The Disarmament Of God

This book is divided into six chapters. In the first chapter, "A Review of the Critical Study of Ezekiel 38-39 in the Context of Its Placement in the Book," Fitzpatrick provides an extensive (nearly one-fourth of the book) and well-written review of the literature on Ezekiel, especially noting the appreciation by earlier authors of the place of chaps. 38-39 in the final form of the text. Chapter 2, "The Significance of Myth in Itself and in Ezekiel" (pp. 49-73), is, by contrast, less a review of the discussion of myth than a statement of the importance of understanding myth. In chap. 3, "Textual Links Between the Gog Pericope and Other sections of Ezekiel" (pp. 74-81), F. seeks to integrate the pericope into the final form of the text by creating a list of "textual links," largely vocabulary and phrases. Chapter 4, "Ezekiel 38-39, Cosmogony Completed, A Covenant of Peace Fulfilled," and chap. 5, "Mythic Elements and Cosmogony in Ezekiel 1-37 and 40-48," are the heart of the work, where F. comes to the following conclusion: "In the final form the book is presenting a new ending to the Israelite cosmogonie myth, and that in this cosmogonie myth, understandable and yet distinct in the context of the religious myths of the ancient Near East, chapters 38-39, the decisive battle and defeat of Gog and his hordes, must take place if the covenant of peace promised in chapters 34-37 is to be realized and the Temple is to be re-established (chapters 40-48) whose function is both symbol and fulfillment of cosmogony's completion in the Israelite creation myth" (p. 194). Following chap. 6, "Summary and Conclusions," are an extensive bibliography and indexes of biblical texts, authors, and subjects.

Written during the 1970s and early 1980s at the height of Daniel Berrigan's work to stop the Vietnam war and nuclear weapons, The Nightmare of God offers a stunning commentary on the book of Revelation as a textbook of nonviolent resistance to empire. It begins in jail, where Berrigan sits after a 1976 protest at the Pentagon. As he takes us through the book of Revelation, Berrigan suggests that apocalyptic language and imagery are used to name Death (and its empires and wars) as anti-Christ, and challenges us to do the same today, to name every empire and war as anti-Christ, anti-humanity, anti-creation. Written with poetic insight and prophetic passion, Berrigan urges us to resist the culture of war as the early Christian heroes and martyrs did, so that we can end the suffering, heal humanity and join our place to worship the God of peace. Tom Lewis-Borbely's photo etchings complement the literary images. Daniel Berrigan describes Tom's art as healing the ancient killing split between ethics and imagination.

With the same passionate scholarship and analytical audacity he brought to the character of God, Jack Miles now approaches the literary and theological enigma of Jesus. In so doing, he tells the story of a broken promise–God’s ancient covenant with Israel–and of its strange, unlooked-for fulfillment. For, having abandoned his chosen people to an impending holocaust at the hands of their Roman conquerors. God, in the person of Jesus, chooses to die with them, in what is effectively an act of divine suicide. On the basis of this shocking argument, Miles compels us to reassess Christ’s entire life and teaching: His proclivity for the powerless and disgraced. His refusal to discriminate between friends and enemies. His transformation of defeat into a victory that redeems not just Israel but the entire world. Combining a close reading of the Gospels with a range of reference that includes Donne, Nietzche, and Elie Wiesel, Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God is a work of magnificent eloquence and imagination.

This powerful collection of essays focuses on the representation of God in the Book of Ezekiel. With topics spanning across projections of God, through to the implications of these creations, the question of the divine presence in Ezekiel is explored. Madhavi Nevader analyses Divine Sovereignty and its relation to creation, while Dexter E. Callender Jnr and Ellen van Wolde route their studies in the image of God, as generated by the character of Ezekiel. The assumption of the title is then inverted, as Stephen L. Cook writes on 'The God that the Temple Blueprint Creates', which is taken to its other extreme by Marvin A. Sweeney in his chapter on 'The Ezekiel that God Creates', and finds a nice reconciliation in Daniel I. Block's chapter, 'The God Ezekiel Wants Us to Meet.' Finally, two essays from Christian biblical scholar Nathan MacDonald and Jewish biblical scholar, Rimon Kasher, offer a reflection on the essays about Ezekiel and his God.

God’s End-Time Moves is as much about the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit as it is about the affirmation of His Truth and Word, both of which shall touch down everywhere on earth. This book is a work of the End-Time Prophetic Mission, to show in what direction the Lord God of All Creation will be leading the world and, even more so, the Church. God is set to show in every way that the world is not in place by accident, and the Spirit of God will appear to walk on two feet while still being solidly Spirit. In His mercy and grace, God always allows an adequate period of preparation so that no one will be caught unaware, except by personal choice. God’s End-Time Moves, therefore, is His wakeup call!

This book is part of a three-part series on America as a Covenant Nation. This volume covers from the rise of America’s industrial revolution in the late 1800s to America’s taking the position in the Cold-War 1950s as the leader of the “Free World.” It is a typical social (political, economic, and military) history of America—untypical however in how it connects the intellectual, moral and spiritual character of America with those same social events. It takes the reader through the days of Western imperialism, World War One, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War Two, the beginning of the Cold War, and finally the age of Middle-America’s grand success (the 1950s). It focuses heavily on the leaders (most frequently the country’s presidents) and how their own personal spirituality shaped their times—and the way the Christian community in particular responded to both the social challenges facing it and the spiritual leadership attempting to inspire and guide it. It seeks to give the Christian reader (or Secular reader if he or she is willing to be challenged) a highly-detailed knowledge of the historical path—social and spiritual—that has brought us to today’s world ... and its enormous challenges.