Группа авторов
Список книг автора Группа авторовOf Martyrs, Monks, and Mystics
Everywhere there are voices calling for a new Reformation, marked by a return to the older sources of Christian wisdom, and for drinking anew the inspiration of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the church fathers, those from the monastic tradition and the medieval Christian mystics. This anthology of original sources in contemporary English, structured in a meditational mode, could well be the rich resource you are looking for in hearing the ancient Christian wisdom. Here are the deep wells of theological and spiritual insight that could guide you in walking a renewed path of faith in our precarious world. These voices from the past may well help you in living against the tide of late modernity with its rationality and utilitarianism that cannot sustain a well-lived and well-loved life. This book could sustain the hope for a renewed world through life lived in the presence of the healing and empowering God.
Church Reform and Leadership of Change
Reforms and processes of change have become an increasingly pervasive characteristic of European Protestant churches in the last fifteen to twenty years. Driven by perceptions of crises, such as declining membership rates, dwindling finances, decreasing participation in church rituals, and less support of traditional church doctrine, but also changes of governance of religion more generally, many churches feel compelled to explore new forms of operations, activities, and organizational structures. What is the inner dynamic and nature of these processes? This book explores this question by applying perspectives from organizational studies and bringing them into dialogue with ecclesiological categories, seeking to provide a richer understanding of the field of processes of change in churches. Among the questions asked are: What are the implications–organizationally and ecclesiologically–of viewing reform as a church practice, and how does this relate to much more comprehensive waves of public sector reforms? How is church leadership configured and exercised, how is democratic leadership related to the authority of ordained ministry, and how does leadership take on new forms in the context of churches? And how do churches incorporate organizational practices of planned change and renewal, such as social entrepreneurship?
As You See the Day Approaching
We are in the last days. Living well in such a time depends upon believing that Christ has conquered sin and death and is ruling today, alive at God's right hand. These essays on the end time will help Christians live like people who really have eternal life already–the life of the Spirit of Christ who lives and moves in both Christ and Christians. Whether your question is about heaven, the soul, hell, the new earth, about how believers in the Old Testament thought of these things, or about what redemptive progress God brought by the resurrection of Christ, you will find answers here. Readers will also be warmly encouraged by the practical and realistic chapters about the Christian's calling in social and political matters and about the ways that the church's worship is a participation in heavenly realities. Central to everything about the end time is the fact that by dying and rising, Jesus Christ brought the whole world forward into the last days and has in principle brought Christians into a fullness that Moses and even Adam did not yet know. Read, and be encouraged!
Conception, Reception, and the Spirit
A number of distinguished biblical scholars and theologians come together in this volume to honor the life and work of Andrew T. Lincoln. The title of this volume reflects Andrew Lincoln's lifelong interests in Christian origins, the reception of biblical texts in believing and scholarly communities, and the embodiment of the gospel in believing communities made possible by the Spirit. These essays cover exegetical matters, theological interpretation, and theology and embodiment. Several essays engage directly with Lincoln's monographs, Truth on Trial, and Born of a Virgin?
Transforming Wisdom
Transforming Wisdom offers an extensive, multidisciplinary introduction to pastoral psychotherapy from some of the most respected practitioners in the field. With special attention to theological perspectives on the practice of psychotherapy, this collection of essays will be useful to students seeking an orientation to the art and science of pastoral psychotherapy as well as to seasoned professionals looking to refresh and renew their practice.
As the subtitle, Pastoral Psychotherapy in Theological Perspective, suggests, this book is intended to represent the field of pastoral psychotherapy as a mental-health discipline that maintains intentional dialogue with its theological roots. Even as pastoral psychotherapy has developed from the ancient notion of the cure of souls to the current search for a psychology of happiness, therapists grounded in faith communities seek a practice that is respectful of all persons, mindful of the deep wisdom that emanates from the true self, or soul.
While many contributors write from a psychoanalytic or psychodynamic perspective grounded in Christian theological idioms, diverse theoretical perspectives, including Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Buddhist Mindfulness, and Jungian understanding of individuation, are represented.
God and Eros
What can God and eros have to do with each other? Against Nietzsche's claim that Christianity poisoned eros, God and Eros rereads the mystery of human love as an ecstatic sharing in the mystery of the triune God who is Love. Body, sex, and affectivity, far from being locked in a lower order called «nature,» instead belong to a sacramental order that is permeated by the call to love. In presentations designed to appeal to a general audience, the faculty of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne, approach this mystery through the lens of St. John Paul II's «theology of the body,» with the goal to both introduce and more clearly illumine its major features. In particular, emphasis is placed on how a theology of the body is not just about «sex.» Rather, it is above all about how each and every person–no matter what her state of life–is stamped by the watermark of being-from and being-for. Working within this broader perspective, God and Eros offers the reader a lively, engaging, and at times challenging tour of the full «ethos of the nuptial mystery.»
Practicing to Aim at Truth
Beginning with her award-winning book Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (1990), Nancey Murphy has used philosophy of science as a way into, and catalyst for, fresh thinking in cosmology, divine action, epistemology, cognitive neuroscience, theological anthropology, philosophy of mind, and Christian virtue ethics. The essays in this book, written by her students and colleagues, creatively honor Murphy by extending a number of her core insights within their respective disciplines. An introduction provides both an account of Murphy's unique location (an Anabaptist teaching at an evangelical graduate institution) and a summary of her contributions to theology as a philosopher of science whose corpus more than any other epitomizes the paradigm shift in philosophy sometimes called «Anglo-American postmodernity.» Subsequently, fourteen essays provide unique engagements with Murphy on subjects including divine action, the interaction between science and theology, epistemology, the nature of humanity, and political theology. In its entirety, Practicing to Aim at Truth provides the first in-depth interaction with and extension of Nancey Murphy's unique school of thought, providing a resource both for those wishing to extend her research program as well as those wishing to understand it charitably in order to critique it.
God Only Knows
The Beach Boys are one of rock's most enduring and enigmatic groups, and while the band has been the subject of numerous biographies and other in-depth studies, there has been no focused evaluation of the religious and spiritual themes in their work. Spiritual and theological themes are present in much of their work, and when this realization is coupled with Brian Wilson's mission «to spread the gospel of love through records,» and his sense of music as spiritual–of thinking «pop music is going to be spiritual . . . that's the direction I want to go»–this is a striking way to explore the band's music. In God Only Knows, the contributors attempt to come to grips with just a small amount of this band's massive output–by circling around its theological virtues. Each section of the book is a loose investigation of the guiding topics of faith, hope, and love. Each essay is a free exploration of theological and spiritual themes from the contributor's own perspectives.
Dialogically Speaking
What makes us authentically human? According to Maurice Friedman, world-renowned Martin Buber scholar, translator, and biographer, it is genuine dialogue. «When there's a willingness for dialogue,» Friedman says, «then one must 'navigate' moment-by-moment. It's a listening process.» Friedman addresses our humanity in ever-unique ways through his dialogue with philosophy, literature, religion, and psychotherapy. At least two things make this book new. Friedman presents his wide-ranging thought directly in five original essays forming an «intertextual compass,» which is then elaborated upon by colleagues familiar with his work. Second, a special feature of this book is found at the end of each part which invites readers to engage with questions drawn from and pointing toward Friedman's writing. The book's intended audience includes teachers, scholars, and students interested in dialogical approaches to any of the human sciences. In a time when we are in danger of losing our human birthright, Friedman's interdisciplinary insights point us again to «the touch of the other.»
Making Disciples in a World Parish
In this collection of inspirational and challenging essays, Methodists from around the globe reflect on the practice of disciple-making in their own contexts. From their own perspectives, they address questions like: What are the challenges you face? What biblical images shape your missional practice? What examples of Christian authenticity inspire your communities? What gifts related to mission and evangelism do you offer the global community of faith?
Churches on every continent have their own stories of struggle and faithfulness. Indeed, each distinct community within any given region has a voice of its own that deserves to be heard. The voices included in this volume belong to women and men alike. Likewise, they resound with the accents of Africa and Asia, Latin and North America, Europe, and Oceania. Each voice is distinct, but all articulate a vision of faith made effective through love.
In a world characterized variously by poverty and violence as well as prosperity and peace, the church must reclaim its central mission «to make disciples of Jesus Christ.» In their effort to articulate a vision of mission and evangelism, the contributors to this volume bear witness to the fact that we can no longer do this work in isolation from one another. To be the ambassadors of the gospel, we need each other and we need to pay attention to the voices that sound different from our own. This volume takes a large step in that vital direction.