Religious Theology

Transcending Architecture considers the mysterious, profound, and real power of designed environments to address the spiritual dimension of our humanity. The book offers a wide, critical, and nuanced understanding of the lived relationship between the built and the numinous worlds. It examines phenomenological, symbolic and designerly ways in which the holy gets fixed and experienced through buildings, landscapes, and urban forms, and not just in institutionally defined religious or sacred places. Transcending Architecture brings together a stellar group of scholars and practitioners to share their insights: architect Juhani Pallasmaa and philosopher Karsten Harries, comparative religion scholar Lindsay Jones and architectural theoretician Karla Britton, sacred architecture researcher Thomas Barrie and theologian Kevin Seasoltz, landscape architect Rebecca Krinke and Faith & Form magazine editor Michael Crosbie, are among the illustrious contributors.

The Christian faith has been vigorously defended with a variety of philosophical, historical, and theological arguments, but many of the arguments that worked in an earlier age no longer resonate in today's educated West. Where has apologetics gone wrong? What is the best response to the growing challenge presented by scientific discovery and naturalistic thought?

Most theologies suck. They’re too technical or present a God nobody understands. Sometimes, the God they portray sounds like a controlling boyfriend or an absentee parent. Rather than woo or persuade, many theology books clobber people into submission. This book is different.

A confession and manifesto from a senior leader in the emerging church movement, A Generous Orthodoxy calls for a radical, Christ-centered orthodoxy of faith and practice in a missional, generous spirit. Brian McLaren argues for a post-liberal, post-conservative, post-protestant convergence, which will stimulate lively interest and global conversation among thoughtful Christians from all traditions.

The Fool and the Heretic is a deeply personal story told by two respected scientists who hold opposing views on the topic of origins, share a common faith in Jesus Christ, and began a sometimes-painful journey to explore how they can remain in Christian fellowship when each thinks the other is harming the church. This book provides a model for how faithful Christians can hold opposing views on deeply divisive issues yet grow deeper in their relationship to each other and to God.

The Insistence of God presents the provocative idea that God does not exist, God insists, while God's existence is a human responsibility, which may or may not happen. For John D. Caputo, God's existence is haunted by "perhaps," which does not signify indecisiveness but an openness to risk, to the unforeseeable. Perhaps constitutes a theology of what is to come and what we cannot see coming. Responding to current critics of continental philosophy, Caputo explores the materiality of perhaps and the promise of the world.

Francis Spufford's Unapologetic is a wonderfully pugnacious defense of Christianity. Refuting critics such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the "new atheist" crowd, Spufford, a former atheist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, argues that Christianity is recognizable, drawing on the deep and deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling, satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the grown-up dignity of Christian experience.

What really happened back in the first century, in Jerusalem and around the Sea of Galilee, that changed the shape of world history? Who is this figure that emerges from history to have a profound impact on culture, ethics, politics, and philosophy? Join historian John Dickson on this journey through the life of Jesus.

A work of devotional theology proper, that is of the doctrine of God: who he is, what he is like and who he is to those who know him whom to know is to love, adore, worship and eagerly obey.

For anyone who feels caught in the tension between the beauty of God’s story and the ugliness of human hypocrisy, Why I Still Believe by apologist and Professor Mary Jo Sharp is the hopeful story of an unlikely convert and an approachable case for believing in God when you want to walk away from Christianity.

Passage to Faith explores current scientific evidence supporting the case for the existence of a creator God. It draws on dozens of historical testimonies of individuals who had encounters with a supreme being which influenced them to change their lives, and sometimes the world, for the better. Taking the listener on an evidence-based tour through the cosmos, Lee, qualified in the fields of the philosophy of futures studies, theology, literature and education, reveals a stunning degree of indwelling intelligence and beauty on display throughout the universe and on Earth.

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is maybe the most important and well-known sermon of his, but also included is A Divine and Supernatural Light describing and illuminating what Edwards describes as a supernatural light imparted by God. His farewell sermon was given in June of 1750 and is a commendation to those who are in the Lord's service, a plea to maintain unity, avoid dissension and false doctrine, and a call to devote themselves to prayer.

Through his own writings and inspiration of Aristotle and countless others, Plato continues to influence every area of philosophic thought, to say nothing of his enormous influence on Christian theology. His dramatic dialogues, including Republic, the monumental treatise on the ideal state, render him one of the greatest of Greek literary geniuses. In this concise analysis, eminent Plato scholar A. E. Taylor examines the philosopher's theory of knowledge and doctrine of ideas; the ideal of the philosopher-king; the social system advocated in Republic; judgments on democracy; and belief in the immortality of the soul. Also considered: Plato's relationship with his master, Socrates; contribution to the idea of university education; attack on art; abstention from public life; anticipation of Copernicus. Taylor also mentions historical misunderstandings of the one he deems the most original and influential of all philosophers.

Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.

In 1939, a team of workers beneath the Vatican unearthed an early Christian grave. This surprising discovery launched a secret quest that would last decades a quest to discover the long-lost burial place of the Apostle Peter. From earliest times, Christian tradition held that Peter, a lowly fisherman from Galilee, whom Christ made leader of his church was executed in Rome by Emperor Nero and buried on Vatican Hill. But his tomb had been lost to history. Now, funded anonymously by a wealthy American, a small army of workers embarked on the dig of a lifetime.

In this incendiary new work, the controversial author and speaker Peter Rollins proclaims that the Christian faith is not primarily concerned with questions regarding life after death but with the possibility of life before death. In order to unearth this truth, Rollins prescribes a radical and wholesale critique of contemporary Christianity that he calls pyro-theology.

John Wesley was one of the most important figures behind the founding of modern evangelicalism. From his crucial role in the Great Awakening to his inspiring a renewal movement within the Church of England, Wesley’s historical significance is undeniable and his legacy still challenges us today, regardless of our denominational affiliation or theological perspective.

Written by experts but designed for the novice, the Armchair series provides accurate, concise, and witty overviews of some of the most profound moments and theologians in Christian history. Wesley for Armchair Theologians is a guide into one of the most prominent theologians of all time, the founder of Methodism.

One of the most fiercely debated topics in modern Christianity centers on the inclusion of sexual and gender minorities into the full life of the church. Dozens of scholars have stepped forward, seeking to make a compelling case for LGBT+ inclusion based on their contextualized reading of the six traditional passages that refer to homosexuality in Scripture. But these arguments alone fall short of providing a comprehensive framework for radical inclusion of LGBT+ people.

Les enseignements bibliques sur l’amour, la sainteté et la souveraineté de Dieu soulèvent généralement des questions sur la responsabilité de l’homme, la souffrance et le problème du mal.