Books published by Cascade Books

This book examines how repertoires of speech and action that are often considered to be mutually exclusive--those of church and state--clash or unite during the postdisaster period as local communities and cities struggle to establish a stable collective identity. Based on an analysis of forty in-depth interviews with disaster-response participants and over 325 print-media sources, this study explores, first, the extent to which ministers and citizens challenge statist narratives in order to publicly relay theological views; second, the cultural processes by which local places are nationalized and theologized; and third, the ecclesiological convictions necessary to peaceably advance the work of Christ's body after disasters.

Along with the churches located in large Greek cities of the East, the church of Carthage was particularly significant in the early centuries of Christian history. Initially, the Carthaginian church became known for its martyrs. Later, the North African church became further established and unified through the regular councils of its bishops. Finally, the church gained a reputation for its outstanding leaders--Tertullian of Carthage (c. 140-220), Cyprian of Carthage (195-258), and Augustine of Hippo (354-430)--African leaders who continued to be celebrated and remembered today.

Children's spiritual development is currently a hot topic in Christian circles, as well as in other fields and disciplines such as educational psychology, medicine, developmental psychology, education, and sociology. The key question for Christian scholars and educators is ""How do Christian beliefs and practices uniquely interrelate with children's spirituality?"" In 2003 and again in 2006, a national conference entitled ""Children's Spirituality Conference: Christian Perspectives"" examined children's spirituality from a distinctly Christian standpoint. This book is a collection of the best materials from the 2006 conference.The first half of the book addresses definitional, historical, and theological concerns related to spiritual development in children. The second half explores best practices for fostering spiritual growth among our children--in our homes, families, churches, Christian schools, and among special populations of children--from a wide spectrum of Christian scholars and practitioners. The volume closes with John Westerhoff's moving keynote address and Catherine Stonehouse and Scottie May's eloquent, culminating plenary address. Nurturing Children's Spirituality provides a rich cross section of the current research and writing by Christian scholars on children's spirituality.Contributors: Holly Catterton Allen, Michael J. Anthony, Stacy Berg, Chris J. Boyatzis, MaLesa Breeding, Marilyn Brownlee, Linda V. Callahan, Jane Carr, Mara Lief Crabtree, Karen Crozier, James Riley Estep Jr., Jeffrey E. Feinberg, Stephanie Goins, Judy Harris Helm, Dana Kennamer Hood, Sungwon Kim, Kevin Lawson, Scottie May, Marcia McQuitty, Heidi Schultz Oschwald, Donald Ratcliff, Pam Scranton, Timothy A. Sisemore, Catherine Stonehouse, La Verne Tolbert, T. Wyatt Watkins, John H. Westerhoff III

Delving into the widespread, contemporary longing for a more serious and communal experience of Christianity, this book provides important theoretical underpinnings and casts a vision for a new monasticism within the Wesleyan tradition. Elaine Heath and Scott Kisker call for the planting of neo-monastic churches which embody the Wesleyan vision of holiness in postmodern contexts. This book also points toward some vital shifts that are necessary in theological education in order to equip pastors to lead such communities. Longing for Spring helps Wesleyans of all stripes understand the theory and praxis necessary for planting neo-monastic communities as a new model of the church that is particularly important in the postmodern context. The authors write in an engaging, conversational style that is conversant with postmodern culture, yet thoroughly informed by critical research. Heath and Kisker boldly challenge the imagination of the church, both within and beyond Wesleyan traditions, to consider the possibility of revitalizing the church through the new monasticism.

This is a work of Christian theology that Karl Barth might call an ad hoc or secondary apologetic. Relying on a paraphrase of Anselm--""faith seeking the ethical""--Boesel engages modern and postmodern theologians and philosophers--from Kierkegaard to Barth, Ruether, Hegel, Derrida, and Levinas--to analyze the imperialistic dynamics entailed in the church's theological interpretations of the Jewish neighbor. He demonstrates the dimensions of the problem as they are paradigmatically visible in the evangelical theological assumptions of Karl Barth. Turning to Ruether's exemplary remedy of the problem, Boesel illumines the ways her analysis and critique are funded by a specific cluster of modern assumptions that constitute what he calls ""modern ethical desire."" Employing a reading of Levinas and Derrida, Boesel shows that these assumptions constitute an imperialistic discourse of a different order, with its own specific hostility toward the Abrahamic tradition. In light of these postmodern critiques, Boesel returns to Barth to suggest that his evangelical theological assumptions, while indeed amounting to a form of Christian interpretive imperialism in relation to the Jewish neighbor, may nevertheless determine and delimit the knowledge and speech of Christian faith in such a way that resists more toxic forms of Christian imperialism. Broader implications of the argument follow: The ethical faces a radical limit, both in general and in relation to concrete faith. Therefore, no human remedy for the imperialistic discourse of Christian faith presents itself that does not entail an interpretive imperialism. To paraphrase Derrida: there is always an interpretive imperialism. Ethically, then, there is only discernment between different forms of interpretive imperialism. Theologically, an understanding of Christian faith as irreducible to the ethical may offer surprising though always risky ethical resourcement within this predicament of radically limited ethical possibility.

In this creative contribution to the doctrine of revelation, Clark seeks to develop and articulate an understanding of God's self-disclosure located in the participation of the ecclesial community in the trinitarian life of God. Clark takes as his point of departure Karl Barth's doctrine of the Word of God. Barth has impressed upon theology that revelation is primarily an event in which God establishes relationship with humanity in an act of his sovereign freedom. But what is the role of human participation in this revelatory event? It is here that Barth's account is less than satisfactory, and this shortcoming points to the principal theme of the book. Addressing this theme, Clark engages with the work of Michael Polanyi, whose philosophy provides a potent resource for the task. One profoundly innovative aspect of Polanyi's work is his theory of tacit knowledge, which demonstrates how articulate knowledge (conceptual understanding) arises out of knowledge established through practical and intrinsically imaginative participation in particular practices or ""life-ways."" Although we depend upon such knowledge, we can articulate it only in part. We know more than we can tell. This insight has profound implications for the doctrine of revelation. It suggests that knowledge of God is necessarily bound up with the various practices of the church in which Christians are imaginatively engaged and through which God makes himself known. It also suggests that such knowledge cannot be fully articulated. Clark does not deny the possibility or the importance of doctrinal formulation, but he does issue a reminder that theological statements are only possible because God gives himself to be known in the life and practices of the church.This substantial work provides important and original proposals for rearticulating the doctrine of revelation.

In its various forms, speech is absolutely integral to the Christian mission. The gospel is a message, news that must be passed on if it is to be known by others. Nevertheless, the reality of God cannot be exhausted by Christian knowledge and Christian knowledge cannot be exhausted by our words. All the while, the philosophy of modernity has left Christianity an impoverished inheritance within which to think these things. In Speak Thus, Craig Hovey explores the possibilities and limits of Christian speaking. At times ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical, these essays go to the heart of what it means to be the church today. In practice, the Christian life often has a linguistic shape that surprisingly implicates and reveals the commitments of people like those who care for the sick or those who respond as peacemakers in the face of violence. Because learning to speak one way as opposed to another is a skill that must be learned, Christian speakers are also guides who bear witness to the importance of churches for passing on a felicity with Christian ways of speaking.Through constructive engagements with interlocutors like Ludwig Wittgenstein, George Lindbeck, Jeffrey Stout, Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, Thomas Aquinas, and the theology of Radical Orthodoxy, Hovey offers a challenging vision of the church--able to speak with a confidence that only comes from a deep attentiveness to its own limitations, while also able to speak prophetically in a world weary of words.

The book is a manifesto or apologia for Chinese Christians. It seeks to articulate how it is possible to maintain a Chinese identity and a Christian identity at the same time without capitulating to some western or other cultural model of Christian identity. To be a Chinese Christian is to adopt a distinctive, unique identity that owes much to both traditions but is sui generis. Providing great resources for the construction of a Chinese Christian theology, Confucius and Paul converge across a surprisingly broad front. Yet, the Christ of the Cross completes or extends what is merely implicit or absent in Confucius; and Confucius amplifies various elements of Christian faith (e.g., community, virtues) that are underplayed in western Christianity. The Christ of God as found in Paul's letter to the Galatians brings Confucian ethics in the Analects to its fulfillment while protecting the church from the aberrations of Chinese history and while protecting China against the aberrations of Christian history in the west. Chinese Christianity has something to give the church that needs to be heard. China can develop its distinctive vision of Christianity for the sake of the church universal. Chinese Christianity will have its global mission if it can find its own authentic Chinese-Christian identity. Insofar as that identity brings the best of the Confucian tradition into the Christian story, it will help revivify global Christianity.

Throughout history, Christians have found the summary of their faith in the three ancient creeds. The God We Proclaim explores that faith as it is found in the shortest of them: the Apostles' Creed. The contributors are among Britain's foremost Christian communicators and teachers. Written with an infectious enthusiasm for theology, The God We Proclaim is ideal for anyone seeking to understand the Christian faith, either individually, or in a church or student study group. It is based on a set of sermons delivered in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, which surveyed the foundations of Christianity. Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) wrote in her essay ""The Dogma is the Drama"" that people assume that if churches are empty it is because preachers ""insist too much upon doctrine,"" or ""dull dogma"" as they disapprovingly call it. Sayers knew that the opposite is true. ""It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man--and the dogma is the drama.""

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.

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.

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.