"In this masterful, stylish, and authoritative book, Michael Burleigh gives us an epic history of the battles over religion in modern Europe, examining the complex and often lethal ways in which politics and religion have interacted and influenced each other over the last two centuries. From the French Revolution to the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, Earthly Powers is a unique…
In their pursuit of social welfare, sociologists and everyday citizens alike have adopted a worldview that fails to account for both the nature of God and the depravity of humankind. Ignoring God and sin has resulted in misguided analysis and ineffective solutions to societal issues. The time has come to rethink the study of sociology as those faulty assumptions have clearly affected the discip…
Describes how most forms of early Christianity, and the sacred writings they adhered to, came to be suppressed, proscribed, destroyed - in one way or another lost. This work also tells the story of how the canon of the New Testament became the official, orthodox and sacred text for Christianity.
In Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture, Stanley Porter and Andrew Pitts assemble an international team of scholars whose work has focused on reconstructing the social matrix for earliest Christianity through the use of Greco-Roman materials and literary forms.
When I was a boy growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, my father was away from home about two-thirds of every year. And while he preached across the country, we prayed--my mother and my older sister and I. What I learned in those days was that my mother was omni-competent.
When the Greek soldiers burst into the city of Troy, Cassandra—who had prophesied it all, who knew what fate awaited her and all the Trojan women—fled to the temple of Athena.
Augustine’s Hippo Regius5 was the center of the universe for some who lived there and the back of beyond for many who visited. A port city on the Mediterranean coast of Africa, where the river Seybouse came down from the mountains to the sea, it stood a distant second to Carthage in commerce and prestige. Augustine hadn’t lived there all his life.
We are approaching the day when advances in biotechnology will allow parents to "design" a baby with the traits they want. The continuing debate over possibilities of genetic engineering has ben spirited, but so far largely confined to the realms of bioethics and public policy. Design and Destiny approaches the question in religious terms, discussing human germline modification (the generic mod…
Like any other discipline, apologetics lacks a uniform definition. The standard that’s largely been adopted is “the defense of the faith,” but overlapping definitions abound. Apologetics has been defined as “that branch of Christian theology which seeks to provide a rational justification for the truth claims of the Christian faith,” “developing one’s authentic self so as to prese…
Beginning with an account of how Christian theology is called upon to read the signs of the time, Cities of God traces the shift in urban culture in North America and Western Europe that took place in the 1970s. The modern sites of eternal aspiration and hope became the postmodern cities of eternal desires. The old, modern theological responses to the city become unbelievable and inadequate, ne…
Now in its fourth revised edition, The Christian Writer's Manual of Style provides answers to writers', editors', and proofreaders' most pressing questions about language, style, and usage, focusing on the particular issues involved in religious writing.
Presents an exploration of how a sense of being 'a Christian', or of 'Christian identity', was shaped within the setting of the Jewish and Graeco-Roman world. This book shows that there were similarities and differences in the ways Jews and others were thinking about themselves, and asks what made early Christianity distinctive.
This volume includes three classic works by John Owen on sin, temptation, and repentance in the Christian life. Editors Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic have made this difficult-to-read Puritan accessible for the modern reader without sacrificing the wonderful content of Owen's work.
God is Infinite, but language finite; thus speech would seem to condemn him to finitude. In speaking of God, would the theologian violate divine transcendence by reducing God to immanence, or choose, rather, to remain silent? At stake in this argument is a core problem of the conditions of divine revelation. How, in terms of language and the limitations of human understanding, can transcendence…
Before we can define “Judaism” for the purpose of our study of the New Testament, we had best say what we mean by any religion, the genus of which Judaism forms a species (and, we shall argue, with earliest Christianity as a subspecies of that same species of religion). Defining religion comes before defining a particular religion, just as defining a particular religion takes priority over …
Christians should use and develop their minds. The mental faculties of the human mind—the power to think, to discover, to wonder, and to imagine—are precious gifts of God. The Christian who pursues knowledge, seeks education, and explores even the most “secular” subjects is fulfilling a Christian vocation that is pleasing to God and of great importance to the Church. The Bible, by prece…
Does God play games with his kids? Of course, He does! I totally believe this and that is why the volume switch is on His end and not yours! Up and down the volume level goes. Real time experience goes something like this: real loud to deafening soft. And seemingly not much between! Zooming in and out with His telescopic lens, the Holy Spirit creates close encounters and yes, far away ones. He …
What has theology to do with economics? They are both sciences of human action but have traditionally been treated as very separate and isolated disciplines. Divine Economy is the first book to directly address the need for an active dialogue between the two.
The works translated here deal with two major themes in the thinking of St Augustine (354-430): free will and divine grace. On the one hand, free will enables human beings to make their own choices; on the other hand, God's grace is required for these choices to be efficacious. 'On the Free Choice of the Will', 'On Grace and Free Choice', 'On Reprimand and Grace' and 'On the Gift of Perseveranc…
By championing the ideals of independence, evangelism, and conservatism, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has grown into the largest Protestant denomination in the country. The Convention's mass democratic form of church government, its influential annual meetings, and its sheer size have made it a barometer for Southern political and cultural shift. Its most recent shift has been starboar…
The nineteenth century was one of the most diverse and creative periods in the history of Christian theology. Its problems, challenges, and developments continue to be assimilated by theologians today, while its great thinkers – G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Søren Kierkegaard, John Henry Newman, et al. – are the subject of intensive international scholarship.
Paul, the apostle was one of the most controversial figures of the ancient world. In this reconstruction of his life Jerome Murphy-O'Connor combines evidence from classical studies, biblical studies, ancient history and archaeology to present a realistic biography of Christianity's flawed hero.
For nineteenth century scholars the Holy Land was not just a region of the globe - it was an idea, an intellectual and moral space charged with the heat of debate between those trying to understand the religious, social and scientific upheavals of the time. Edwin Aiken explores the various ways in which geographical knowledge was used in these debates. In particular he shows how religious write…
This 2007 text is a comparative, analysis of one of the most fundamental stages in the formation of Europe. Leading scholars explore the role of the spread of Christianity and the formation of new principalities in the birth of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland and Rus' around the year 1000. Drawing on history, archaeology and art history, and emphasizing problems related to the…
The task of collecting, arranging, and editing essays into the coherent sequence necessary for an effective book-long presentation brings with it many challenges. In this particular case the arrangement of Professor Masons papers into three parts is his own and will be subsequently explained in the author's introduction. The decision, however, to include a cumulative bibliography along with anc…
This book explores some early works of Christian literature, those devoted to the New Testament in the 200 years or so after the rise of Constantine by Juvencus, Sedulius, and Arator. They have been somewhat neglected in the Anglophone world, at least, though there are notable exceptions among the small number of relevant monographs; it is important, especially in an increasingly interdisciplin…
In this well-known work, Etienne Gilson undertakes a sufficiently difficult task, namely, to define the spirit of mediaeval philosophy. He focuses on and supports his conclusion that the Middle Ages produced, besides a Christian literature and art as everyone admits, this very Christian philosophy, which is a matter of dispute.
In this work Jenkins takes a closer look at Christianity in the global South, revealing what it is like, and what it means for the future. The faith of the South, Jenkins finds, is first and foremost a biblical faith. Indeed, in the global South, many Christians identify powerfully with the world portrayed in the New Testament.
At least two well-developed bodies of literature have emerged on practical questions relating to death, one the concern of psychology, the other the concern of ethics. These flow from two basic questions: how can we live well in the face of death? and when, if ever, is it legitimate deliberately to bring human life to an end? Related to both of these is a third question that seems to press eve…
This book examines the theology and ethics of land use, especially the practices of modern industrialized agriculture, in light of critical biblical exegesis. Nine interrelated essays explore the biblical writers’ pervasive concern for the care of arable land against the background of the geography, social structures, and religious thought of ancient Israel. This approach consistently brings …
This book was conceived in an unusual setting. The year was 1976. I had just arrived with my family in Aixen-Provence, France, where I was to spend a sabbatical year teaching at the university. We had rented a house for the year from Michel Vovelle, a well-known French historian who was just packing up to leave for a sabbatical year of his own at Princeton. The lease was for a certain rent, qui…
Augustine’s philosophy of life involves reviewing one’s past and exercises for self-improvement. Centuries after Plato and before Freud he invented a “spiritual exercise” in which every man and woman is able, through memory, to reconstruct and reinterpret life’s aims. Brian Stock examines Augustine’s unique way of blending literary and philosophical themes. He proposes a new interpr…
Besides the fact that Ethics, Education, and Eschatology all begin with the letter E readers may find the combination strange. However, the three are important themes in Calvin’s works that help to explain the development of western thought and action. Ethics is perhaps the most obvious theme to be found in his work as his first attempt at publication was on ethics; his work on Seneca’s De …
Unless you were a personal friend of C. S. Lewis, or one of his many correspondents, you are probably not aware that he went by “Jack” to his friends, a name he landed on as a child and decided it suited him better than his given one (Clive Staples Lewis). So at the end of most of his letters, you encountered “Yours, Jack.” This book is intended to extend that personal relationship to y…
This book started life as the final chapter of Jesus and the Victory of God (1996), the second volume in the series Christian Origins and the Question of God, of which the first volume is The New Testament and the People of God (1992). The present work now forms the third volume in the series. This is a departure from the original plan, and since people often ask me what is going on some explan…
After first publishing this book in 1995, in subsequent reprintings I was able to correct a few errata, add a biblical index, and update the bibliography. For the present task of thoroughly revising the whole text, I need to take account of the numerous biblical, historical, and systematic studies of Jesus that have appeared in recent years. Many valuable, as well as some questionable, books an…
Issues of gender and sexuality have recently come to the fore in all humanities disciplines, and this book reflects this broad interdisciplinary situation, although its own standpoint is a theological one. In contrast to many contemporary feminist theologies, gender and sexuality (eros) are here understood within a distinctively Christian context characterized by the reality of agape - the New …
What is Christian wisdom for living in the twenty-first century? Where is it to be found? How can it be learnt? In the midst of diverse religions and worldviews and the urgencies and complexities of contemporary life, David Ford explores a Christian way of uniting love of wisdom with wisdom in love....
If people claim to speak for God, what enables us to know when to credit or discredit the claim? This book analyses the criteria for discernment of prophetic authenticity in the Old Testament, and for discernment of apostolic authenticity in the New Testament; and also considers their validity and viability in a contemporary context.
This book argues that the modern separation of humanity from nature can be traced to the displacement of the triune God. Locating the source of our current ecological crisis in this separation, Peter Scott argues that it can be healed only within theology, through a revival of a Trinitarian doctrine of creation interacting with political philosophies of ecology. Drawing insights from deep ecolo…
How can academic biblical interpretation fruitfully contribute to Christian belief and living in today’s world? This book offers a synthesis of some of the best in pre-modern, modern, and post-modern approaches to biblical interpretation, and locates the discipline within a self-critical trinitarian rule of faith, where historical criticism, systematic theology, ethics, and spirituality are …
This book argues that modern ecclesiology exhibits two unfortunate tendencies: it describes the church in ideal terms, rather than directly addressing the problems of its everyday, sinful activity; and it undermines the distinctiveness of the church and its way of life. The book analyzes the impact of pluralism and inclusivism upon ecclesiology, and draws upon von Balthasar’s theodramatic the…
This book tests the explanatory and descriptive power of the doctrine of sin in relation to two concrete situations: sexual abuse of children and the holocaust. Taking seriously the explanatory power of secular discourses for analysing and regulating therapeutic action in relation to such situations, the book asks whether the theological language of sin can offer further illumination by speakin…
During the tumultuous period of world history from 1660 to 1815, three complex movements combined to bring a fundamental cultural reorientation to Europe and North America, and ultimately to the wider world. The Enlightenment transformed views of nature and of the human capacity to master nature. The religious reawakenings brought a revival of heart-felt, experiential Christianity. Finally revo…
The Bible is filled with over 1,800 promises from God to bless, encourage, and instruct us. Why would God give so many promises? He knew in this world, we would need them. But if you don t know what those promises are, you will not have a basis for your faith or a solid foundation to put your trust in. The Complete Personalized Promise Bibles take you through every single promise in the Bible, …
Readers familiar with Frame’s analysis of historic doctrines and current questions will welcome this long-awaited second installment in the Theology of Lordship series. Here he examines the attributes, acts, and names of God in connection with a full spectrum of relevant theological, ethical, spiritual truths.
This is Volume V of nine in the Studies in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion collection. The Series is meant to provide an opportunity for philosophical discussions of a limited length which pursue in some detail specific topics in ethics or the philosophy of religion, or topics which belong to both fields. A draft of this book was delivered as a lecture course at Oxford over the terms of 1…
‘What are the marks of a supernaturally changed heart?’ This is one of the questions the Apostle Paul addresses as he writes to the church in Corinth. He’s not after some superficial outward tinkering, but instead a deep–rooted, life–altering change that takes place on the inside. In an age where pleasing people, puffing up your ego and building your résumé are seen as the method…
If we are honest, we have to admit that there are many things we don’t understand about God. We do not have final answers to the deep problems of life, and those who say they do are probably living in some degree of delusion. There are areas of mystery in our Christian faith that lie beyond the keenest scholarship or even the most profound spiritual exercises. For many people, these problems …
In The Lost Apostle award-winning journalist Rena Pederson investigates a little known subject in early Christian history—the life and times of the female apostle Junia. Junia was an early convert and leading missionary whose story was “lost” when her name was masculinized to Junias in later centuries. The Lost Apostle unfolds like a well-written detective story, presenting Pederson’s …