In this essential collection of Desmond Tutu's most historic and controversial speeches and writings, we witness his unique career of provoking the powerful and confronting the world in order to protect the oppressed, the poor, and other victims of injustice.
Renowned first for his courageous opposition to apartheid in South Africa, he and his ministry soon took on international dimensions. Rooted in his faith and in the values embodied in the African spirit of ubuntu, Tutu’s uncompromising vision of a shared humanity has compelled him to speak out, even in the face of violent opposition and virulent criticism, against political injustice and oppression, religious fundamentalism, and the persecution of minorities.
Arranged by theme and introduced with insight and historical context by Tutu’s biographer, John Allen, this collection takes readers from the violent apartheid clashes in South Africa to the healing work of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee; from Trafalgar Square after the fall of the Berlin Wall to a national broadcast commemorating the legacy of Nelson Mandela; from Ireland’s Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin to a basketball stadium in Luanda, Angola. Whether exploring democracy in Africa, the genocide in Rwanda, black theology, the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church, or the plight of Palestinians, Tutu’s message of truth is clear and his voice unflinching.
In a world of suffering and conflict, where human laws all too often clash with God’s law, Tutu’s hopeful, timeless messages become increasingly necessary and powerful with each passing year—and are needed now more than ever.
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A Key to Balthasar A Key to Balthasar: Hans Urs von Balthasar on Beauty, Goodness, and Truth
Hans Urs von Balthasar is widely recognized as perhaps the greatest Catholic theologian of the twentieth century. No writer has better revealed the spiritual greatness of the revelation to which the art of the church and the historic liturgies bear witness. Yet students and nonspecialist readers often find Balthasar daunting and difficult. This volume is the ideal introduction to his work. It unlocks the treasure of his theology by focusing on the beautiful, the good, and the true. These are the three qualities of being around which his great trilogy--The Glory of the Lord, Theo-Drama, and Theo-Logic--revolves. Though brief, the book captures the essence of what Balthasar wished to say.
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Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus
In Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit, Jodi Magness unearths footprints buried in both archaeological and literary evidence to shed new light on Jewish daily life in Palestine from the mid-first century b.c.e. to 70 c.e. - the time and place of Jesus' life and ministry.
Magness analyzes recent archaeological discoveries from such sites as Qumran and Masada together with a host of period texts, including the New Testament, the works of Josephus, and rabbinic teachings. Layering all these sources together, she reconstructs in detail a fascinating variety of everyday activities dining customs, Sabbath observance, fasting, toilet habits, burial customs, and more.
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Flights of the Soul Flights of the Soul: Visions, Heavenly Journeys, and Peak Experiences in the Biblical World
Reports of dreams, journeys into the heavens, and other alternate states of consciousness abound in the Old and New Testaments and in extrabiblical literature. While some scholars have considered such reports to be simple literary devices, John J. Pilch — a leading expert in social scientific interpretation of the Bible — believes otherwise. As Pilch points out, anthropological research on over 400 representative cultures in the world shows that more than ninety percent of these cultures have reported such experiences routinely. Factual or not, he says, biblical accounts of alternate consciousness are both plausible and significant because they constitute a very common, real, human experience in their respective cultures. Drawing on insights from from anthropology, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and the social sciences, Pilch investigates and interprets Old and New Testament accounts of dreams, visions, journeys into the heavens, and other alternate states of consciousness within their cultural contexts. The result is a fresh and intriguing take on familiar biblical events. Flights of the Soul sheds new light on such things as these: * Ezekiel’s prophetic visions * Enoch’s sky journeys * Jesus’ transfiguration and ascension * Resurrection appearances in the Gospels * Paul’s ecstatic vision on the road to Damascus * John’s heavenly journeys described in Revelation
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Joined-Up Life Joined-Up Life: A Christian Account of How Ethics Works
'Finding our best humanity in Jesus Christ' is the key theme of Andrew Cameron's fresh exploration, in which he seeks to understand ethics as springing from Jesus, and to show how identifying with Jesus Christ brings order and clarity to human life. 'In a world where everyone is an expert on right and wrong, this book tries to show how Jesus unifies the best of what you hear. He joins up messy lives.'
Cameron's accessible, coherent and innovative analysis is divided into seven parts. Each part contains several self-contained chapters that address some specific aspect of Christian thinking about ethics and life, and each chapter is cross-referenced to other key chapters. The chapters may be read in sequence, or dipped into in any order.
• Part 1 considers some common ways of thinking about ethics (e.g. rules, rights, values and results).
• Part 2 considers some arenas we are unaware of, but which have a huge impact on how we live.
• Part 3 shows how Jesus Christ becomes a better main category than ethics for determining who we are and what we do.
• Part 4 builds a 'unified field', shaped in response to Jesus Christ, by which we can orient ourselves to whatever is around us.
• Part 5 examines some means by which we approach the daily details of life within this overall orientation.
• Part 6 looks at some aspects of our life-package, or 'vocation', to see how they are located within the 'unified field'.
• Part 7 visits some areas of discussion that cause great disagreement between Christians and others, and tries to show why.
Cameron offers a stimulating reappraisal of our cluttered, tumultuous lives and encourages us to see life through a different lens.
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Ten myths about Calvinism Ten myths about Calvinism
Historian of Christianity Ken Stewart is intent on setting the record straight about Reformed theology. He identifies ten myths held by either or both Calvinists and non-Calvinists and shows how they are gross mischaracterizations of that theological stream. Certain of these persistent stereotypes that defy historical research often present a truncated view of the depth and breadth of the Reformed tradition. Others, although erroneous, are nevertheless used to dismiss outright this rich body of biblical theological teaching.
Some key questions Stewart explores in this provocative, informative and thoroughly researched book:
Is the role reserved for John Calvin possibly exaggerated?
Are there improper, as well as proper uses of the doctrine of predestination?
To what extent is the popular acronym, T.U.L.I.P. a helpful device, and to what extent is it detrimental in encapsulating key doctrines?
Should the Calvinist position towards movements of spiritual renewal be one of support, or one of suspicion?
Didn't Calvinism more or less 'bring up the rear' in advancing the cause of world mission?
Doesn't the Calvinist approach to Christianity encourage the belief that the redeemed will be saved irrespective of their conduct?
Doesn't the Calvinist track-record show an at-best mixed legacy on critical issues such as race and gender relations?
Hasn't the Calvinist concept of the church's role vis-à-vis the state tended toward theocracy?
Isn't it true that Calvinistic expressions of Christianity have been a damper on the creative arts, whether the theater or painting or sculpture?
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加爾文神學與中國教會 The Theology Of John Calvin And The Church In China
David Brown explores the ways in which the symbolic associations of the body and what we do with it have helped shape religious experience and continue to do so. A Church narrowly focused on Christ's body wracked in pain needs to be reminded that the body as beautiful and sexual has also played a crucial role not only in other religions but also in the history of Christianity itself. Dance was one way in which the connection was expressed. The irony is not that such a connection has gone but that it now exists almost wholly outside the Church. Much the same could be said about music more generally, and Brown writes excitingly about the spiritual potential of not just classical music but also pop, jazz, musicals, and opera. Like Brown's much-praised earlier volumes, God and Enchantment of Place, Tradition and Imagination, and Discipleship and Imagination, the present book will enlarge horizons and challenge the narrowness of much theological thinking.