The Book of Unknowing meditates on John's confrontation with the incandescent Jesus, a figure of our desire for immortality. Guiding us through the Gospel's coming to grips with Jesus, the poet David Sten Herrstrom prefers sparking the imagination to arguing a thesis, as he explores John's own obsessions, such as image (light), symbol (water), sign (water to wine), shapeliness (symmetry), loves (Peter, Mary's), and above all, ...
Invariably, people who read Scripture are forced to answer the question, «What is the 'literal sense'?» This question is not new. In the seventeenth century, John Lightfoot–signer of the Westminster Confession of Faith and a master of Hebrew and of rabbinic writings–wrestled with the same question, and his conclusions had a profound impact in the world of hermeneutics. In an age of much animosity towards the Jews, Lightfoot em ...
Hermeneutics is the work of Hermes, the Greek demigod, a messenger from the gods and from the dead. Simon Perry sets out to explore the contemporary face of Hermes through a reading of Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). This parable has one distinguishing feature that marks it out from other ancient stories following the same basic storyline: that a visitor from the dead is not granted leave to return with a message ...
Having grown up in the shadow of the Bomb and having provided supportive care to post-Cold War generations of children and their parents (both in crisis), I have seen a lot of distrust and instability in people–individually and in communities. I have seen how the shadow of impending doom can rewrite a way that people live. This distrust and instability is not a personal issue. It is a sign and symptom of having lived in a time when the imaginat ...
Contemporary proposals for Christian theology from postliberalism to Radical Orthodoxy and beyond have espoused their own methodological paradigms. Those who have ventured into this domain of theological method, however, have usually had to stake their claims vis-a-vis trends in what may be called the contemporary «post-al» age, whether of the postmodern, post-Christendom, post-Enlightenment, post-Western, or postcolonial varieties. This volume ...
For the last two centuries biblical interpretation has been guided by perspectives that have largely ignored the oral context in which the gospels took shape. Only recently have scholars begun to explore how ancient media inform the interpretive process and an understanding of the Bible. This collection of essays, by authors who recognize that the Jesus tradition was a story heard and performed, seeks to reevaluate the constituent elements of na ...
The field of the theology of mission has developed variously across Christian traditions in the last century. Pentecostal scholars and missiologists also have made their share of contributions to this area. This book brings the insights of pentecostal theologian Amos Yong to the discussion. It delineates the major features of what will be argued as central to a viable vision and praxis for Christian mission in a postmodern, post-Christendom, pos ...
Is it possible to find the revelatory, to find faith in a tiny blue berry? This is but one of the questions explored in this collection of engaging essays aimed at the intrinsically human intersection of memory and belief. Threaded throughout with an ever-changing cast of meadowland characters, not the least of which is a rambling barren of wild blueberries, these writings offer an intimate chronicle of one man's quest to understand what it ...
In a world where armed conflict, repression, and authoritarian rule are too frequent, human rights and peace-building present key concepts and agendas for the global and local struggle for peace and development. But are these agendas congruent? Do they support each other? Many organizations, states, and individuals have experienced how priorities of one agenda create friction with the other. For instance, are justice and reconciliation i ...
