Former Faculty

In 1792, nearly 1,200 freed American slaves crossed the Atlantic and established themselves in Freetown, West Africa, a community dedicated to anti-slavery and opposed to the African chieftain hierarchy that was tied to slavery. Thus began an unprecedented movement with critical long-term effects on the evolution of social, religious, and political institutions in modern Africa.

Lamin Sanneh's engrossing book narrates the story of freed slaves who led efforts to abolish the slave trade by attacking its base operation: the capture and sale of people by African chiefs. Sanneh's protagonists set out to establish in West Africa colonies founded on equal rights and opportunity for personal enterprise, communities that would be havens for ex-slaves and an example to the rest of Africa. Among the most striking of these leaders is the Nigerian Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a recaptured slave who joined a colony in Sierra Leone and subsequently established satellite communities in Nigeria. The ex-slave repatriates brought with them an evangelical Christianity that encouraged individual spirituality--a revolutionary vision in a land where European missionaries had long assumed they could Christianize the whole society by converting chiefs and rulers.

Tracking this potent African American anti-slavery and democratizing movement through the nineteenth century, Lamin Sanneh draws a clear picture of the religious grounding of its conflict with the traditional chieftain authorities. His study recounts a crucial development in the history of West Africa.

B & W photographs throughout

In A.D. 49, Paul traveled to Thessalonica, a major city in northern Greece, to preach the gospel. A small group of manual laborers responded positively to his message, resulting in the formation of a church. After spending less than three months with his converts, Paul left the city for southern Greece, ending up in Corinth, from where he wrote two letters to the Thessalonians four months or so after he had left them. These epistles are particularly valuable because they reveal the concerns of Christians new to the faith and Paul's pastoral care as he guides them.

Abraham J. Malherbe vividly describes the social, cultural, religious, and philosophical contexts in which the Thessalonians lived, enabling us to better understand Paul's missives. Detailed introductions to the letters, a new translation, and a lively, enlightening commentary make this an indispensable volume for scholar and layperson alike.

His conviction that art should be multifunction is basic to the author's views on art in the city (he regards most American cities as dehumanizing wastelands of aesthetic squalor, dominated by the demands of the automobile), and leads him to a helpful discussion of its role in worship and the church.

Developing an aesthetic that is basically grounded, yet always sensitive to the human need for beauty, Wolterstorff make a brilliant contribution to understanding how art can serve to broaden and enrich our lives.

In this book Copenhaver covers basic themes--the Bible, church, ministry, sacraments, prayer, ethics--in a clear and inviting way. His approach creates a valuable resource for pastors, an accessible guide for seekers and new Christians, and a "refresher course" for longtime Christians who want to engage anew with what they believe.

At the heart of this process were clerics who used religious and legal scholarship to promote Islam. Once this clerical class emerged, it offered continuity and stability in the midst of political changes and cultural shifts, helping to inhibit the spread of radicalism, and subduing the urge to wage jihad. With its policy of religious and inter-ethnic accommodation, this pacifist tradition took Islam beyond traditional trade routes and kingdoms into remote districts of the Mali Empire, instilling a patient, Sufi-inspired, and jihad-negating impulse into religious life and practice. Islam was successful in Africa, Sanneh argues, not because of military might but because it was made African by Africans who adapted it to a variety of contexts.

Based on a multi-year consultation in the Society of Biblical Literature, The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology features leading scholars from both fields, who bring new insights to the relationship between patristic exegesis and current strategies of biblical interpretation, specifically with reference to the doctrine of the Trinity. Following an account of how each field came to study patristic exegesis, the book offers new studies of Trinitarian theology in Old Testament, Johannine, and Pauline biblical texts and the patristic interpretation of them, combining the insights of modern historical criticism with classical historical theology. It promises to make a valuable contribution to both fields, suggesting several new avenue into the study of early biblical literature and the development of Trinitarian theology.

This book is Prof. Minear's clarion for a return to authentic biblical theology. After more than fifty years of teaching and research, his message is still simple: biblical theology must pay attention to the emphases of the biblical writers. Contemporary biblical scholars, often best trained as historians, tend to dismiss those elements of the Bible most relevant to the faith of ancient and contemporary Christians. This book introduces contemporary students again to a study of the Bible with God at its heart.

"Paul S. Minear provokes readers of the New Testament to attend to the utter confidence with which its pages speak of God and God's doings. In a book that ranges from Matthew to Revelation and from J. S. Bach to Jacques Ellul, Minear's insights are both classic and astonishing. A volume to be both welcomed and read." --Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Princeton Theological Seminary

"Paul Minear's work, too little known to recent students, was a major influence that drew me into the field of New Testament studies. These subtly crafted essays press us to reckon with the New Testament writers' claim to speak about a God who transcends modernist ways of knowing. Minear's far-seeing readings beckon us to peer into the mystery to which the texts point. In short, Minear raises the art of New Testament criticism into the practice of prophecy. The publication of this book is an event to be celebrated by all who cherish theological interpretation of the New Testament." --Richard B. Hays, The Divinity School, Duke University

"Minear goes directly to the biblical texts, and by deftly exploring their ways of talking about things like peace, death or "the heavens," lets their language invite the reader to be grasped by the extraordinary reality of which they speak. These jargon-free essays do more than express an aesthetic appreciation of the New Testament's distinct language; they exemplify a way of reading scripture that can stimulate the imagination, challenge the moral will and deepen understanding. For thirsting spirits, an oasis." --Leander E. Keck, Yale Divinity School

Many daybooks contain passages from already published writings. But when bestselling author and priest Henri J. M. Nouwen was asked to create his own daybook, he took up the challenge of writing 365 new meditations that express his faith. Along the way, he found himself exploring his own belief system in greater depth than he had expected. Bread for the Journey examines many aspects of spirituality, including how we can become connected with Jesus, and where the Church is supposed to lead us. Nouwen's work not only provides us with food for thought, it also takes us inside the mind of one of the best-loved spiritual writers of our time.