Theology and Ethics

This first-of-its-kind volume adds the perspectives, realities, struggles, and spiritualities of U.S. Latinas to the larger feminist theological discourse.

In "The Abolition of Man, " C.S. Lewis, the beloved educator and author, reflects on education, society, and nature. Dividing his book into three essays, "Men Without Chests, " "The Way, " and "The Abolition of Man, " Lewis uses his graceful prose, delightful humor, and keen understanding of the human mind to challenge our notions about how to best teach our children - and ourselves - not merely reading and writing, but also a sense of morality.

Deepens and refreshes our view of early Christianity while casting a disturbing light on the evolution of the attitudes passed down to us. How did the early Christians come to believe that sex was inherently sinful? When did the Fall of Adam become synonymous with the fall of humanity? What turned Christianity from a dissident sect that championed the integrity of the individual and the idea of free will into the bulwark of a new imperial order--with the central belief that human beings cannot not choose to sin? In this provocative masterpiece of historical scholarship Elaine Pagels re-creates the controversies that racked the early church as it confronted the riddles of sexuality, freedom, and sin as embodied in the story of Genesis. And she shows how what was once heresy came to shape our own attitudes toward the body and the soul.

This book has soft covers.Ex-library,With usual stamps and markings,In fair condition, suitable as a study copy.

After Exegesis frames an inclusive feminist biblical theology, exploring creation, providence, divine judgment, salvation, praise, justice, authority, inclusion, the other, moral agency, suffering, violence, reconciliation, flourishing, and hope. Each chapter places multiple related biblical texts in dialogue around a common theological concern. In so doing, this work exemplifies a central feminist claim: that bringing two or more texts, often born of different contexts, into conversation with each other generates a productive tension that transcends the dominant theological tradition.

After Exegesis thus underscores the fact that the context for feminist biblical theology must be understood more broadly than it has been traditionally construed. The volume demonstrates feminist theology fulfilling this promised breadth, while also staking a claim to the future: theology must attend to humanity's interdependent connectedness to the rest of creation and to such realities as human embodiment, suffering, oppression, hope, and the multivocal nature of truth.

The end of life has never meant the extinction of hope. People have always yearned for, and often been terrified by, continuance beyond the horizon of mortality. Over many centuries various imaginative and sometimes macabre ideas have been devised to explain what happens to human beings after death. As Philip C. Almond reveals in his new and zestful history of the hereafter, whichever image or metaphor has been employed by visionaries, writers, philosophers, or theologians, it has tended to oscillate between two contrary poles: the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul. This pendulum movement of ideas and language reflects the contending influence of the Hebrew Bible and of ancient Greek thought and the often tense encounters, skirmishes, and compromises between them.

Exploring this polarity, and boldly ranging across time and space, Almond takes his readers on a remarkable journey to worlds of both torment and delight. He travels to the banks of the Styx, where Charon the grizzled boatman ferries a departing spirit across the river only if a coin is first placed for payment on the tongue of its corpse. He transports us to the legendary Isles of the Blessed, walks the hallowed ground of the Elysian Fields, and plumbs the murky depths of Tartarus, primordial dungeon of the Titans. The pitiable souls of the damned are seen to clog the soot-filled caverns of Lucifer's domain even as the elect ascend to Paradise. Including medieval fears for the fate of those consumed by cannibals, early modern ideas about the Last Day, and modern scientific explorations of the domains of the dead, this first full treatment of the afterlife in Western thought evokes many rich imaginings of Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and Limbo.

In this elegantly written book, Lee Wandel discusses the relationship between the reform of poor relief and the Protestant Reformation in early sixteenth-century Zurich. In the introduction she traces the various ways that poverty has been evaluated, and its social and religious connotations, up to the sixteenth century. After providing a portrait of sixteenth-century Zurich, the author goes on to explore the discussion of the poor in various media of the town: the sermons and pamphlets of Huldrych Zwingli, who was preaching that the poor were the true images of God; printed images depicting Christ calling beggars and other poor folk to Him (these appeared on title pages of Zwingli's pamphlets); the language of legislation (in particular the poor ordinances of 1520 and 1525). By exploring each of these different languages--the words of Zwingli's sermons, the visual images of title page prints, and the language of legislation--Professor Wandel restores the complex perception of the poor in Reformation Zurich. In each, the poor were located within matrices of religious and social values and were seen as both economically dependent and symbolic within larger theological and ethical constructs.

In this careful analysis and evaluation of the monumental influence of Niebuhr, Werpehowski traces four streams that flow from Niebuhr's theology, particularly as it deals with ethics. In a tightly knit and comprehensive investigation of the work of four contemporary ethicists, important in their own right, Paul Ramsey, Stanley Hauerwas, James Gustafson, and Kathryn Tanner, Werpehowski explores how the legacy of Niebuhr has made an impact on their thought and work. He presents a clear, concise, nuanced, analytical criticism of the development of the four ethicist's construction of ethics-and does it in a way that interweaves and puts the four into a dialogue and conversation with Niebuhr and each other.

Addressing a number of substantive issues, including the viability of just war tradition and the relationship between "church" and "world," American Protestant Ethics and the Legacy of H. Richard Niebuhr demonstrates that Christian ethics operates within a set of polar tensions and that such "conversations" as are developed within need to be a part of moral discourse inside and between a variety of communities of faith.

What does the Christian tradition say about the condition and rights of animals? This helpful and timely anthology of selections from the Bible and from the great Christian thinkers of all times is an essential primer for those who care about animals. The book is organized around four themes--Attitudes to Creation; the Problem of Pain; the Question of Animal Redemption; and Reverence, Responsibilities, and Rights--and concludes with a section on practical issues--Animal Experimentation, Fur-Trapping, Hunting for Sport, Intensive Farming, and Killing for Food. This book includes selections from the following: the Bible, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, Karl Barth, St. Bonaventure, John Calvin, René Descartes, Austin Farrer, John Hick, St. Irenaeus, St. John of the Cross, C. S. Lewis, St. Thomas More, E. F. Schumacher, Albert Scheweitzer, Paul Tillich, Leo Tolstoy, Alec Vidler, John Wesley, and others

Prayer changes things according to the old clich. But what things, and how? Engaging with biblical texts on prayer, Rob Ellis finds valuable guidance on the contents of prayer, as well as evidence of early wrestling with its problems. He also reviews the works of leading historical theologians such as Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin before asking how the question Who is God? connects with our thinking about intercession. Concluding with a Trinitarian theology of intercession that draws on the work of Karl Barth, Answering God will be of interest to church ministers, leaders, and students of theology.

Written in the belief that it is important for Christians to love God with the mind as well as with heart, soul, and strength, this brief book clearly explains the Apostles' Creed for anyone wanting a better, more coherent understanding of what Christians believe.