Серия "Distinguished Dissertations in Christian Theology"

Contemporary literature has, for several decades and in various guises, been dominated by questions of identity and the self. It has been forgotten that, until the Enlightenment, theological reflection emphasized the close connectedness of the self with God; knowledge of God is essential to knowledge of the self; and vice-versa, correct knowledge of the self is a necessary correlate to true knowledge of God. This has been called the double knowledge. Writing God and the Self examines two...

How do we hope in the face of modernity's failure and postmodernity's absence of foundations? How do we hope when the future seems fearful and no clear way forward appears? How do we hope when despair, indifference, and cynicism dominate the psychic landscape of English-speaking North America? In dialogue with theologians of the cross George Grant and Douglas John Hall, this book unmasks the failure of hope in our time and the vacuum of meaning that remains. As an exercise in the...

The theology of the cross is indisputably a trendy concept today. Numerous seminars, books, and dissertations tackle the topic. But The Theology of the Cross in Historical Perspective demonstrates that theology of the cross is no passing fancy. Theologies of the cross appear at the beginnings of the church, in the sixteenth-century reformations of the church, and in the more contemporary modernization of the church. Without theologies of the cross, what the church is called to be and to preach...

The cross of Christ is undeniably central to the Christian faith. But, how can the cruelty and brutality of a two-thousand-year-old Roman cross touch base with a hedonistic world that has been so desensitized towards violence? Within the postmodern setting of a body-obsessed culture, Christianity urgently requires an innovative and stimulating way of understanding the cross and its atoning significance. At the heart of this book is the Naked Christ–an emblem through which the author draws on...

This book seeks to explore the concept of divine judgment in Christian eschatology. It contends that this judgment is salvific rather than destructive. This notion can be described aphoristically as iudicandus est salvandus («to be judged is to be saved»). The provocation to Christian eschatology is that human beings are not saved from judgment, but are saved within it. The exploration begins defining the context and moves into a review of the symbols and problems of judgment through a...

Parables–used by Jesus to reveal to us the kingdom of God, used to move us from being bystanders to active recipients of God's work of revelation–are constantly at risk of being buried as «mummies of prose,» as George MacDonald puts it. We become so familiar with the language of Scripture that Jesus' parables no longer work on us in this revelatory and transforming way. George MacDonald, the Victorian poet and theologian, observed this very process at work in Victorian society. It...

God's invitation to join in the love feast of Holy Communion resounds at the very heart of the Christian faith and life. But how are Christians faithfully to gather together in relational bonds of love–in particular, through our daily bread and common cup–amidst a global market economy sustained by social and ecological violence? Drawing on the holiness-communitarian and agrarian-ecological traditions, Rooted and Grounded in Love provides a systematic theological affirmation of holiness as...

Rewired begins with the claim that contemporary views of Christian spirituality, particularly in the American evangelical tradition, concentrate too exclusively on the interior and individual nature of spiritual experience. Paul Markham argues that a reexamination of the doctrine of religious conversion is needed within American evangelicalism and finds resources for such a model in the Wesleyan theological tradition and from philosophical and scientific insights into a «nonreductive...

Priest, Prophet, Pilgrim: Types and Distortions of Spiritual Vocation in the Fiction of Wendell Berry and Cormac McCarthy provides a reading of characters in the novels and short stories of two important contemporary American writers through the lens of spiritual theology. Applying the work of Rowan Williams, Nicholas Lash, and others, Edmondson constructs a theological framework that takes seriously the notion of Christian spirituality not as an invitation to flee from this world, but rather as...

The most popular source of theological hope for American Christians is that of Jurgen Moltmann. Preachers, teachers, and lay people reflect Moltmann's influence, with their hope in a this-worldly eschatology and a suffering God. However, an exclusive reliance on that hope deprives the church of crucial resources in the face of global economic, environmental, and military crises. This book explores Moltmannian hope and considers its costs before looking elsewhere for additional...

Indwelling the Forsaken Other is a critical reading of Jurgen Moltmann's ethics of discipleship. While Moltmann's notable turn to the inner life of the Trinity as a source for his reflections on the life of the church is influential, it is not without problems. The call emerging from Moltmann's reflection upon Trinitarian life–to copy God in our relationships–may offer some general direction for our actions; however, it also raises several questions. Two important questions for...

The human imagination is a reflection of and a participation in the divine imagination; so mused the romantic poet, philosopher and theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His thinking was intuitive, dense, obscure, brilliant, and deeply influenced by German philosophy. This book explores the development of his philosophical theology with particular reference to the imagination, examining the diverse streams that contributed to the originality of his thought. The second section of this book...

The idea that covenant theology is profoundly influential in John Wesley's theological thought sounds dissonant. What would an evangelical Arminian have to do with a theological framework that historically belongs to a Reformed understanding of salvation? How could this possibly square with his ongoing controversy with the Calvinism of his day? On the basis of compelling evidence from his sermons and correspondence, this investigation dares to push through the impulse to dismiss the idea...

Colin Gunton argued that Augustine bequeathed to the West a theological tradition with serious deficiencies. According to Gunton, Augustine's particular construal of the doctrine of God led to fundamental errors and problems in grasping the relationship between creation and redemption, and in rightfully construing a truly Christian ontology. Bradley G. Green's close reading of Augustine challenges Gunton's understanding. Gunton argued that Augustine's supposed emphasis of...