The Bible and theology are contested spaces, battlegrounds where participants guard entrenched beliefs against perceived threats. But literature, observes novelist Salman Rushdie, opens the universe. It expands what we perceive and understand, and ultimately what we are. Writers make our world feel larger and more inclusive. When other forces push ......
Many congregations across the country are coming to two seemingly unrelated realizations. First, the "Sunday morning offering" may not be enough to sustain their mission. Second, their ministry has been so internally focused that they are almost entirely disconnected from the community they are called to serve. Funding Forward provides a path to ......
Over a period of fifteen years, Johns Hopkins pediatrician Pat Fosarelli, MD, a professor at St. Mary's Ecumenical Institute, surveyed approximately 9,000 children, adolescents, and teens about their understand of God. This book reveals their answers to a single query: "If you could ask God a question, what would that question be?" The candid, ......
For Christians, memories of God given in the Christian Bible are juxtaposed, echoed, and expanded within and outside Christian communities of faith. In Saving Memory and the Body of Christ, Sedgwick argues, Christians are attuned to the polyphony that is the voice of God calling those who have ears to hear into the love and grace of God in life ......
Reframes religion's role in twentieth-century American public education The processes of secularization and desegregation were among the two most radical transformations of the American public school system in all its history. Many regard the 1962 and 1963 US Supreme Court rulings against school prayer and Bible-reading as the end of religion in ......
Reframes religion's role in twentieth-century American public education The processes of secularization and desegregation were among the two most radical transformations of the American public school system in all its history. Many regard the 1962 and 1963 US Supreme Court rulings against school prayer and Bible-reading as the end of religion in ......
Black Women's Faith, Courage, and Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights M
What compels a person to risk her life to change deeply rooted systems of injustice in ways that may not benefit her? The thousands of Black Churchwomen who took part in civil rights protests drew on faith, courage, and moral imagination to acquire the lived experiences at the heart of the answers to that question. AnneMarie Mingo brings these ......
Christian Perspectives on Transforming Interreligious Encounter underscores the urgency of interreligious dialogue for contemporary society, aiming to foster interfaith understanding, justice, and peace. The initial section focuses on novel approaches to engaging with the religious Other through non-Christian sacred texts. Contributors explore the ......
Grieving the loss of a loved one is an experience with many seasons and stages. Winter Grief, Summer Grace helps readers navigate the phases of emotion through the four seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer, and fall. With quotes, poetry, and suggestions, author James E. Miller provides gentle guidance and comfort for those who mourn.
Black Women's Faith, Courage, and Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights M
What compels a person to risk her life to change deeply rooted systems of injustice in ways that may not benefit her? The thousands of Black Churchwomen who took part in civil rights protests drew on faith, courage, and moral imagination to acquire the lived experiences at the heart of the answers to that question. AnneMarie Mingo brings these ......
Anti-Blackness, Black Masculinity, and the Demonic Imagination
Beyond Death and Jail: Anti-Blackness, Black Masculinity, and the Demonic Imagination calls for a complete reassessment and overhaul of ethical, political, and religious thinking with respect to anti-Blackness and Black masculinity in the United States. In light of the prison industrial complex and a decade of homicide (2012-2022) of Black men and ......
White Protestant Women and the Consecration of Empire
Illuminates how white American Protestant women embraced a racially specific version of social inclusiveness that centered themselves as the norm Amidst the global instability of the early twentieth century, white Christian American women embraced the idea of an "empire of Christ" that was racially diverse, but which they believed they ......
White Protestant Women and the Consecration of Empire
Illuminates how white American Protestant women embraced a racially specific version of social inclusiveness that centered themselves as the norm Amidst the global instability of the early twentieth century, white Christian American women embraced the idea of an "empire of Christ" that was racially diverse, but which they believed they ......
Finding Myself at the Intersection of the Minneapolis Uprising
After the world witnessed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a passionate uprising erupted, with the intersection of 38th and Chicago at its epicenter. One block away stood Calvary Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation whose members had engaged in racial justice work for years. In Ashes to Action, Shari Seifert provides her riveting ......
Scandinavian Creation Theology and the Question of Home
Bodies Inhabiting the World: Scandinavian Creation Theology and the Question of Home offers a multidimensional investigation of how houses, bodies, communities and the whole universe may be conceived and refigured as places where we belong--where we are at home in God's creation. In this way, revisiting the tradition of Scandinavian creation ......
The Business of Religion in an Iconic Department Store
How a pioneering merchant blended religion and business to create a unique American shopping experience On Christmas Eve, 1911, John Wanamaker stood in the middle of his elaborately decorated department store building in Philadelphia as shoppers milled around him picking up last minute Christmas presents. On that night, as for years to come, ......
In Pilgrim Journey, Curtis W. Freeman guides newly baptized Christians to discern the mysteries of the gospel. It is a sequel and companion volume to Pilgrim Letters: Instruction in the Basic Teaching of Christ (Fortress, 2020).
Bodies, pain, suffering, hunger--and love. Politics, war, violence, hatred--and community. Walter Brueggemann, with wisdom and grace, weaves the story of our present time with God's good purposes. Real World Faith is a prophetic word.
Nurturing Relationships That Sustain Pastors and Leaders
Victoria Atkinson White in Holy Friendships: Nurturing Relationships That Sustain Pastors and Leaders offers hope, grace, and humor, inviting readers to invest in their own resilience, sustainability, and flourishing and to cultivate beloved community by nurturing holy friendships--mutual and sacred relationships deeply rooted in God's love.
This volume develops robust, constructive, practical ethics of corpse care that address economic, environmental, and pastoral concerns for caring for the dead.
These challenging times demand that Christian churches and their leaders faithfully and effectively address diverse global situations with Gospel-rooted compassion and justice. These essays argue that public theology provides the trinitarian theological framework which fuels wise and compassionate public participation in God's mission within the ......
Aligning Radical Justice, Christian Practice, and Church Life
Justice commitments can and must be integrated into all of a church's financial practices. So argues Sheryl Johnson in Serving Money, Serving God: Aligning Radical Justice, Christian Practice, and Church Life. She offers a positive and constructive approach with inspiring examples and a sense of hope-filled adventure for churches of all sizes.
In 4D Formation: Exploring Vocation in Community, Drew Tucker builds on his definition of vocation as "meaningful, life-giving work for the world" to equip vocational explorers with the confidence and skills to examine, clarify, and affirm their purpose and identity, and ultimately to experience God's presence in and purpose for their lives.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continues to contend with longstanding tensions surrounding gender and race. Yet women of color in the United States and across the Global South adopt and adapt the faith to their contexts, many sharing the high level of satisfaction expressed by Latter-day Saints in general. Caroline Kline explores ......
Our world feels more divided than ever. Polarization, racial violence, and inequity leave us asking, Is it even possible to heal? Award-winning author and theologian Jacqueline A. Bussie believes it is. In Love Without Limits, she challenges each of us to practice a love so deep, so radical, so capacious, it excludes no one.
Conflict is endemic to congregational life. Because congregations exist to help us find meaning and purpose, we find it difficult to realize that not everyone shares our understanding or approach. Many of us have cultural backgrounds that teach us that conflict is bad or to be avoided. Conflict Transformation, on the other hand, treats conflict as ......
