Building Up the Church: Live Experiments in Faith, Hope, and Love, the companion volume to Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's book, New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today's Church (2008), is a practical study guide to invite the church to imagine that «another ways is possible» as it lives into its identity as «God's peculiar people» (Titus 2:14). Its stories, reflection questions, and suggested exercises are designed to catalyze l ...
Christianity is in crisis in our North American context, especially among the cultural elite and people with progressive views. The reasons for the faith's loss of credibility have to do, in large part, with the dominant philosophical materialism of our culture and with the understanding of the faith almost universally held by Americans both inside the churches and outside them. In this book, Thomas C. Sorenson calls this understanding «Bib ...
In recent years a powerful grassroots movement has emerged calling for the papal definition of a fifth Marian dogma declaring the Blessed Virgin Mary to be Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces, and Advocate. There has also been strong opposition to any such definition for various reasons. In The Truth about Mary, Peter Dillard clarifies this debate by providing a rigorous analysis of each thesis contained in the proposed dogma and determining ...
African Christian theology has been developing for the last four decades. The trend has been to focus on traditional African religions as a foundation for Christian theology. While acknowledging the importance of African traditional religions to Christian theology in Africa, this study argues that African history progressively changes, and it is these changed and changing circumstances that theology is to address. This work analyzes issues affec ...
Contemporary treatments of Calvin's political views often imply that he embraced a theocratic civil polity and that he was committed to holy war doctrine. On the basis of the primary sources, the first half of this volume argues that neither position is correct. Calvin, in his political thought, maintained the superiority of a republic as a civil polity. In addition, he placed himself firmly within the medieval just war tradition that was e ...
This book is a theological/pastoral response to Vatican II's call to develop our cultures as outlined in section 2 of De Ecclesia in Mundo Huius Temporis: The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. It provides a historical perspective on the Church with brief outlines of the Church's relations to the Chinese, Jewish, Muslim, and Latino cultures. The author then reviews some of the defects in our present multiculturali ...
This book constitutes the second volume of a three-volume study of Christian testimonies to divine suffering: God's Wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian Symbol of Divine Suffering, vol. 2, Evil and Divine Suffering. The larger study focuses its inquiry into the testimonies to divine suffering themselves, seeking to allow the voices that attest to divine suffering to speak freely, then to discover and elucidate the internal logic or rational ...
"For Thais, face is a fact," writes Flanders. However, "whether in theology, evangelism, or issues involving sin, salvation, or atonement, Thai Christians and missionaries alike seem either uninterested in or possibly incapable of addressing issues related to face. This glaring incongruity between the value of face for Thais and the lack of intentional engagement within the Thai Christian community is deeply troubling. "Surely, such a ...
How can one be interested in social justice without participating in public protests? Must one go to jail for one's convictions in order to have integrity and legitimacy? Have academics succumbed to the negative connotations of the ivory tower by remaining in their cubicles, unaware of the social ills that threaten the very core of society? Or, is it possible for individuals who sit comfortably at their desks to have legitimate input into t ...