone who wants to join the ongoing conversation about homiletic theology or who hopes to deepen their awareness of how the act of preaching remains a complex theological task."" --Mary Lin Hudson, Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics, Memphis The

The Beach Boys are one of rock's most enduring and enigmatic groups, and while the band has been the subject of numerous biographies and other in-depth studies, there has been no focused evaluation of the religious and spiritual themes in their work. Spiritual and theological themes are present in much of their work, and when this realization is coupled with Brian Wilson's mission ""to spread the gospel of love through records,"" and his sense of music as spiritual--of thinking ""pop music is going to be spiritual . . . that's the direction I want to go""--this is a striking way to explore the band's music. In God Only Knows, the contributors attempt to come to grips with just a small amount of this band's massive output--by circling around its theological virtues. Each section of the book is a loose investigation of the guiding topics of faith, hope, and love. Each essay is a free exploration of theological and spiritual themes from the contributor's own perspectives.""In the emerging era of popular music as a shaping cultural force, there were a few artists whose work not only profoundly impacted their peers but who continue to influence today. Among those artists were The Beach Boys, one of California's most unique contributions to the pop music canon, a band whose music exported not only American pop to the world, but also Cali surf culture, sunshine, and a commitment to spread love through music. Much has been written about The Beach Boys over the years and their work has been scrutinized from virtually every angle. What's unique about this volume is that it seeks to explore a singular and key element of The Beach Boys' music, namely, the spiritual component that funded their creativity. The Beach Boys rose to fame in the wake of the 'death of God,' but their music, like many of their era, was fueled by a hunger to seek out the spiritual in new and expanding ways. God Only Knows is a volume of essays that unearths some of those spiritual and theological threads and along the way invites the reader to a deeper appreciation of pop music's power and some fresh perspectives on one of popular music's most important and influential bands.""--Barry Taylor, teacher, writer, music lover""This is one fine book. It investigates an unexamined aspect of The Beach Boys ... at long last. Brian Wilson had a hidden agenda. I think Brian would be proud of this work. Jon Foreman of Switchfoot fame would be proud too! After all, he covers the song 'God Only Knows.' And that thought is, indeed, true!"" --David Naugle, Distinguished University Professor, Dallas Baptist University""Who knew there could exist a beautiful, serious, playful book on The Beach Boys that pointed to the Kingdom of God and the gospel of love? I thank my teenage aunt for introducing this magical group to me. And now, grateful again to have all these robust thinkers paying homage and plumbing the depths of this hallowed group from my native California. I'm swimming in delight.""--Charlie Peacock, ProducerJeff Sellars teaches philosophy, humanities, and religious studies in Northern California and Southern Oregon.

Parsifal, Wagner's final opera, is considered by many to be one of the greatest religious musical works ever composed; but it is also one of the most difficult to understand and many have questioned whether it can be considered a "Christian" work at all. Added to this is the furious debate that has surrounded the composer as an anti-Semite, racist, and inspiration for Hitler. Richard Bell addresses such issues and argues that despite any personal failings Wagner makes a fundamental theological contribution through his many writings and ultimately in Parsifal which, he argues, preaches Christ crucified in a way that can never be captured by words alone. He argues that Wagner offers a vision of the divine and a "theology of Good Friday" that can both function as profound therapy and address current theological controversies.

Born Again and Beyond identifies and interacts with various theological blind spots in Evangelicalism--such as its naive rationality, its faulty understanding of the nature of both Scripture and the gospel, and its emphasis on salvation as an event rather than a process. At the same time, Born Again and Beyond recognizes the real goodness that evangelicalism has brought to the world. Whether it be caring for the outcast and underprivileged, or insisting that one can have a personal relationship with God in Christ, Evangelicalism has certainly played a key role in the advancement of the Kingdom of God in modern times. Perhaps the most destructive element of Evangelicalism has been the equating of it with the gospel itself. Like other expressions of authentic Christian faith, Evangelicalism must not regard itself as the principal locus of the gospel. Having been an Evangelical for decades, John E. Harvey comes to this discussion not as a misinformed outsider, but as one who has sympathy with the Evangelical cause.

Why do so many think the Bible teaches that the universe is six thousand years old? There are many good biblical and historical reasons to read Genesis 1 nonliterally, and there are many good scientific reasons to think the universe is much older. Out of this misconception, some will lose faith, while others won't find it. This book was written for a large audience, gathering in a little more than one hundred pages the main biblical, historical, and astrophysical reasons to recognize that the universe is far more than six thousand years old. Contrary to some common views, scientists do not simply assume physical laws have been the same in the past. They observe it.

Starting from both our originary experience of being given to ourselves and Jesus Christ's archetypal self-donation, Gift and the Unity of Being elucidates the sense in which gift is the form of being's unity, while unity itself constitutes the permanence of the gift of being. In dialogue with ancient and modern philosophers and theologians, Lopez offers a synthetic, rather than systematic, account of the unity proper to being, the human person, God, and the relations among them. The book shows how contemplation of the triune God of Love through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit allows us to discover the eternal communion that being is and to which finite being is called. It also illustrates the sense in which God's gratuitousness unexpectedly offers the human person the possibility to recognize and embrace his origin and destiny, and thus he is given to see and taste in God's light the ever-fruitful, dramatic, and mysterious positivity of being.

Beyond the Walls of Separation is an essential and easy-to-read guidebook for chaplains and volunteers working in the context of prison, and for all those who are professionally or through family links related to those in prison. The book tells the story of what life behind bars is, and how inmates experience transformation through Christian faith: People at the crisis points of their life, where they are shattered, and where little is left of what made them, may experience life as fragile and as a transparent filter for the mysterious. Yet they also may experience God's life-giving presence. Love, expressed in forgiveness--against all odds, against all merits and previous experiences--lies at the root of many stories of transformation that emerge from prison.The book guides visitors to approach inmates without condescension, with an awareness of the social dimension of power and inequality, and with sensitivity to the suffering and alienation that individual prisoners experience. The many years of prison ministry in different cultural contexts and with inmates from all nations have taught the author that Christ does not need to be brought to prison through visitors, through evangelistic events, or through Christian outreach. He is already powerfully present in prison.

Two trends in the early twenty-first-century intersect to give this volume immediate relevance: 1) The emerging postmodern ethos in North America is calling into question many things we have taken for granted, including the purposes of the church; and 2) our time is increasingly fractious as groups with distinct worldviews become polarized and often antagonistic. Eleven noted contributors join a growing current that sees conversation as an image to refresh our thinking about the nature and purpose of the church, and as a process in which individuals and communities with different perspectives come together for real understanding. Under the Oak Tree employs the image of Sarah and Abraham greeting three visitors under the Oaks of Mamre as an image for the church as a community of conversation, a community that opens itself to the otherness of the Bible, voices in history and tradition, others in the contemporary social and ecological worlds. Furthermore, the book shows how conversation can lead the church to action.The book takes a practical approach by exploring how conversation can shape key parts of the church's life. Topics include preaching, worship, formation, evangelism, pastoral care, mission and ecumenism, social witness, and the relationship of Christianity to other religions. Foundational chapters consider God as conversational, the church as community of conversation, and the minister as conversation leader.

Cultural and ethnic diversity is the reality of our world, and much more so in this age of heightened globalization. Yet, do our ways of doing theological education match with our current reality and hopes for a colorful and just tomorrow? How shall we do theological formation so it helps give birth to a culturally diverse, racially just, and hospitable world? This edited volume gathers the voices of minoritized scholars and their white allies in the profession in response to the above questions. More particularly, this volume gathers the responses of these scholars to the questions: What is the plight of theological education? Who are the teachers? Who are our students? What shall we teach? How shall we teach? How shall we form and lead theological institutions? It is the hope of this volume to contribute to the making of theological education that is hospitably just to difference/s and welcoming of our diverse population, which is our only viable future. When we embody this vision in our daily educational practices, particularly in the training of our future religious leaders, we may help usher in a new, colorful, and just world.

Many philosophers since Hegel have been disturbed by the thought that philosophy inevitably favors sameness over otherness or identity over difference. Originally published at a time when the issue was not so widely discussed in the English-speaking world, William Desmond here offers a constructive and positive approach to the problem of difference and otherness. He systematically explores the question of dialectic and otherness by analyzing how human desire inevitably seeks immanent wholeness in a manner that opens it to irreducible otherness. He faces the difficulties bequeathed to Continental thought by Hegelian dialectic and its tendency to subordinate difference to identity, whether appropriately or not. Unlike many recent critics of Hegel, he argues that we must preserve what is genuine in dialectic. Granting the positive power of dialectic, Desmond offers his first articulation of a further philosophical possibility--what he terms the Metaxological--a discourse of the ""between,"" a discourse doing justice to desire's search for wholeness without any truncating of its radical openness to otherness. In a wide-ranging yet unified discussion, Desmond tackles such issues as the nature of the self, the ambiguous restlessness and inherent power of being revealed by human desire, desire's relation to transcendence, its openness to otherness in agapeic good will and in relation to the sublime as an aesthetic infinitude. Finally, Desmond brings this metaxological understanding to bear on the metaphysical question of the ultimate origin. This book is a remarkable introduction to Desmond's metaxological philosophy, prefiguring many of the ideas with which his later thought is associated. This second edition contains a substantial new preface and an afterword to each chapter in which Desmond reflects on the material from the standpoint of his current thinking.

""The totalitarian state clearly intends to eliminate all those forms of organic community that rival the absolute loyalty of the individual to the state. This god is a jealous god. . . . Mrowczy¿ski-Van Allen's diagnosis is therefore no less relevant after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And his proposed cure is no less salutary. He appeals to the work of Grossman and other voices from the East to oppose the idolatry of the deified self with the icon, which opens up a distance in which giving and forgiving can occur. Eastern voices are so helpful because they refuse to quarantine theological questions; the borders between theology, politics, and literature are fluid and porous, because they are all a part of an integrated life. The holism of totalitarianism must be opposed by another kind of holism that replaces the idol with the icon. At the same time, the aspiration of secularism to separate politics from theology, and power from love, must be opposed by a politics based on an opening of human persons to God and to each other, the kind of self-donation found in Grossman, and for Christians, on the Cross.""--From the Foreword by William T. Cavanaugh

How can Christians committed to the classical Christian tradition (Evangelicals and Catholics) address the issues raised by contemporary Islam? Along with and even prior to much needed dialogue between Christians and Muslims, Christians need to ask themselves how their Scriptures and traditions might bear on such dialogue. Do the divisions among Christians (Catholic and Evangelical) fracture the classical Christian tradition in ways that undercut "Christian"-Muslim dialogue before it starts? Or does that classical tradition provide resources for thinking out and working out their own divisions in ways that will ready them for authentic conversation with Muslim brothers and sisters in Christ? And what does this tradition have to teach us about what Christians can and must learn from Muslims about their own traditions? The essays in this volume begin to address these questions.

In refreshing challenge to the common presumption that knowing involves amassing information, this book offers an eight-step approach that begins with love and pledge and ends with communion and shalom. Everyday adventures of knowing turn on a moment of insight that transforms and connects knower and known. No matter the field--science or art, business or theology, counseling or athletics--this little manual offers a how-to for knowing ventures. It offers concrete guidance to individuals or teams, students or professionals, along with plenty of exercises to spark the process of discovery, design, artistry, or mission.

At a time when women were expected to stick to their household duties, according to Peter Matheson, Argula von Grumbach burst through every barrier. Matheson offers here a biography of the Reformation's first woman writer. Argula von Grumbach's first pamphlet in 1523 was reprinted all over Germany. Thousands of copies of her eight pamphlets appeared. Through her writing, von Grumbach defied her Bavarian princes (and her husband), denounced censorship, argued for an educated church and society, and developed her own understanding of faith and Scripture. She even intervened in the Imperial Diets at Nuremberg and Augsburg.Drawing for the first time on her correspondence, the author shows how von Grumbach paid dearly for her outspokenness but remained undaunted. Though some saw her as a she-devil and others as a harbinger of a new age, Matheson shows von Grumbach as a woman engaged in the life of the villages where she lived, as one motivated by the dreams she had for her children.In a time of sweeping change and risking everything for the light and truth she was given, Argula von Grumbach showed what the vision and determination of one person could achieve.