In this book David Everett examines how Church has changed throughout a modern/postmodern context. Everett explores how social gospel dimensions and prophetic radicalism have diminished in a way that it might reestablish itself as a pillar in the community through a retrieval of its prophetic voice and social gospel roots so that it to might be missional-minded and civically-engage. Everett anticipates that this perspective will assist the Black Church in the reclamation of its heritage by confirming its purpose and affirming its position within the missional context that God has placed it.
Drawing upon the public theology of Gary M. Simpson and personal experiences, contributors provide theological perspectives on the ethics and opportunities of twenty-first century Christian mission and envision promising pathways for Christian congregations to faithfully bear social responsibility in contemporary worldwide contexts.
The purpose of this book seeks to examine the leadership of the Black church through a critical and theoretical lens utilizing historical and anthropological foci to better identify and understand some of the challenges within the paramount institution and its attrition to the Black American community at large and provide appropriate suggestions and generating frameworks for addressing the challenges. The church has always played a pivotal role in Black American culture's identity, development, and progression. Leadership and organizational challenges within the church pervasively matriculate to other Black spaces, historically Black organizations, and a broader societal context. Due to the church's historical and ethnographic context for Blacks in America, many of the challenges faced in the church go unrecognized, unspoken, thus unattended. This manuscript endeavors to identify the challenges, and flaws through research and data, to provide solutions through practical and theoretical implementations to some shortcomings for the betterment of the church and culture. The interconnectedness of culture and religion for Blacks in America established a gargantuan impact factor on the church and its leaders. This manuscript examines the pervading effects of the influence through leadership dispensation. It also explores the understanding of leadership through the lens of Black Christianity, deriving that the foundation of leadership in the Black community was primarily circumscribed by the influence of the church as conglomerate collectivism of almost five hundred years of the history and culture of Africans, African descendants, and members of the African diaspora in what is now America who contributed to the ideal of the Black church. The critical analysis provided is not one of condemnation but likened to a vital performance review through member experiences barred against applicable leadership and organizational development barometers.
Causing a considerable stir when it was first published in Germany in 1965, "Theology of Hope" represents a comprehensive statement of the importance for theology of eschatology - and of an eschatological theology which emphasizes the revolutionary effect of Christian hope upon the thought, institutions and conditions of life in the here and now. Jürgen Moltmann understands Christian faith essentially as hope for the future of humankind and creation as this has been promised by the God of the exodus and the resurrection of the crucified Jesus. God's promise is the compulsory force of history, awakening hope which keeps human beings unreconciled to present experience, sets them in contradistinction to prevailing natural and social powers, and makes the church the source of continual new impulses towards, in Moltmann's own words, "the realization of righteousness, freedom and humanity in the light of the promised future that is to come". This new expanded edition of a theological classic includes his 2020 Charles Gore lecture ‘A Theology of Hope for the 21st Century’, in which he offers a powerful reflection on the nature of hope in our current times.
In this volume, Walter Brueggemann writes on Isaiah 1-39, which many scholars believe had a single author, Isaiah, of the eighth century BCE, who wrote in the context of the Assyrian empire between 742 and 701. Books in the Westminster Bible Companion series assist laity in their study of the Bible as a guide to Christian faith and practice. Each volume explains the biblical book in its original historical context and explores its significance for faithful living today. These books are ideal for individual study and for Bible study classes and groups.
Explores the power and artistry of prophecy among the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, who use predictions about the future to interpret the world around them This book challenges the common assumption that American Indian prophecy was an anomaly of the 18th and 19th centuries that resulted from tribes across the continent reacting to the European invasion. Tom Mould’s study of the contemporary prophetic traditions of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians reveals a much larger system of prophecy that continues today as a vibrant part of the oral tradition. Mould shows that Choctaw prophecy is more than a prediction of the future; it is a way to unite the past, present, and future in a moral dialogue about how one should live. Choctaw prophecy, he argues, is stable and continuous; it is shared in verbal discourse, inviting negotiation on the individual level; and, because it is a tradition of all the people, it manifests itself through myriad visions with many themes. In homes, casinos, restaurants, laundromats, day care centers, and grocery stores, as well as in ceremonial and political situations, people discuss current events and put them into context with traditional stories that govern the culture. In short, recitation is widely used in everyday life as a way to interpret, validate, challenge, and create the world of the Choctaw speaker. Choctaw Prophecy stands as a sound model for further study into the prophetic traditions of not only other American Indian tribes but also communities throughout the world. Weaving folklore and oral tradition with ethnography, this book will be useful to academic and public libraries as well as to scholars and students of southern Indians and the modern South.
What is a thing? What is an object? Tristan Garcia decisively overturns 100 years of Heideggerian orthodoxy about the supposedly derivative nature of objects to put forward a new theory of ontology that gives us deep insights into the world and our place
Pointing out striking correlations between the catastrophe of 9/11 and the destruction of ancient Jerusalem, Brueggemann shows how the prophetic biblical response to that crisis was truth-telling in the face of ideology, grief in the face of denial, and hope in the face of despair. He argues that the same prophetic responses are urgently required from us now if we are to escape the deathliness of denial and despair. --from publisher description.
This republication of a classic work contains a new introduction by Walter Brueggemann that places Gerhard von Rad's work within the context of German theology, Old Testament theology, and the history of interpretation of the Old Testament. In Old Testament Theology, von Rad applies the most advanced results of form criticism to develop a new understanding of the Bible. His original approach is now available once again in English. The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.
What is the meaning of the word “tradition”? Are there live traditions today? Does tradition clash with innovation? Is it possible to love the proper tradition and look to innovation at the same time? This study brings together a number of insightful contributions that focus on the complexity of the relationship between tradition and innovation and on the forces that could emerge from it, if tradition is seen to represent the cornerstone for future. The volume is subdivided into four sections: I. Tradition: an historical background; II. Tradition and innovation: which future?; III. Law and tradition; and IV. Tradition: a theological point of view. Contributors: Enrico Berti, Nicoletta Scotti, Anthony Lisska, Elisa Grimi, Riccardo Pozzo, Rémi Brague, John O'Callaghan, Angelo Campodonico, Giovanni Turco, Salvatore Amato, Stamatios Tzitzis, Peter Casarella, John Milbank.
