Can a neuroscientist help a theologian interpret a medieval mystical text? Can a historian of religion help an anthropologist understand the effects of social cooperation on human evolution? Can a legal scholar and a theologian help each other think about how fear of God relates to respect for the law? In this volume leading scholars in ethics, theology, and social science sum up three years of study and conversation regarding the value of interdisciplinary theological inquiry. This is an essential and challenging collection for all who set out to think, write, teach, and preach theologically in the contemporary world. CONTRIBUTORS: John P. Burgess Peter Danchin Celia Deane-Drummond Agustín Fuentes Andrea Hollingsworth Robin W. Lovin Joshua Mauldin Friederike Nüssel Mary Ellen O'Connell Douglas F. Ottati Stephen Pope Colleen Shantz Michael Spezio

Can a neuroscientist help a theologian interpret a medieval mystical text? Can a historian of religion help an anthropologist understand the effects of social cooperation on human evolution? Can a legal scholar and a theologian help each other think about how fear of God relates to respect for the law? In this volume leading scholars in ethics, theology, and social science sum up three years of study and conversation regarding the value of interdisciplinary theological inquiry. This is an essential and challenging collection for all who set out to think, write, teach, and preach theologically in the contemporary world. CONTRIBUTORS: John P. Burgess Peter Danchin Celia Deane-Drummond Agustín Fuentes Andrea Hollingsworth Robin W. Lovin Joshua Mauldin Friederike Nüssel Mary Ellen O'Connell Douglas F. Ottati Stephen Pope Colleen Shantz Michael Spezio

What can philosophy contribute to the study of religion? This book argues that the study of religion needs philosophy in the form of multidisciplinary comparative inquiry. Contradicting the current tendency to regard philosophical reflection and the academic study of religion as independent endeavors best kept apart, Wesley J. Wildman brings them together, offering a broader vision than that of traditional "philosophy of religion" and surmounting many of its difficulties. His newer conception of "religious philosophy" is well suited to the modern, multicultural, secular university. Through multidisciplinary comparative inquiry, religious philosophy allows for a variety of approaches—from historical and analytical work to evocative description and theoretical evaluation of truth claims—and both secular and religious thinkers participate. The tasks and varieties of religious philosophy as they arc across the world's religions and philosophies are discussed along with religious philosophy's modern and postmodern contexts. Wildman's thoughtful and thought-provoking book will be essential reading for all those concerned with the study of religion, present and future.

Missiologists and theologians do not often talk to each other, which has resulted in increased ignorance of each other’s questions and concerns about how to do theology in ways that effectively serve the Church’s mission. Under the auspices of the Tyndale Fellowship Christian Doctrine study group, a colloquium of distinguished scholars and practitioners recently gathered at the University of Cambridge. This volume, arising out of that symposium, begins conversations that have been waiting to happen. Each participant brings a particular perspective to questions about the nature of theology and how it is most meaningfully constructed so as to offer a truly interdisciplinary perspective on theology and mission. It highlights perspectives of contextual theology and systematic theology, as well as missiology and mission studies, world Christianity and historical inquiry, biblical studies and missional hermeneutics, ethnography, pastoral practice, and social justice. It also pays keen attention to matters on the ground with a profound desire to relate questions of evangelical identity – including ministry practice and mission – to the wider tradition. In short this volume sets out to model the kind of engagement required by both Church and Academy to do theology for mission.

Since the 1970s exciting new directions in the study of culture have erupted to critique and displace earlier, largely static notions. These more dynamic models stress the indeterminate, fragmented, even conflictual character of cultural processes and completely alter the framework for thinking theologically about them. In fact, Tanner argues, the new orientation in cultural theory and anthropology affords fresh opportunities for religious thought and opens new vistas for theology, especially on how Christians conceive of the theological task, theological diversity and inculturation, and even Christianity's own cultural identity.

What does postcoloniality have to do with sacramentality? How do diasporic lives and imaginaries shape the course of postcolonial sacramental theology? Neither postcolonial theorists nor sacramental theologians have hitherto sought to engage in a sustained dialogue with one another. In this trailblazing volume, Kristine Suna-Koro brings postcolonialism, diaspora discourse, and Christian sacramental theology into a mutually critical and constructive transdisciplinary conversation. Dialoguing with thinkers as diverse as Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak as well as Francis D'Sa, S.J., Martin Luther, Mayra Rivera, and John Chryssavgis, the author offers a postcolonial retrieval of sacramentality through a robust theological engagement with the postcolonial notions of hybridity, contrapuntality, planetarity, and Third Space. While exploring the methodological potential of diasporic imaginary in theology, this innovative book advances the notion of sacramental pluriverse and of Christ as its paradigmatic crescendo within the sacramental economy of creation and redemptive transformation. In the context of ecological degradation, In Counterpoint argues that it is vital for the postcolonial sacramental renewal to be rooted in ethics as a uniquely postcolonial fundamental theology.

This major new study examines the history of Chinese theologies as they have navigated dynastic change, anti-imperialism, and the heights of Maoist propaganda In this groundbreaking and authoritative study, Chloë Starr explores key writings of Chinese Christian intellectuals, from philosophical dialogues of the late imperial era to sermons and micro blogs of theological educators and pastors in the twenty-first century. Through a series of close textual readings, she sheds new light on the fraught issues of Chinese Christian identity and the evolving question of how Christianity should relate to Chinese society.

Presenting new opportunities in the dialogue between philosophy and theology, this interdisciplinary text addresses the contemporary reshaping of intellectual boundaries. Exploring human experience in a ‘post-Christian’ era, the distinguished contributors bring to bear what have been traditionally seen as theological resources while drawing on contemporary developments in philosophy, both ‘continental’ and ‘analytic’. Set in the context of two complementary narratives – one philosophical concerning secularity, the other theological about the question of God – the authors point to ways of reconfiguring both traditional reason / faith oppositions and those between interpretation / text and language / experience. Contributors: David Brown, Philip Clayton, Chris Firestone, Grace Jantzen, Nicholas Lash, George Pattison, Dan Stiver, Charles Taylor, Kevin Vanhoozer, Graham Ward, Martin Warner.

Theological Method: A Guide for the Perplexed is a book that introduces the reader to the practice of doing theology. It provides a historical survey of key figures and concepts that bear on an understanding of difficult methodological issues in Christian theology. Beginning with a description of philosophical themes that affect the way theology is done today, it summarizes the various theological methods deployed by theologians and churches over two millennia of Christian thought. The book uncovers patterns in the theological task of relating biblical texts with beliefs and doctrines, according to historically conditioned theological and cultural priorities. The book's highlights include a discussion of Augustine's epoch-making De doctrina Christiana. Also receiving close attention is the relationship between philosophy and theology during the Middle Ages, the meaning of sola scriptura for the Protestant Reformers, the methods of key interpreters of doctrine in the nineteenth century and the theological priorities of the 'Radical Orthodoxy' movement.