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Evangelicalism has played a prominent role in western religion since the dawn of modernity. Coinciding with the emergence of the Enlightenment in America and Europe, evangelicalism flourished during the transatlantic revivals of the eighteenth century. In addition to adopting Protestantism's core beliefs of justification by faith, scripture alone, and the priesthood of believers, early evangelicals emphasized conversion and cross-cultural missions to a greater extent than Christians of previous...

This book argues that the rediscovery of mystical theology in nineteenth-century Germany not only helped inspire idealism and romanticism, but also planted the seeds of their overcoming by way of critical materialism. Thanks in part to the Neoplatonic turn in the works of J. G. Fichte, as well as the enthusiasm of mining engineer Franz X. von Baader, mystical themes gained a critical currency, and mystical texts returned to circulation. This reawakening of the mystical tradition influenced roman...

Cutting through contemporary confusions with his characteristic rigor and aplomb, Steven A. Long offers the most penetrating study available of St. Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of the intention, choice, object, end, and species of the moral act. Many studies of human action and morality after Descartes and Kant have suffered from a tendency to split body and soul, so that the intention of the human spirit comes to justify whatever the body is made to do. The portrait of human action and morality th...

With a sensitivity to the Christian tradition and a rich understanding of postmodern thought, Peter Rollins argues that the movement known as ‘emerging church’ offers a singular, unprecedented message of transformation that has the potential to revolutionize the theological and moral architecture of the Western church. Keeping this in mind, How (Not) to Speak of God sets out to investigate the theory and praxis of this contemporary expression of faith via an exploration that is firmly anchored...

Why speak about a new practical theology, when practical theology seems to be as old as theology itself? Is another "new approach" really necessary? The work aims to set practical theology on a new foundation as it explores the discipline's modes of discourse, leaving aside the question of contents. Practical theology is examined from the point of view of its workings, as it attempts to grasp and give account of faith practices. In the course of this examination, questions relative to the lingui...

A diverse collection of essays revolving around the theories of RenT Girard, whose theory of the scapegoat the marginal person accused of threatening social order offers vital insight into the study of religion and society. Early chapters provide general theoretical perspectives on Girard's work in

Although he wrote sermons, letters, and commentaries on Holy Scripture, Lombard's Four Books of Sentences (1148-51) established his reputation and subsequent fame, earning him the title of magister sententiarum ("master of the sentences"). The Sentences, a collection of teachings of the Church Fathers and opinions of medieval masters arranged as a systematic treatise, marked the culmination of a long tradition of theological pedagogy, and until the 16th century it was the official textbook in th...

This is a book about women in survival communities and the ways that survival and theology are used to shut down women's voices. Mariam Youssef examines the ways in which the condition of survival puts religious women in a bind by embedding paradigms into theology that, more often than not, reinforce women's subordination as a condition of survival. Women in survival communities are not only grappling with the existential threat that comes with their survival identities but also struggling to ma...

This book explores the notion of interreligious friendship. Friendship is one of the outcomes as well as conditions for advancing interfaith relations. However, for friendship to advance, there must be legitimation from within and a theory of how interreligious relations can be justified from the resources of different faith traditions. The present volume explores these very issues, seeking to develop a robust theory of interreligious friendship, from the resources of each of the participating t...

The French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss scoured the Amazon forest for the myths of its primitive peoples. He found that a certain logic governed the construction of these myths--his mythologique; he regarded this logic as innate in the human mind and thus universal. Despite this claim of universality, Levi-Strauss deliberately sidestepped the myths of the biblical religions as well as the myths of modern societies. This proved to be a missed opportunity since these myths lend themselves ve...