Crippled Grace

Before the teacher could get the students inside when a sudden storm came up, a large limb fell across seven-year-old Grace Hunter's right ankle. Though the doctor was able to save her foot, she was left with a pronounced limp. As a child, though she had a crush on her friend Nelda's brother, she knew no man would ever love her because of her foot. When she reached her twentieth year, she still felt the same - no man would ever love her and she still loved Sheriff Lance Gentry. When a measles epidemic hits town Grace and Lance are forced to spend time together. Lance had always thought of Grace as his other sister until he noticed one day she was no longer a girl, but a beautiful woman. But not a woman for him. Yet when he thought of Grace in another man's arms his blood ran cold.

The rise of populism and nationalism in the West have raised concerns about the fragility of liberal political values, chief among them tolerance. But what alternative social resources exist for cultivating the interpersonal relationships and mutual goodwill necessary for sustainable peace? And how might the lived practices of religious communities carry potential to reinterpret or re-circuit these interpersonal tensions and transform the relationship with the cultural "other" (Fremde) from "foe" (Feind) to "friend" (Freund)? This volume contributes a unique analysis of this shifting discourse by viewing the contemporary socio-political upheaval through the lens of Friedrich Schleiermacher's theology, with a focus on the themes of friendship, interpersonal subjectivity, and sociability as a path beyond mere tolerance. Each of the essays of the volume is written by an internationally recognized scholar in the field, and the volume examines Schleiermacher's novel reflections across multiple social contexts, including North America, Great Britain, western Europe, and South Africa. As these essays demonstrate, the implications of this conversation continue to resound in contemporary religious communities and political discourse.

One of the most popular novelists of the twentieth century, winner of a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize for Literature and an active social and political campaigner, particularly in the field of women's issues and Asian-American relations, Pearl Buck has, until now, remained 'hidden in public view'. Best known, perhaps, as the prolific author of The Good Earth, Buck led a career which extended well beyond her eighty works of fiction and non-fiction and deep into the public sphere. In this critically acclaimed biography, Peter Conn retrieves Pearl Buck from the footnotes of literary and cultural history and reinstates her as a figure of compelling and uncommon significance in twentieth-century literary, cultural and political history.

Lisa D. Powell strengthens and amplifies the claim that God is disabled, made by Nancy Eiesland in her ground breaking book The Disabled God (1994). She offers an alternative understanding of the doctrine of God and the Trinity, resulting in a God who is not autonomous and utterly independent. According to this view, God's triune identity is established in God's decision for covenant, and thus creation is a requirement for the fulfillment of God's nature - not only is the Son always anticipating full embodiment and human nature, but more specifically is eternally anticipating an impaired body. Powell argues that God is not only interdependent within the immanent Trinity, but God experiences real dependency, risk and vulnerability from God's “original” self-determination. Powell revisits Eiesland's claim about Christ's resurrected body and her conclusions about eschatological embodiment, arguing that it is the able-body that does not persist eschatologically, but all humanity journeys toward ever more transparency, vulnerability and interdependency as the Body of Christ.

Gordon is a poor black man in America. While he doesn't exactly have a clean slate, he isn't bad enough to be chased down and arrested by the police-but it still happens. Two hours later, he dies in the police car, driven by two white officers, one of who has an immense hatred for black people. Gordon's death is ruled an accident. Police officer Anthony supports white supremacy. He believes black people should be slaves to the white man, so he feels no guilt when Gordon dies, even though he knows it wasn't an accident. Gordon was murdered. His death is questioned all over the United States, but there is no justice since the police department suppresses the truth. Instead of receiving hate, Anthony is greeted with love and called a hero. It appears he has gotten away with his crime. He concealed the truth from society ... but will he be able to conceal the truth from his own conscience? Due to his actions, Anthony's soul is irrevocably bruised.

Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin seeks to analyze a revisionist movement within Thomism in the 20th century over and against the traditional or classical Thomistic commentatorial treatment of physical premotion, grace, and the permission of sin, especially as these relate to the mysteries of predestination and reprobation. The over-arching critique leveled by the revisionists against the classic treatment is that Bañezian scholasticism had disregarded the dissymmetry between the line of good (God's causation of salutary acts) and the line of evil (God's permission of defect and sin). The teaching of St. Thomas is explored via intimate consideration of his texts. The thought of St. Thomas is then compared with the work of Domingo Bañez and the foremost 'Bañezian' of the 20th century, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. The work then shifts to a consideration of the major players of the revisionist treatment, including Francisco Marín-Sola, Jacques Maritain, and Bernard Lonergan. Jean-Herve Nicolas is also taken up as one who had held both accounts during his lifetime. The work analyzes and critiques the revisionist theories according to the fundamental tenets of the classical account. Upon final analysis, it seeks to show that the classical account sufficiently distances God's causal role in regard to free salutary acts and His non-causal role in regard to free sinful acts. Moreover, the revisionist account presents significant metaphysical problems and challenges major tenets of classical theism, such as the divine omnipotence, simplicity, and the exhaustive nature of divine providence. Finally, the implications of the traditional view are considered in light of the spiritual life. It is argued that the classical account is the only one which provides an adequate theological foundation for the Church's robust mystical and spiritual tradition, and in particular, the abandonment to divine providence.

Amy Oxley Wilkinson was a well-known missionary in both China and the West in the early twentieth century. Initially setting up a mission station in a remote area of Fujian Province, she became aware of the way blind children were neglected, hidden, or abandoned in China at the time. After finding a blind boy left to die in a ditch, she established an innovative Blind Boys School in Fuzhou. Meanwhile her husband, Dr. George Wilkinson, set up the city's first hospital and introduced a program to address the pervasive curse of opium addiction. Amy's holistic and vocational approach to disability education brought her national and later international recognition. In 1920, the president of the new Chinese republic awarded her the Order of the Golden Grain, the highest honor a foreigner could receive. Two years later, Amy and the school's brass band toured England and performed before Queen Mary. Amy's story highlights the significance of contributions by women missionaries to the development of early modern China, and is a challenge to anyone committed to making their life count for others. Her Blind School remains a major institution in Fuzhou to this day.