What difference does Jesus Christ make for the way we teach the Christian faith? If he is truly God and truly human, if he reveals God to us and us to ourselves, how might that shape our approach to teaching Christianity? Drawing on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Adam Neder offers a clear and creative theological and spiritual reflection on the art of teaching the Christian faith. This engaging book provides a wealth of fresh theological insights and practical suggestions for anyone involved in teaching and learning Christianity.
What does it mean to believe in God? This question still provokes a recalcitrant world. In spite of the apparent disinterest of our age, the religious question continues to task and to vex, sometimes quietly, sometimes dramatically. When religious divisions occasion civil strife, believers are faced with an even more radical inquiry. Wherein lies the real truth about Christian doctrine and its place in our lives? Can we appeal to any authority for belief? How do we escape the suspicions of a skeptical age? In this book, Romanus Cessario explores these questions and suggests responses taken from the history of theology. He offers a readable account of the accumulated wisdom of the Christian tradition concerning the faith-question, citing as major authorities the saints, those who have realized the will of God throughout the ages. Faith supplies not only the assurance but also the substance of things hoped for. The experience of Israel teaches that "God has foreseen something better for us"; this "something better" resides in the Word of God that takes flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Because it keeps being born again in the heart of every believer, as St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us, it leads us to the blessedness of eternal life. Since the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, authors have dealt mainly with the existential dimensions of Christian life. This volume, the fruit of more than two decades of contemplation on the virtues of Christian life, complements these as well as historical studies about faith. It presents a coherent meditation on faith's principal concerns: its acts of belief and confession, and its character as a virtue in the Christian life. Father Cessario explains how the mysteries of faith--what the Christian believer professes each Sunday in the Creed--transform our lives and make us living images of the Triune God. Consequently, this book will meet a wide range of needs by answering the questions of the informed reader, animating study groups and parish seminars, and stimulating the ordinary believer to appropriate "the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God." ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Romanus Cessario, O.P., is professor of systematic theology at St. John's Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts. Before assuming this post in the fall of 1995, Father Cessario taught at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. He served there as Academic Dean from 1979 to 1987. He is the author of numerous works, including The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics, Le Virtu, and Perpetual Angelus: As the Saints Pray the Rosary, and presently serves on the editorial boards of The Thomist, the French journal Pierre d'Angle, and the National Catholic Register.
"I can't imagine a college student—skeptic, doubter, Christian, struggler—who wouldn't benefit from this book." —Kevin DeYoung For many young adults, the college years are an exciting period of selfdiscovery full of new relationships, new independence, and new experiences. Yet college can also be a time of personal testing and intense questioning— especially for Christian students confronted with various challenges to Christianity and the Bible for the first time. Drawing on years of experience as a biblical scholar, Michael Kruger addresses common objections to the Christian faith—the exclusivity of Christianity, Christian intolerance, homosexuality, hell, the problem of evil, science, miracles, and the reliability of the Bible. If you're a student dealing with doubt or wrestling with objections to Christianity from fellow students and professors alike, this book will equip you to engage secular challenges with intellectual honesty, compassion, and confidence—and ultimately graduate college with your faith intact.
This book gets at the heart of the Christian life by considering some of the great truths of God's existence. Christopher Holmes, an expert in contemporary theology, engages with the church fathers along with Augustine and Aquinas to offer a rich, accessible account of the triune God and the divine perfections. Holmes shows how we share in the life of God through imitation and participation and how the doctrines of the triune God and the divine attributes shape our understanding of the Christian life. Throughout, Holmes demonstrates the importance of theology for Christian faith and practice.
This book explores the implications of recent insights in modern neuroscience that attribute mental capacities often ascribed to a disembodied soul instead to the functions of the brain and body in collaboration with social experience. It explores how this insight changes the traditional "care of souls," encouraging more attention to fostering spiritual growth through a social and communal focus.
In a time when academic theology often neglects the lived practices of the Christian community, this volume seeks to bring balance to the situation by showing the dynamic link between the task of theology and the practices of the Christian life. The work of thirteen first-rate theologians from several cultural and Christian perspectives, these informed and informative essays explore the relationship between Christian theology and practice in the daily lives of believers, in the ministry of Christian communities, and as a needed focus within Christian education. Contributors: Dorothy C. Bass Nancy Bedford Gilbert Bond Sarah Coakley Craig Dykstra Reinhard Hütter L. Gregory Jones Serene Jones Amy Plantinga Pauw Christine Pohl Kathryn Tanner Miroslav Volf Tammy Williams
Making faith-sense is a new term for an ancient practice. It is what the early Christians called mystical or wisdom theology: understanding life in the light of God's participation recorded in the Gospels, recognizing the signs of God's presence in everyday events and shaping one's life accordingly. In Making Faith-Sense, Robert Kinast shows all who seek to unify their life experience around their belief in God how to follow that ancient practice. Drawing upon the award-winning process he has used with students for the ministry, Father Kinast explains how to make sense of family, work, and cultural experience from the perspective of Christian faith. Each chapter contains numerous real-life examples and practical guidelines that can be used privately or with a group.
Theology—the study of God—is a concern for every believer, not just theologians or those in ministry. It's the goal of good theology to humble us before the triune God of majesty as we come to understand him better. This is a book of and about good theology. Award-winning author, theologian, and professor Michael Horton wrote The Christian Faith as a book of systematic theology and doctrine "that can be preached, experienced, and lived, as well as understood, clarified, and articulated." It's written for a growing cast of pilgrims—in ministry and laity—who are interested in learning about Christ as a way of living as a Christian. Who understand that knowing doctrine and walking in practical Christianity are not competing interests. The Christian Faith is divided into six parts, five of which each focus on an aspect of God, while the first part sets up an understanding and appreciation for the task of theology itself, addressing topics like: The source of theology (where the idea of theology comes from and what its limits are). The origin of the canon (how the modern Bible came about and why we can trust it). The character of theology (is the nature of theology practical, theoretical, or can it be both?). In a manner equally as welcoming to professors, pastors, students, and armchair theologians; Horton has organized this volume in a readable fashion that includes a variety of learning features: A brief synopsis of biblical passages that inform certain doctrines. Surveys of past and current theologies with contemporary emphasis on exegetical, philosophical, practical, and theological questions. Substantial interaction with various Christian movements within the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodoxy traditions, as well as the hermeneutical issues raised by postmodernity. Charts, sidebars, questions for discussion, and an extensive bibliography, divided into different entry levels and topics. At the heart of this book is a deep love for and curiosity about God. Its basic argument is that a personal relationship with God goes hand in hand with the pursuit of theology. It isn't possible to know God without studying him.
What can the early church contribute to theology today? Donald Fairbairn takes us back to the biblical roots and central convictions of the early church, showing us what we have tended to overlook, especially in our understanding of God as Trinity, the person of Christ and the nature of our salvation as sharing in the Son's relationship to the Father.
