Social Theology

In this Very Short Introduction Stephen J. Davis discusses the history of monasticism, from our earliest evidence for it, and the different types that have developed from antiquity to the present day. He considers where monasteries are located, from East Asia to North America, and everywhere in between, and how their settings impact the everyday life and worldview of the monks and nuns who dwell there. Exploring how monastic communities are organized, he also looks at how aspects of life like food, sleep, sex, work, and prayer are regimented.

Evangelical Christians in the West today face many difficult issues. Some of these arise from influences inside the Evangelical Christian community and some from influences outside. Inside the community there is the Charismatic Movement with its emphasis on the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, and healing, and Reformed Theology, with its emphasis on God’s sovereignty and grace. Outside the community, secular society promotes evolution, feminism, and liberal values. These influences raise many difficult questions.In this book, I seek answers to these questions based on the Bible. Each chapter...

Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology is the eighth title published in the Templeton Science and Religion Series, in which scientists from a wide range of fields distill their experience and knowledge into brief tours of their respective specialties. In this volume, well-known cognitive scientist Justin L. Barrett offers an accessible overview of this interdisciplinary field, reviews key findings in this area, and discusses the implications of these findings for religious thought and practice.

It would be logical for one to think that those who call themselves Christians would have a biblical worldview, but that is not the case. Statistics show that only 9% of those who identify as Christians think biblically about the issues of the world. That means that 91% of Christians have a secular or unbiblical worldview, which proves that they've been taken captive by the world's philosophies instead of taking them captive “according to Christ” (Col. 2:8). Worldview Matters covers six major worldviews from 30,000 feet, giving Christians a big picture view of the world today. Along the...

Once upon a time, an activist, a theologian, and a psychologist walked into a group chat. Everything was laid out on the table: Dating. Politics. The Black church. Pop culture. Soon, other Black women began pulling up chairs to gather round. And so, the Truth’s Table podcast was born.

As the Church has become increasingly entangled in the pursuit of politics, the Gospel has become tarnished and often abandoned as the primary focus of the Body of Christ. Jesus Untangled is a prophetic call for the Church to awaken from the "American Dream" and to return to her first love. Because, as the author powerfully demonstrates, you can't convert a culture that has already converted you.

Many American Christians have good intentions, working hard to welcome immigrants with hospitality and solidarity. But how can we do that in a way that empowers our immigrant neighbors rather than pushing them to the fringes of white-dominant culture and keeping them as outsiders? That's exactly the question Karen González explores in Beyond Welcome.

What should Christians think about Donald Trump? His policies, his style, his personal life? Thirty evangelical Christians wrestle with these tough questions. They are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. They don't all agree, but they seek to let Christ be the lord of their political views. They seek to apply biblical standards to difficult debates about our current political situation. Don't listen to this audiobook to find support for your views. Listen to it to be challenged - with facts, reason, and biblical principles.

God gave Israel the Year of Jubilee as a social reset. Taken together with Sabbath laws and gleaning laws (laws dealt with the harvest season), it was a way to celebrate God's gifts and put the pieces of a broken society back together again. These Old Testament economic ethics were highly practical laws with a theological vision that, if enacted, would set Israel apart as a just society in the midst of a cruel, greedy, and unjust world—not unlike our present day. José Humphreys and Adam Gustine take a close look at the economic ethics and practices of the Old Testament.

Talking to key modern influences and thinkers, and drawing inspiration from the Bible and the historical experience of the Jewish people, Sacks argues that there are eight key factors in establishing, maintaining and passing on resilient moral values within a broad group, among them attitudes of lifelong learning and of thanksgiving, the importance of family life and community, and a culture of positive argument in place of destructive conflict.

With the troubling and painful events of the last several years - from the shooting of numerous unarmed black men at the hands of police to the rallying of white supremacists in Charlottesville - it is clearer than ever that the reconciliation paradigm, long favored by white Christians, has failed to heal the deep racial wounds in the church and American society. In this provocative audiobook, originally published in 2014, Jennifer Harvey argues for a radical shift away from the well-meaning but feeble longing for reconciliation toward a robustly biblical call for reparations.

A cautionary look at 10 dangerously appealing half-truths. Not long ago, I came across a list of 10 principles set forth by proponents of progressive Christianity. They are, in effect, a new 10 commandments. What’s striking is that they are far less about God revealing his desires and far more about man expressing his own - less Moses, more Oprah. Yet each of these commandments is partially true. Indeed, that is what makes this list, and progressive Christianity as a whole, so challenging.

Racism. Immigration. Gun violence. Sexuality. Health care. The number of ethical issues that demand a response from Christians today is almost dizzying. How can Christians navigate such matters? What are faithful responses to these questions? Edited by two theologians with pastoral experience, this volume invites engagement with these issues and more by drawing on real-life experiences and offering a range of responses to some of the most challenging moral questions confronting the church today.

Charles E. Curran explores the social mission of the U.S. Catholic Church from a theological perspective, analyzing and assessing four aspects: the importance of social mission, who carries it out, how it is carried out, and the roles that the Church and individual Catholics play in supporting these efforts. In the early and mid-twentieth century the Catholic Church in the United States tended to focus its social mission on its own charities, hospitals, and schools.

Anthropologists have invariably engaged in their discipline as a form of redemption, whether to escape from social restriction, nourish their souls, reform their home polities, or vindicate "the natives". Redeeming Anthropology explores how in pursuit of a secular science sired by the Enlightenment, adherents to a "faith in mankind" have vacillated between rejecting and embracing theology, albeit in concealed and contradictory ways.

Nothing that God created is the source of our human temptation. To the contrary! The human body is the crown of God's creation—consummated by his declaration that it was good. That God's people are unable to view the body without sinning is not an indictment of the body itself, but of the immaturity of the post-modern evangelical mind.

In the 16th century, the church faced a doctrinal crisis. Today, the crisis is race. We all know that racial unity is important. But what’s the right way to approach it? How can Christians of different ethnicities pursue unity in an environment that is so highly charged and full of landmines on all sides?

Consumerism is everywhere. It shapes the way we eat, shop, rest, think, love and believe. We can't escape it, but how can we live well in the midst of it? We are daily seduced by a 250 billion dollar marketing machine. But how often do we consider how this might influence us? The current prevailing orthodoxy is that life should be lived to the max. By contrast, Jesus modeled a life of joyful limitation - free to do; free not to do. Consumer Detox, complete with the Detox Diary in the back of the book with suggestions for each chapter, encouraging stories, and space for writing personal reflections....

The Antichrist is a book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1895. The reference to the Antichrist is not intended to refer to the biblical Antichrist but is rather an attack on the slave morality and apathy of Western Christianity. Nietzsche's basic claim is that Christianity is a poisoner of western culture and perversion of the words of and practice of Jesus.

In a refreshing challenge to the common presumption that knowing involves amassing information, this book offers an eight-step approach that begins with love and pledge and ends with communion and shalom. Everyday adventures of knowing turn on a moment of insight that transforms and connects knower and known. No matter the field - science or art, business or theology, counseling or athletics - this little manual offers a how-to for knowing ventures.