The maternal body is a site of contested dynamics of power, identity, experience, autonomy, occupation, and control. Representations of the maternal body can mis/represent the childbearing and mothering form variously, often as monstrous, idealized, limited, scrutinized, or occupied, whilst dominant discourses limit motherhood through social devaluation. The maternal body has long been a hypervisible artifact: at once bracketed out in the interest of elevating the contributions of sperm-carriers or fetal status; and regarded with hostility and suspicion as out of control. Such arguments are deployed to justify surveillance mechanisms, medical scrutiny, and expectation of self-discipline.

The maternal body is a site of contested dynamics of power, identity, experience, autonomy, occupation, and control. Representations of the maternal body can mis/represent the childbearing and mothering form variously, often as monstrous, idealized, limited, scrutinized, or occupied, whilst dominant discourses limit motherhood through social devaluation. The maternal body has long been a hypervisible artifact: at once bracketed out in the interest of elevating the contributions of sperm-carriers or fetal status; and regarded with hostility and suspicion as out of control. Such arguments are deployed to justify surveillance mechanisms, medical scrutiny, and expectation of self-discipline.This volume helps to develop a more critical understanding of what it means to be an embodied mother. The materiality of maternity and its centrality to family and social life remains too often viewed as a ?fringe? subject, the province of feminists, activists, hysterical women. For too long, the maternal body has been subject to ?expert? advice, guidance, censure, and control. Those of us maternal bodies are at risk of being commodified and diminished, having our bodily realities reduced to mechanistic functions and our lived experience disregarded. From art to medical surveillance, from genetics to radioactivity, goddess to breastfeeding, poetry to Indigenous community, dance to body size, the critical eye of the academic and the lived experience of the mother bring into being in this work a body of understanding, of expression, of knowledge and the power and authority of the lived experience, through and about the embodied mother. This critical-creative work encompasses new insights, new research, and redeveloped perspectives which combine the personal with the pervasive and point to new meaning-making in critical motherhood studies via the medium of the maternal body.

Selected from sermons delivered by C. S. Lewis during World War II, these nine addresses offer guidance and inspiration in a time of great doubt.These are ardent and lucid sermons that provide a compassionate vision of Christianity.

What can we do to prevent more atrocities from happening in the future, and to stop the ones that are happening right now? That the World May Know tells the powerful and moving story of the successes and failures of the modern human rights movement. Drawing on firsthand accounts from fieldworkers around the world, the book gives a painfully clear picture of the human cost of confronting inhumanity in our day.

Shows how stories and metaphors can be used by facilitators and managers in training and developing people.

An introduction to seven Ascended Masters who are ready to tutor and revitalise your soul. Reviews their teachings, their past lives and their universities of the spirit. By exploring their unique paths to spiritual mastery, you will find comfort, inspiration and invaluable keys for your own walk with God.

Our Walk with the Lord begins when we take our first step in faith by believing that Jesus is who he says he is. Thereafter, day after day, we willingly take up our cross and attempt to follow in his footsteps, finding out all too soon that “The Way” is not easy. Some will not understand our belief in the “invisible God.” They will consider us fools and secretly despise us for claiming to see what they cannot. While they may be blind to his presence, we see God everywhere, and in everything. Ours is a life-long spiritual journey which tests our strength, courage, faith, and convictions. While it may seem that we are walking alone, we are not. The Lord is always with us. Look around my friends...there are other Believers, each walking at their own pace...some far ahead, while others trail behind. Occasionally, someone comes along who falls into step and walks the long road with us. Know that they have been intentionally sent by God to pick us up when we stumble and fall, get lost, or become discouraged. We need their uplifting prayers, encouragement, and testimonies of faith, to remind us never to give up hope. This book is about my walk with The Lord. However, I believe the sentiments expressed are not mine alone, but universal to Christians everywhere. It is my hope that the words God has given me, will also minister to you as you walk your walk.

Exploring the nature of Christian salvation, known as soteriology, and its relation to Christian action, this insightful account thoroughly discusses theologian and martyr Ignacio Ellacuría's perspectives on the character of Christian discipleship and controversies over liberation theology. Recognizing philosophical, Christological, and ecclesiological dimensions, the volume carefully analyzes the complexities of topics that include praxis as real discipleship, transforming realities and contesting orthodoxies, and the impact of Ellacuría's theological legacy.

Since the publication of Gustavo Gutiérrez's 1973 groundbreaking work, A Theology of Liberation, much has been written on liberation theology and its central premise of the preferential option for the poor. Arguably, this has been one of the most important yet controversial theological themes of the twentieth century. As globalization creates greater gaps between the rich and the poor, and as the situation for many of the world’s poor worsens, there is an ever greater need to understand the gift and challenge of Christian faith from the context of the poor and marginalized of our society. This volume draws on the thought of leading international scholars and explores how the Christian tradition can help us understand the theological foundations for the option for the poor. The central focus of the book revolves around the question, How can one live a Christian life in a world of destitution? The contributors are concerned not only with a social, economic, or political understanding of poverty but above all with the option for the poor as a theological concept. While these essays are rooted in a solid grounding of our present “reality,” they look to the past to understand some of the central truths of Christian faith and to the future as a source of Christian hope. Following Gustavo Gutiérrez's essay on the multidimensionality of poverty, Elsa Tamez, Hugh Page, Jr., Brian Daley, and Jon Sobrino identify a central theological premise: poverty is contrary to the will of God. Drawing on scripture, the writings of the early fathers, the witness of Christian martyrs, and contemporary theological reflection, they argue that poverty represents the greatest challenge to Christian faith and discipleship. David Tracy and J. Matthew Ashley carry their reflection forward by examining the option for the poor in light of apocalyptic thought. Virgilio Elizondo, Patrick Kalilombe, María Pilar Aquino, M. Shawn Copeland, and Mary Catherine Hilkert examine the challenges of poverty with respect to culture, Africa, race, and gender. Casiano Floristán and Luis Maldonado explore the relationship between poverty, sacramentality, and popular religiosity. The final two essays by Aloysius Pieris and Michael Signer consider the option for the poor in relationship to other major world religions, particularly an Asian theology of religions and the meaning of care for the poor within Judaism.

The Christian confession that Jesus Christ descended into hell has been variously misunderstood or simply neglected by the Church and dogmatic theology. This work is a significant retort to dogmatic forgetfulness and ecclesial misunderstanding. It succeeds in doing so by offering a close reading and critical analysis of Karl Barth's treatment of the descent into hell and its relation to his extraordinary theology of the atonement. The reach of David Lauber's work is extended by placing Barth in conversation with Hans Urs von Balthasar's innovative theology of Holy Saturday. In revealing and unexpected ways, this book casts light upon the ecumenical breadth of Barth's theology. It is a valuable interpretation of significant facets of Barth's doctrine of God, reflection upon the passion of Jesus Christ, and ethics. In addition, Lauber offers a constructive theological proposal for how the descent into hell affects the theological interpretation of Scripture, the trinitarian being and activity of God, and the non-violent and authentic shape of Christian life and witness before our enemies.