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Forget everything you’ve ever thought (or been taught) about the Crucifixion. ​Most Christians believe we know all there is to know about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and its symbolism. We’ve learned about it in Sunday schools, catechism classes, church services, and even in our exposure to religious painting and sculpture. But what you don’t know is going to surprise you. In The Cross and Its Meaninglessness, Timothy John Tracy has taken thousands of years of Christian religious doctrine surrounding the Crucifixion and turned it on its head. Tracy questions the accepted meaning of Jesus Christ’s death and dares to suggest that the traditional explanation of God’s sacrifice of his only son is misguided. He rejects the notion that mankind’s salvation could only be earned by appeasing a violent God’s blood lust. Tracy proclaims that a true understanding of God’s all-loving nature negates the need for Jesus’s murder. His unique, eloquent “prayer” will make you wonder about and question your suppositions. In this powerful meditation, Tracy asks us to open our heart and listen to his plea. Doing so may inspire a faith deeper than you’ve ever known.
A landmark in the conversation about race and religion in America. "They put him to death by hanging him on a tree." Acts 10:39 The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. In this powerful new work, theologian James H. Cone explores these symbols and their interconnection in the history and souls of black folk. Both the cross and the lynching tree represent the worst in human beings and at the same time a thirst for life that refuses to let the worst determine our final meaning. While the lynching tree symbolized white power and "black death," the cross symbolizes divine power and "black life" God overcoming the power of sin and death. For African Americans, the image of Jesus, hung on a tree to die, powerfully grounded their faith that God was with them, even in the suffering of the lynching era. In a work that spans social history, theology, and cultural studies, Cone explores the message of the spirituals and the power of the blues; the passion and of Emmet Till and the engaged vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.; he invokes the spirits of Billie Holliday and Langston Hughes, Fannie Lou Hamer and Ida B. Well, and the witness of black artists, writers, preachers, and fighters for justice. And he remembers the victims, especially the 5,000 who perished during the lynching period. Through their witness he contemplates the greatest challenge of any Christian theology to explain how life can be made meaningful in the face of death and injustice.
Renowned pastor-theologian Gregory A. Boyd tackles the BibleÕs biggest dilemma. Ê The Old Testament God of wrath and violence versus the New Testament God of love and peaceÑitÕs a difference that has troubled Christians since the first century. Now, with the sensitivity of a pastor and the intellect of a theologian, Gregory A. Boyd proposes the Òcruciform hermeneutic,Ó a way to read the Old Testament portraits of God through the lens of JesusÕ crucifixion. Ê In Cross Vision, Boyd follows up on his epic and groundbreaking study, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. He shows how the death and resurrection of Jesus reframes the troubling violence of the Old Testament, how all of Scripture reveals GodÕs self-sacrificial love, and, most importantly, how we can follow JesusÕ example of peace.
Christianity is in crisis in our North American context, especially among the cultural elite and people with progressive views. The reasons for the faith's loss of credibility have to do, in large part, with the dominant philosophical materialism of our culture and with the understanding of the faith almost universally held by Americans both inside the churches and outside them. In this book, Thomas C. Sorenson calls this understanding "Biblicism," by which he means the belief that the Bible is to be understood only literally and that, in one way or another, its authority comes from its claimed origin with God. Many enlightened people also reject Christianity because the only Christianity they know is the judgmental, socially conservative faith that the most vocal and visible advocates of the faith among us so loudly espouse. This book offers a different understanding of the faith. It begins with a discussion of the universal human experience of the spiritual dimension of reality. It then discusses symbol and myth as the necessary language for communicating that experience. The book shows that all human experience is necessarily subjective and that religious truth is thus also necessarily subjective. Therefore, religious truth is relative, not universal and absolute. The work argues that the Bible is a human work expressing its authors' experience of the divine. The book then discusses other obstacles to faith and offers a different understanding of the issues they raise. The book replaces the classical theory of atonement with a theology of the cross, based mainly on the work of Douglas John Hall. It redefines salvation as having to do with this life, not with the afterlife. It closes with a section that replaces the dominant social conservatism of popular Christianity with Jesus's teachings of nonviolence, economic justice, and radical inclusivity.
Everyone suffers at some time or other - it's simply a part of life. But however bad things seem, we are never completely helpless. For the deeply affirming truth is that we can choose how to respond to adverse circumstances. Trystan Owain Hughes suggests that learning how to suffer and how to wait patiently may be the secret of finding joy in our lives. Diagnosed with a degenerative spinal condition, he was surprised to discover that, instead of increasing his unhappiness, it spurred him on to seek out sources of hope and meaning. The book opens by encouraging us to take a step back from our anxieties and worries and rest in the love of God. We then explore five areas where that love may be found in the midst of pain: in nature, memory, art, laughter and other people. By becoming conscious of the echoes of the transcendent in these areas, we will gain new strength. And paradoxically, through facing our suffering, learn to truly live.
Gerhard Forde examines the nature of the "theology of the cross, noting what makes it different from other kinds of theology. His starting point is a thorough analysis of Luther's Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, the classic text of the theology of the cross.
How do we hope in the face of modernity's failure and postmodernity's absence of foundations? How do we hope when the future seems fearful and no clear way forward appears? How do we hope when despair, indifference, and cynicism dominate the psychic landscape of English-speaking North America? In dialogue with theologians of the cross George Grant and Douglas John Hall, this book unmasks the failure of hope in our time and the vacuum of meaning that remains. As an exercise in the theology of the cross, Waiting at the Foot of the Cross explores the North American context as one in which true hope is discovered only when life's negations are engaged from a posture of waiting trust. Such hope is not passive or blind. Rather, it is attentive, active, open, and spiritually grounded in the One who meets us when all hope is spent. The final chapter proposes a way toward hope for today that inspires subversive resilience in the face of the ambiguities and vicissitudes of life. Readers interested in the theology of the cross, in thinking theologically in our time and place, and those interested in the character of Christian hope will find this book compelling.
Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest among analytic philosophers in the topic of life's meaning. What is striking about this surge of work is that nearly all of it is by naturalists theorizing from non-theistic starting points. This book answers the need for a theistic philosophical perspective on the meaning of life. Bringing together some of the leading thinkers in analytic philosophy of religion and theology, God and Meaning touches on important issues in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of religion, and biblical theology that intersect with life's meaning. In particular: What does the question ?What is the meaning of life?? mean? How can we know if life has meaning and what that meaning is? Might God enhance life's meaningfulness in some ways but detract from it in others? Is the most meaningful life one of perfect happiness? What is the relationship between eternity and life's meaning? How does the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes illumine the topic? Should we hope that a kind of transcendent meaning exists? Presenting a state-of-the-art assessment of current philosophical positions on these and many other questions, God and Meaning is an invaluable resource for all students and scholars of the philosophy of religion.
Jocelyn Bryan provides a psychological perspective on key aspects of human nature and behaviour drawing on recent research and reflect on the issues this raises for theology and ministry. The aim is to introduce theology students, those studying practical theology and those engaged in ministerial formation or ministry to the significant current research in psychology which will deepen understanding of some of the core aspects of human nature. The interdisciplinary nature of the exercise aims to model the benefits of such an approach for both theology and ministerial practice and as such the book aims to cross traditional boundaries. The objective is to introduce the reader to new fields of academic psychology beyond those of counselling and psychoanalysis, dated personality psychology and the popular psychology which is often referred to in publications in the area of ministerial practice and enable the reader to engage with recent psychological research and developments.
According to the Nicene Creed, Christ died for us and for our salvation. But while all Christians agree that Christ's death and resurrection has saving significance, there is little unanimity in how and why that is the case. In fact, Christian history islittered with accounts of the redemptive value of Christ's death, and new models and motifs are constantly being proposed, many of which now stand in stark contrast to earlier thought. How then should contemporary articulations of the importance of the death of Christ be judged? At the heart of this book is the contention that Christian reflection on the atonement is faithful inasmuch as it incorporates the intention that Jesus himself had for his death. In a wide-reaching study, the author draws from both classical scholarship and recent work on the historical Jesus to argue that not only did Jesus imbue his death with redemptive meaning but that such meaning should impact expressions of the saving significance of the cross.