This book tackles a basic moral question: "Can a Christian work for a corporation?" Michael Novak's answer? "Yes!"

What Does the Body - Physical & Social - Have to Do With Holiness? Modern Western Christianity has too often seen holiness and growth in Christian character as exclusively an individual and "spiritual" (or non-physical) matter. Centered on a suggestive proposal about "the sanctified body" by Stanley Hauerwas, the essays in this provocative volume argue contrary to that tendency, insisting that any genuine Christian holiness is vitally related to our physical and social bodies. Along with way, the essayists trace crucial confusions in ecclesiology, prayer and social action to the distorted nonbodily understanding of sanctification. Essays and authors include "The Sanctified Body" by Stanley Hauerwas "The Human Person as Intercessory Prayer" by Craig Keen "Tacit Holiness" by Rodney Clapp "Holiness as the Renewal of the Image of God in the Individual & Society" by Theodore Runyon "Paying Attention: Holiness in the Life Writings of Early Methodist Women" by Joyce Quiring Erickson "The Once & Future Church Revisited" by Michael G. Cartwright "'And He Felt Compassion': Holiness Beyond the Bounds of Community" by Michael E. Lodahl "A Contribution to a Wesleyan Understanding of Holiness & Community" by Samuel M. Powell

Leading theologian Terry Cross articulates the doctrine of the church's ministry from a Pentecostal perspective, demonstrating how Pentecostals can contribute to and learn from the church catholic. This companion volume to Cross's previous book, The People of God's Presence, proposes a radical revision of the structural framework of the local church within the often-overlooked corporate priesthood of all believers. Cross explores principles for leadership and ministry from the New Testament and the early church, helping all believers to do the work of ministry.

Combining creative biblical interpretation, Christian moral reflection, and business expertise, Finding Meaning in Business is a thoughtful and thought-provoking look at how business leaders, professionals, and students can integrate a sense of calling into their careers and into the business world as a whole.

"What is a church and what work does "church"-the church-do today in American law? In Church State Corporation, Sullivan argues that the appeals to "the church" we find in legal opinions express what she calls a "Christian mystical political theology" that naturalizes religion in the American legal imagination and limits the law's ability to acknowledge religion more broadly. To pinpoint the work the church does in US law, Sullivan examines two recent Supreme Court cases, Hosanna-Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012) and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), in order to map the contours of the "church-shaped space" at the heart of what constitutes religion in US law. Sullivan also examines a constellation of church property cases, cases developing corporate personhood such as Citizens United, and what the "Angola Church"-a collection of churches formed within the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola-reveals about the range of the church's influence in US law. In all, the reader is treated to a remarkably thought-provoking analysis of the ways the church persists in US law, one that calls into question our basic assumptions about our supposedly secular age"--

With the theme of relationship receiving renewed attention in a variety of areas, theological expressions of the subject are also being brought back into the spotlight. Although the concept of a personal relationship with God is a common Christian expression, it is often poorly defined. Here, Michael Berra draws on the Swiss theologian Emil Brunner to redefine and rehabilitate the analogy of relationship. Basing his study primarily on Brunner's seminal work Truth as Encounter, Berra proposes that relationship ought to be the central motif for the whole of theology. He investigates the theme in light of modern relationship science, arguing that God-human interaction categorically meets the definition of a relationship, and that it is existentially intended to be intimate. Scholars and church leaders will find in Berra's approach a refreshing voice in this dynamic field.

This book addresses one of the most urgent issues in contemporary American law—namely, the logic and limits of extending free exercise rights to corporate entities. Pointing to the polarization that surrounds disputes like Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, David argues that such cases need not involve pitting flesh-and-blood individuals against the rights of so-called “corporate moral persons.” Instead, David proposes that such disputes should be resolved by attending to the moral quality of group actions. This approach shifts attention away from polarizing rights-talk and towards the virtues required for thriving civic communities. More radically, however, this approach suggests that groups themselves should not be viewed as things or “persons” in the first instance, but rather as occasions of coordinated activity. Discerned in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, this reconceptualization helps illuminate the moral stakes of a novel—and controversial—form of religious freedom.

In this astonishing book, the author's purpose is to help transform individuals by fostering a spirit of holy listening that enriches faith and opens seekers to the fullness of God's presence and of the neighbor's need. The intent is to help the reader develop a faith that seeks understanding and makes real meaning in a world of chatter. In each chapter, a prominent work of art is interpreted, which serves as a focal point for demonstrating how the eyes and heart are integrally involved in hearing the Spirit of God. The book explores why holy listening is so difficult by examining key hermeneutical issues within the biblical text and by considering the nature of God, the journey of faith, and human limits. This illuminating book also examines the spiritual need for holy listening and analyzes critical questions of faith that lead to a greater awareness of self and the church in the mutual calling to be the incarnation of Jesus Christ in a postmodern world. Essential in the task of holy listening is an awareness of the importance of spiritual rest and the role of the Sabbath plays in providing an opportunity to participate in the redeeming work of God. In this regard, the book underscores the need for faith this is both a linear journey toward wholeness and an ability to make home and community along life's way. The need for holy listening is made even more acute by the reality of suffering that accompanies life's pilgrimage, and the book ponders the meaning of suffering and how it can open one to the presence of the divine. More than a theological analysis of suffering, the book addresses the author's effort to listen for redemptive meaning in light of his own daughter's struggle with juvenile diabetes. The book concludes with a discussion of the spiritual value of silence as the way to experience anew the story of Jesus who beckon those who listen to follow through a life of service and love.

Spiritual sickness troubles American medicine. Through a death-denying culture, medicine has gained enormous power-an influence it maintains by distancing itself from religion, which too often reminds us of our mortality. As a result of this separation of medicine and religion, patients facing serious illness infrequently receive adequate spiritual care, despite the large body of empirical data demonstrating its importance to patient decision-making, quality of life, and medical utilization. This secular-sacred divide also unleashes depersonalizing, social forces through the market, technology, and legal-bureaucratic powers that reduce clinicians to tiny cogs in an unstoppable machine. Hostility to Hospitality is one of the first books of its kind to explore these hostilities threatening medicine and offer a path forward for the partnership of modern medicine and spirituality. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship including empirical studies, interviews, history and sociology, theology, and public policy, the authors argue for structural pluralism as the key to changing hostility to hospitality.

Foundations of science are specific conditions of the cosmos, of human intelligence, of cultural beliefs, and of technological structures that make the pursuit of modern science possible. Each of the four foundations of scientific endeavour can be studied as a topic on its own. The concurrent study of all four together reveals several tensions and interconnections among them that point the way to a greater unification of faith and science. This book explores four foundations of scientific endeavour and investigates some of the paradoxes each of them raises. Kaiser shows that the resolution of these paradoxes inevitably leads us into theological discourse and raises new challenges for theological endeavour. In order to address these challenges, Kaiser draws on the wider resources of the Judeo-Christian tradition and argues for a refocusing of contemporary theology from the perspective of natural science.