bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Christ in Chiaroscuro
Authors: Fackre Gabriel
Published: February 2011

“With the motifs of vision and reality, light and darkness, and the interpretive tools of Logos and Shalom, we have the essential ingredients for a restatement of the doctrine of the person of Christ. Or in the language of the Nairobi Assembly of the World Council of Churches: ‘Jesus Christ Frees and Unites.’”
Ecumenical Theology—Profession or Vocation?
Authors: Minear Paul S.
Published: February 2011

“ ‘Will we, in the coming years, do our work primarily as a church vocation or as an academic profession, and how will our answer to that question affect our contribution to the ecumenical movement?’ … The academic theologian will probably continue to stress the importance of such agencies as AAR and SBL more than such agencies as NCC or WCC. Confining ourselves to our work as university theologians, then, I think that the trend is definitely downward in terms of both the quantity and the quality of ecumenicity. It is possible for a religion department to be staffed with top scholars from many confessions and the total ecumenical result yet be absolutely nil.”
The Crisis of Legitimacy
Authors: Billington James H.
Published: February 2011

“These three elements of the American ethos—deep beliefs, pluralist variety, and free democratic institutions—provided the framework for the dynamic, national development during the first 200 years of our history. What seems to be happening now is that both belief and diversity have declined in our society, and the waning of these two… may be undermining, if not destroying, the ability of democracy to survive in America… Paradoxically, I find today in Russia signs of a fresh vitality in the three areas of American values where I have felt a certain erosion at home.”
The Necessity of the Past
Authors: Steinmetz David C.
Published: February 2011

“The first task of church history as a theological discipline is to free us from our own parochialism and make us truly catholic… There is one commandment and one only which church historians must scrupulously observe: honor thy father and mother. They must accept the past as it offers itself to them…. A church which has lost its memory of the past can only wander about aimlessly in the present and despair of its future. Having lost its identity, it will lose its mission and its hope as well.”
Adam's Rib: Bone of Contention
Authors: Phipps William E.
Published: February 2011

“Now that the Genesis creation story is generally interpreted in religious rather than in historical terms, Adam's rib is popularly afforded little more than facetious comments. In what follows, such ribbing will be discounted in an attempt to look at significant treatments of the rib motif in the Judeo-Christian tradition. We can designate the various kinds of commentary under the heads of ‘androcentric,’ gynocentric, and‘egalitarian’ interpretations.”
Revelation: A Conceptual Analysis
Authors: Howe Leroy T.
Published: February 2011

“The first question is: ‘How does one come to judge that any appearance is revelatory in any sense?’ Second, ‘How does one come to judge that any appearance is revelatory of God?’…. The third question…: ‘How can one gain assurance that any claim about revelation is worthy of being believed?”
Sympathy Cards and Death
Authors: Lippy Charles H.
Published: February 2011

“The sympathy card allows the sender to acknowledge the death event while still preserving the cultural taboo against talking about it explicity. Acceptance and avoidance, nearness and distance, merge in the message of the card and in the act of sending it.”
The church as the coming future
Authors: Hargrove Barbara
Published: February 2011

“The church serves as a symbol of the coming future. It sees in the past not only the evolutionary development all our culture recognizes, but also the hand of a transcendent God who has entered into that past in such a way as to indicate a future reality toward which we may move… The idea of a God who calls us ahead, rather than a Judge who holds us to past decrees, is an idea that both vitalizes and threatens the structure of the organized church.”
My Day in Court
Authors: Fox Frederick
Published: February 2011

“Equal justice under law… One nation under God… Liberty and justice for all… Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!… So help me God… No law respecting an establishment of religion… Wall of separation… Was not Jesus opposed to public prayers?… The Bible is worthy of study… America and its leaders believe in God… Freedom of every person… Civil and religious liberty.”
The Judaic Factor in Western Culture
Authors: Neusner Jacob
Published: February 2011

“The Judaic contribution to the west cannot be defined, let alone assessed, without close consideration of the role of the Jewish people and their long and coherent history… Israel after the flesh, the bearer of salvation in the ancient dispensation, has yet a role to play in the coming salvation.”
An Inclusive Biblical Anthropology
Authors: Collins Adela Yarbro
Published: February 2011

“The biblical view of ‘male and female’ is bound to be one of the aspects of the Bible most deeply conditioned by the social circumstances of the time of writing … That does not mean that the biblical material is irrelevant … Its contribution, however, lies not so much in its references to males and females as such, as in its view of the ideally human.”
Searching for a Liberating Anthropology
Authors: GonzáLez Justo L.
Published: February 2011

“If our intellectual life is what makes us most human, and by implication our bodily life and needs make us most like the animals, it follows that those who are most intellectually developed are most human. Men who have been doing theology from this perspective have thus tended to look down upon the women who prepare their food and the minorities who collect their garbage.”
The Next Step: A Common Humanity
Authors: Scroggs Robin
Published: February 2011

“If I had to pick two words which for me most clearly highlight Paul's understanding of redeemed personology, I think I would choose gentleness and serenity (Paul's word would be peace) … What would it mean if the adjective ‘gentle’ became as important for us as we would have it be for women?”
Women's Liberation: The Culture Context
Authors: Winter Gibson
Published: February 2011

“Metrolitan society reduces liberation to conforming to the system … So long as religious life is pursued in its private form, however helpful this may be to holding together the fragmented human connections in metropolitan society, it will be a betrayal of its own heritage and a refusal of the calling to witness to the world's liberation.”
Enough
Authors: Venable Celia Smithers
Published: February 2011

“A little dish oft furnishes enough, and sure enough is equal to a feast.”—Fielding.
Evangelism, Ecumenism, and John Seventeen
Authors: Minear Paul S.
Published: February 2011

“I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory which you have given me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you; and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:20-26
Apostles to the People
Authors: Kerr Hugh T.
Published: February 2011

“The message of these expansive evangelists was simple and direct. Christian faith, they all agreed, whatever its personal rewards in terms of religious assurance, also promised education, health, and social progress to all sorts of deprived and oppressed peoples. In our less romantic age, we may smile at this simplistic creed, sugar-coated with token benefits, thinly hiding a political and economic policy of western imperialism…But it would be futile to impugn the motives of these apostles to the people. Their record of astonishing achievements is available for all to examine.”
Korean Moon: Waxing or Waning?
Authors: Sandon Leo
Published: February 2011

“Unification theology is eclectic, syncretistic, and esoteric. … In whatever phase of its life the Moonist movement is now, it raises crucial questions for those of us who are confessing Christians. Perhaps the Moonies are sending us a message about the nature of conversion and commitment among young adults; about the need for an adequate eschatological perspective; about the need for thoughtful morality and spirituality; and about the hunger in America for community.”
Renaissance Rhetoric and Born-Again Preaching
Authors: Luecke Richard H.
Published: February 2011

“During the past generation, heirs of the Reformation have paid their respects to textual preaching and its power to change human lives; but we have also seen how familiar texts can serve to confirm people in their prejudices and previous behavior … The ‘literal sense’ becomes a literalist dogma about the text … Preaching becomes over-serious or over-cute … Preaching might become once again an occasion of discovery and transformation if it were conceived as part of a broader art of homiletics (‘homologein’), of ‘coming to say the same thing’ both with the biblical authors and with one another.”
Annie, Warbucks, and Harold Gray's Gospel
Authors: Barker Kenneth S.
Published: February 2011

“Annie and ‘Daddy’ were drawn irresistibly to one another. They were both ready to settle disputes with their fists … What was Gray's gospel? … The Christ that Gray really wanted was one who didn't peddle cheap grace or allow himself to be taken in by religious con artists. Forgiveness there should be, but only if accepted in penitent humility; restoration and rehabilitation, but only for those open to moral renewal.”
“Pretty Baby”—A Film Critique
Authors: Gardner Freda A. , Kerr Hugh T.
Published: February 2011

Pretty Baby, produced and directed by Louis Malle, story by Polly Platt, music by Jerry Wexler, starring Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon, Antonio Fargas, and Brooke Shields, Paramount Pictures Corporation, 1978, two hours running time. There is also a Bantam paperback edition by William Harrison and a soundtrack album on ABC records and GRT tapes. The film is based on the illustrated history by Al Rose, Storyville, New Orleans ( University of Alabama Press, 1974, pp. 225, $12.95).
Israel and the Land: A Note from a Christian Perspective
Authors: Mann Thomas W.
Published: February 2011

“It is important for Christians not to perceive the promise of land in the Old Testament as a relic of ancient Near Eastern history, much less an idiosyncrasy of contemporary Palestinian politics. For that promise, with all its intrinsic problems, is a theological expression of the fundamental human need for security and freedom. There is no doubt that that promise has been exploited through the ages to legitimate the most inhuman of institutions and policies. But in rejecting the symbolic power of the promised land, the church would stand in danger of denying the fact that it lives in, if not of, this world.
Death and Dying: Two Films
Authors: Elliott Clifford
Published: February 2011

“The End,” directed by Burt Reynolds; screenplay by Jerry Belson; produced by Lawrence Gordon; music, Paul Williams; distributed by United Artists, 1978; 1 hr., 40 mins. running time; with Burt Reynolds, Dom De Luise, Sally Field, Joanne Woodward, Myrna Loy, Pat O'Brien, Carl Reiner.
Learning from the Laity
Authors: King Phillip M.
Published: February 2011

“In 1977, I became the director of a project called ‘Including and Empowering Lay Participation in Practice-Based Theological Education,’ at Lancaster Theological Seminary … to explore ways in which laity could participate directly in the education of persons for ordained ministry. The rationale for the project was based on the hypothesis that laity are already the most frequent evaluators of parish clergy. If students could learn to use feedback from laity beginning in seminary, they would have a new resource to make theological education a life-long process.”
The Traumatic Years: American Religion and Culture in the '60s and '70s
Authors: Ahlstrom Sydney E.
Published: February 2011

“If we take a broader view of the years since President John F. Kennedy issued his spirited summons to the nation, the overwhelming fact is that the entire religious realm—moral, spiritual, and attitudinal—has been so fundamentally altered that we confront a ‘new America’ in the 1980s. A new and comprehensive agenda of expectations and reform has gradually taken shape. Yet the evaluations and priorities placed on these new goals for the republic are very diverse. … America has a clouded future, [and] the legacy of the Traumatic Years can be interpreted only as at once both momentous and unresolved.”
Iran and Islam
Authors: Braswell George W.
Published: February 2011

“The religious revival and political turmoil and revolution in 1978–79 which saw the overthrow of the Shah and elevation of Ayatollah Khomeini has been fomenting for the past decade. … Religion and politics in Iran offer an intriguing exploration into the concepts and practices of theocracy, religious pluralism, and freedom of religion.”
The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis
Authors: Steinmetz David C.
Published: February 2011

“The medieval theory of levels of meaning in the biblical text, with all its undoubted defects, flourished because it is true, while the modern theory of a single meaning, with all its demonstrable virtues, is false. Until the historical-critical method becomes critical of its own theoretical foundations and develops a hermeneutical theory adequate to the nature of the text which it is interpreting, it will remain restricted—as it deserves to be—to the guild and the academy, where the question of truth can endlessly be deferred.”
Carlyle Marney as Ethicist
Authors: Carey John J.
Published: February 2011

“Marney was interested in ethics from the standpoint of a pastor rather than that of a scholar. It is an old maxim in ethics that scholars can reserve judgment until all the data are in; people on the front lines have to make decisions at deadline time whether all the data are in or not.”
Christianity in the USSR
Authors: Billington James H.
Published: February 2011

“At a time when Russia may be about to change not only its leaders but its generational perspective, there is every reason to assume that those who eventually come to power will be haunted by some of those who ‘prefer to remain anonymous.’ As faith in political religions recedes, interest in authentic transcendence is increasing; and it seems not unreasonable to suggest that Russia's Christian heritage will play a role in its future secular history just as it surely will in the deeper annals of our common pilgrim faith.”
A Descriptive Appraisal, 1935–1980
Authors: Hiltner Seward
Published: February 2011

“I have regarded my own meaning of pastoral theology as bringing together into some kind of coherence the various concerns and interests I have had since the days of my own formal theological education and CPE studies. … Since pastoral theology is to me the center of all my concerns, the ‘hear not’ diagnosis is a bit unsettling despite the sturdy group that takes my construction seriously.”
Systematic Theology Today
Authors: Dillistone F. W.
Published: February 2011

“Is it possible to write a systematic theology today? … What seems evident is that we can no longer expect that a systematic theology can be written with the aim of extablishing a once-for-all, definitive, orthodox statement of Christian faith. Whether a theology written from a particular perspective can legitimately be called ‘systematic’ may be open to question.”
Prometheus and the Problem of Progress
Authors: Hyers Conrad
Published: February 2011

“Prometheus is both savior and tempter, hero and villain, emancipator and enslaver. His gifts of knowledge and power, curiosity and imagination, are both gain and loss. … If human progress is both ambiguous and relative, to acknowledge this is a matter of candor and confession. Our hope is not in ourselves and our achievements.”
Spanking Hurts Everybody
Authors: Gillogly Robert R.
Published: February 2011

“Is it possible that our children are learning violence across their mommy's and daddy's knees in the name of love, and done in the best interests of the child, with approving nods from the religious and educational establishments—even the courts—while all of us abhor rioting, terrorism, street crime, capital punishment and any form of torture, brutality, and human inhumanity?”
Care for the Dying: A Kübler-Ross Critique
Authors: Kuykendall George
Published: February 2011

“Christians are not … to delude people as to their capacity to master death. Christian care precludes giving them over to their own resources, in the fantasy that those resources may be adequate. Rather, Christian care for the dying will seek to sustain them as they suffer the ravages of living and dying. We must care for them as long and as well as we can, identifying their hurts and healing them if we are able, surrounding and enfolding them with reminders of the care that God bears toward them.”
Wrestling the World's Absences
Authors: Marlyne  , Cain David
Published: February 2011

“Whatever life after death might or might not be, the present is not negated by it. Precisely because God takes death seriously, God takes life seriously. This life, our lives, our decisions now, count for God; and that means they count eternally. Eschatology ought to be the goad of ethics, not the great stultifier. Life after death may be confessed to the reconciliation of this life which we are living here and now, but it is neither the negation nor the eradication of it.”
The Church in the World: The New Christian Right
Authors: Jorstad Erling
Published: February 2011

“The New Christian Right brought a new and important conviction to the political arena—the belief that the national government, led by ‘righteous’ males, was the sole remaining human agency to keep America in line with the moral ideal conservatives envisaged for it.”
The Reformation: A Catholic Reflection
Authors: McBrien Richard P.
Published: February 2011

“It would be my thesis that, notwithstanding many instances of apparent, not real, conflict, Catholicism and Protestantism are not reducible to one and the same reality … It is the great value of Professor Pannenberg's essay that he should put his finger so clearly on one such item.”
Individualism and Christian Faith
Authors: Mouw Richard J.
Published: February 2011

“My concern here is not to follow … the intricacies of political theory, but rather to look briefly at the fundamental concern for individuals and their rights, and to ask how Christians ought to assess this concern.”
Trinitarian Theology: A Review Article
Authors: Meeks M. Douglas
Published: February 2011

“Moltmann's proposal is to think of the Trinity as the biblical traditions do. But to do this will require a radical criticism of the predominance and priority of ‘unity,’ ‘substance,’ ‘hypostasis,’ ‘persons/mode of being’ in the language of the traditional doctrines of the Trinity.
The Lonely Marathon
Authors: Lewis Kevin
Published: February 2011

“It was months later that I began to recover and to relive the mixture of emotions I felt as I ran that marathon. There had been exuberance, of course, but through it had flowed a widening current of disturbing melancholy. I was unprepared for the sense of loneliness I felt more deeply the farther I ran.… At one of the great moments of my life, for which I had worked patiently and hard, I realized I was awfully alone. Something was missing.”
Daughters of Creation
Authors: Manitonquat
Published: February 2011

“In the heart of our ancient teachings is the wisdom that woman is central to the creation and sustenance of life.… So it is that women are the best guides and teachers, in their inner instinctive wisdom, of the preservation and sustenance of the species.”
The Determinative Doctrine of the Holy Spirit
Authors: McDonnell Kilian
Published: February 2011

“If the Spirit is the finger of God with which divinity touches history, and if the Spirit is the reaching out of the Creator and the Son into the human community, and if the Spirit is our point of entry into the mysterious trinitarian life … If one grants that today we await a mature theology of the Spirit, which constitutes one of systematic theology's most important tasks, then one has to face the sheer magnitude of the problem. ”
Nothing
Authors: Hendry George S.
Published: February 2011

“The concept of nothing is known to most readers in the formula ‘creation out of nothing' (creatio ex nihilo), which was adopted in Christian theology to distinguish the biblical view of creation from all others. The formula itself is not found in the Scriptures, though there is something very close to it in Paul's language about God ‘who calls into existence the things that do not exist' (Rom. 4:17).”
Responding to the Christian Right
Authors: Hadden Jeffrey K. , Swann Charles E.
Published: February 2011

“Virtually every mainline church body has experienced the emergence of conservative caucuses. In the late 60s, the conservatives cut off funds for liberal social programs. In the 70s, they fought back liberal resolutions. As we enter the 80s, there is an uneasy feeling that conservatives are either going to have things their own way or create unprecedented schisms…. We believe there is a potentially more effective strategy mainline church leaders could pursue. This would be to create a religiously-grounded alternative organization to the Moral Majority.”
Churches as Mediating Structures
Authors: Hargrove Barbara
Published: February 2011

“The church is a primary agent for bearing and transmitting the operative values for our society. This is true not only in the sense that most Americans identify their most important values as being religious in character, but also in the sense that the values that inform our public discourse are inseparably related to specific religious traditions. In the absence of the church and other mediating structures that articulate these values, the result is not that the society is left without operative values; the result is that the state has an unchallenged monopoly on the generation and maintenance of values.”
Conversion and Christian Ethics
Authors: Hanigan James P.
Published: February 2011

“The normative meaning of Christian conversion is to be found in a basic structure of human experience, involving the initiative of God's action and provoking a two-sided, inseparable response. This response involves the acknowledgment and confession of one's lostness and sinfulness as well as the acceptance of a call to holiness…. What this foundational conversion experience means for Christian ethics, I believe, is that the converted inevitably will understand morality differently from the non-converted. ”
Judge Not: A Critical Test of Faith
Authors: Hendry George S.
Published: February 2011

“It seems plain that in commanding us not to judge, Jesus is not asking us to perform the impossible feat of suppressing our faculty of judgment. It is a question of how our judgment may be exercised in relation to—or in correlation with—the judgment of God…. We are led to the conclusion … that a prime ingredient of faith is total reliance on the judgment of God.”
Theocentric Christology
Authors: Knitter Paul F.
Published: February 2011

“Many Christian theologians have moved resolutely away from an exclusive Christology. Today Christology has become (or rebecome) inclusive…. The theocentric, non-normative understanding of Christ, proposed by the theologians we have studied, will be experienced by many Christians as a threat to the validity of their faith. Therefore, in exploring the possibility of the theocentric approach to Christ, theological caution and especially pastoral sensitivity are necessary.”
Theological Unitarianisms
Authors: Niebuhr H. Richard
Published: February 2011

“The Unitarianism of the Creator…. The Unitarianism of Jesus Christ or of the Son…. The third sort of Unitarianism for which the Spirit is the one and only God…. In every case it appears true that none of the positions can stand alone but must borrow something from the other positions, so that the three Unitarianisms are interdependent.”
Martin Luther King, Jr., Black Theology-Black Church
Authors: Cone James H.
Published: February 2011

“Even though there are important differences between King and me, I think that they can best be understood from within the context of the black church rather than in the context of white liberal and neo-orthodox theologies of North America and Europe. Such views as represented by King and me, as well as many others, can be found throughout the black religious tradition. There is no need to turn to white Western theology for an explanation.”
The Inclusive Language Lectionary
Authors: Miller Patrick D.
Published: February 2011

“All persons are equally loved, judged, and accepted by God… Basic to a sense of equality and inclusiveness is the recognition that God by nature transcends all categories … Seeking to express the truth about God and about God's inclusive love for all persons, the Division of Education and Ministry of the National Council of Churches of Christ authorized the preparation of An Inclusive Language Lectionary.”
How Beautiful upon the Mountains
Authors: Davidson Charles N.
Published: February 2011

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.”

—Psalm 121:1–2.

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!”

—Isaiah 52:7.
Priests, Prose, and Preachment
Authors: Johnston James E.
Published: February 2011

“Fictional Fathers have been a very marketable item recently…. What is it that people find so compelling about a priest's struggle with himself or with the institution he is dedicated to serve?…. Perhaps we can say, ‘there's a priest inside every one of us.’”
Interpreting the Interpreter: Geertz and his Field of Anthropology
Authors: Lieberson Jonathan
Published: February 2011

If Geertz is not a “relativist” (as this term is sometimes used), his pluralism, his appreciation of differences, contrasts, conflict, among cultures is refined to an unusual degree, so that at times he seems almost to be on the lookout for them…. As he wrote some years ago, “the essential vocation of interpretive anthropology is not to answer our deepest questions, but to make available to us answers that others … have given.”
A Conversation
Authors: Winter Gibson , Taylor Mark K.
Published: February 2011

“Liberation movements and hermeneutical approaches follow a common path, the way of challenging ideologies that preserve oppressive structures and of sharing in transformative struggles for justice and peace…. Our task as liberation theologians in North America has its immediate locus in the field of urban renewal. This is the place of suffering to which the ministry of Christ is being summoned. It is also the place of renewal of humanity and celebration of life.”
Practical Theology and Theological Education: Some Models and Questions
Authors: Fowler James W.
Published: February 2011

“Somewhere Herbert Finagarette once wrote, ‘One day I saw, in a way that mattered, that the task is not to write the program, but to execute it.’… The way forward in practical theology involves placing more radical trust in God's self-disclosure and promises found in our traditions of revelation; more radical investment in concrete, existential-social-historical action in anticipation of the in-breaking Commonwealth of Love; and a more radical engagement, through present action and prayer, to make us partners in God's work of creation, governance, and liberation/redemption.”
The Gesture of a Truthful Story
Authors: Hauerwas Stanley
Published: February 2011

“Put simply, religious education is the training in those gestures through which we learn the story of God and God's will for our lives…. It is ongoing training in the skills we need in order to live faithful to the kingdom that has been initiated in Jesus.”
Bach and Today's Theologians
Authors: Minear Paul S.
Published: February 2011

“One should distinguish between Bach's use of Scripture and proof-texting. The latter exploits the ancient story as a tool to sanctify present ideas and authorize present behavior, and is self-enhancing. Bach's music transports listeners back into that earlier time and views present behavior through the lens of the biblical story; it is inherently self-transcending.”
Biblical Theology and Sociological Interpretation
Authors: Anderson Bernhard W.
Published: February 2011

“There can be no emancipation from bondage to ideology unless there are human words which, under the inspiration of God's spirit, have the metaphorical power to evoke an awareness of the wonder, the dread, and the grace of being in the presence of the Holy God.”
God in the New Testament: Preliminary Soundings
Authors: Perkins Pheme
Published: February 2011

“As it attempts to grapple with the questions raised by religious pluralism and the claim that God is universally sovereign, source of creation and salvation, theology today requires a thorough exegetical inquiry into the biblical version of God.”
Critics Corner: Church and Biblical Scholarship in Dialogue
Authors: Schneiders Sandra M.
Published: February 2011

“The scholar attending to the objective distance between ancient text and the modern interpreter and the believer cherishing his or her subjective intimacy with the text are both grounding their approaches in the reality of the text itself, for the text is both ancient artifict and religious classic.”
Why, God? A Tale of Two Sufferers
Authors: Cooper Burton Z.
Published: February 2011

“Perhaps the book of Job will not make sense until we see it as turning away from the monarchial image of God and toward an image of God as vulnerable. Our failure to look forward, so to speak, in interpreting Job makes us like Job's friends who cannot speak rightly about God because they cannot break away from earlier patterns of thinking.”
Amadeus Revisited
Authors: Terrien Samuel
Published: February 2011

“ Salieri seems to be the central character of Shaffer's play, since he remains on stage from curtain rise to curtain fall. Yet the title is Amadeus, a name which suggests ‘the gift of God, the love of God, the one whom God loves.’ Mozart's genius is God's gift, undeserved, unmerited, totally inexplicable. It affronts Salieri's talent, labors, and virtue. It also undermines his piety. Both Salieri and Mozart are ‘shattered by grace,’ but the results of such a spiritual upheaval are antithetical.”
Jeremiah's Little Book of Comfort
Authors: Steele David
Published: February 2011

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new convenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. … I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Bem: Challenge and Promise
Authors: Crow Paul A.
Published: February 2011

“BEM is a barometer of the churches' honesty before God in the eventual fulfillment of Christ's will ‘that they may all be one’ (John 17)… BEM brings a critical moment of truth to all Christian traditions. It is a moment of judgment and a moment of decision, neither of which can fulfill the will of the risen Christ without deep prayer, repentance, and spiritual struggling over what it means to be Christ's one body, one flock, one household in the world which God has created and redeemed.”
Re-Contextualizing Theology
Authors: Ruether Rosemary Radford
Published: February 2011

“In his essay on ‘Black Theology in American Religion,’ James Cone speaks of the ‘warring ideals’ that have divided African identity … The recontextualization of theology arises in a somewhat different way for women.”
Intercultural Theology
Authors: Hollenweger Walter J.
Published: February 2011

“Intercultural theology is not just something that might be useful for students from the Third World, but it is part and parcel of any theology that pretends to be scholarly… Our cultural presuppositions define what is scholarship and what is not.”
Catholic Liturgical Reform
Authors: Martinez German
Published: February 2011

Since liturgical reform, through a controlled process of historical restoration, has failed to revitalize the communal life of the church, a new creative liturgical movement, christologically founded, is imperative in order to bridge the gap between worship and people's experience of faith in our present culture.
Protestant Worship Today
Authors: Anderson Fred R.
Published: February 2011

“It is not unusual to find cities where Protestant churches of varying demoninations as well as Roman Catholic churches are using the same lessons in worship. As these Christians interact and converse in their day-to-day lives, they are discovering a unity in their worship that transcends historic boundaries and divisions, a unity of commitment to the centrality of Jesus Christ as witnessed to in Scripture. … Those responsible for liturgical renewal are asking two questions: ‘Is it Christian?’ and ‘Is it equipping the saints for their ministry?’ These are the questions by which worship reforms should be evaluated.”
Annie Dillard: With Her Eyes Open
Authors: Peterson Eugene H.
Published: February 2011

“Annie Dillard prays with her eyes open. She says, Spread out your hands, lift up your head, open your eyes, and we'll pray… She gets us into the theater that Calvin told us about, and we find ourselves in the solid biblical companionship of psalmists and prophets who watched the ‘hills skip like lambs’ and heard the ‘trees clap their hands,’ alert to God everywhere.”
Jesus and Women: Luke's Gospel
Authors: Kopas Jane
Published: February 2011

“When an action, a cure, an expression of faith, or an example in parable is attributed to a man, more often than not a complementary model of a woman is given. With some exceptions, this is not done by way of comparison or contrast, but rather to suggest a measure of equality, an equality that was unexpected in the time of Jesus.”
The Afrikaner and South Africa
Authors: Bosch David J.
Published: February 2011

“The religious roots of Afrikaner nationalism … can be traced back … to the influences of Reformed evangelicalism, Kuyperian Calvinism, and Romantic nationalism… As of last year, however, the entire scene has changed fundamentally and permanently… What we see unfolding has the makings of a classical Greek tragedy.”
An American Looks At Kairos
Authors: Eckardt A. Roy
Published: February 2011

“According to a long-standing Christian tradition relating to oppression, a particular tyrant or a particular tyrannical regime ‘forfeits the moral right to govern and the people acquire the right to resist.’ And this is the state of affairs in today's South Africa… Radical South African liberation thinking-praxis goes much farther than the non-revolutionist Social Gospel tendencies of much American black liberation thinking.”
Barth, the Trinity, and Human Freedom
Authors: Gunton Colin
Published: February 2011

“Barth establishes human freedom in the freedom and transcendence of the triune God … it is a real, though given and determined freedom … criticisms of Barth, though mistaken if they simply repeat Enlightenment and Pelagian conceptions of human freedom, do have justification in a lack of attention paid by him to the distinctness of the triune persons and in particular to pneumatological dimensions of incarnation and salvation.”
Narrative and Ethics in Barth
Authors: Werpehowski William
Published: February 2011

“At least two implications follow concerning the relation between Barth's use of biblical narrative and his theological ethics. First, biblical narrative is used to show how the God who transcends us in Jesus Christ remains free from us, so that our corresponding self-transcendence in relation may be a genuinely revolutionary discipleship. Secondly, biblical narrative depicts the way in which the God who relates to us in Jesus Christ remains, in and as the basis of transcendence, free for us. Our corresponding response may, therefore, be a discipleship that is genuinely faithful service.”
Barth's Theology and Process Theology
Authors: Welker Michael
Published: February 2011

“In the following discussion, I will conduct a systematic comparison and ask: (1) What is common to Barth's and Whitehead's thought? (2) In the midst of these commonalities, what separates Barth's theology from Whitehead's theory? (3) How can Barth's theology and process theology mutually challenge and promote each other?”
A Mexican Hymnal and the Struggle for Justice
Authors: Katra William H.
Published: February 2011

“Faith is living a relationship between self and divinity, between individual and community. It is the actualization of a human dynamic, that of bringing the word of God to true relevance in one's own life. Prayer and hymn, therefore, reflect the reality of the faithful as they are, and not merely as they ought to be.”
The Embarrassing Footnote
Authors: Brueggemann Walter
Published: February 2011

“At the beginning of the narrative [II Kings 6:8–23], Syria is a great threat. At the end of the narrative, Syria has gone home in peace. The intervention of Elisha which changed everything is unlikely. … His decisive action consisted in a prayer and a feast. It is as though in inscrutable fashion, he has said to both warring kings, ‘I will show you a more excellent way,’ a way which stands outside royal definitions of reality and possibility. … The more excellent way is about human hurt, under threat by Syria. It is about human amazement, that the mountains are filled with horses and chariots of fire. … It is a tale of transformation in which the enemy is transformed into a festival partner who goes peaceably away.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. As Public Theologian
Authors: Downing Frederick L.
Published: February 2011

“King understood that a genuinely public theology which promotes the public good must be a constructive vision. … He emphasized the convergence of his particular religious faith with the foundational operating American myths. In so doing, he was not only able to gain a wide base of support, but he was also successful in bringing the American self-understanding closer to his own biblical understanding of community.”
Symposium
Authors: Miscamble Wilson D.
Published: February 2011

Stanley Hauerwas is an important and controversial contemporary Christian ethicist. In this symposium, two critics take a look at some of his more recent work, and Hauerwas responds. Much of the controversy is over the issue of whether Hauerwas is a sectarian; if so, in what sense; and is that good?—Ed.
Children of Grace
Authors: Jewett Paul K.
Published: February 2011

“Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise. Such things are allegorical utterances: for these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. … Now we, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave and her son for the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Gal. 4:21–31; see also, Gen. 16:1–6; 21:1–7).
Born Anew
Authors: Schneiders Sandra M.
Published: February 2011

“Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, one cannot see the kingdom of God’. …” (John 3:1–15).
On Being Known
Authors: Wood Charles M.
Published: February 2011

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before God no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of the one with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:12–13 [RSV, alt.])
Acquiring the Philosophical Habit
Authors: Sokolowski Robert
Published: February 2011

“The finest outcome of a theological education would be the formation of a preacher or a teacher who spontaneously thinks in this way: someone who appreciates the nuances, contours, definitions, and shapes of important human things and can articulate them clearly; someone who has philosophical understanding, and who can also place these natural things into the light that revelation can bring to them; someone who can bring out the further truth that revelation adds to what we know by reason.”
Catholic Social and Sexual Teaching: A Methodological Comparison
Authors: Curran Charles E.
Published: February 2011

“My purpose is to examine the ethical methodology employed in two different kinds of official - Catholic moral teachings and to point out the clear differences between the methodologies. … The contemporary official Catholic teaching on social issues with its relationality-responsibility model recognizes significant gray areas. … In the contemporary official Catholic teaching on sexual issues, there is little or no mention of such gray areas.”
Recognizing the Risen Lord
Authors: Sawicki Marianne
Published: February 2011

“Action on behalf of the needy is not an implication of resurrection faith, but a precondition for it. Talk about resurrection is literally meaningless in the absence of such action. This raises the serious question of what it takes to speak correctly today about resurrection, to mean what the tradition has meant by the term.”
The Pantomime Cat: T. S. Eliot and Hebrew-Christian Dynamics
Authors: Terrien Samuel
Published: February 2011

“Eliot's view of society reflects his aversion to sexuality and his disparagement of womanhood. He despised democracy and the notion of liberty of conscience. He thought that the virtue of tolerance was vastly overestimated, and he did not mind being called a bigot. He dismissed the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, both in England and on the Continent, as ‘the disintegration of European culture’.”
Ring-Worm Boy
Authors: Edgerton W. Dow
Published: February 2011

“Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him …”
Hearts Untroubled
Authors: Komp Diane M.
Published: February 2011

“Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

—Mark 10:15

“I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.”

—Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop
Holy Disobedience in Esther
Authors: Jackowski Karol
Published: February 2011

“A careful look at the disobedient characters in the Book of Esther, Queen Vashti, Mordecai, and Esther herself, helps us to discern the critical elements that influence their decisions and actions. … Perhaps the current crisis of faith in authority signifies the exhausted end of something oppressive and the painfully slow beginning of something liberating.”
The Sting of Death
Authors: Miller-McLemore Bonnie
Published: February 2011

“Although we no longer live in a world constructed around imagery of heaven, purgatory, and hell, a look at past attempts to comprehend the ‘great riddle’ of death, as Augustine remarked, might help us. Listening first-hand to the words of Augustine, Calvin, or Kierkegaard vividly illustrates the tenor of the changes that have occurred over the sweep of more than nineteen centuries—but also the constancy of human experience beneath the changes. … [T]hey depict a reality we know, and in a way that can help us think about it more clearly.”
The Holy Spirit
Authors: Welker Michael
Published: February 2011

“The one upon whom Yahweh's spirit rests is described as one who executes justice and righteousness in favor of the lowly and the poor, and who precisely in that manner acquires great power, who precisely in that manner builds strong loyal attachments.”
Praying the Psalms
Authors: Cunningham Lawrence S.
Published: February 2011

“In a doxological fashion, the psalms testify to the primordial truth of the entire biblical tradition. Negatively put, we are not condemned to complete autonomy. Positively put, we come out from God; we are sustained by God; and our proper destiny is to be with God.”
The Word That Moves: The Preaching of Martin Luther King, Jr
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: February 2011

“The beautiful thing about Movement preaching was that every sermon presented the possibility of a focused response. Because every sermon was an expression of God's solidarity with the Movement, there was always something its hearers could do, hope, or suffer in harmony with this new Way God had unleashed in the South.”
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: A Theological Reflection
Authors: Marcus Joel
Published: February 2011

“While Pride and Prejudice is certainly not a primary source for reconstructing the world of the New Testament, the vivid way in which it takes us into one person's crisis of perception can, I believe, allow us to enter imaginatively into the crisis of first-century people on their way to Christian faith.”
What Should Religion Departments Teach?
Authors: Dixon John W.
Published: February 2011

“This is the paradox of the study of religion. It studies the faith of other people but, infidelity to the university, cannot participate in faith. Departments of religion are the only departments forbidden to be committed to their own subject, compelled to act as though it did not exist. We can do anything we want to do with the study of religion except for one thing: we cannot, professionally, take it seriously, believe that it is true, or act on that belief.”
The Holy and The Sacred
Authors: Minear Paul S.
Published: February 2011

“The sacred is found wherever religion is found; the holy wherever God is present. Accordingly, it is quite possible to consider many things as sacred but nothing as holy, or equally possible to treat many things as holy but nothing as sacred. Everything depends on the concept of God. Of the two terms, theistic religions view the holy as primary, the sacred as secondary.”
The Preacher, the Text, and the People
Authors: Brueggemann Walter
Published: February 2011

“My impression is that in controversies in the church that get the pastor in trouble, controversies about theology and ethics, that is, controversies about interpretation, we usually assume two parties in the quarrel, pastor and people (or some people). Given two parties, controversies predictably lead to win/lose situations. What has happened in many such situations is that the text has disappeared as a live, vocal partner in the conversation.”
Chance and Order in Science and Theology
Authors: Schilling S. Paul
Published: February 2011

“If randomness alone were in the saddle, the horse would gallop in all directions, or remain in the stall. If chaos is to be averted or overcome, there needs to be some unitary principle, some overall order, some ground of stability, within which new species emerge and development takes place. Utterly unrestrained chance could not account for the connectedness, the interrelationships, or the dependable order of the world we know. That world exhibits determinateness as well as uncertainty, law as well as randomness. A view that takes account of both features is both more rational and more in accord with the facts.”