Description: In this important book, Chung-Hyun Baik explores one of the central issues in contemporary Trinitarian theology: the relationship between the economic and immanent Trinity. Engaging a wide variety of Trinitarian theologians and contemporary philosophers, Baik offers a vital analysis of the ontological and epistemological issues that bear on a proper understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Noting that the meaning of mystery in the New Testament is Jesus Christ himself, Baik argues that, in order to rightly approach the question of the relationship between the immanent and...

Description: Employing studies in population ecology as a framework for understanding the growth of religious movements, Disfellowshiped traces the growth of the Pentecostal movement. The author explores how the Pentecostal movement developed in relationship to Fundamentalism from its roots in the Holiness movement to the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals. Particular attention is given to the various critiques and rebuttals exchanged between Fundamentalists and Pentecostals, exploring how these two movements influenced and shaped one another. This book shows how, despite...

Description: Can the comparison of two theologians vastly separated in space and time help contemporary theologians to think better? This book argues that it can. Specifically, this book argues that the novel and burgeoning discipline of comparative theology is a powerful method for gaining critical insight into our inherited worldviews. More important, it argues that the critical insights gained through comparison can produce constructive theology or, in other words, revised and renewed worldviews. New comparisons produce new questions, and new questions produce new answers. In order to...

Description: Who are we? What does it mean to be human? What is the purpose of our existence? In our time these continue to be urgent questions. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought deeply about these questions out of a desire to understand the importance of Christ and the incarnation for modern culture. His conviction that Christ died for a new humanity is at the core of his theological anthropology. Bonhoeffer's Christ-centered, Trinitarian theology establishes the intrinsic sociality of humanity as made in the image of God. Being Human, Becoming Human assembles a distinguished...

Description: The most outstanding theological thinker of the twentieth century is proving to be the most pivotal theological figure of the twenty-first century as well. It is no wonder some have referred to Karl Barth as a ""Father"" of the Church. Karl Barth, widely acknowledged as the most influential theologian of the modern era, continues to provoke and inspire Christian theological reflection in a distinct and enduring way. His work has occasioned appreciation, critique, and rejection, but however one responds to Barth, one must reckon with him in pursuing the theological task. This...

Description: The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania, 1825-1850 is the first detailed and documentary history of the seminal period of Roman Catholic missionary activity. Beginning with the founding of the Prefecture Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands in 1825 there was continued development in Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia for the next quarter century. By 1850 this vast area of the South Seas could boast of one archdiocese, eight dioceses, and eight vicariates apostolic. This lively, dramatic narrative is told largely through the words of the...

Description: One of the most perplexing and misunderstood books of the Bible, Ezekiel has left many scholars and exegetes scratching their heads regarding its message, coherency, and interpretation. Brian Peterson's look at the book of Ezekiel as a unified whole set within an exilic context helps explain some of the more difficult symbolic aspects in the book and makes Ezekiel as a whole more intelligible. Drawing on ancient Near Eastern concepts and motifs such as covenant and treaty curses, the various gods that made up the Babylonian pantheon, and the position that Israel held as the...

Description: Though Soren Kierkegaard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer both made considerable contributions to twentieth-century thought, they are rarely considered together. Against Kierkegaard's melancholic individual, Bonhoeffer stands as the champion of the church and community. In Attacks on Christendom, Matthew D. Kirkpatrick challenges these stereotypical readings of these two vital thinkers. Through an analysis of such concepts as epistemology, ethics, Christology, and ecclesiology, Kirkpatrick reveals Kierkegaard's significant influence on Bonhoeffer throughout his work. Kirkpatrick shows...

Description: Eternal blessedness for all? This work shows how the acclaimed father of modern theology, Friedrich Schleiermacher, brilliantly approached this problem. It took many twists and turns of historical and philosophically minded analyses, however, for him to get to a theologically appropriate answer. This book unpacks those efforts in manageable form, based on a close examination of a pivotal 1819 essay, On the Doctrine of Election; his masterpiece, Christian Faith; sermons; and other related sources. Schleiermacher was the first modern theologian of stature to endorse the universal...

Description: Learning in a Musical Key examines the multidimensional problem of the relationship between music and theological education. Lisa Hess argues that, in a delightful and baffling way, musical learning has the potential to significantly alter and inform our conception of the nature and process of theological learning. In exploring this exciting intersection of musical learning and theological training, Hess asks two probing questions. First, What does learning from music in a performative mode require? Classical modes of theological education often founder on a dichotomy between...