Christ In Our Place The Humanity Of God In Christ For The Reconciliation Of The World

Today much preaching and teaching throws people back upon themselves to earn their relationship with God and to try to achieve by their own efforts the kind of person that they ought to be. In The Claim of Humanity in Christ, Alexandra Radcliff counters the Torrances' critics to show the significance of their controversial understanding of salvation for the interface between systematic and pastoral theology. Radcliff then constructively extends the implications of the Torrances' work to a liberating doctrine of sanctification. The Christian life is conceived as the free and joyful gift of sharing by the Spirit in the Son's intimate communion with the Father whereby we are turned out of ourselves to reflect the reality of who we are in Christ.

How does what happened 2000 years ago in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ radically alter the human nature and life situation of men and women in every generation up to the present day? Pursuit of this question provided the initial impetus for this book, a study of two vital themes pertaining to the doctrine of atonement - representation and substitution. The author explores their meaning and role within the theologies of three significantly diverse contemporary theologians - Dorothee Sölle, John Macquarrie, and Karl Barth - concluding with a comparative analysis of all three perspectives in relation to each other.

In the tradition of Karl Barth, T. F. and J. B. Torrance, and Ray Anderson, this collection of essays articulates a theology of ministry based on the humanity of Christ. A Christian theology of ministry, it insists, can be nothing less than a theology for humanity.

Theologians and Old Testament scholars have been at odds with respect to the best interpretation of the imago Dei. Theologians have preferred substantialistic (e.g., image as soul or mind) or relational interpretations (e.g., image as relational personhood) and Old Testament scholars have preferred functional interpretations (e.g., image as kingly dominion). The disagreements revolve around a number of exegetical questions. How do we best read Genesis 1 in its literary, historical, and cultural contexts? How should it be read theologically? How should we read Genesis 1 as a canonical text? This book charts a path through these disagreements by offering a dogmatically coherent and exegetically sound canonical interpretation of the image of God. Peterson argues that the fundamental claim of Genesis 1:26–28 is that humanity is created to image God actively in the world. “Made in the image of God” is an identity claim. As such, it tells us about humanity’s relationship with God and the rest of creation, what humanity does in the world, and what humanity is to become. Understanding the imago Dei as human identity has the further advantage of illuminating humanity’s ontology. Canonically, knowledge of the contours and purpose of human existence develops alongside God’s self-revelation. Tracing this development, Peterson demonstrates the coherence of the OT and NT texts that refer to the image of God. In the NT, Jesus Christ is understood as the realization of God’s image in the world and therefore the fulfillment of the description of humanity’s identity in Genesis 1. In addition to its specific focus on resolving interdisciplinary tensions for Christian interpretation of the imago Dei, the argument of the book has important implications for ethics, the doctrine of sin, and the doctrine of revelation.

In Commonwealth and Covenant Marcia Pally argues that in order to address current socioeconomic problems, we need not more economic formulas but rather a better understanding of how the world is set up — an ontology of how we and the world work. Without this, good proposals that arise lack political will and go unimplemented. Pally describes our basic setup as “separability-amid-situatedness” or “distinction-amid-relation.” Though we are all unique individuals, we become our singular selves through our relations and responsibilities to the people and environments around us. Pally argues that our culture’s overemphasis on “separability” — individualism run amok — results in greed, adversarial and deceitful political discourse and chicanery, resource grabbing, broken relationships, and anomie. Maintaining that separability and situatedness can and must be considered together in public policy, Pally draws on intellectual history, philosophy, and — especially — historic Christian and Jewish theologies of relationality to construct a new framework for addressing present economic and political ills.

Can Christians take seriously the claims of modern science without compromising their theological integrity? Can theology contribute to our understanding of the natural world without reducing the doctrine of creation to a few flashpoint issues? While there is no shortage of works that treat the intersection between science and religion, little attention has been paid to the theological reception of developments of modern science. Yet a deeper look at the history of Christian thought offers a wealth of insight from theological giants for navigating this complex terrain. Science and the Doctrine of Creation examines how influential modern theologians—from the turn of the nineteenth century through the present—have engaged the scientific developments of their times in light of the doctrine of creation. In each chapter a leading Christian thinker introduces readers to the unique contributions of a key theologian in responding to the assumptions, claims, and methods of science. Chapters include Kevin J. Vanhoozer on T. F. Torrance Katherine Sonderegger on Karl Barth Craig G. Bartholomew on Abraham Kuyper Christoph Schwöbel on Wolfhart Pannenberg Edited by Geoffrey Fulkerson and Joel Chopp of the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding, this book grows out of the Henry Center's Creation Project, which promotes biblically faithful and scientifically engaged dialogue around the doctrine of creation. From Warfield's critical appraisal of Darwinian evolution to Pannenberg's pneumatological reflections on field theory, these studies explore how Christians can think more carefully about the issues at stake using the theological resources of their traditions.

Thomas F. Torrance's theology included a thoroughgoing, albeit implicit, ethic of reconciliation. It focused on the personalizing and humanizing mediation of Christ in all realms of life--including not only a supposed private dimension of human life but also the social, historical, and political structures of human society and even of the cosmos itself. This book builds upon that vision of a Christian ethic radically rooted in God's grace, which encompasses, sustains, and transforms the entire human and created order. A trinitarian-incarnational social ethic does not begin with our human causes, projects, and agendas, however noble they might be, but with witness to the reconciling person and work of Jesus Christ for us.