The Scandal Of Redemption

To find out why Pope Francis is making Oscar Romero a saint, read the words that cost him his life. "A church that does not provoke crisis, a gospel that does not disturb, a word of God that does not touch the concrete sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed - what kind of gospel is that?" Three short years transformed El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero from a defender of the status quo into one of the most outspoken voices of the oppressed. An assassin's bullet ended his life, but his message lives on. In March 2018 Pope Francis announced that the Catholic Church would canonize Oscar Romero, acknowledging that he is indeed a saint who was martyred for proclaiming the gospel, and that the political and social implications of that message, which so scandalized the powerful, flowed directly from Romero's faithfulness to the teachings of Jesus. These selections from Romero's diaries and radio broadcasts invite each of us to align our own lives with the way of Jesus that lifts up the poor, welcomes the broken, wins over enemies, and transforms the history of entire nations.

Testifies to the presence of God as both our post-earthly hope and our present-world existence. / These thought-provoking sermons by Ralph Wood, a layman who has taught religion and literature for many years, seek to till new soil in the fertile field of Christian faith and life. They draw on a wide range of reading not only in Christian theology but also in both classical and contemporary literature and culture. And they also mine Wood s own professorial and personal experience in dealing with both the old and the young amid "the chances and changes of life." / Wood squarely engages the American "culture of death" by wrestling with such vexing questions as sexuality and marriage, war and peace, abortion, racial injustice, and abuse of the elderly. By grounding his homilies in specific times, places, and quandaries, Wood demonstrates that Christianity remains a vigorous set of doctrines and morals precisely as preaching and ethics give shape to our worship and living in the here and now. Focusing not so much on our "getting to heaven," Wood's Preaching and Professing shows concretely how the gospel "gets heaven into us."

Winner of the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award (1995) “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism’s most respected historians. Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship. While nourishing believers in the simple truths of the gospel, why have so many evangelicals failed to sustain a serious intellectual life and abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of “high” culture? Over twenty-five years since its original publication, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind has turned out to be prescient and perennially relevant. In a new preface, Noll lays out his ongoing personal frustrations with this situation, and in a new afterword he assesses the state of the scandal—showing how white evangelicals’ embrace of Trumpism, their deepening distrust of science, and their frequent forays into conspiratorial thinking have coexisted with surprisingly robust scholarship from many with strong evangelical connections.

Once, the name Macalister Hale was uttered in the boardroom with respect. Now, it’s whispered in disgrace at cocktail parties hosted by Boston’s elite. Scandal nearly destroyed me, but the one thing larger than my infamy is my bank account, and I’ve learned money can solve anything. Well—almost anything. Sophia Alby’s preferred currency is secrets and the way she trades information puts Wall Street to shame. This girl charges into my life and claims a partnership can restore my reputation. My downfall was swift, but with her, my climb to redemption will be greater. Our arrangement is professional. Appropriate. It has to be, because she’s half my age. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting . . . To move on. To control and indulge in her. To hear the name Macalister Hale echo in her breathy moans. But I can’t. Giving in to temptation led to my undoing before, and I won’t survive it a second time.

As Joel B. Green and Mark D. Baker demonstrate, the New Testament displays a rich array of interpretations of the cross. The church in mission shaped these as it rooted the story of a scandalous cross in the language of everyday realities and relationships.

Through a systematic analysis of the conflicts emerging when the public church encounters the public world, The Scandal of Pentecost argues that the public advent of the church stands in continuity with the public scandal of the incarnate and crucified Christ. The book traces the contours of this scandal in the confrontation of the dominant ruling hermeneutic of authority with a Christian hermeneutic of resistance. This highlights the brokenness of the human condition manifested by the church in the drunkenness of the disciples, the speaking in other tongues, the baptism with the Spirit, the empowerment of the flesh, and its public witness to a scandalized world. The effects of the scandal transform both the disciples' individual and communal witness and their public recognition as the church. Through the lens of a symbolic hermeneutic, the public witness of the church at Pentecost reveals a Christian scandal of anthropological proportions: with the outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh the church emerges as the symbol of humanity.

English evangelicals give the appearance of being a community at war, with each other and with the world around them. The issue of homosexuality is one of the key battlegrounds. How has this issue become so significant to evangelicals? Why is it provoking such violent responses? How is it changing evangelicals, and what might this mean for the future? This book examines the history of evangelical responses to the issue of homosexuality, setting them in a wider historical and cultural context and drawing on the work of Rene Girard to argue that the issue of homosexuality has come to symbolise deeply-held convictions within evangelicalism. The conflict over the issue that is now becoming apparent within evangelicalism reveals deep divisions within the evangelical community that will have great significance for the future. The Scandal of Evangelicals and Homosexuality offers an alternative perspective, seeking not to present an answer to the ethical question, but rather to examine the way the debate has become scandalised and consider the cost. It offers a window into contemporary English evangelicalism and provides an important contribution to international and ecumenical debate.

Despite Flannery O'Connor's brief life, her work, comprising novels, short stories, essays, and articles, has had a great impact on American literature and to some extent popular culture, of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her writing has become well loved, well read, and often studied. This book reprints complete book reviews and excerpts from review essays on the works of Flannery O'Connor that appeared in newspapers and periodicals during the author's writing life (1945-64) and after her early death. The more than four hundred edited reviews are prefaced with a substantial Introduction that situates O'Connor within the critical milieu of post-war American letters and Southern literary tradition, and provides an overview of contemporary critical responses to her collected stories, novels, and occasional pieces. An important resource for scholars of O'Connor and of Southern literature generally, this volume reveals much about her early reception and the continuing relevance of her work.