Render Unto God

“People who take God seriously will not remain silent about their faith. They will often disagree about doctrine or policy, but they won’t be quiet. They can’t be. They’ll act on what they believe, sometimes at the cost of their reputations and careers. Obviously the common good demands a respect for other people with different beliefs and a willingness to compromise whenever possible. But for Catholics, the common good can never mean muting themselves in public debate on foundational issues of human dignity. Christian faith is always personal but never private. This is why any notion of tolerance that tries to reduce faith to private idiosyncrasy, or a set of opinions that we can indulge at home but need to be quiet about in public, will always fail.” —From the Introduction Few topics in recent years have ignited as much public debate as the balance between religion and politics. Does religious thought have any place in political discourse? Do religious believers have the right to turn their values into political action? What does it truly mean to have a separation of church and state? The very heart of these important questions is here addressed by one of the leading voices on the topic, Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia. While American society has ample room for believers and nonbelievers alike, Chaput argues, our public life must be considered within the context of its Christian roots. American democracy does not ask its citizens to put aside their deeply held moral and religious beliefs for the sake of public policy. In fact, it requires exactly the opposite. As the nation’s founders knew very well, people are fallible. The majority of voters, as history has shown again and again, can be uninformed, misinformed, biased, or simply wrong. Thus, to survive, American democracy depends on an engaged citizenry —people of character, including religious believers, fighting for their beliefs in the public square—respectfully but vigorously, and without apology. Anything less is bad citizenship and a form of theft from the nation’s health. Or as the author suggests: Good manners are not an excuse for political cowardice. American Catholics and other persons of goodwill are part of a struggle for our nation’s future, says Charles J. Chaput. Our choices, including our political choices, matter. Catholics need to take an active, vocal, and morally consistent role in public debate. We can’t claim to personally believe in the sanctity of the human person, and then act in our public policies as if we don’t. We can’t separate our private convictions from our public actions without diminishing both. In the words of the author, “How we act works backward on our convictions, making them stronger or smothering them under a snowfall of alibis.” Vivid, provocative, clear, and compelling, Render unto Caesar is a call to American Catholics to serve the highest ideals of their nation by first living their Catholic faith deeply, authentically.

What marks, principles, and values from our study of Jesus can guide our reflections about the church and its witness in a world of economic injustice? What kinds of principles ought to be part of an ecclesiology in a world where family violence is epidemic? So asks author James Poling in his exploration of the role of faith and religious practice as a resource for those who are economically vulnerable to domestic violence. In this groundbreaking work, Poling focuses his research on women and children in working-class and poor communities of three cultures, analyzing the forces that define and sustain economic vulnerability and detailing how such vulnerability affects the daily lives of people within these communities. He looks at how the church can function as a source of healing and empowerment for persons who are trapped by domestic violence and economic vulnerability and develops models for prevention of violence and of practical ministry for pastoral care of the victims and perpetrators.

The Great Recession, like most economic depressions, has compelled many to reconsider not only the consequences, but also the very nature of contemporary global capitalism. Sadly, very little critical reflection on the fundamental nature of the world’s hegemonic economic system has come from its most devout disciples – evangelicals. Throughout the pages of the Old and New Testament, God reprimands those driven by a love for gain. By way of the cultural mandate, God has given humanity the responsibility to care not only for their fellow human beings, but also for the earth itself. True and undefiled religion includes taking care of those forgotten, marginalized, and made invisible by all-consuming (and all-mighty) capital. As such, those who accumulate wealth by destroying creation dishonor their Creator. Has the Christian community gone far enough in meeting the needs of the poor, in seeking the end of poverty, or in curbing the rapacious appetites of the greedy few in order to preserve that which is good, true, and beautiful within God’s creation? Render Unto God calls Christians to reconsider their ideological commitment to unrestrained capitalism – to rethink not only the profit motive, an essential element of capitalism (if not its central telos), the meaning of private property, and the dominion of the global power elite, but also to understand how market fundamentalism fractures families, creates systems of inequality, and destroys the environment. Have we forgotten our commitment to God, neighbor, and creation? Have we forgotten our primary purpose, the reason for our existence – namely, to glorify God and enjoy him forever?

For Christians, our ethics should reflect the tenants of right and wrong put forth in the Bible. The Ten Commandments are the example of God giving His people a code of ethics to live by. As you read through them, consider how these laws would apply to ethical living today. During my study of the Holy Bible, I learned to understand God’s love for His people. God did not abort His plan when Adam sinned. He went on to choose Prophets and even talked like humans to comprehend Him. Remember, God is not like us. He has a Divine prerogative to do His own will as the Holy Deity. Our Creator, who is Self Existent does not need any of us at all. God had grand plans for the human race, kept His promise to save us by sacrificing His Son to atone for our sins. It is God’s integrity that keeps us all on this earth. We must acknowledge God’s faithfulness of His love. This devotional book intends to teach us how to learn God’s truth and use them towards building our integrity.

You are holding in your hands a piece of the counterculture. The recent tendency in the academic world has been away from primary sources and toward textbooks. Being a fairly traditional lot, we find that unacceptable. We focus on the “big ideas” that have shaped American government. There are many ways to gain exposure to these ideas, but in our opinion, none are better than actually reading the primary sources that first articulated them. That is why you will see many founding documents, Supreme Court cases, and momentous speeches within these pages. This collection will whet your appetite for exploring our rich American governmental heritage. Our hope is that this may be the beginning of a lifelong interest in the basis of our American government—how we got where we are today, and how we are to proceed from here!

Nothing is more important than what a person believes about Jesus Christ. To understand Christ correctly is to understand the very heart of God, Scripture, and the gospel. To get to the core of this belief, this latest volume in the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series lays out a systematic summary of Christology from philosophical, biblical, and historical perspectives—concluding that Jesus Christ is God the Son incarnate, both fully divine and fully human. Readers will learn to better know, love, trust, and obey Christ—unashamed to proclaim him as the only Lord and Savior. Part of the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series.

The revered Bible scholar and author of The Historical Jesus explores the Christian culture wars—the debates over church and state—from a biblical perspective, exploring the earliest tensions evident in the New Testament, and offering a way forward for Christians today. Leading Bible scholar John Dominic Crossan, the author of the pioneering work The Historical Jesus, provides new insight into the Christian culture wars which began in the New Testament and persist strongly today. For decades, Americans have been divided on how Christians should relate to government and lawmakers, a dispute that has impacted every area of society and grown more rancorous over the past forty years. But as Crossan makes clear, this debate isn’t new; it can be found in the New Testament itself, most notably in the tensions between Luke-Acts and Revelation. In the texts of Luke-Acts, Rome is considered favorably. In the book of Revelation, Rome is seen as the embodiment of evil in the world. Yet there is an alternative to these two extremes, Crossan explains. The historical Jesus and Paul, the earliest Christian teachers, were both strongly opposed to Rome, yet neither demonized the Empire. Crossan sees in Jesus and Paul’s approach a model for Christians today that can be used to cut through the acrimony and polarization roiling our society and dividing us.

Neyrey here interprets eight key New Testament books, providing a fresh look at theologies in the early church and introducing readers to the diverse ways in which the New Testament writers "render to God the things that are God's." He begins with two Gospels, Mark and Matthew, and moves on to the Acts of the Apostles and three of Paul's letters (Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Galatians). He then examines the formal and precise ways in which Jesus is called God in the Gospel of John and concludes with a discussion of how Hebrews uses "eternity" as a fundamental concept for understanding God. Using a social-science methodology, he offers unique perspective on the biblical text.