An examination of three interpretations of the most universally acknowledged piece of rhetoric in the history of the West, The Sermon on the Mount. The three interpretations examined, from the perspectives of faith and language, are: St Augustine, from the Latin and Catholic tradition; St John Chrysostom, the Greek and Orthodox tradition; and Martin Luther, the Reformation and Protestant tradition. Together and yet separately, they illuminate both the Sermon and the speaker for anyone who still takes the challenge of faith, and language, seriously.
In a suffering world reeling from global pandemics and health disparities, it is high time to think theologically about the devastating experience of disease, and to address our God-inspired responsibility to understand its origins and engage in its management. In a fragmented world, we need a unifying and integrated perspective on people in communities embedded in a fractured ecology. In an academic world blind to the spiritual world and imbalanced toward technical solutions, the global church must articulate a contemporary metanarrative that is moral, practical, and deeply transformational. All Creation Groans brings together multiple perspectives for a compelling global-health approach to the pathologies of the world as a part of the missio Dei. The authors paint a unifying perspective on God's healing intentions in creation, redemption, and consummation, and the opposing nature-corrupting effects of the rebellion of created moral agents. It is a fresh call for the global church to engage in aligning with God's healing action for eternally sustainable global health.
2023 College Theology Society Best Book Award 2023 Catholic Media Association Third Place Award, Theology – Morality, Ethics, Christology, Mariology, and Redemption 2023 Association of Catholic Publishers Second Place Award, Theology Dust in the Blood considers the harrowing realities of life with depression from a Christian theological perspective. In conversation with popular Christian theologies of depression that justify why this suffering exists and prescribe how people ought to relate to it, Jessica Coblentz offers another Christian approach to this condition: she reflects on depression as a wilderness experience. Weaving first-person narratives of depression, contemporary theologies of suffering, and ancient biblical tales of the wilderness, especially the story of Hagar, Coblentz argues for and contributes to an expansion of Christian ideas about what depression is, how God relates to it, and how Christians should understand and respond to depression in turn.
Offering a theological and biblical account of depression, this book considers how depression has been understood and interpreted by Christians and how plausible and pastorally helpful these understandings are. It offers an important and well-informed resource for those with, or preparing for, positions of pastoral responsibility within the Christian Church
This work, the third panel of a triptych dedicated by the author to the notion of illness derived from the patristic and hagiographic texts of the Christian East from the first to the fourteenth centuries, makes an essential contribution to the history of mental illnesses and their therapies in a domain very little studied until now. Confronted by the numerous problems still posed today in understanding these illnesses, their treatment, and their relationship to those who are sick, he shows the importance offered for reflection and current practice by early Christian thought and experience. After indicating how the Fathers understood the psyche and its relationship with body and spirit, the author gives a detailed analysis of the different causes they attribute to mental illness and the various treatments recommended. At the same time he shows how, relying on fundamental Christian values, they manifest a constant solicitude and respect for the sick, and how they are at pains to integrate them into community life and have them participate in their own healing, foreshadowing in this way the needs and aspirations of our own time. The last part discloses the deep significance of one of the strangest and most fascinating forms of asceticism the Christian East has known: 'folly for the sake of Christ', a madness feigned with the goal of attaining a high degree of humility, but also a way well-suited, through a close experience of their condition, to help those who are often among, today as in the past, the most destitute. Jean-Claude Larchet is docteur dès lettres et sciences humaines, docteur en théologie, and docteur d'État en philosophie. The author of Thérapeutique des maladies spirituelles (Paris: Editions de l'Ancre, 1991) and The Theology of Illness (Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2002), he is a specialist in questions of health, sickness, and healing. He is today one of the foremost St Maximus the Confessor specialists.
Schizophrenia is often considered one of the most destructive forms of mental illness. Elahe Hessamfar's personal experience with her daughter's illness has led her to ask some pressing and significant questions about the cause and nature of schizophrenia and the Church's role in its treatment. With a candid and revealing look at the history of mental illness, In the Fellowship of His Suffering describes schizophrenia as a variation of human expression. Hessamfar uses a deeply theological rather than pathological approach to interpret the schizophrenic experience and the effect it has on both the patients and their families. Effectively drawing on the Bible as a source of knowledge for understanding mental illness, she offers a reflective yet innovative view of whether the Church could or should intervene in such encounters and what such an intervention might look like. Hessamfar's comprehensive work will provoke powerful responses from anyone interested in the prominent social issue of mental illness. Her portrayal of the raging debate between treating 'insanity' either pastorally or medically will enthral readers, be they Christians, medical students or those in the field of psychiatry and social sciences.
Dr. Jean-Claude Larchet, renowned for his examinations of the causes and consequences of spiritual and physical illness, tackles the pressing question of the societal and personal effects of our societal use of new media. The definition of new media is broad—from radio to smart phones—and the analysis of their impact is honest and straightforward. His meticulous diagnosis of their effects concludes with a discussion of the ways individuals might limit and counteract the most deleterious effects of this new epidemic.
"God formed the human body from the dust of the earth in his image and likeness (Gen 1.26; 2.7), and calls us to become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1.4). But in our fallen state, we find ourselves in a different condition, crying out, "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom 7.24) For this reason, Christ--in whom "the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily" (Col 2.9)--came to save both our souls and our bodies. "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1Pet 2.24). Because of this "creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption ... And not only the creation, but we ourselves ... groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Rom 8.21, 22). Larchet traces the contours of this complex subject using Scripture and the Church Fathers. He situates the meaning and purpose of our bodies in the cosmic drama of salvation, without losing sight of the everyday activities that use and honor--or dishonor--the human body. We are created as an integral whole: body, soul, and spirit. From the ancient Gnostics to contemporary alternative views of the human person, this integrity of the human person has always been challenged. The holistic vision presented in these pages is a timely reminder of the eternal truths found in Scripture and tradition."--! From from back cover.
Shows that a religious understanding of illness and health persisted well into post-Enlightenment early America The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the power of narrative during times of sickness and disease. As Americans strive to find meaning amid upheaval and loss, some consider the nature of God’s will. Early American Protestants experienced similar struggles as they attempted to interpret the diseases of their time. In this groundbreaking work, Philippa Koch explores the doctrine of providence—a belief in a divine plan for the world—and its manifestations in eighteenth-century America, from its origins as a consoling response to sickness to how it informed the practices of Protestant activity in the Atlantic world. Drawing on pastoral manuals, manuscript memoirs, journals, and letters, as well as medical treatises, epidemic narratives, and midwifery manuals, Koch shows how Protestant teachings around providence shaped the lives of believers even as the Enlightenment seemed to portend a more secular approach to the world and the human body. Their commitment to providence prompted, in fact, early Americans’ active engagement with the medical developments of their time, encouraging them to see modern science and medicine as divinely bestowed missionary tools for helping others. Indeed, the book shows that the ways in which the colonial world thought about questions of God’s will in sickness and health help to illuminate the continuing power of Protestant ideas and practices in American society today.
