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For twenty years, clinical pastoral educators, congregational caregivers, chaplains, pastoral psychotherapists, and pastoral theologians have turned to Pamela Cooper-White's Shared Wisdom to ground their teaching, training, and understandings of countertransference and how the use of the caregiver's self, in turn, impacts the relational dynamic between caregivers and care seekers. Now, Cooper-White updates her groundbreaking book to present new insights on how understanding one's own emotional reactions remains a core competency for ministry. With precision and depth, Cooper-White continues to innovate the theory and practice of spiritual care, counseling, and spiritual psychotherapy. This revised and expanded 20th anniversary edition explores current research on countertransference and intersubjectivity; mutual influence and unconscious relationships; and intercultural and interreligious dynamics in caring relationships. Cooper-White examines how the relational paradigm for pastoral assessment and theological reflection that she pioneered now has important implications for evolving types of care relationships. As she does so, she addresses emerging topics such as postcolonial theory, spiritual and religious fluidity, and gender diversity. CPE supervisors, pastoral care and counseling educators and practitioners, pastoral theology scholars, and psychotherapists looking for an in-depth understanding of relationality and intersubjectivity will find the 20th anniversary edition of Shared Wisdoma must-have resource to build and expand upon a core competency.

Desirable Belief: A Theology of Eros is a work of critical and constructive theology informed by the phenomenon of erotic love. Within the Christian tradition, passion has long been associated with sinful lust, incurring shaming and accusations of narcissism. Contemporary theologies of eros, on the other hand, extol sexual desire as God-given, even sacred. This book eschews these two extremes through an examination of the complexities of love and desire, as narrated in biblical texts, allegorized by church fathers, manifested in the lives of mystics, analyzed in psychodynamic theory, and depicted in poetry, literature, and Christian art. The volume pairs writers on love as different as Augustine and Jane Austen or Angela of Foligno and Simone de Beauvoir. Desirable Belief argues that eros is human and, as such, informs the Chalcedonian claim of Christ as fully God and fully human. A christological perspective that takes eros into account, in turn, affects the doctrine of the bodily ascension of Christ, the nature of resurrected bodies in heaven, and whether trinitarian impassibility is still a coherent concept.

The Promise of Ecumenical Interpretation pursues its ecumenical goals by allowing the Bible itself to serve as the point of commonality. The volume retains the Bible's centrality as a guideline for individual faith and for the institutional design of churches in the context of contemporary social conflicts. The authors--one Protestant, one Catholic, one Orthodox--present ten unifying theses on the understanding and function of a conception of Scripture under the sign of Sola Scriptura. They agree that only Scripture, when correctly understood, bears witness to good news for everyone, and that only a shared, expectant, and critical turn to Scripture makes sustainable ecumenism possible. This is the basis for bringing biblical insights to the conditions that make community life possible amid the global and local, ecclesiastical and social conflicts of the present.

This is a translation of Ernst Troeltsch's last (1923) major work. It is an exhaustive study of the methods of historiography and of German, French, English, and Italian philosophies of history during the nineteenth century. It is motivated by the purpose of developing the proper concept of historical development, for overcoming "bad" historicism (i.e., unlimited relativism) with "good" historicism (with relativity, not relativism), and determining how values drawn from history can be used to shape the future. It concludes with a sketch of the unwritten second volume on the material philosophy of history.

This book provides biblical evidence of the structural and systemic factors that have long been part of the story of poverty. The people of God have often denied such structural claims in favor of the belief that individuals are poor because of personal choice. This absolves the social institutions of society, including the church, from responsibility to address these structural forces, including within the church itself. Charity and benevolence become the antidote for such a diagnosis of poverty, rather than the deeply rooted change that God intended for the Year of Jubilee and that the early church reflected. This book supports the biblical mandate of neighborliness as both a personal and a corporate response to systemic poverty, a mandate that is the second of the two great commandments.

World Christianity and Ecological Theologies invites scholars in religious studies and theology from different continents and contexts to a North-South dialogue on environmental ethics, political ecology, and ecofeminism. Throughout the global pandemic, the connection between environmental rapacity, religion, and political interests has once again called scholarly attention to the important conversation on public religion and global environment-related issues. Acknowledging a deficit among scholars of World Christianity in addressing environmental concerns and the field's limited language for framing those concerns, this book aims to bring the fields of study of World Christianity, religion, and ecology into a sustained conversation, with the goal of expanding the theoretical horizons of these fields. World Christianity and Ecological Theologies reiterates that all Christian theologies are contextual, as they shape and are shaped by specific historical and cultural circumstances. It aims at showcasing the ways in which the intersection of religion and ecology is approached by scholars in religious studies and theology in the Global South or by those in conversation with them in the Global North, pointing to what can be generated if these bodies of scholarship are engaged as dialogue partners to investigate new patterns of religious environmentalism.

As a type of popular religion, the Pentecostal movement has historically appealed to working-class Latinx people. While the movement is known for ecstatic practices, followers maintain a spirituality of deep interiority. Amid diverging political allegiances and emerging political demagogues, Latino Pentecostalism represents a battleground for the soul of Latinidad. When the Spirit Is Your Inheritance explores Latino Pentecostal racial identity from an intergenerational, insider perspective. As a sociologist born and raised in Latino Pentecostalism, with years of qualitative research experience withinthe movement, Jonathan Calvillo draws on autoethnographic observations to describe the converging sociopolitical streams shaping Latino Pentecostal identity. Focusing on lived religious practices, sociological insights, and grounded theological reflection, Calvillo paints a critical and caring picture of Latino Pentecostalism. The book addresses issues of immigration, Latinidad, anti-black racism, and economic justice by presenting cross-generational snapshots of belonging in the United States. Ultimately, Calvillo considers what Latino Pentecostalism might teach others, advocating for social engagement informed by the empathetic practices learned in Latino Pentecostalism.

The Black church often maintains an allegiance to white, Western approaches to wealth and material acquisition. In doing so, it can ignore Jesus's teachings on poverty, wealth, and materialism. The church's ambivalence toward Jesus's understandings of poverty and wealth uniquely impacts the spiritual and material well-being of Black women and the Black community. As a womanist theologian, Lorena Parrish argues that the Black church needs a new, liberative way forward. In We Have Plenty, Parrish traces the history of theologies of prosperity to help scholars and practitioners understand the long-standing appearance of prosperity gospels in the Western church. In doing so, she explores selected sermons and writings of St. Augustine, John Calvin, John Wesley, and Walter Rauschenbusch to show how theologies of prosperity have long been embedded in mainline Christianity, sometimes imperceptibly so. Parrish argues that recognizing these trajectories is critical for the Black church's capacity to foster pathways toward communal liberation and wholeness. Parrish offers a womanist theology that hearkens to the liberative work of Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farm Collective and illumines contemporary initiatives that cultivate pathways toward Black communal abundance. Parrish shows how equipping Black church pastors and community leaders with tools to build similar strategies better positions the church and community, in turn, to promote more equitable human relations and communal asset-building and sharing. We Have Plenty offers a moral imagination for theologians, church leaders, and community activists to envision Black communal abundance and thriving in light of Jesus's teachings.

From the high Middle Ages to the late Middle Ages, heresy evolved from individual outbreaks to more widespread movements. Accused heretics were often motivated by the same concerns as movements that found acceptance within the church, such as a zeal to live the apostolic life. This book explores the growing sense of Christian identity as it developed in agreement with and opposition to closely affiliated groups in the Middle Ages. It documents the development of the idea of heresy, and it listens to the voices that shaped official and unofficial theologies. Developing manuals of heresy and elaborate trial procedures spanning both canon law and secular justice, the church defined religion and religious life more tightly and regulated praxis. Considering nine heretical movements of the Middle Ages, starting with the Petrobrusians and finally ending with the Hussites and late medieval witchcraft, this book examines the shifting line constructed between heresy and orthodoxy, and how the saint and the heretic were often responding in similar ways to the same motivations. Through its investigations, this book considers the reasons for inclusion and exclusion of these various groups and the impact of the development of this heresy-routing apparatus on medieval Christianity's self-identity.

This volume interweaves contributions from a group of scholars brought together for the 2022 Korean Studies Center Symposium at Fuller Theological Seminary. The collection provides a forum for scholars of Korean American Protestant churches to address key challenges concerning the sociocultural and theological formation of identity and mission as these churches continue to navigate their place in society in relation to others, including Korean churches in South Korea, mainline churches in the US, other ethnic churches, and multiethnic churches. The chapters address the following issues: who the Korean American churches are; God's vision for the Korean American churches; how to interpret Korean Americans' journey in immigrant church history; how heritage sustained them and will keep them; what the immigrant church should know in this post-pandemic time; and the hopes of the next generation.

Christian tradition and faith formation often affirm anger as a righteous emotion. However, women and gender-diverse persons typically are conditioned to present themselves as soft and gentle. If they do express anger, they are conditioned to do so in constricted ways. Jan R. Schnell argues that such individuals should, in fact, fully explore anger as a vital part of their Christian vocations. In Agapic Anger, Schnell explores the religious ethics of virtuous anger to show that expressions of anger can be morally good. Schnell weaves the narratives of four female community organizers alongside key principles of Thomas Aquinas's virtue ethics, as well as practices gleaned from choreographic performance studies, to create a framework that dismantles oppressive traditions regarding anger. Schnell identifies three dance-like movements that instead cultivate a virtuous habit of anger expression that can fuel the work of communal justice. The result is a constructive presentation of a form of anger that is rooted in love, is characterized by hope and courage, and feeds people's capacity to feel well, choose well, and do well. This book is for community organizers and church leaders who yearn for a liberative, embodied response that attends to the gap between the angering realities of our present world and the vision of God's kin-dom. Readers will find this book an accompaniment and guide that directs anger toward structural issues and nurtures a sustaining participation in systemic change.

What is beauty? What is the soul? What facilitates our apprehension of beauty in ourselves, others, and the world, and what impairs it? In The Beauty of Souls, Mark S. M. Scott explores these questions using the tools of both philosophy of religion and literature. He focuses on Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson's novels and essays, gleaning from them important insights into the nature and reality of human encounters with beauty. Scott argues for the theological relevance and spiritual application of Robinson's work to the perennial, human journey of soul-discovery and soul-formation. Robinson serves as a guide to questing souls. With chapters excavating Robinson's own conception of beauty and beauty's relation to the soul, Scott traces the themes of perception, contemplation, self-discovery, loss, brokenness, wonder, and redemption through Robinson's magisterial Gilead saga. The Beauty of Souls dialogues with scriptural, theological, and philosophical interlocutors to illuminate Robinson's unique vision. It shows that Robinson's fiction does more than simply display and evoke beauty; it offers a philosophical-theological framework to discover and express the beauty of our own souls.

A perpetually creative platform, kabbalistic literature challenges plain, predictable, or privileged interpretations of biblical narratives, reimagining and reinventing familiar characters, episodes, and images. Eve, Esther, and Judith, for example, embody the female aspect of the kabbalistic divinity, as do several nameless women whose roles the Kabbalah augments and celebrates, often in daring and surprising ways. What allows the Kabbalah to revolutionize hermeneutical practices is its capacity to explore a wide variety of styles and genres: drama, poetry, the fairy tale, the picaresque novel, the personal diary, the dream journal, surrealist fiction, magical realism, philosophical investigations, modernist modes of expression, and other storytelling strategies. This book traces the development of kabbalistic literature, from the late Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, while applying kabbalistic methods and sensibilities to the parables of Jesus, the epistles of Paul, and other related texts. Despite its literary and theological sophistication, the Kabbalah rarely promotes its unique version of the human-divine story as a definitive account or an authorized version. Refraining from favoring one meaning at the expense of others, the Kabbalah offers a truly diverse and highly capacious program that serves as a potential antidote to the current division of human experience into proverbial echo chambers.

Christianity has long been associated with the West, often creating a disjunction affecting the understanding of the essence of the gospel. The Asianization of Christianity is a clarion call by Asian Christian leaders for the gospel to be indigenized by encouraging practitioners to seriously engage with both the Bible and the cultures of Asia. The book demonstrates that both the theology and the presentation of the gospel need to be framed according to the mindset of the respective Asian cultures so that the message of the Bible can be understood and accepted. Case studies on evangelism, church, and training models from several Asian nations are explored. Core issues such as culture, communication, and contextualization underpin the practical cases to give depth and clarity for the effective communication of the gospel.

The Augsburg Confession is a unique document in the history of the Christian church, containing both a succinct summary of the heart of Christian teaching and a defense of the changes in practice introduced by Martin Luther and the Wittenberg reformers. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert invite readers on an accessible journey into the heart of this foundational confession--as well as the minds of primary author Philip Melanchthon and the other reformers at the heart of the emerging Lutheran movement. Kolb and Wengert use the version of the Augsburg Confession translated by Eric W. Gritsch for the 2000 Book of Concord, but also offer readers fresh insight into the history and evolution of this document by including cross-references to the editio princeps of 1531, the first official published edition of the confession. In addition to thorough introductions to the document and to each article, readers will benefit from extensive footnotes, extensive marginal comments, and appendices including important variations from the editio princeps, topics for discussion tailored to each article, and suggestions for further reading.

Many congregations across the country are coming to two seemingly unrelated realizations. First, the "Sunday morning offering" may not be enough to sustain their mission. Second, their ministry has been so internally focused that they are almost entirely disconnected from the community they are called to serve. Funding Forward provides a path to help a congregation discern God's mission, reconnect with the neighborhood, and find a new, more economically sustainable model for ministry. Drawing on years of teaching, research, and field work, Pomroy shows there are no one-size-fits-all solutions for church and nonprofit finances. There is no single model that will work for every ministry. Each economic model has a distinct shape because each ministry has a distinct mission and community. However, common tools span these ministry models: repurposing church property, social enterprise, impact investing, grants, multi-vocational ministry, and more. While the tools and models can spark creativity, congregational leaders often wonder what process they might use to discern God's mission, which tools will work best in their context, and how they might get other congregational leaders on board. Discernment and execution are much more challenging than the ideation process. Funding Forward can help ministers and ministries move through the funding forward process from start to finish--paying special attention to the leadership challenges and pitfalls they might encounter along the way.

Each new generation of readers is shaped by different historical, cultural, and political contexts, which in turn require new interpretations of an old, yet continually mesmerizing story. The church fathers interpreted Job as a forerunner of Christ, while medieval Jewish commentators debated God's providential love. Artists, beginning at least in the Greco-Roman period, painted and sculpted their own interpretations. Goethe's reading of the satan figure in Faust is not the same as Chaucer's in The Canterbury Tales, and neither is fully consonant with the Testament of Job or the Qur'an. In Job: Understanding the Biblical Archetype of Patience, Samuel E. Balentine examines this rich and varied history of interpretation by focusing on the principal characters in the story: Job, God, the satan, Job's wife, and his friends. Each chapter begins with a concise analysis of the biblical description of these characters, then explores how subsequent readers have expanded or reduced the story, shifted its major emphases or retained them, read the story as history or as fiction, and applied the morals of the story to the present or dismissed them as irrelevant. The biblical story of Job leads to an ongoing practice of reading and rereading, evaluating and reevaluating. One need only compare the descriptions of God in the biblical account with the imaginative renderings by Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Franz Kafka to see that the effort to understand why God afflicts Job "for no reason" (2:3) continues to be both compelling and endlessly complicated.

Figures of legend and lore disclose much about the societies celebrating them. In the ancient Israelite culture, Solomon, a man praised for his wealth, wisdom, and power, is depicted as an example of enormous human achievement. Looking beneath the surface of these claims, Walter Brueggemann reveals an irony that permeates the tradition. In this study of Solomon and his place in the larger consciousness of Israel, Brueggemann considers what Old Testament narratives reveal about the ideals of the ancient Israelite people. The tradition of Solomon becomes an arena for interpretive contestation in Israel, and the text makes available not historical reportage but a conflicted, pluralistic attempt to sort out the reality of human power in the matrix of covenantal faith. Beyond the primary narrative of 1 Kings 3-11, Brueggemann evaluates the derivative traditions of Solomon in Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, the Wisdom of Solomon, and some of the Psalms. He also considers references to Solomon in the New Testament and in extrascriptural traditions connected with and attributed to him. Through close attention to nuances of the biblical text, Brueggemann exposes the competing interpretive voices that claim to offer a reliable rendering of Solomon and invites critique of accepted beliefs.

The last century witnessed an explosion of theologies born out of the conviction that the science of evolution can and must contribute to our understandings of God, humanity, technology, suffering, sin, and the natural world. Even today, a sense of development continues to shape contemporary understandings of not only our origins, but also our place in the world now and in the future. Evolutionary theology's popularity continues to accelerate, but the conversation has lacked a critical, comprehensive, and accessible introduction to this field--until now. Evolutionary Theology provides a clear, critical, and concise synthesis of the most influential viewpoints in the field--from its origins in the eighteenth century to its maturation in the twenty-first. Topics include scientific contributions, philosophical ideas, dogmatic debates, and the development of process theology. Abril provides a springboard for researchers, teachers, and college students to critically engage the existing literature and develop new, constructive ideas. Evolutionary Theology is accessible to students, is helpful to scholars, and includes a wide range of perspectives from science, philosophy, and theology--Catholic and Protestant. It illustrates how integrating faith with science, as an inescapable and crucial dimension of modern life, leads to both fruitful discoveries and important challenges.

Christian responses to global migration are as loud as they are numerous. With voices evoking either the injunction to love the stranger or a commitment to the rule of law, this polarized cacophony has become yet another theater in the culture war. But migration is not an idea. It is not an abstraction. Migration is about people, present in our midst or encountered at our edges. Their presence at our borders forces us to consider the core values we want most to uphold, and the stories that taught us those values in the first place. In the United States, our most popular origin stories tell of a nation that fought off tyranny and committed itself to liberty, democracy, and the dream of an unencumbered pursuit of happiness, of a life lived on one's own terms. But is this the whole story? Whose perspectives have shaped the stories we tell, and which perspectives have been ignored? Theology in Motion tracks the story of the United States--how it formed and how it came to dominate the land that now rests between its borders--to consider more fully what type of nation the US has been and the type of global neighbor it has chosen to be. From a Christian moral perspective, this history helps us look to the future by analyzing how our past choices have left us with present responsibilities. Taking these responsibilities seriously and pursuing more just global relationships provides a way forward in which all people might participate and to which Christians are called.

Female identity is fraught and fetishized, commercialized and contested--so potent a weapon in contemporary cultural warfare that a sitting US senator had no shame in asking a nominee to the Supreme Court to "define 'woman.'" But the battle over female identity is not of modern invention. Its roots are ancient. And in the Hebrew Bible, one text has served as the focal point of both classical and fashionable conceptions of female identity: Proverbs 31. A timeless pattern of femininity for some and a punchline for others, the poems themselves have received wildly differing levels of analysis, with too much ink spent on "the ideal woman," and far too little on political rebukes and economic displacement. The Proverbial Woman offers a comprehensive narrative and dialogical approach to the text that unearths the poetry's social, sexual, and political silences and silencings. It highlights the forgotten characters: the women who destroy kings, the silenced poor, displaced peasants, and foreigners. It examines the text's conflict, setting, characters, and dialogue. It encourages the reader to recognize the drama taking place in the text's world and to explore how these features enabled an ancient community pondering these sapiential lines to process their cooperation with empire in an economic system that benefited some and exploited others. The Proverbial Woman excavates the power dynamics that promote elite ideologies even as gaps, ambiguities, and contradictions enable marginalized perspectives within the text to resist them. The interpretive approach demonstrated in this study can be replicated among communities today wanting to use biblical texts to construct for themselves a more just and prosperous world.

The application of theological and literary approaches to the study of the New Testament in recent years has enabled a seismic shift in our understanding of the identity of Jesus as the New Testament presents him. In terms of the Gospel of John, these theological and literary explorations have resulted in a richer understanding of what it means to identify Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, the one who bears unique witness to the God of Israel, and the one whose life fulfills and embodies numerous symbols that were significant within biblical texts and the traditions of Second Temple Judaism. This volume gathers many of today's most significant interpreters of the Bible as they examine John's Gospel and its distinctive theology, in relation to the wider canon of Scripture. Pastors, theologians, and biblical scholars will find studies of individual texts as well as broader biblical themes. Readers will come to appreciate anew the emphases that make John stand out among the New Testament writings. Readers will also develop a richer understanding of the deep theological connections that unite John with the Old Testament's vision of God and other New Testament portrayals of Jesus and his enduring significance.

"Philosophy" is understood in many ways. Its meaning and method have been debated for thousands of years. But at its core, philosophy is a way of life and a way of thought. In this concise introduction to the philosophical task, W. David Hall guides readers into the heart of these ways. How to Think Philosophically invites both novice and expert to reflect on their own experience of curiosity, wonder, and inquiry. Part I explains philosophy as a way of being, of developing the disciplines and intellectual virtues for seeing and inhabiting the world as it is. Part II introduces the specific domains of philosophical thinking: epistemology (how we know), metaphysics (what we know), and ethics (how we should live). These traditional fields of philosophy, though, follow upon philosophical ways of being. It is by first being philosophical that we learn to think philosophically. The good life, the life worth living, is one that is lived in accord with the way things are. To live well requires thinking methodically. That methodical habit of thought, the love of wisdom, is thinking philosophically.

Can Catholic culture be American culture? Between 1850 and 1925, as millions of Catholic immigrants arrived on the shores of Protestant America, this old question confronted a new national reality. Advertising, film, theatre, jazz--American popular culture was coming of age in both exuberance and scope. The old order was passing away. Less than a century elapsed between Harper's Weekly publishing Thomas Nast's "The American River Ganges" to 56 million Americans tuning in to watch the televised spectacle of Jackie Kennedy's White House. How? Although many observers noted the declining influence of traditional religion during this period, Holywood argues that the enormous American appetite for spectacle had profound religious significance. Ambrose investigates the sources and significance of interwar enthusiasm for public expressions of Catholicism and argues that these disruptions of modernity (even while using the technologies of modernity) enhanced Catholicism's appeal for Protestant American spectators. Americans grew to accept their Catholic neighbors not through attending mass, but by going to the movies, to the theatre, and to the press. Holywood examines three striking episodes of interwar Catholic visual culture and shows what they reveal about the mutual influence of Catholicism, American religiosity, and popular culture.

Trauma pervades every part of human existence. From birth to death, there is no moment in which a human being is completely immune, with experts estimating that a majority of people will experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime. Danielle Tumminio Hansen offers a dynamic exploration of how trauma affects not just the physical and psychological lives of sufferers but also their spiritual well-being. Taking a feminist and intersectional approach, she considers how trauma challenges people both individually and collectively, while looking at tools spiritual caregivers can use to respond to it. Integrating theological wisdom with cutting-edge psychology, she offers targeted interventions to help trauma survivors restore their sense of safety, construct meaning, and reconnect with their communities. She also considers how restorative justice can be a tool to help trauma survivors voice their experiences and receive accountability in community. Tummino Hansen constructs a crucial resource, at once searingly honest and hopeful, that belongs on the bookshelf of every pastor, chaplain, and faith leader.

This introductory volume in the Building a Moral Economy series invites readers into a new vision for the future of economic life together. Ethicist Cynthia Moe-Lobeda crafts a compelling case for a new moral economy: its vital importance, the pivotal role religious networks can play, and the varied forms of action needed. Building a Moral Economy: Pathways for People of Courage is grounded in the stories of real people, with real struggles, triumphs, and creative energy. Moe-Lobeda invites readers to imagine an equitable, ecological, and democratic economy for themselves and their descendants and provides wise guidance for living into that vision. Readers will re-see economies as webs of relationship and will root economic life in the great love story--the story of God's astounding love for all creation, and God's call to align our lives with that love. Readers will encounter the work of economic transformation as a sacred journey--a journey of healing diseased relationships with Earth, with self, with neighbors far and near, and with the Sacred Source whom many call God. Moe-Lobeda conveys this as a journey of freedom to live as beings in community--human community, planetary community, and community with God. Moe-Lobeda's accessible prose explicitly faces the paradox of enormous moral challenges such as climate change held together with infinite hope. Welcoming readers into the vibrant global movement to build life-giving forms of economic life, she seeks to develop a sense of empowered agency. Are we the disinterested individuals motivated by material self-interest that neoclassical economics declared us to be, or are humans called to "think with" others, past, present, and future, seeking communion with all creation? Moe-Lobeda argues that our lives and Earth's well-being depend on choosing the latter path. The work is urgent; the time to embark on these pathways of restorative justice is now.

This book is about Jesus's perspective on violence, the ways this is demonstrated in his ministry, and its implications for Jesus's followers. It begins by examining the nature and role of violence within Second Temple Jewish eschatology. "Eschatological violence"--violence connected in some way with eschatological expectations--was an important factor in the world of Jesus and his contemporaries. Many believed that God's long-awaited deliverance was contingent on his people's taking up the sword against their oppressors, thus demonstrating their zealous allegiance to the covenant. In contrast, Jesus articulated and enacted a vision for God's reign in which violence was completely disassociated both from the means of the kingdom's inauguration and from the character of those who belonged to it. This was a kingdom defined by peace, whose people would be identified by peacemaking, exemplified by its Lord, whose victory was accomplished in giving his own life. Jesus's rejection of violence thus grew from the very core of his understanding of his task, his identity, and the character of the kingdom. To be a disciple is to follow Jesus's teaching and example. Therefore, it is clear that violence should have no place in Christian praxis.

This book is about the history of Jews and Christians, and their interaction, in Capernaum from the time of Jesus until the Byzantine-Islamic transition in Palestine in the seventh century. Based on multidisciplinary research into both the literary and archaeological sources, the book addresses socio-historical questions that have vexed current scholarly and popular understanding of how this small Galilean town developed into an important place for both Jews and Christians in antiquity as well as today. The book engages issues such as the following: the invention of Capernaum as a modern pilgrimage-tourist site under the authority of the Franciscan Custodia Terrae Sanctae; the nature of the historical Jesus's relationship to the town; whether or not a synagogue stood in Capernaum during the time of Jesus; whether or not Jewish followers of Jesus lived in Capernaum during the second and third centuries; and how the architecture of the town's domestic and monumental landscapes functioned to shape Jewish and Christian identity individually and interactively. These questions are investigated within their local, regional, and empire-wide contexts to construct a picture of the ways in which Jews and Christians lived and related to each other in Capernaum and how their relations were affected by the arrival of Islam in Palestine.

The Bible and theology are contested spaces, battlegrounds where participants guard entrenched beliefs against perceived threats. But literature, observes novelist Salman Rushdie, opens the universe. It expands what we perceive and understand, and ultimately what we are. Writers make our world feel larger and more inclusive. When other forces push in the direction of narrowness, bigotry, tribalism, cultism, and war, fiction encourages understanding, sympathy, and identification with others. Reading the Margins invites readers to immerse themselves in imaginary worlds, and to pursue visions of justice and compassion. Whether stories about poverty, empire, war, or the environment, the writers considered raise moral questions and often, in the process--even unwittingly--deepen our understanding of biblical calls for kindness and mercy. Reading the Margins offers a kind of commentary on biblical ethics. Using Matthew's Beatitudes and sheep and goats parable as an organizing principle, Gilmour argues there is much to learn about Jesus's "peacemakers" and call to feed the hungry from aspirational fiction and poetry.

In Unspoiled Endings, Christopher T. Holmes seeks to address two general but ultimately inadequate approaches to the book of Revelation. On the one hand, some obsess about decoding its symbolic language and providing a proper timetable for understanding the end times. On the other hand, many simply disregard or neglect Revelation altogether because of its strange or unsettling contents. Unspoiled Endings offers a historical, literary, and theological reading that offers an alternative to both tendencies and explains how and why Revelation relates to the life of faith. It serves as a corrective to those whose understanding of Revelation has been shaped more by the Left Behind series than by the book itself, and as an invitation to those who otherwise would never think to read or study the book. Each chapter presents a feature or characteristic of Revelation that contemporary readers can "reclaim" to make Revelation a more relevant and invigorating resource for contemporary Christians.