Theological Adventures began as a challenge to the teachers of The Institute for Global Outreach Developments International to provide me with those passages of Scripture they found the most difficult to produce an interpretive theology consistent with nonviolence and a nonviolent God. The allegorical method for dealing with OT violence has not led to a constructive theology capable of eradicating violence from the Christian tradition. However, genre identification of particular books enables a reader to discern the prejudicial nature of a book claiming to speak for God, e.g., Joshua as conquest narrative. Judges, as a reflection on violence and male-female relationships, qualifies as a “social critique” on Israelite society. This is wonderfully portrayed in the study of Samson as the archetypal strongman who represents Israel as a people. It is healthy to be honest enough about OT Scripture to require basic morality as a guide for reading its claims and stories. The gift of a moral conscience is a powerful voice for God’s image in us. I have found the OT to be consistent with the revelation of God in Christ Jesus when a person learns to read it correctly. The guiding interpretive lens is honesty about the intolerable violence sanctioned in the OT.

In this distinctive exploration of John D. Caputo's work, Štefan Štofaník traces Caputo's journey of philosophical discovery from his earlier, more conventional academic writings to his later, almost confessional works of weak theology and his deep engagement with Derrida. Štofaník draws upon Caputo's life story to help explain sudden shifts in Caputo's thinking, offers intricate readings of philosophical passages that have all too often been taken for granted, and joins in Caputo's effort to find a theology that can be trusted and that does not rely upon dogmatic and hierarchical authority. At the same time, Štofaník subtly disagrees with aspects of Caputo's view and turns to the work of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry as a way to suggest that one cannot take leave of the tradition of theology as easily as Caputo thinks. At times, The Adventure of Weak Theology reads like a letter to Caputo, and Štofaník's own passion for theology, his deep understanding of Caputo's work, and his gift for writing makes this an immensely appealing book for both admirers and critics of Caputo.

Your journey begins. The road before you is smooth and straight. You walk for some time, recalling your experiences that call into question the deep realities of life. Up ahead, you can see the road branching in three directions. . . In Why Is There Suffering? you, reader, control the route you take through its "choose-your-own-path" chapters, asking questions and exploring different theological possibilities on the big topics of: God's existence God's nature The nature of suffering Evil Pain Final destiny Taking an intentionally light-hearted approach to a heavy topic this book presents an illustrative introduction to the problem of suffering and the most commonly offered responses to it. Along the road, you'll face multiple possibilities regarding suffering and its theological explanations, and you'll make choices about which one you find most plausible, skipping to that section of the book. Each decision you make leads to further complexities and new choices that reveal how theological beliefs lead to certain conclusions. This book does not offer final answers. Instead, it introduces the "theological" possibilities—both Christian and non-Christian—that you can explore and wrestle with to make informed decisions about your beliefs and clearly see the road you've taken to reach such beliefs. You are, of course, in control of the paths you take through these pages. You decide which explanations work. You can always go back and see what would change if you'd taken a different path. And, who knows. . .you may find that certain pathways resonate with your experiences in ways you didn't expect.

"Young people need someone who is crazy about them." - Walter Brueggemann "Originally authored by Francis Clark a hundred years ago, Ashley Denton has overhauled the first writing, taking care to update and revise the text to make it more readable for a modern audience of young people. The book will be especially helpful to youth pastors, student ministry leaders and parents of young people." -Robert E. Coleman (Author of Master Plan of Evangelism) "Francis Clark believed that Jesus was the embodiment of everything that young people longed for. The challenge of every generation is simply to give young people an accurate picture of Jesus Christ. Clark believed that if young people could just see the winsome personality of Christ, they would naturally be drawn to him, like a magnet is to metal." -Ashley Denton

In Adventures in the Spirit, respected and influential theologian Philip Clayton argues that two major intellectual movements of our day-panentheism and emergence-are converging and that together they offer exciting new vistas for theological reflection. On the one hand, over the last decades many theologians have been re-conceiving the God-world relation panentheistically, affirming a radical indwelling of God within the world and the world within God. On the other hand, scientists have begun to abandon the reductionist ideology that characterized much of the modern period, with a new emphasis on emergence. Their study of how new, novel structures and entities arise throughout the evolutionary process yields a much more open-ended, holistic vision of reality, Clayton argues.

Applying an ever more radical hermeneutics (including Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, Derridian deconstruction, and feminism), John D. Caputo breaks down the name of God in this irrepressible book. Instead of looking at God as merely a name, Caputo views it as an event, or what the name conjures or promises in the future. For Caputo, the event exposes God as weak, unstable, and barely functional. While this view of God flies in the face of most religions and philosophies, it also puts up a serious challenge to fundamental tenets of theology and ontology. Along the way, Caputo's readings of the New Testament, especially of Paul's view of the Kingdom of God, help to support the weak force theory. This penetrating work cuts to the core of issues and questions -- What is the nature of God? What is the nature of being? What is the relationship between God and being? What is the meaning of forgiveness, faith, piety, or transcendence? -- that define the terrain of contemporary philosophy of religion.

This beautifully illustrated storybook ushers children into a story of adventure, mystery, and wonder in which they discover life-changing truths about God, themselves, and the world around them.

Does theology have to be dry and boring in order to be serious? Not at all! The prophet Isaiah once said, “a little child will lead them.” But, what about a character from Winnie the Pooh? Can anxious, yet adventurous, Piglet help us understand our relationship with God and one another? Theology is serious business. So serious that it can’t be left solely to adults! Bruce Epperly’s imaginative conversations with Piglet explore the contours of theological reflection from the perspective of Process Theology. Process Theology is often seen as far too complicated for adults to understand and impossible to teach or preach to laypeople. In this text, an experienced pastor and professor and a beloved character from the Winnie the Pooh stories bring Process Theology to life and explore themes such as beauty, spirituality, adventure, friendship, healing, and God’s presence in our lives. In the spirit of Jesus’ parables, Piglet’s Process will inspire your imagination and creativity and invite you on a never-ending spiritual journey with a theologian, stuffed animal, and the healer from Nazareth as your companions. This is a book to read for fun and study seriously. It's theology for everyone.

Štofaník provides a unique, personal reading of weak theology and tries to inhabit the gap between it and its “founder,” John D. Caputo. In this distinctive exploration of John D. Caputo’s work, Štefan Štofaník traces Caputo’s journey of philosophical discovery from his earlier, more conventional academic writings to his later, almost confessional works of weak theology and his deep engagement with Derrida. Štofaník draws upon Caputo’s life story to help explain sudden shifts in Caputo’s thinking, offers intricate readings of philosophical passages that have all too often been taken for granted, and joins in Caputo’s effort to find a theology that can be trusted and that does not rely upon dogmatic and hierarchical authority. At the same time, Štofaník subtly disagrees with aspects of Caputo’s view and turns to the work of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry as a way to suggest that one cannot take leave of the tradition of theology as easily as Caputo thinks. At times, The Adventure of Weak Theology reads like a letter to Caputo, and Štofaník’s own passion for theology, his deep understanding of Caputo’s work, and his gift for writing makes this an immensely appealing book for both admirers and critics of Caputo. “[Štefan] has read my work with extraordinary care and he has done so with a very acute ear for my authorial voice, this person whom I impersonate when I write, this persona I inhabit in my books. I am not sure if this fellow who appears in print is the real me or a put-on, the one who I really am or the one I want to be. Either way, he only emerges, or emerges best of all, when I write, and Štefan had a pitch-perfect ear for that voice. He didn’t miss anything. He caught it every time it was important.” — from the Afterword by John D. Caputo