With candor, passion, and deep love for her work, Lucy Forster-Smith takes us across the threshold as a chaplain on a college campus. This vocational narrative braids the story of her faith journey that began on a porch when she was a four-year-old, was shaken by a sexual assault as a seminarian, and through healing and grace brought her to claim a call to ministry with students. With delightful humor and an infectious love for her work, Forster ...
In the face of climate change and ecological diminishment, how can we hope that creation itself–good and beautiful, marked by tragedy and chaos–is taken up rather than left behind? Can a Christian vision, which has at times been drunk on eschatological dreams (or nightmares) that consign this world and most of its creatures to destruction, foster an earthly hope? Jurgen Moltmann and Sallie McFague offer two contemporary possibilities for ...
The landscape of Christian spirituality in the West is no longer lush with green grass and wild flowers blooming. Instead, across the country we find dry terrain where churches no longer can expect interested seekers–yet most of our solutions for addressing this predicament link to anxiety around our performance and personality. Rather than going back to the boardroom to cook up new techniques for a trendier church, let's ask more meaningfu ...
Sarah. Hagar. Rebekah. Leah. Rachel. Bilhah. Zilpah. These are the Matriarchs of Genesis. A people's self-understanding is fashioned on their heroes and heroines. Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel–the traditional four Matriarchs–are important and powerful people in the book of Genesis. Each woman plays her part in her generation. She interacts with and advises her husband, seeking to achieve both present and future successes for her family. ...
The relation between life and death is a subject of perennial relevance for all human beings–and indeed, the whole world and the entire universe, in as much as, according to the saying of ancient Greek philosophy, all things that come into being pass away. Yet it is also a topic of increasing complexity, for life and death now appear to be more intertwined than previously or commonly thought. Moreover, the relation between life and death is also ...
The present book reflects on the life, work, and legacy of an exceptional and enigmatic woman: the philosopher and French Jewish mystic Simone Weil. It constitutes a testimony so unique that it is impossible to ignore. In a Europe where authoritarian regimes were dominant and heading, in a sinister manner, toward World War II, this woman of fragile health but indomitable spirit denounced the contradictions of the capitalist system, the brutalit ...
This book is a reading of Matthew's Gospel as though it were written to integrate with, advance, and conclude the existing body of Scriptures. Matthew is read as though John was the last prophet of God and Israel's last chance for repentance, and that Jesus was YHWH who had come to judge the Temple, priesthood, and covenant nation according to the terms of the covenant God made with Moses at Sinai. Through this lens, new interpretation ...
Startled by the unexpected diagnosis of a rare and often-terminal cancer, JoAnn A. Post chronicles the course of her treatment in Songs in My Head, a journal written both for her own sake, and for friends, family, and colleagues. Each of her twelve chemotherapy treatments is presented as a verse of the songs that hummed in her heart during and at the close of treatment. Inspiration and encouragement come through simple events like the return of ...
Jesus' parables in Luke weren't only addressing his audience. Rather, Luke used them to address his audience. In so doing, the worlds of both Jesus and Luke had many ways to understand these parables. This book explores some of those ways based on the way Jesus and Luke told these stories, as well as the first century backgrounds. The ultimate goal is to help both people who lead Bible studies and preach in the church to grasp firmly L ...
