Thinking about ultimate reality is becoming increasingly transreligious. This transreligious turn follows inevitably from the discovery of divine truths in multiple traditions. Global communications bring the full range of religious ideas and practices to anyone with access to the internet. Moreover, the growth of the nones and those who describe themselves as spiritual but not religious creates a pressing need for theological thinking not bound by prescribed doctrines and fixed rituals. This book responds to this vital need. The chapters in this volume each examine the claim that if the aim of theology is to know and articulate all we can about the divine reality, and if revelations, enlightenments, and insights into that reality are not limited to a single tradition, then what is called for is a theology without confessional restrictions. In other words, a Theology Without Walls. To ground the project in examples, the volume provides emerging models of transreligious inquiry. It also includes sympathetic critics who raise valid concerns that such a theology must face. This is a book that will be of urgent interest to theologians, religious studies scholars, and philosophers of religion. It will be especially suitable for those interested in comparative theology, inter-religious and interfaith understanding, new trends in constructive theology, normative religious studies, and global philosophy of religion.

A Future without Walls offers a comprehensive and complex analysis of Othering, while unveiling the connections between our divisions and the roots, forms, and consequences of the walls that have been erected. It also offers concrete steps forward to help us dismantle these walls. In A Future without Walls, T. Richard Snyder draws upon his half-century of activism in the struggle for justice and weaves analysis, prescription, and personal story throughout. Racism, extreme nationalism, xenophobia, gender abuse, bullying, and religious intolerance are all on the rise globally. Walls that many thought had been torn down are now being rebuilt. Those people who are different, and even those who differ, are treated as Other. A Future without Walls is a lamentation for the tragedy of Othering and a clarion call for justice. The dividing walls are more than a problem calling for a quick fix. They are embedded in both our history and our current culture and demand fundamental transformation. Snyder analyzes the entangled fabric of Othering: its history, roots, various forms, and inevitable violent consequences. Countering this tragedy are the voices of activists, mystics, scientists, philosophers, and theologians--black and white, indigenous and cosmopolitan, Christian, Jew, and Buddhist, female and male--each of whom urges us to embrace rather than exclude. This universal moral imperative is a call to action. A Future without Walls offers paths to healing and transformation, drawing on both individual and collective actions that have made a difference. Walls that have been erected can be dismantled. And while success is not inevitable, failure to act only guarantees disaster.

There is a part of each of us that is a monk or a mystic. We yearn for perfect peace yet live our lives far removed from traditional monasteriesyet most of us would not want to give up our personal and spiritual freedom to join monastic life. We seek wholeness but realize that wholeness is not possible without sacredness. Sacred life takes root in solitude, in the time we take to develop a relationship with our inner lifein the kind of setting a monastery would offer. This book speaks to the monk or mystic within us. It affirms our place in the sacred silence of solitude and inner reflection, showing how even everyday life is filled with opportunities to live fully in the worldas if it were a holy monastery. Here we learn to live within the limits as well as the spirit of everyday life, how to appreciate our most human self as the path to explore the divine. Here we encounter a world that is clearly available to us, a world filled with nothing less than the gift of sacred silence within the monastery without walls.

We see it all around us: Poverty. Unemployment. Crime. Hopelessness. Anger. Disenchantment. Injustice. We want to help. We want to do something. But what? Good intentions are good, but often our efforts at helping others can actually make things worse. And in many communities the church is viewed with suspicion, if not downright hostility. So how can churches effectively serve the needs of their communities in ways that communicate the love and grace of God? According to author Laurie Beshore, churches need to step up and take action, but it all begins by learning. You must get to know the people in your community and establish relationships built on mutual trust and respect. This ebook recounts the compelling twenty-five year story of how Mariner’s Church, a growing mega-church in Irvine, CA, began reaching out to their community and how they made more than their fair share of mistakes along the way. But these hard-earned lessons are now of immense value to a new generation of church leaders trying to serve their own communities that are skeptical, if not understandably suspicious, of the intentions of the 21st century church. Laced with ultra-practical teachings and transferable principles for churches and ministries of all sizes and styles, this is a book filled with potent lessons and powerful stories both heartbreaking and inspiring.

Christian theologians have for some decades affirmed that they have no monopoly on encounters with God or ultimate reality and that other religions also have access to religious truth and transformation. If that is the case, the time has come for Christians not only to learn about but also from their religious neighbors. Circling the Elephant affirms that the best way to be truly open to the mystery of the infinite is to move away from defensive postures of religious isolationism and self-sufficiency and to move, in vulnerability and openness, toward the mystery of the neighbor. Employing the ancient Indian allegory of the elephant and blind(folded) men, John J. Thatamanil argues for the integration of three often-separated theological projects: theologies of religious diversity (the work of accounting for why there are so many different understandings of the elephant), comparative theology (the venture of walking over to a different side of the elephant), and constructive theology (the endeavor of re-describing the elephant in light of the other two tasks). Circling the Elephant also offers an analysis of why we have fallen short in the past. Interreligious learning has been obstructed by problematic ideas about “religion” and “religions,” Thatamanil argues, while also pointing out the troubling resonances between reified notions of “religion” and “race.” He contests these notions and offers a new theory of the religious that makes interreligious learning both possible and desirable. Christians have much to learn from their religious neighbors, even about such central features of Christian theology as Christ and the Trinity. This book envisions religious diversity as a promise, not a problem, and proposes a new theology of religious diversity that opens the door to robust interreligious learning and Christian transformation through encountering the other.

While traditional Christian thought and spirituality have always affirmed the divine presence in human life, Thatamanil argues we have much to learn from non-dualistic Hindu thought, especially that of the eighth-century thinker Sankara, and from the Christian panentheism of Paul Tillich. Thatamanil compares their diagnoses and prognoses of the human predicament in light of their doctrine of God or Ultimate Reality. What emerges is a new theology of God and human beings, with a richer and more radical conception of divine immanence, a reconceived divine transcendence, and a keener sense of how the dynamic and active Spirit at work in us anchors real hope and deep joy.Using key insights from Christian and Hindu thought Thatamanil vindicates comparative theology, expands the vocabulary about the ineffable God, and arrives at a new construal of the problems and prospects of the human condition.

Christianity must be understood not as a religion of private salvation, but as a gospel movement of universal compassion, which transforms the world in the power of God's truth. Amid several major global crises, including the rise of terrorism and religious fundamentalism and a sudden resurgence of political extremism, Christians must now face up fearlessly to the challenges of living in a "post-truth" age in which deceitful politicians present their media-spun fabrications as "alternative facts." This book is an attempt to enact a transformative theology for these changing times that will equip the global Christian community to take a stand for the gospel in an age of cultural despair and moral fragmentation. The emerging post-Christendom era calls for a new vision of Christianity that has come of age and connects with the spiritual crisis of our times. In helping to make this vision a reality, Searle insists that theology is not merely an academic discipline, but a transformative enterprise that changes the world. Theology is to be experienced not just behind a desk, in an armchair, or in a church, but also in hospitals, in foodbanks, in workplaces, and on the streets. Theology is to be lived as well as read.

Paying particular attention to the issue of God's sovereignty, Jerry L. Walls and Joseph R. Dongell critique biblical and theological weaknesses of Calvinist thought.

In Church Without Walls, prominent author Jim Petersen offers an exciting definition of the church that pushes beyond the too-small boundaries we've inherited from the past. This book explores why some church forms impede the gospel in today's postmodern world.

In Belfast: Toward a City Without Walls Vicky Cosstick tells the story of Belfast s 100 sectarian walls and interfaces, now the last in Europe, which remain fifteen years after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and she asks for how much longer these physical signs and symbols of sectarianism and the Troubles will disfigure the cityscape.The walls are important as both memorials to the conflict and a reminder of the unfinished nature of the peace process; however, in May 2013, the First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland made a commitment to bring them down by 2023. This book tells the compelling stories of the complex network of people and the different communities and agencies that are involved in maintaining peace at the interfaces and working towards a city without walls, and draws an intricate picture of how peace is being worked out in the current life of the city.This uniquely researched portrait of a post-conflict peace process provides a real time picture of the complex process by which constructive change is happening.Fascinating in their variety, the walls and fences at the center of this story are illustrated by the evocative and insightful photography of Frankie Quinn.REVIEWS "Her book examines how progress could be made through dialogue, regeneration, through art and architecture, with the help of the communities, the former paramilitaries, the politicians, the churches, and through business and tourism...Wearing her academic hat she refers to complexity theory which, she says, points to 'small, gradual changes resulting in big effects'." - Gerry Moriarty, The Irish Times"