In our rapidly changing and progressively globalized world, Christians and Muslims are faced with the prospect of directly encountering and responding to people of other faiths and cultures. This has pushed us all to address the vital question of how best to live with, work beside, and love one other as fellow citizens of our planet. Using resources from Christian theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, Muslim ethicist Abdulaziz Sachedina, and several o ...
Every Tribe and Tongue offers a way, first, to rediscover biblical stories and principles that relate to questions about immigration and societal multilingualism, and, second, to outline possible ways to guide thoughtful engagement in the discourse of the «public square» based on the biblical witness. We will try to show that, far from being an afterthought in the Bible, the call to love our neighbors and to gather people of every nation togethe ...
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 knowl ...
Have you ever considered the ultimate purposes and consequences of good work performed by non-Christians? Have you ever theologically considered the work of non-Christians at all? Is it possible that God would ever give credence to, let alone honor the work of, non-Christians in an ultimate sense? Are you frustrated by theologies of work that are entirely protological in orientation? How do we make sense of biblical excerpts that talk of work be ...
And God said: «Let there be light.» And there was light. These words mark the first step in the creation of all life. The very genesis of light is tied to the nature and purpose of God–God as the author of light, as the pouring out of light, as light itself. Believers in the three Abrahamic faiths have always understood God as light. The Hebrew scriptures celebrate this divine illumination: «Yahweh is my light and my salvation . ...
Domestic abuse is a horror. It lurks beneath the surface of our collective existence, sometimes raising its ugly head where least expected-in the church or within families of faith. Are we-individually or collectively-ready to respond? What can, or should, congregations and their pastoral leaders do? And, as we survey the Christian landscape across the United States and Canada, are we as the community of faith stepping up to the challen ...
People Want Answers to Their Questions! Who made God? Has the Bible been corrupted? What is the unpardonable sin? How can a loving God send people to hell? Did Jesus really preach in hell? As a Bible scholar, church planter, and senior minister of a rapidly growing congregation, Steve Crane receives many questions from believers and skeptics alike. His concise, biblical answers get right to the heart of the matter. Crane n ...
This volume is dedicated to Marvin C. Meyer, a person of passionate spirit and personality, known to many as the preeminent scholar who brought to life the Gnostic Gospels. Meyer made ancient discoveries relevant to our lives: from his work with National Geographic, informing thousands, to the time he spent with individual students, opening their eyes to the mystery and meaning of a Coptic text. Friends, students, and scholars here pay tribute t ...
When Christ's Body Is Broken tells the stories of two congregations in conflict. Although these churches had very different problems, they faced similar struggles: to articulate a faithful response to their concerns and to cope with the discord that threatened to tear their communities apart. Pastoral theologian Leanna K. Fuller shares these stories as a way of exploring the sources and dynamics of conflict in congregations. She argues tha ...
