Christians are much the richer for this accomplishment of a long-cherished dream by an experienced missioner-social anthropologist. Gerald Arbuckle has provided a book for the contemporary pastoral care team that mediates basic insights on ministry via the social sciences. He also challenges church workers to rethink and reassess their work in light of the profound cultural changes taking place around them. 'Earthing the Gospel' introduces pastoral workers in the First World to methods of social analysis pioneered by missionaries worldwide. It includes case histories, personal stories, and the results of fieldwork of hundreds of people in both the First and Third Worlds. Applying the insights of social anthropology to the parishes on the home frontÓ Arbuckle offers the tools required to address issues of mission and inculturation in the First World. Above all, 'Earthing the Gospel' is practical. It presumes no special knowledge of anthropology as it zeroes in on topical issues - racism, fundamentalism, the modern family, youth and senior citizen subcultures - affecting parishes and communities today. Each chapter ends with questions for reflection and action. For pastoral teams and workers on every level, the insights gained from mission around the world can, applying the methods described here, be just as fruitful in our own back yards.

In a Tiantai theology, conventional truth is conventionally arisen, which means that such truth is never set once and for all, but is to be cherished and rethought in new circumstances, whether interreligious or scientific—but always in critical consonance with its ancient embodiments. Contexts shift frameworks, but life in Christ is translatable across cultures. Christian faith and theology discourage the assumption that the point of it can be clearly pinned down. God’s appearance to Elijah out of the whirlwind is an eternal reminder of the paltriness of all human perspectives. Symbolic worlds of faith and wisdom are not themselves finished products. Because it has a past and a future, the cosmos itself is unfinished. Christian creeds ought not be defended as last-word ideological positions and bastions against relativity, but instead recognized in their cultural contexts and affirmed as grammars of communal and personal assent.

Come along with biblical culturalist Kristi McLelland as she unpacks the life of the early church in the book of Acts and shows us that the kingdom of God is always on the move, always looking outward to bring meaning and joy to a world searching for true fulfillment and hope. Explore the call of Jesus to His disciples then and to us today. See how God's Word can sustain us even in the most difficult of times and embrace the transformative grace we experience as children of God in His kingdom of celebration. Features: Leader helps to guide questions and discussions within small groups 6 weeks of personal study to be completed between the 7 group sessions Access to 7 teaching videos, approximately 50-60 minutes per session, available by redeeming a code printed in the back of the study book Benefits: Gain deeper insight into the biblical world, including fresh perspective on familiar Bible stories. Ignite a passion to be on mission by examining the work of the early church. Find deep purpose and meaning at the table of God. Find joy in the communal aspect of faith. See how God's redemptive purposes are unstoppable in the Book of Acts.

This is the introductory volume of a multivolume, verse-by-verse, interfaith rereading of the New Testament letter to the Ephesians. It looks to the Tiantai Buddhist master Zhiyi and his "threefold truth" to enhance our appreciation of nascent trinitarian themes in Ephesians. And it draws upon a broad array of scientific, theological, and philosophical thinkers in aid of rejecting the epistle's ancient, geocentric cosmology and its accommodations to the misogynistic, patriarchal, and slaveholding norms of its first-century surroundings. As a whole, the work constitutes a twenty-first century apologetic for doctrinal humility and for theologizing within a global theological commons.

How far can we go in recovering the historical life of the man Jesus, considering the limited nature of our resources within the biblical canon? Have we extracanonical sources of information to assist us? Since Jesus' ministry and message was God-directed through and through, must not the "Jesus researcher" who would do this subject justice be a theologian, open to the suprahistorical dimension, to the transcendent? What is the connection between the Jesus of history and the Christ of the church's faith and preaching? Four prominent scholars - Leander E. Keck, Hugh Anderson, Walter P. Weaver, and James H. Charlesworth - address these and other christological issues in this book.

As both a scholar of Buddhism and a Christian priest, John P. Keenan engages with the New Testament letter to the Ephesians, written by a member of the Pauline school likely near the end of the first century—a time when both the cultural world and the cosmos were much narrower than for us today. In pondering this scripture’s significance for residents of the twenty-first century, Keenan looks to the work of scholars and thinkers both ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, scientists and philosophers. Particular attention is given to Chinese Buddhist master Zhiyi’s explanation of a threefold truth, which resonates with an early trinitarian theme in Ephesians and suggests the riches to be discovered upon the global theological commons.

This is volume 2 of a wide-ranging interfaith reading of the Letter to the Ephesians—a New Testament text whose words have inspired and enhanced Christian spiritual life and liturgy over the centuries. Unfortunately, at the same time, Ephesians has provided apparent scriptural support to those who would defend slavery, patriarchy, misogyny, and the physical power of Christ over the cosmos. How on earth are today’s Christians to receive and understand such a text as this? Earthing the Cosmic Christ of Ephesians: The Universe, Trinity, and Zhiyi’s Threefold Truth draws upon a broad array of scientific, theological, and philosophical thinkers who enable us both to marvel at today’s ever-expanding knowledge of our vast cosmos and to appreciate the importance of the Ephesian letter in the canon of our Christian scriptures, even while we acknowledge the archaic geocentric cosmology that underlies its claims about the cosmic Christ and reject its accommodation to the patriarchal, misogynistic, and slaveholding norms of its first-century culture. Throughout this reading of Ephesians, we look to Chinese Buddhist master Zhiyi and his “threefold truth” to enhance our understanding of trinity and the nascent trinitarian themes within this letter. As a whole, this work constitutes a new appreciation for Ephesians as well as a twenty-first century apologetic for doctrinal humility and for theologizing within a global theological commons.

A lushly illustrated, magisterial exploration of the imaginative truth of the gospel In the modern academy, truth and imagination are thought to be mutually exclusive. But what if truth can spring from other fonts, like art, literature, and invention? The legacy of the Enlightenment favors historical and empirical inquiry above all other methods for searching for truth. But this assumption stymies our theological explorations. Though the historicity of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection is important, it is not of sole importance. For instance, is John’s Gospel any less “true” than the Synoptics just because it’s less historically accurate? David Brown challenges us to expand our understanding of the gospel past source criticism and historical Jesus studies to include works of imagination. Reading Scripture in tandem with works of art throughout the centuries, Brown reenvisions the gospel as an open text. Scholars of theology and biblical studies, freed from literalism, will find new avenues of revelation in Gospel as Work of Art. This volume includes over one hundred color illustrations.