Each book in this series provides an in-depth look at a major recurring theme in the Bible and its lasting theological influence. The series is designed to enhance the reader s understanding of our biblical heritage and its relevance to faithful life today. This book examines the biblical sabbath, sabbath-year, and jubilee traditions as part of a broader effort to reflect theologically on these challenges and points to ways we might build a global ethic of economic and environmental justice.
The biblical message of Jubilee is becoming more credible in our days in dealing with the socio-economic and moral-spiritual issues of today’s world. It continues to exercise a powerful influence on the religious thoughts and actions of God’s people. In addition to that, this book reveals a new hermeneutical code of reading and interpreting the message of Jubilee. The synthesis of the exegetical analysis of the biblical texts regarding the Jubilee and Sabbath/Sabbath year and Moltmann’s understanding of this subject reveals the meaning and significance of the topic, how it is recognized, as well as its implications in today’s world. This synthesis reveals a new vision and starting point for socio-economic and moral-spiritual reform in our time. “The biblical Sabbat / Jubilee-traditions are much richer than we thought. This book shows it. Theologically often neglected they are a source of new ideas to solve problems of human community and the ecology of the earth. That my theological works can be used to apply them today, is a surprise to me, a happy surprise.” Jürgen Moltmann
""Free trade"" was touted as a way to make economies more efficient and productive, and a strategy that would also benefit small businesses and workers. Instead, as author Stan Duncan says, ""Corporate and political powers have contorted and stacked the decks of the financial machinery that runs the earth in such a way that rewards the rich and extracts payments from the poor."" The Greatest Story Oversold helps general readers understand the various global economic forces at work today. In non-technical language Duncan explains the ""rules"" and general practices of transnational corporations and global lenders like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He connects the dots between what happens ""here"" and what happens ""there,"" addressing the impact of specific issues like the global banking crisis, third world debt, NAFTA, and immigration.
Today's complex social and economic problems leave many people in the affluent world feeling either overwhelmed or ambivalent. Even the small percentage of us who have examined the ethics behind our financial decisions and overcome the often-deterring factors of self-interest rarely know what to do to make any difference. By providing tools for examination and concrete actions for individuals, communities, and society at large, Justice in a Global Economy guides its readers through many of today's complex societal issues, including land use, immigration, corporate accountability, and environmental and economic justice. Beginning with a basic introduction to the impact of economic globalization, the book provides both critical assessments of the current political-economic structures and examples of people and communities who are actively working to transform society. Each chapter concludes with questions for discussion and reflection.
For many Christians, the book of Leviticus is largely unknown and unread. Yet this book is crucial for understanding the rest of the Bible and the nature of the gospel. In this BST volume, Derek Tidball demonstrates how Leviticus serves as a preliminary sketch of the masterpiece that was to be unveiled in Christ, testifying to a faith that sets God's people free to be holy.
A black social gospel movement arose after the Civil War to mitigate the broken promises of reparations and the reestablishment of white supremacy. After the Gilded Age, a new social gospel arose in the early twentieth century that brought together Christian proclamation and an ethic of social justice that became liberal Protestantism's distinctive contribution to world Christianity, leaving residues in the New Deal and the Great Society. In the face of poverty and bondage in the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. led a second wave of the black social gospel movement and died for it, as prophets do. It birthed new liberation movements on many fronts. Again things fell apart as the Reagan Revolution massively redistributed wealth and social benefits upward and "late capitalism" flourished. In this environment tax cuts for the wealthy and massive inequalities grew, and President Trump inherited the resentments of the Christian Right and the opportunism of economic conservatives. Would a recurring social gospel have made a difference? After Trump, American Christianity faces another crisis of decision. Will the strange God of the Bible be re-called, will the churches re-live as social movements that bring good news to all the people, will American Christianity re-contest the public square and proclaim a new social gospel for our times? This book is an invitation and a manifesto.
What if the kingdom of God is not a place, but a person? In this timely monograph, Christian T. Collins Winn argues that the kingdom of God is Jesus himself. Drawing on a wide breadth of liberation theology, Jesus, Jubilee, and the Politics of God’s Reign amplifies the echoes of salvation history in contemporary struggles for social justice. Collins Winn demonstrates how the institution of the Jubilee year exemplifies the kingdom of God. A semicentennial celebration prescribed in the book of Leviticus, Jubilee prescribed the redistribution of wealth and freeing of prisoners. Hope for Jubilee persists in apocalyptic rhetoric, from the exhortations of Old Testament prophets to those of modern progressives. Likewise, Jesus’s ministry, passion, and resurrection convey the justice of Jubilee and urgency of apocalypse. His conquest over death represents the ultimate vindication of the oppressed in the kingdom of God, an “outpouring of Spirit” seen today in continuing restorative efforts by oppressed communities in the face of death-dealing institutions. Historically informed and passionately written, Jesus, Jubilee, and the Politics of God’s Reign challenges readers to find Jesus in the marginalized persons of our own time.
Mark Van Steenwyk explores the various ways we the Christian community have failed our mission by embracing the ways of the world and advancing our own agendas. He shows us that the starting place of authentic Christian witness is repentance, and that while Jesus' kingdom is not of this world, it remains the only hope of the world.
This selection of writings from the most important moments in the history of Christianity has become established as a classic reference work. This new edition brings the anthology up-to-date with a new section looking at issues facing the twenty-first century churches.