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Does it really matter? Does it matter if we have free will? Does it matter if Calvinism is true? And does what you think about it matter? No and yes.No, it doesn't matter because God is who he is and does what he does regardless of what we think of him, just as the solar system keeps spinning around the sun even if we're convinced it spins around the earth. Our opinions about God will not change God, but they can change us. And so yes, it does matter because the conversations about free will and Calvinism confront us with perhaps the only question that really matters: who is God?This is a book about that question--a book about the Bible, black holes, love, sovereignty, hell, Romans 9, Jonathan Edwards, John Piper, C. S. Lewis, Karl Barth, and a little girl in a red coat. You've heard arguments, but here's a story--Austin Fischer's story, and his journey in and out of Calvinism on a trip to the center of the universe. ""Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed fills a gap in contemporary literature about Calvinism. Here is a young, dynamic, evangelical pastor, well-educated theologically, who discovered the fatal flaws in Calvinism and reluctantly shook it off. This is his story, including his well-articulated reasons for that transformation. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, especially to people interested in the 'new Calvinism' and why a biblically committed young Christian might bid it adieu.""--Roger E. Olson, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University""By sharing his own journey in and out of Calvinism, Fischer provides readers with an honest, interesting, insightful, and very compelling critique of the self-absorbed 'black-hole God' of Calvinism. With a disarmingly laid-back style, Fischer crafts a series of clear and astute arguments that demonstrate the unbiblical and irrational nature of each of the central claims of Calvinism. Just as importantly, however, Fischer helps readers discover the humble, other-oriented, self-sacrificial God revealed in Jesus Christ . . .""--Greg Boyd, Princeton Theological Seminary""This book tells Austin Fischer's story, and I hope you read it, and I hope you get a bunch of friends to read it together. Talk about it and ask [the] question, . . . ""Is the Calvinist God the God we discover when we look into the face of Jesus, the incarnation of God?"" Austin tells his answers to [this question] at the age many need to begin answering [that] question.""--Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary""With this book, Austin Fischer brings fresh insights to a very old conversation with a perspective that is at times piercing, at times deeply personal, and always thoughtful and rooted in scripture. He invites readers to wrestle along with him with some tough questions--questions that, no matter where your theological journey takes you, are worth asking with this kind of humility and care.""--Rachel Held-Evans, Author of Evolving in Monkey TownAustin Fischer is Teaching Pastor at Vista Community Church. He and his wife, Allison, live in Temple, Texas. He speaks and writes and you can follow him on Twitter @austintfischer or online at purpletheology.com.

Description:""Walter Brueggemann is the master of finding fresh and compelling dimensions of meaning in texts so familiar they barely scratch the surface of our consciousness. In this exciting collection, Brueggemann finds that when we admit we are dust, we can be liberated. Why? Because we are free from acting like God. We are free to choose obedience to the one living, true Sovereign. The idols lose their grip on us and we live faithfully and in authentic joy.""--Ronald J. Allen, Christian Theological Seminary""According to Walter Brueggemann, the autonomy, secularity, and individualism that characterize modernity have 'exiled' the contemporary believer. Always concerned with the manner in which one is to live in the world, he argues for a subversive imagination similar to that found in the biblical wisdom writings, the Psalms, and the Prophets. One comes away from this book both energized by the vision presented and challenged to make it a reality.""--Dianne Bergant, Catholic Theological Union in Chicago""There is a reason why Walter Brueggemann remains, for preachers and pastors, the most loved and trusted of all biblical scholars--and that is simply because he writes for us. In every season and heartbreak of life and ministry, he writes for us. And over the years, we have come to see that when Brueggemann goes to the text before God, with his signature passion, candor, and ferocious energy, he goes not for our enlightenment or edification, but for our life and for his. Read this book and take off your shoes, because you will enter onto holy ground."" --Anna Carter Florence, Columbia Theological SeminaryEndorsements:""Walter Brueggemann is the master of finding fresh and compelling dimensions of meaning in texts so familiar they barely scratch the surface of our consciousness. In this exciting collection, Brueggemann finds that when we admit we are dust, we can be liberated. Why? Because we are free from acting like God. We are free to choose obedience to the one living, true Sovereign. The idols lose their grip on us and we live faithfully and in authentic joy.""--Ronald J. Allen, Christian Theological Seminary""According to Walter Brueggemann, the autonomy, secularity, and individualism that characterize modernity have 'exiled' the contemporary believer. Always concerned with the manner in which one is to live in the world, he argues for a subversive imagination similar to that found in the biblical wisdom writings, the Psalms, and the Prophets. One comes away from this book both energized by the vision presented and challenged to make it a reality.""--Dianne Bergant, Catholic Theological Union in Chicago""There is a reason why Walter Brueggemann remains, for preachers and pastors, the most loved and trusted of all biblical scholars--and that is simply because he writes for us. In every season and heartbreak of life and ministry, he writes for us. And over the years, we have come to see that when Brueggemann goes to the text before God, with his signature passion, candor, and ferocious energy, he goes not for our enlightenment or edification, but for our life and for his. Read this book and take off your shoes, because you will enter onto holy ground."" --Anna Carter Florence, Columbia Theological SeminaryAbout the Contributor(s):Walter Brueggemann is William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia. He is past President of the Society of Biblical Literature and the author of numerous books, including Truth-telling as Subversive Obedience, David and His Theologian, Praying the Psalms, A Pathway of Interpretation, and Ichabod toward Home.

""We are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness"" (Eph 6:12). So Paul warns his Ephesian readers. And yet Paul also says that these principalities and powers were created in and for Christ (Col 1:16) and cannot separate us from the love of God (Rom 8:38). What are the principalities and powers of our time? How do we understand them as created, fallen, and disarmed? How does the Christian today engage these powers? These are the questions speakers and participants addressed at the 2014 Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology.""In this volume the question of ''Powers and Principalities'' is examined from many standpoints, most notably exegetical, historical, cultural, and political. The essays are rich and stimulating. The idea of dark spiritual powers at work behind the scenes of everyday life, and especially political life, continues to bear fruit for Christian theological reflection.""--George Hunsinger, McCord Professor of Systematic Theology, Princeton Theological SeminaryMichael Root is Professor of Systematic Theology at The Catholic University of America and Executive Director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. He was formerly the director of the Institute for Ecumenical Research, Strasbourg, France.James J. Buckley is Professor of Theology at Loyola University, Maryland and Associate Director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. He contributed to and edited The Blackwell Companion to Catholicism (Wiley Blackwell, 2008).

Films are modern spiritual phenomena. They function as such in at least three profound ways: world projection, thought experiments, and catharsis (i.e., as dreams, doubt, and dread). Understanding film in this way allows for a theological account of the experience that speaks to the religious possibilities of film that far extend the portrayal of religious themes or content. Dreams, Doubt, and Dread: The Spiritual in Film aims to address films as spiritual experiences. This collection of short essays and dialogues examines films phenomenologically--through the experience of the viewer as an agent having been acted upon in the functioning of the film itself. Authors were invited to take one of the main themes and creatively consider how film, in their experiences, has provided opportunities for new modes of thinking. Contributors will then engaged one another in a dialogue about the similarities and differences in their descriptions of film as spiritual phenomena. The intended aim of this text is to shift contemporary theological film engagement away from a simple mode of analysis in which theological concepts are simply read into the film itself and begin to let films speak for themselves as profoundly spiritual experiences.""Before it is anything else, film is an event. Thus, to truly understand the significance of the cinema in the contemporary world, we must attend more fully to the concrete, irreducibly embodied experience of filmgoing. By analyzing a wide array of films in explicitly phenomenological terms, the essays in this volume grant us unique insight into the powerful, enlightening and, indeed, even spiritual encounter that takes place within the cinematic event. I highly recommend it."" --Kutter Callaway, Assistant Professor of Theology and Culture, Fuller Theological SeminaryZachary Settle is currently a PhD student in the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt in the areas of political theology and political economy. He is the theology editor for The Other Journal.Taylor Worley holds a PhD in theology from the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St. Andrews and serves as Associate Professor of Faith and Culture at Trinity International University in Deerfield, IL.

People worldwide find themselves part of overlapping communities of identity and belonging--racial, political, cultural, sexual, ideological. Some identities, like brand loyalties, are chosen; some, like class identity, are imposed.As followers of Jesus Christ, those called to live in between the age that is and the age to come, Christians ask what it means to be part of the body of Christ, God''s new creation from among the nations, in a world filled with other nations. ""Who--and whose--are we?"" There is no easy answer, no time at which Christians got it completely right. Yet such questions must be addressed, and the stakes are high. Matters of war and peace, exclusion and inclusion, who starves and who does not, the credibility of the gospel itself--all are caught up in the whirl of identities, allegiances imposed or refused, and questions about what ""the church"" might possibly mean in such circumstances.In this book, a distinguished group of scholars from five continents asks, ""How can the church respect the diversity of its members--many nations, cultures, and communities--while maintaining a coherent witness to the kingdom of God that is not undermined by more parochial ideologies or priorities?""""Theologians influenced by Stanley Hauerwas are often derisively asked, ''Where is this church of yours?'' Budde''s book shows that one answer is to look no further than the Catholic Church. As a Protestant theologian, I am often envious of a Church that perennially sits astride national and ethnic boundaries. And, as these eminent theologians make clear, the legacy of Catholicism''s resistance to nationalism is not unmixed. It would be enough for this volume to showcase the important work of the Center for World Catholicism at DePaul. These ambitious essays go a good deal further. Their beauty will reshape your view of what the church is and could be.""--Jason Byassee, Butler Chair in Homiletics, Vancouver School of Theology ""In The Borders of Baptism, Michael Budde challenged US Catholics to take seriously the political and practical implications of our usually rote and casual claim--that Jesus is Lord--challenging Catholics to identify the idolatries that shape our lives and to understand the church as our primary location of identity and allegiance. In Beyond the Borders of Baptism, Budde is joined by a chorus of rigorous, theological analysts who explore, challenge, and complexify these claims from diverse global locations, rooting the question in historical contexts and bringing alive the textures of the constant negotiations between the body of Christ and the myriad political and cultural formations in which the church finds herself. This mosaic of analyses elucidate important theoretical questions, provide important examples of ecclesial failure, and converge toward an understanding of these border negotiations as eucharistic--kenotic, exploding tired binaries, and allowing the endlessly creative interruption of God''s grace in histories to transform the reified loci we consider natural. Beyond the Borders of Baptism is a must-read for those interested in ecclesiology, Christian formation, and taking discipleship seriously.""--M. Therese Lysaught, Professor, Associate Director, Institute of Pastoral Studies, Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics, Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University ChicagoMichael L. Budde is Chair and Professor of Catholic Studies and Professor of Political Science at DePaul University, where he is also Senior Research Professor in the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology. He is the author of numerous books on ecclesiology, political economy, and culture, including The Borders of Baptism: Identities, Allegiances, and the Church (2011) and the edited volume Witness of the Body: The Past, Present, and Future of Christian Martyrdom (2011).