In the Days of Caesar is a constructive political theology formulated in sustained dialogue with the Pentecostal and charismatic renewal — one of the most vibrant religious movements at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Amos Yong here argues that the many tongues, practices, and gifts of renewal Christianity offer up new resources for thinking about how Christian community can engage and transform the social, political, and economic structures of the world.
Yong has three goals here. First he seeks to correct stereotypes of Pentecostalism, both political and theological. Secondly he aims to provoke Pentecostals to reflect theologically from out of the depths of their own Pentecostalism rather than merely to adopt some framework for theological or political self-understanding. Finally Yong shows that a distinctively Pentecostal form of theological reflection is not a parochial activity but has constructive potential to illuminate Christian belief and practice.
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Theology Remixed Theology Remixed: Christianity as Story, Game, Language, Culture
Jesus didn't give his followers a fixed set of statements defining everything they needed to know about the kingdom of God in a neat package. Rather he told stories, made comparisons, drew contrasts. He talked of a mustard seed, of yeast and of a hidden treasure to communicate some of the most important truths of the faith. Jesus didn't fall back on parables because he lacked the right words. Parables were the exact way Jesus intended to communicate. What pictures or analogies today can give us greater understanding of the Christian faith? Adam English finds fresh insight in four: Christianity as story, game, language, culture. Christianity is like a story with scenery, characters and plots. It's like a language with vocabulary, grammar and conversation. It's like a game with rules and players, goals and equipment. It's like a culture with a distinct way of living, working, playing and loving. No one analogy is complete, but all offer new windows of appreciation for the faith. English gives us a fresh representation of Christian theology that is neither modern nor postmodern, but in dialogue with both in order to articulate what we believe. Here is a book for those who want to grasp Christianity more fully and authentically in a way that illuminates our contemporary cultural context and enables us to make a compelling response.
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A God of Many Understandings? A God of Many Understandings? ——The Gospel and A Theology of Religions
Western Christianity's interaction with world religions used to be, for the most part, overseas. Today, "religious others" often live next door. At a changing time when one public prayer spoken during the 2009 U.S. presidential inauguration festivities was addressed to "O god of our many understandings," the evangelical Christian church should do more than simply dismiss non-Christian religions as pagan without argument or comment. The Church needs a theology of religions that is Christ-honoring, biblically faithful, intellectually satisfying, compassionate, and that will encourage Spirit-powered mission. Oregon-based theology professor Todd Miles writes to that end in "A God of Many Understandings"?, attempting, as the scholar Veli-Matti Karkkainen puts it, "to think theologically about what it means for Christians to live with people of other faiths and about the relationship of Christianity to other religions."
A provocative study that cuts to the very heart of Christian thought, The Nonviolent Atonement challenges the traditional, Anselmian understanding of atonement — along with the assumption that heavenly justice depends on Christ’s passive, innocent submission to violent death at the hands of a cruel God. Instead J. Denny Weaver offers a thoroughly nonviolent paradigm for understanding atonement, grounded in the New Testament and sensitive to the concerns of pacifist, black, feminist, and womanist theology. While many scholars have engaged the subject of violence in atonement theology, Weaver’s Nonviolent Atonement is the only book that offers a radically new theory rather than simply refurbishing existing theories. Key features of this revised and updated second edition include new material on Paul and Anselm, expanded discussion on the development of violence in theology, interaction with recent scholarship on atonement, and response to criticisms of Weaver’s original work. Praise for the first edition: “The best current single volume on reconstructing the theology of atonement.” — S. Mark Heim in Anglican Theological Review
Intelligent design is surrounded by a storm of debate. Here to clear things up is Bill Dembski, one of the founders of intelligent design, who joins with Jonathan Witt to plainly lay out just what intelligent design is and is not. They answer objections with straight talk that is down to earth.
It is true — and troubling — that we humans are able to control and manipulate nature in many ways, and this ability seems to be growing exponentially. In this book Allen Verhey addresses this reality and seeks to show the importance of bringing a Christian voice into the debate.
Verhey identifies the various narratives under which people view the term “nature” and then questions these narratives or “myths” at work in our culture. He presents the biblical narrative as an alternative story capable of providing a different understanding of nature and altering it. Finally Verhey shows the relevance of the Christian story to many forms of discourse in our society, including contemporary ecological wisdom and analytical and political discourse.
Nature and Altering It is Verhey’s effort to nurture minds formed and informed by the Christian story that are capable of challenging the minds that shape our culture’s attitudes toward nature and our use of it.
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Faith Once Entrusted to the Saints Faith Once Entrusted to the Saints
Geoffrey Grogan offers firm, positive and irenic engagement with recent challenges within evangelicalism to traditional understandings of some key doctrines and subjects: open theism, penal substitution, the New Perspective on Paul and justification, the doctrine of Scripture, and hermeneutics.
Lived faith involves more than doctrines, evidences and rational coherence. In this book philosopher Clifford Williams puts forth an argument as to why certain needs, desires and emotions have a legitimate place in drawing people into faith in God. Addressing the strongest objections to these types of reasons, he shows how the personal and experiential aspects of belief play an important part in coming to faith and in remaining a believing person.These existential elements are neither irrelevant to belief nor do they undermine the legitimacy of a reasoned faith, as critics often charge--and Williams shows why. Here is a much needed complement to evidential approaches to apologetics.