Structures Of Grace

This well-crafted book probes the key dimensions of Africa’s existential predicament. It constitutes an intellectual response to a gnawing “African situation”—the starting point for grasping Africa’s social and religious quest. Beyond split explanations of external versus internal factors (e.g., colonization/slavery vs. leadership/cultural values), this study accounts more comprehensively for emergent issues shaping this situation. The situation reflects a gamut of problems in traditional African religion and material culture, which hitherto defines African communality, polities, and destinies vis-à-vis the cosmos and nature. Thus, African religion and communities, each with its own attendant values, do not operate by critical engagement with larger issues of society and civilization, especially those shaped by the advent of (post-) modernity. Rather, they operate via adaptation. The communal drive for natural and social harmony inevitably produces a preservationist view of culture (“leaving things as they are”). This study takes an integrative approach to religion, society, and civilization; eschews dichotomies; and broadly defines and re-signifies life and wholeness as a true end of Africans’ quest today.

Described as 'the Catholic church's best kept secret,' Catholic Social Teaching provides a rich body of thought, and finds a particular resonance as all denominations in the church seek to engage with the needs of contemporary society. Yet beyond the immediate context of the Catholic church, it is all too readily ignored. Resolutely aimed at those who come from traditions beyond the movement’s traditional catholic heartlands but who seek to view their ministry through the lens of generous orthodoxy, "Love in Action" offers a deeply scriptural but accessible introduction to this vital approach to the church’s ministry in the world.

The authors of A Model for Marriage share Christian insights into universal issues that shape modern family life from marriage and parenting to sexuality and communication, providing in the latest edition updates on contemporary classroom practices and online resources. Original.

An ethical framework and vision of free time for social good—and how to achieve it. In the work-centric culture of today’s world, it is easy to view free time as indulging laziness or extravagance.Conor M. Kelly, however, argues that free time possesses enormous potential for good if exercised in accordance with theological ethics. By examining pursuits such as television, digital media use, sports, and travel from the perspective of Catholic solidarity, Kelly demonstrates how individuals can choose new free time activities or restructure current pursuits to be more relational and socially conscious. The first book to use the Catholic theological tradition to explore the importance of free time, The Fullness of Free Time addresses a crucial topic in the ethics of everyday life, providing a useful framework for scholars and students of moral theology, philosophy, and political theory, as well as anyone hoping to make their free time more meaningful.

In the varying perspectives of theological thought the contrasting ideas of transcendence and immanence must inevitably be looked at together. To whatever extent they are held to be mutually compatible or mutually exclusive, neither can be considered without at least some cognizance being taken of the other. Nevertheless, in the swinging of the pendulum from era to era, first one and then the other theme receives the greater weight of attention. Thus, nineteenth-century liberalism placed more emphasis on immanence, whereas the twentieth-century revolt against liberalism has concentrated on transcendence. In this book the author studies the transcendent aspect of God as developed by five contemporary theologians. Two of the men whose work Dr. Farley examines, Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, are thoroughly familiar. The other three, Karl Heim, Charles Hartshorne, and Henry Nelson Wieman, have received less attention in recent studies. The five represent widely divergent traditions, but all of them agree in opposing immanentism. Moreover, they all deal with the tension between the philosophical and the Biblical affirmations of God's transcendence, and attempt to show, in their respective ways, how these types of "beyondness" are related.

More Christians now live in the Majority World than in Europe and North America. Yet most theological literature does not reflect the rising tide of Christian reflection coming from these regions. If we take seriously the Spirit's movement around the world, we must consider how the rich textures of Christianity in the Majority World can enliven, inform, and challenge all who are invested in the ongoing work of theology. Majority World Theology offers an unprecedented opportunity to enter conversations on the core Christian doctrines with leading scholars from around the globe. Seeking to bring together the strongest theological resources from past and present, East and West, the volume editors have assembled a diverse team of contributors to develop insights informed by questions from particular geographic and cultural contexts. This book features a comprehensive overview of systematic theology, with sections on the Trinity, Christology, pneumatology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and eschatology contributors including Amos Yong, Ruth Padilla DeBorst, Victor I. Ezigbo, Wonsuk Ma, Aída Besançon Spencer, Randy S. Woodley, Munther Isaac, and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen explorations of how Scripture, tradition, and culture fit together to guide the church's theological reflection scholars demonstrating how to read the Bible and think theologically in light of contextual resources and concerns inside views on what doing theology looks like in contributors' contexts and what developments they hope for in the future When we learn what it means for Jesus to be Lord in diverse places and cultures, we grasp the gospel more fully and are more able to see the blind spots of our own local versions of Christianity. Majority World Theology provides an essential resource for students, theologians, and pastors who want to expand their theological horizons.

It is taken for granted today among theologians that the principal achievement of the Second Vatican Council was its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. It is beginning to be equally taken for granted that the core of this central document is its vision of Church as communion. "Communion," Pope John Paul II has said, "is the very mystery of the Church." Church: A Spirited Communion grows out of the ecclesiology of the Council as a systematic treatment of this notion of communion. Church: A Spirited Communion is not, however, a book only about the Church. It is a book about the God whom Christians confess as Triune, who calls the Church into existence and who seeks its commitment in every age. It is a book about the Church only to the extent that the Church is in communion with this God. To the extent that it is a book which is primarily theo-logical and only secondarily ecclesio-logical, it is a book which adheres to God rather than to men and summons the Church to do the same.