The Early Barth series spotlights the theological restlessness of a thinker on the cusp of reshaping twentieth-century Christian thought.Karl Barth was the most influential theologian of the twentieth century, and his work continues to inspire both fresh theological thinking and critical debate. The period covered by the volumes in the Early Barth series—1905 to 1933—saw Barth emerge from his training under such theological giants as Adolf von Harnack and Wilhelm Herrmann; assert his rejection o...
After Method assumes the impossibility of doing theology right–and moves beyond it. Organized as a conversation in two voices—with systematic-theological commitments represented by Karl Barth and constructive-theological commitments represented by Marcella Althaus-Reid—this book calls the redemptive potential of any methodological program into question. Indeed, the search for a full and complete theological account of reality has only further fragmented theological discourse. T...
The swelling ranks of religious “nones”—those who do not identify with any particular religious tradition—have demonstrated that traditional Christian apologetics set on delivering a universally accepted, objectively verifiable system that proves the truth and superiority of Christian belief has failed. Turned off by organized Christianity’s hypocrisy and politics of intolerance, millennials and Generation Z have rejected such domineering forms of reasoning aimed at winning converts through logi...
Christian Faith is one of the most important works of Christian theology ever written. The author, known as the "father of theological liberalism," correlates the entirety of Christian doctrine to the human experience of and consciousness of God. A work of exhaustive scholarship written in deep sympathy with the ministry of congregations and church bodies, Christian Faith has inspired admiration and debate from all quarters of the Christian family since its first publication in 1821...
Modern humanity has accepted a truncated, impoverished definition of life. Focusing solely on material realities, we have forgotten that joy, purpose, and meaning come from a life that is both immersed in the temporal and alive to the transcendent. We have, in other words, ceased to live in God.In this book, renowned theologian Jürgen Moltmann shows us what that life of joy and purpose looks like. Describing how we came to live in a world devoid of the ultimate, he charts a way bac...
At the beginning of Christian Faith, B. A. Gerrish reminds us that dogmatics involves critical transmission of the Christian heritage. The dogmatic theologian must interpret and assess the traditional beliefs of the church while also considering the new and changing conditions in which that tradition is being embodied. With that, Gerrish goes on to outline the various presuppositions and affirmations of the Christian faith before ultimately offering a powerful and compelling restat...
With its focus on the traditions and communities that form us over the course of a lifetime, virtue ethics has richly expanded our understanding of what the Christian life can look like. Yet its emphasis on human virtues and habits of mind and life seems inconsistent with the Reformed tradition's insistence that sin lies at the heart of the human condition. For this reason, virtue ethics seems out of place in Reformed theology, especially in the company of the Reformed tradition's g...
In this volume, highly esteemed scholar Kevin Vanhoozer introduces readers to a way of thinking about Christian theology that takes the work he began in the groundbreaking 2005 book, The Drama of Doctrine, to its next level. Vanhoozer argues that theology is not merely a set of cognitive beliefs, but is also something we do that involves speech and action alike. He uses a theatrical model to explain the ways in which doctrine shapes Christian understanding and forms disciples. The...
This book is about the crisis brought about by doctrine's estrangement from reality—that is from actual lives, experiences, histories, and from God. By invoking "the end of doctrine," Christine Helmer opens a new discussion of doctrinal production that is engaged with the challenges and possibilities of modernity. The end of doctrine refers on the one hand to unquestioning doctrinal reception, which Helmer critiques, and on the other, represents an invitation to a new way of unde...
Too often the doctrine of creation has been made to serve limited or pointless ends, like the well-worn arguments between science and faith over the question of human and cosmic origins. Given this history, some might be tempted to ignore the theology of creation, thinking it has nothing new or substantive to say. They would be wrong. In this stimulating volume, Ian A. McFarland shows that at the heart of the doctrine of creation lies an essential truth about humanity: we are co...
This volume presents a compact discussion of the Holy Spirit in Christian theology. Written by a leading expert on this doctrine, it begins with biblical perspectives on the Holy Spirit, and moves on to describe how the Spirit was understood through the major periods in the history of Christian thought, from the early church to the present. It is global in approach and considers contributions from theologians throughout the world. This brief volume provides an excellent overview...
***Available April 2012.***This book offers the first English translation of Friedrich Schleiermacher's "On the Doctrine of Election" (1819), a historic and influential essay published just before the first edition of Schleiermacher's magisterial systematic theology: The Christian Faith. In this essay, Schleiermacher develops a view of election as consisting of a single divine decree of both election and rejection that embraces all humanity--a theological development that became ba...
Few things are so vital to Christian life yet so mired in controversy as the language we use to name the mystery of the Trinity. By drawing on new developments in biblical studies, Soulen offers a fresh map of Trinitarian language that is simple, yet profound in its implications for theology and practice. He proposes that sacred Scripture gifts us with three patterns of naming the persons of the Trinity: a theo-logical pattern, a christo-logical pattern, and a pneumato-logical patte...
Terrence Tice has revised his earlier translation of this epoch-making work by the nineteenth-century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). In this volume, Schleiermacher lays out what Christian theology is and how the work of theology can be seen as a whole. This new edition features extensive critical notes by the translator, based on his lifetime of study, and an editor's postscript that provides an overview and interpretation of the main sections of the work.
Theologians from the early church to the present have written much about the Holy Spirit and Christian salvation. This extensive sourcebook of primary theological texts makes many of these writings available with a description of their context and importance. Especially valuable are more recent works emerging from theologians in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This global perspective, coupled with the broad selection of writings from the history of theology, makes this the most comp...
The reasons people are attracted to Christianity and its teachings are many and varied. In this book, Allen hopes "to supply more of the information (pieces of the puzzle) that are needed if a person is to make sense of the Christian understanding of God and our life in the universe." More philosopher than theologian, Allen writes for "a troubled believer," dealing with issues and questions that emerge during Christians' daily lives and in the course of contemplating Christian fa...
This latest offering by noted theologian Sung Wook Chung examines the ways in which John Calvin continues to impact the global evangelical movement in the twenty-first century. This useful collection is perhaps most distinguished by the diversity of its contributors. Literally spanning the globe, the group of scholars whose work is included represents a wealth of viewpoints from various traditions including Dutch neo-Calvinism, the French Reformed tradition, Scottish-American Presby...
What does it mean to be a human being? David Kelsey expertly probes this complicated issue in his exhaustive and ambitious examination of theological anthropology. Divided into three parts, Kelsey's work posits that humanity's relationship to God is a basic claim of Christianity and that God actively relates to human beings in three major ways: God creates them, God is there at the end of all things eschatologically, and God reconciles humans when they are alienated from God. The res...
The Nature of Doctrine, originally published in 1984, is one of the most influential works of academic theology in the past fifty years. A true classic, this book sets forth the central tenets of a post-liberal approach to theology, emphasizing a cultural-linguistic approach to religion and a rule theory of doctrine.In addition to his account of the nature of religion, George Lindbeck also addresses the relationship between Christianity and other religions, the resolution of histori...
Are there viable pathways from nature to God? Natural theology is making a comeback, stimulated as much by scientific advance as by theological and philosophical reflection. There is a growing realization that the sciences raise questions that transcend their capacity to answer them--above all, the question of the existence of God. So how can Christian theology relate to these new developments?In this landmark work, based on his 2009 Gifford lectures, Alister McGrath examines the a...
In this final volume of a four-volume series, Michael Horton explores the origin, mission, and destiny of the church through the lens of covenantal theology. Arguing that the history of Israel and the covenant of grace provide the proper context for New Testament ecclesiology, Horton then shows how the church is constituted through the ascension of Christ, the Pentecost, and the Parousia and how it continues to live by the Word and sacraments. Horton's goal is to demonstrate the pot...
In this exciting collection, an array of contemporary theologians reflects on the work of the Holy Spirit in relation to some of the world's most pressing issues and problems. Offering a corrective to disembodied discussions of the Spirit, this book provides a look at the Holy Spirit set loose and sustaining the gift and struggle for life in the midst of today's troubled world. Among other topics, the contributors examine the Spirit's activity in the reading of Scripture, the reality...
Philosophy for Understanding Theology has become the classic text for exploring the relationship between philosophy and Christian theology. This new edition adds chapters on postmodernism and questions of the self and the good to bring the book up to date with current scholarship. It introduces students to the influence that key philosophers and philosophical movements through the centuries have had on shaping Christian theology in both its understandings and forms of expression.
Following Covenant and Eschatology and Lord and Servant, this concluding volume of a four-part series examines Christian salvation from the perspective of covenant theology. In Covenant and Salvation, Michael Horton surveys law and gospel, union with Christ, and justification and theosis, conversing with both classical and contemporary viewpoints.
In this original, contemporary doctrine of the Trinity, William Placher places the history of theology in dialogue with postmodern philosophy and yields a provocative postliberal interpretation. Placher deftly connects a radical view of God's transcendence with a narrative Christology. His resulting thesis is twofold: first, the doctrine of the Trinity is not a way of explaining the inner nature of God but a way of preserving God's mystery; and second, the Trinity should be presented...
