Bøger udgivet af Augsburg Fortress Publishers

* The first book to analyze America's religious battles aover the interpretation of Genesis * A clearly written account of the present understanding of Genesis among scholars * Examines the core of concern that animates both sides of these controversies

* Fresh insights into the power of New testament imagery to promote life as well as to perpetuate suffering * Close readings of New Testament narratives and metaphors for the suffering of Jesus

With clarity and passion, Franklin calls for practical and comprehensive action for change from within the African American community--within families, churches, colleges and universities, and civil rights organizations--in this provocative analysis of the state of black America.

Tying Martin Luther's wit and humor to his sharp polemical exploitation of the absurd or incongruous in service to his Reform, Gritsch shows that Luther especially relished humor in his interpretation of the Bible, in his pastoral relationships, and in his encounters with death.

Even as theologians have become more critical of classic theories of atonement, biblical scholars have continued to rely upon such theories as a basis for interpreting Paul's teaching regarding salvation and the cross. In this vital volume, Brondos looks to the recent advances in New Testament scholarship to argue for an alternative understanding of Paul's doctrine of salvation and the cross.Paul, says Brondos, understood Jesus' death primarily as the consequence of his mission: to serve as God's instrument to bring about the long-awaited redemption of Israel, in which Gentiles throughout the world would also be included. For Paul, Jesus' death is salvific not because it satisfies some necessary condition for human salvation, as most doctrines of the atonement have traditionally maintained, nor because it effects some change in the situation of human beings or the world in general. Rather, Jesus' God responded to Jesus' faithfulness unto death by raising him, thereby ensuring that all the divine promises of salvation would be fulfilled through him.Jesus' death forms part of an overarching story culminating in the redemption of Israel and the world. It is this story, and in particular what preceded and followed Jesus' death on the cross, that makes that death redemptive for Paul.

Theologian Ian McFarland claims that Christians have mainly misappropriated the "image of God" language for 2000 years and thereby missed a rich resource for our knowledge of God. Rather than referring to some germinal divine element in humans, such as reason, McFarland claims that the image of God in us tells us something about God and how we know God. It tells us that God, though not identical with us, communicates Godself to us in creative love, in a way that offers precious clues about God's transcendence, immanence, triune life, self-disclosure, incarnation, and intentions for human life. McFarland's careful and exacting work builds from this kernel a powerful Christian vision of God's life and our own destiny in Christ.

Scientist and theologian Sjoerd Bonting offers a new overarching framework for thinking about issues in religion and science. He looks at the creation controversy itself, including biblical perspectives, tradtional doctrines, and the particular potential contribution of chaos theory. Finally, Bonting extends this perspective, a combination of chaos theory and chaos theology he calls "double-chaos," into a framework that addresses traditional questions about evil, divine agency, soteriology, the understanding of disease, possible extraterrestrial life, and the future.

The essence of spirituality is loving God, says Powell. The Bible, the Talmud, and the Qu'ran all direct their followers not merely to believe in God, to trust God, to obey God, and to serve God but to love God. Can we learn to love God?In this biblical spirituality for today, Powell's earnest plea is for Christians to revisit their faith not by blazing in religious enthusiasm but by harboring a steadier flame and deeper commitment. Living at the poetic heart of faith, he argues, entails seeing the coordinates of religious life in a new way. Powell espouses the old-fashioned idea of piety. Drawing on his wide knowledge of the Bible and Christian tradition, as well as insights from his own journey, he shows how simple religious practices move us beyond the old certitudes of a nave and youthful faith into the less certain but more bracing terrain of a second navet, a closer walk with Jesus.

Ellis and Murphy show how contemporary sciences actually support a religiously based ethic of nonviolence, not by appealing to the Enlightment's mechanismic Creator God or revelation's Father God but by discerning the transcendent ground in the laws of nature, the emergence of intelligent freedom, and the echoes of "knoetic" self-giving in cosmology and biology.