Böcker utgivna av William B Eerdmans Publishing Co

Testifies to the presence of God as both our post-earthly hope and our present-world existence. These thought-provoking sermons by Ralph Wood, a layman who has taught religion and literature for many years, seek to till new soil in the fertile field of Christian faith and life. They draw on a wide range of reading not only in Christian theology but also in both classical and contemporary literature and culture. And they also mine Wood's own professorial and personal experience in dealing with both the old and the young amid "the chances and changes of life." Wood squarely engages the American "culture of death" by wrestling with such vexing questions as sexuality and marriage, war and peace, abortion, racial injustice, and abuse of the elderly. By grounding his homilies in specific times, places, and quandaries, Wood demonstrates that Christianity remains a vigorous set of doctrines and morals precisely as preaching and ethics give shape to our worship and living in the here and now. Focusing not so much on our "getting to heaven," Wood's Preaching and Professing shows concretely how the gospel "gets heaven into us."

Metaphysical study of God, love, technology, and culture in modern society Reality most basically and properly considered, says David L. Schindler, is an order of love -- a gift that finds its objective only in an entire way of life. Love is what first brings things into existence, and everything exists in, through, and for love. With this understanding of reality, Schindler explores how modern culture marginalizes love, regarding it at best as a matter of piety or goodwill rather than as the very stuff that makes our lives and the things of the world real. Schindler examines how Western civilization's fixation with technology -- especially its displacement of experience with experiment and its privileging of knowing and making -- has undermined its capacity to build an authentic human culture. Schindler sees this as a technological age not simply because of technological advancements but because of the way we think as the result of our technological orientation. He shows, within the context of politics, economics, science, and cultural and professional life generally, that God-centered love is what gives things their deepest and most proper order and meaning.

A distinguished group of scholars here introduces and illustrates the array of strategies and methods used in New Testament study today. Standard approaches -- text criticism, historical methods, etc. -- appear side by side with newer approaches -- narrative criticism, Latino-Latina hermeneutics, theological interpretation of the New Testament, and more. First published in 1995, Hearing the New Testament is now revised and updated, including rewritten chapters, new chapters, and new suggestions for further reading. Contributors: Efrain AgostoLoveday C. A. AlexanderJames L. BaileyStephen C. BartonRichard BauckhamC. Clifton BlackHolly J. CareyBart D. EhrmanStephen E. FowlJoel B. GreenRichard B. HaysMark Allan PowellEmerson B. PoweryF. Scott SpencerMax TurnerKevin J. VanhoozerRobert W. Wall

In this book, Benne describes and analyzes the wrong ways to relate religion and politics and offers a better way. Benne calls the two main bad ways of relating religion and politics "separationism" and "fusionism." Secular separationists decry all involvement of religion in politics; religious separationists, on the other hand, advocate abstaining from politics in the name of religious purity. Fusionism comes in many types, but the type that most concerns Benne is the use of religion--in this case Christianity--for political ends, which turns religion into an instrument for purposes other than its own main reason for being. Rejecting these bad ways of relating religion and politics, Benne offers a better way that he calls critical engagement which derives from the Lutheran tradition, with a few tweaks to adapt the tradition to deal well with the new challenges of our present situation. As Benne points out, "The question is not so much whether American religion will have political effects. It most definitely will. The more serious questions are: Should it? How should it?" In this book, Benne offers a clear and useful guide to a subject too often characterized by confusion and loud rhetoric.

Attempts the task of reintegrating Reformed Protestant theology with natural law by appealing to Reformation-era theologians such as John Calvin, Peter Martyr Vermigli and others who refined the traditional understanding of this key doctrine. This book asks Christian ethicists, theologians and laypersons to take another look at this vital element.

In this groundbreaking study of Paul's soteriology, Michael Gorman builds on his influentialCruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross to argue that cruciformity is, at its heart, theoformity -- what the Christian tradition has called theosis or participation in the life of God. "A richly synthetic reading of Paul. . . . Gorman deftly integrates the results of recent debates about Pauline theology into a powerful constructive account that overcomes unfruitful dichotomies and transcends recent controversies between the 'New Perspective on Paul' and its traditionalist critics. Gorman's important book points the way forward for understanding the nonviolent, world-transforming character of Paul's gospel." -- Richard B. Hays, Duke Divinity School