Violence against women and girls is a pressing global problem. In this groundbreaking study, Elizabeth Gerhardt proposes a holistic theology of the cross as the basis for a prophetic response by the church to a problem that is not only moral and ethical, but also confessional.

This book endorses feminist critiques of gender, yet upholds the insight of traditional Christianity that sex, commitment and parenthood are fulfilling human relations. Their unity is a positive ideal, though not an absolute norm. Women and men should enjoy equal personal respect and social power. In reply to feminist critics of oppressive gender and sex norms and to communitarian proponents of Christian morality, Cahill argues that effective intercultural criticism of injustice requires a modest defence of moral objectivity. She thus adopts a critical realism as its moral foundation, drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas. Moral judgment should be based on reasonable, practical, prudent and cross-culturally nuanced reflection on human experience. This is combined with a New Testament model of community, centred on solidarity, compassion and inclusion of the economically or socially marginalised.

Representing the International Task Force on Abuse, Catherine Clark Kroeger and Nancy Nason-Clark help us hear the cries of abused women and find concrete ways for the church to respond so that no home will be a place of abuse.

How should Christians speak of the transcendent yet personal God when our language for persons is almost always gendered? Is male imagery—such as Father, Son, or King—the only appropriate way? Are there ways to talk of God using female-gendered metaphors and pronouns? And how does the use of such language impact humans as gendered people? Moving beyond the extremes in this debate, The Father and the Feminine seeks to clarify the ways Christians speak about God: whether this is by recognizing revelation and Christian tradition; upholding God’s ineffability; using analogies, metaphors, and narratives; referring to God as Father, Son, and Spirit; or by seeking a liberating way of life in community. Spencer Miles Boersma argues that male language for God need not be problematic if used and understood correctly but, at the same time, that it cannot be the exclusive way Christians speak of the Divine. The grammar of Christian Scripture and tradition both authorize the use of female language, which Christians ought to use in pursuing a deeper relationship with God and others, as well as a more authentic view of self.

Does God use violence to redeem us? What is the relationship between divine love and violence in regard to the saving significance of the cross of Christ? In Love, Violence, and the Cross, Gregory Love dialogues with two responses to this question, while presenting a third alternative in which Jesus's death is simultaneously a crime and an element of God's saving actions. Through familiar stories in history, literature, and film, Love presents five constructive models that cumulatively affirm God's saving act in the person and work of Christ while letting go the myth of redemptive violence. They affirm redemption, but one with a different shape: Instead of exacting the absolute punishment, God redeems by "making good" God's promise to humanity to secure human life. Love argues that God is nonviolent, while retaining the core idea presented in the New Testament witnesses: that reconciliation occurs in the work of Christ, and that the cross plays a role in that divine work.

Redeeming Gender argues that the problems about sexuality which continue to sap the churches' energies are really about gender. The dominant understanding of women's bodies in the Christian West has been that they are inferior versions of the superior male body. This 'one-sex model' of the human body was replaced during the Enlightenment with a model of two opposite sexes. However, both models are inadequate for a theological or a secular understanding of the sexed body. In this innovative work, Adrian Thatcher envisages relations between women and men no longer blighted by long-term patriarchy, androcentrism and sexism in church and world, but redeemed from these structural sins by the grace of Jesus Christ. Dissected into two parts, Part One explains the legacy of both the one-sex and two-sex theories. It uncovers the one-sex theory and its assumptions, and indicates its presence in early Christian thought. It then describes what happened in our social, intellectual and theological history, which leaves us thinking that there are two sexes. In Part Two, Thatcher contributes to an emerging theology of gender in which women and men are fully and equally valued, and in which sexual difference (insofar as it exists at all), is capable of transformation into joyful communion, reflecting the very life of God the Holy Trinity. He exposes the reliance of much Church and theological teaching about sex and gender either on biblical proof texts or upon the language and nomenclature of late modernity, rather than upon considerations of Theology and Christology. Thatcher also indicates how Theology and Christology, in the area of gender, envisions the redemption of human relationships.

Advancing strong, scholarly discussion on the Holy Spirit and the church in the context of the ecumenical movement, six theologians in five different churches offer new theological and pastoral insights into the work of the Holy Spirit in the churches of Christianity, in ecumenism, and in witness. With The Church: Towards a Common Vision (World Council of Churches) document serving as a common point of reference, a pastoral perspective is distinctive throughout. Relating theology to non-theological knowledge of the contemporary cultural context, as well as application to pastoral practice, this book draws from, and is applicable to, clergy formation, preaching, lay discipleship, church-world relations, social mission, congregational life, grass-roots ecumenical cooperation, and witness to Christ and the gospel by racial minorities.

The most wide-ranging book ever published on gender-selective mass killing, or "gendercide," this collection of essays is also the first to explore systematically the targeting of non-combatant "battle-age" males in various wartime and peacetime contexts. Representing such fields as sociology, political science, psychology, queer studies, and human-rights activism, the contributors explore themes and issues outlined by editor Adam Jones in the book's opening essay. In that article, which provoked considerable debate when it was first published in 2000, Jones argues that throughout history and around the world, the population group most consistently targeted for mass killing and state-backed oppression are non-combatant men of roughly fifteen to fifty-five years of age. Such males, Jones contends, are typically seen as "the group posing the greatest danger to the conquering force." Jones's article also examines the use of "gendercidal institutions"--such as female infanticide, witch-hunts, military conscription, and forced labor--against both women and men. The subsequent essays--some original, some drawn from a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research and other sources--expand, diversify, and criticize this framing of gendercide. They range from a sophisticated theoretical analysis of gendercide to in-depth treatments of such topics as the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the gendercidal oppression of young African American males, the predicament of gays and lesbians in the face of increasing biotechnological manipulation of human behavior, and the psychology of shame and humiliation underlying generdercides against both sexes. Still other articles take issue with Jones's theories of gendercide, or explore how human-rights organizations have defined, documented, and responded to gendercide and other sex-specific atrocities. A closing essay considers the relevance of feminist and men's studies literatures for the study of gendercide.

All over the world, women and girls face troubles such as starvation, displacement, illiteracy, sexual exploitation and abuse. Kay Marshall Strom and Michele Rickett traveled to interview girls and to partner with ministries helping females in the most difficult places in the world. These pages hold those girls' stories of deep pain and suffering, inspiring courage, and incredible hope.

The book of Job has captured the imagination of Christians and non-Christians alike. In this study, Ronald Hesselgrave shows how the personal story of Job's intense struggle with suffering is representative of the pain and vexation within the entire creation, and how Job's eventual healing and restoration in the context of his relationship to God is connected to the "grand narrative" of God's purpose to redeem humanity and defeat evil in the world. He explores the themes of creation, evil, lament, justice, and God's sovereignty, grace, and redemption within the separate speeches in Job and against the backdrop of wisdom literature as a whole. A further concern of this study is with the pastoral or practical value of the book of Job, both for caregivers and those who may themselves be going through the valley of deep trauma and suffering. Dr. Hesselgrave brings together theological, social, and psychological insights in a way that deepens our understanding of suffering and provides the basis for a more holistic and comprehensive response to the needs of those who suffer. A final summary of the implications of Job for a practical theology of suffering is given in the conclusion.