This volume provides an account of the surprising ‘in-breaking’ of spiritual life that persists in our culture, despite the best efforts of atheist spokespersons and secular theorists. Spirituality in its varying forms is irrepressible, resisting our attempts to exclude it by continuing to seep through the cracks and leak through the gaps. When it is allowed to manifest itself through the Christian faith-tradition, it has the power to surprise, transform and renew everything it touches. This volume contains a series of case studies, each of which describes the inner-functionings and out-workings of the spiritual life as a transformative point of contact between God, world, society and self. Each chapter contains high-level inquiry, drawing on best-practice scholarship that is deeply aware of the needs and opportunities that confront 21st-century society.

African Pentecostal Theology: Modality, Disciplinarity, and Decoloniality explores research methodology, theological disciplines, and contextualization as important aspects in the process of studying Pentecostal theology in an African context. Mookgo Solomon Kgatle outlines different data collection and data analysis methods, including the skills of interpreting and presenting research findings in a responsible manner. This book illustrates that Pentecostal theology, given its pneumatological approach, goes beyond conventional theological disciplines in transdisciplinary research. The development of knowledge in African Pentecostal Theology should recognize African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS), African oral and traditional cultures, and African indigenous languages to be relevant to Africans. Pentecostal theologians from different theological disciplines in Africa and globally will find this book a worthwhile read.

Christian Faith in Contemporary Society is a comprehensive primer on biblical literacy written especially for: Baby Boomers and others who by reason of illness or aging are contemplating their mortality and wish to explore Christian claims of eternal life, Non-believing singles contemplating dating a devout Christian, who wish to know what they may be in for should they fall in love, Mature Christians whose intelligent, highly-educated children or grandchildren are rejecting the faith, Christians who wish to increase their knowledge of the faith for personal spiritual growth and greater effectiveness in presenting the faith to others, and The curious uninitiated who would like in-depth knowledge of what the Christian faith is all about. The author, a Harvard lawyer, has applied his professional skills to conduct a forensic analysis of the most formidable premise of the Christian faith-the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and his ascension into heaven while still alive-and reports on the results of that analysis. Because Christianity has played a key role in the development of Western civilization, a knowledge of Christianity is necessary for a proper understanding of our society. This book can help the reader gain that knowledge.

The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, originally published in 2005, is a landmark work in the burgeoning field of religion and nature. It covers a vast and interdisciplinary range of material, from thinkers to religious traditions and beyond, with clarity and style. Widely praised by reviewers and the recipient of two reference work awards since its publication (see www.religionandnature.com/ern), this new, more affordable version is a must-have book for anyone interested in the manifold and fascinating links between religion and nature, in all their many senses.

Kingdom Calling offers a compelling theological grounding for the vocation, ministry and discipleship of the whole people of God. Building creatively on previous studies, it challenges all of us to change so that the whole church can serve the whole mission of God in the whole of life. Kingdom Calling provides a thorough diagnosis of the theological factors that have prevented such a vision being realised over previous decades. These factors are embedded in the social realities of our everyday life and in the sometimes hidden assumptions that shape our thinking in the church. By setting out a sustained proposal for the renewal of our theological imagination, the report points the way to address some deep running fault lines in our common life. Written in an accessible style, Kingdom Calling looks in turn at the vocation, ministry and discipleship of all God’s people, asking what kind of theological thinking and imagining might most help us to flourish together. It affirms and celebrates the vital lay and ordained ministry roles that support the church in God’s mission, and it identifies changes in practice that can better foster the vocation, ministry and discipleship of the whole people of God.

In an urbane and persuasive tract for our time, the distinguished Catholic theologian combines a comprehensive metaphysics with a sensitivity to contemporary existentialist thought. Father Murray traces the “problem of God” from its origins in the Old Testament, through its development in the Christian Fathers and the definitive statement by Aquinas, to its denial by modern materialism. Students and nonspecialist intellectuals may both benefit by the book, which illuminates the problem of development of doctrine that is now, even more than in the days of Newman, a fundamental issue between Roman Catholic and Protestant, theologians and nonspecialst intellectuals alike will find the subject of vital interest. As a challenge to the ecumenical dialogue, the question is raised whether, in the course of its development through different phases, the problem of God has come back to its original position. Father Murray is Ordinary professor of theology at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. St. Thomas More Lectures, 1. "A gem of a book—lucid, illuminating, brilliantly written. A fine contribution to the current Catholic theological renaissance."—Paul Weiss.

The church is political. Theologians have been debating this claim for years. Liberationists, Anabaptists, Augustinians, neo-Calvinists, Radical Orthodox and others continue to discuss the matter. What do we mean by politics and the political? What are the limits of the church’s political reach? What is the nature of the church as an institution? How do we establish these claims theologically? Jonathan Leeman sets out to address these questions in this significant work. Drawing on covenantal theology and the ‘new institutionalism’ in political science, Leeman critiques political liberalism and explores how the biblical canon informs an account of the local church as an embassy of Christ’s kingdom. Political Church heralds a new era in political theology.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The “paradigm-influencing” book (Christianity Today) that is fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping, revisionist history of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism—or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.” As acclaimed scholar Kristin Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals might not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Trump in fact represented the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values: patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community. A much-needed reexamination of perhaps the most influential subculture in this country, Jesus and John Wayne shows that, far from adhering to biblical principles, modern white evangelicals have remade their faith, with enduring consequences for all Americans.

The Middle Ages, in our cultural imagination, are besieged with ideas of wars, tournaments, plagues, saints and kings, knights, lords and ladies. In his era-defining work, Inventing the Middle Ages, Norman Cantor shows that these presuppositions are in fact constructs of the twentieth century. Through close study of the lives and works of twenty of the twentieth century's most prominent medievalists, Cantor examines how the genesis of this fantasy arose in the scholars' spiritual and emotional outlooks, which influenced their portrayals of the Middle Ages. In the course of this vigorous scrutiny of their scholarship, he navigates the strong personalities and creative minds involved with deft skill. Written with both students and the general public in mind, Inventing the Middle Ages provided an alternative framework for the teaching of the humanities. Revealing the interconnection between medieval civilisation, the culture of the twentieth century and our own assumptions, Cantor provides a unique standpoint both forwards and backwards. As lively and engaging today as when it was first published in 1991, his analysis offers readers the core essentials of the subject in an entertaining and humorous fashion.

A sweeping intellectual history of the role of wealth in the church in the last days of the Roman Empire Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity. Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and the challenges it posed to an institution that espoused the virtue of poverty and called avarice the root of all evil. Drawing on the writings of major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Brown examines the controversies and changing attitudes toward money caused by the influx of new wealth into church coffers, and describes the spectacular acts of divestment by rich donors and their growing influence in an empire beset with crisis. He shows how the use of wealth for the care of the poor competed with older forms of philanthropy deeply rooted in the Roman world, and sheds light on the ordinary people who gave away their money in hopes of treasure in heaven. Through the Eye of a Needle challenges the widely held notion that Christianity's growing wealth sapped Rome of its ability to resist the barbarian invasions, and offers a fresh perspective on the social history of the church in late antiquity.