Books published by Polebridge Press

This is a sincere effort to think anew about Christianity and Christian practice on the foundation of a purely human Jesus. Against the inevitable criticism that such a Jesus undermines the historic faith of the church, David Galston finds a human Jesus who inspires a new era of honesty in the practice of Christianity.

Biblical studies and theology for some time now have operated as idependent fields of study, but recent developments have opened up new avenues for them to engage one another. Both fields must now address the question: what is the value of religion for the future? Here Galston draws upon two types of theology for his response - Covenant theology and Enlightenment theology.

Representing five decades of research on the gospels, Jesus, and Christian origins, this collection of historical-critical essays explores topics such as demythologizing, "son of man", and the synoptic problem, to name just a few. Includes a critical analysis of ways in which scholars have attempted to recover the historical Jesus.

Theology at its best lends rhythm and rhyme to the raw energy of life. It improvises on this world without trying to escape to a heaven somewhere else. In this curated collection of radio commentaries and editorials, Art Dewey invites readers to remain open to new meaning as it arises from our encounters with neighbours, strangers, and friends.

In Rescuing Religion John Van Hagen argues that psychological theories and models of psychotherapy can help one hold on to a religious worldview while simultaneously living in a world increasingly described in scientific terms. Rescuing Religion grapples with that tension as it focuses on science s recent challenges to the historicity of the major Bible stories: Moses never existed, Jesus did not start a church. Yet facing such challenges presents us with an opportunity for religious growth. We can now go behind those Bible stories and glimpse the storytellers who in their own times faced enormous crises of faith. We can learn from their struggles and be inspired to face our own global ones. Like those ancient authors, we can search for God s power moving through history, even as we realize that we, like them, can only describe it in finite terms. Throughout the book, readers are buoyed up by examples of remarkable individuals who have sensed and described this movement.

Through interviews, expansive notes, and an excellent introduction, Michael Grimshaw guides us through the life and times of Lloyd Geering, and explores how his status moved from that of an accused heretic to one of New Zealand's foremost public intellectuals.

`Family values' has long been seen as a code for a conservative perspective; whilst the Roman Empire centred its family values on a father-owner-master of the household, early Christians confronted that imperial model. This new book explores the struggle over family values and its impact on Western culture.

In order to demonstrate how the crucifixion narrative emerged and changed over time, this historical primer on the death of Jesus includes an overview of the evidence that Jesus existed and was crucified, explanations of how crucifixion worked and why it was employed by the Romans, and descriptions of Jesus' death in early Christian literature in a logical progression from the earliest to latest.

In this close reading of Paul's letter to the Galatians, Livesey draws upon classicist Cecil Wooten's "rhetoric of crisis" to compare Paul's strategies to those of his predecessors, the Greek orator Demosthenes and Roman consul Cicero.

Many of today's `spiritual but not religious' people have found the access point to spiritual experience that Western Christianity lost: unconditional love. This new book narrates two millennia of lost-and-found stories about love beyond belief, tracking the history of this lost emotion.

States that the doctrines of Incarnation and Trinity, which began as attempts to reflect the indwelling of God in human beings, were soon distorted to proclaim the reality of a sacred realm in the heavens. This title concludes that the most credible scenario for Christianity's future depends on accepting the Gaia concept as a powerful modern myth.

The event of Jesus' resurrection is like the event of creation: There were no eye-witnesses. So how does one make sense of the story of the resurrection - or rather stories, for not one but many reports survive from early Christianity? This work suggests that we must begin by erasing all Christian art about the resurrection from our memory.

Explores the problem of history in ""Acts"" by asking, and answering, the fundamental questions: Who wrote ""Acts""? Where was ""Acts"" written? When was ""Acts"" written? Why was ""Acts"" written? How was ""Acts"" written?