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1566 books match the query 'Christianity' and 410 start with t

cover of The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe

The Disciplinary Revolution

Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe

Philip S. Gorski

University of Chicago Press, 2003

What explains the rapid growth of state power in early modern Europe? While most scholars have pointed to the impact of military or capitalist revolutions, Philip S. Gorski argues instead for the importance of a disciplinary revolution unleashed by the Reformation. By refining and diffusing a variety of disciplinary techniques and strategies, such as communal surveillance, control through incarceration, and bureaucratic office-holding, Calvin and his followers created an infrastructure of religious governance and social control that served as a model for the rest of Europe—and the world.
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cover of The Diversity of Religions: A Christian Perspective

The Diversity of Religions

A Christian Perspective

J. A. DiNoia, O.P.

Catholic University of America Press, 1992

DiNoia approaches the debate in the theology of religions with a fresh, lucid, critical and informed mind. . . . This book is timely, provocative and explores new territories and recasts old debates in a fresh and intelligent manner. It will appeal to philosophers, theologians, indologists and those concerned with the meeting of Christianity and the world religions.--Gavin D'Costa, University of Bristol
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cover of The Dividing of Christendom

The Dividing of Christendom

Christopher Dawson

Catholic University of America Press, 2026

Christopher Dawson, the renowned historian of culture, offered an overarching narrative in two volumes of the rise and fall of Christian unity within Western Civilization in lectures he delivered at Harvard University between 1958 and 1962. Volume 1, The Formation of Christendom, laid out Dawson’s anthropological approach to culture in general and to the formation of Christian culture in particular. Volume 2, The Dividing of Christendom, examines the forces that led to the dissolution of European unity and the rise of a new secular vision of humanity with its hopes set on material progress. Dawson begins the tale of dissolution in the Middle Ages, examining its spiritual, intellectual, and social causes. A Church in desperate need of reform, divided in its allegiance during the Great Western Schism, could not muster the collective will to overcome laxity and corruption. Nominalism and voluntarism unraveled the great intellectual synthesis of scholasticism. Political and economic forces, burdened by feudal restraints, needed only a catalyst to overturn the old order. The Dividing of Christendom highlights the social and cultural forces that shaped the Age of Reformations and its aftermath. While not neglecting the importance of theological claims, Dawson explains how political ambition and consolidation of power played a role just as significant. Furthermore, the distinct theological vision of the different reformations of the sixteenth century created a new culture, focused much more on the individual and an emphasis on industry. The mystical extravagance of the Baroque period, which characterized the Catholic renewal of southern Europe and spread throughout the world, eventually gave way to the more utilitarian values of the ascendant European north. Religious wars resulted in a secularism that prioritized science and economics in the shaping of modern culture. The Enlightenment, in particular, initiated a campaign against throne and altar that paved the way for political revolutions. Successful movements of religious revival occurred simultaneously, as Dawson traces their influence on the American colonies, particularly Puritanism and Methodism. Nevertheless, those bent on material progress as a kind of new religion undermined the spiritual foundations of Christian culture so completely that we must seek to rediscover a new source of internal vigor and unity to overcome our cultural crisis.
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cover of The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism's Politics of the Family

The Divine Institution

White Evangelicalism's Politics of the Family

Sophie Bjork-James

Rutgers University Press, 2021

Winner of the Anne Bolin & Gil Herdt Book Prize from the Human Sexuality and Anthropology Interest Group (HSAIG)

The Divine Institution provides an account of how a theology of the family came to dominate a white evangelical tradition in the post-civil rights movement United States, providing a theological corollary to Religious Right politics.

This tradition inherently enforces racial inequality in that it draws moral, religious, and political attention away from problems of racial and economic structural oppression, explaining all social problems as a failure of the individual to achieve the strong gender and sexual identities that ground the nuclear family. The consequences of this theology are both personal suffering for individuals who cannot measure up to prescribed gender and sexual roles, and political support for conservative government policies. Exposure to experiences that undermine the idea that an emphasis on the family is the solution to all social problems is causing a younger generation of white evangelicals to shift away from this narrow theological emphasis and toward a more social justice-oriented theology. The material and political effects of this shift remain to be seen.

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cover of The Dry Wood

The Dry Wood

Caryll Houselander

Catholic University of America Press, 2021

In the English-speaking world, the Catholic Literary Revival is typically associated with the work of G. K. Chesterton/Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene. But in fact the Revival’s most numerous members were women. While some of these women remain well known⎯Muriel Spark, Antonia White, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Day - many have been almost entirely forgotten. They include: Enid Dinnis, Anna Hanson Dorsey, Alice Thomas Ellis, Eleanor Farjeon, Rumer Godden, Caroline Gordon, Clotilde Graves, Caryll Houselander, Sheila Kaye-Smith, Jane Lane, Marie Belloc Lowndes, Alice Meynell, Kathleen Raine, Pearl Mary Teresa Richards, Edith Sitwell, Gladys Bronwyn Stern, Josephine Ward, and Maisie Ward. There are various reasons why each of these writers fell out of print: changes in the commercial publishing world after World War II, changes within the Church itself and in the English-speaking universities that redefined the literary canon in the last decades of the 20th century. Yet it remains puzzling that a body of writing so creative, so attuned to its historical moment, and so unique in its perspective on the human condition, should have fallen into obscurity for so long. The Catholic Women Writers series brings together the English-language prose works of Catholic women from the 19th and 20th centuries; work that is of interest to a broad range of readers. Each volume is printed with an accessible but scholarly introduction by theologians and literary specialists. The first volume in the series is Caryll Houselander’s The Dry Wood. Houselander is known primarily for her spiritual writings but she also wrote one novel, set in a post-war London Docklands parish. There a motley group of lost souls are mourning the death of their saintly priest and hoping for the miraculous healing of a vulnerable child whose gentleness in the face of suffering brings conversion to them all in surprising and unexpected ways. The Dry Wood offers a vital contribution to the modern literary canon and a profound meditation on the purpose of human suffering.
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cover of The Early Christian Book (CUA Studies in Early Christianity)

The Early Christian Book (CUA Studies in Early Christianity)

William E. Klingshirn

Catholic University of America Press, 2007

Written by experts in the field, the essays in this volume examine the early Christian book from a wide range of disciplines: religion, art history, history, Near Eastern studies, and classics.
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cover of The Earth Will Appear as the Garden of Eden: Essays on Mormon Environmental History

The Earth Will Appear as the Garden of Eden

Essays on Mormon Environmental History

Jedediah S. Rogers and Matthew C. Godfrey

University of Utah Press, 2018

Although scholars have increasingly investigated the impact of religion and religious movements on nature, studies of the interactions between Mormons and the natural environment are few. This volume applies the perspectives of environmental history to Mormonism, providing both a scholarly introduction to Mormon environmental history and a spur for historians to consider the role of nature in the Mormon past.
     Since Joseph Smith’s revelations, Mormons have interacted with nature in significant ways—whether perceiving it as a place to find God, uncorrupted spaces in which to build communities to usher in the Second Coming, wildness needing domestication and control, or a world brimming with natural resources to ensure economic well-being. The essays in this volume—written by leading scholars in both environmental history and Mormon history—explore how nature has influenced Mormon beliefs and how these beliefs inform Mormons’ encounters with nature. Introducing overarching environmental ideas, contributors examine specific aspects of nature and Mormon theology to glean new insights into the Mormon experience.
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cover of The Education of Phillips Brooks

The Education of Phillips Brooks

John F. Woolverton

University of Illinois Press, 1995

Brooks's theological and intellectual lineage

The Education of Phillips Brooks probes the formative years of one of the best-known figures of Victorian America's "Gilded Age". Rigorously researched, bringing as yet untapped archival material into play, John F. Woolverton's book is an extremely readable and fascinating look at a gifted, persuasive clergyman and public figure. The sermon Brooks delivered at his Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia while Abraham Lincoln's body lay in state overnight in Independence Hall was published, making him nationally famous overnight. He also is known for penning the lyrics to "O Little Town of Bethlehem". Although Brooks was not a major theologian, he was nurtured in an atmosphere of serious religious thought. In the crisis era of pre-Civil War America, he sought a religious and cultural ideal in the "perfect manhood" of Jesus Christ and consequently "won a name" for himself, as his slightly envious cousin, Henry Adams, once remarked. Woolverton places Brooks in his cultural context and shows how this religious leader was shaped psychologically and by his times and how those factors helped him forge a spiritual ideal for a troubled nation.
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cover of The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity

The End of Sacrifice

Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity

Guy G. Stroumsa

University of Chicago Press, 2009

The religious transformations that marked late antiquity represent an enigma that has challenged some of the West’s greatest thinkers. But, according to Guy Stroumsa, the oppositions between paganism and Christianity that characterize prevailing theories have endured for too long. Instead of describing this epochal change as an evolution within the Greco-Roman world from polytheism to monotheism, he argues that the cause for this shift can be found not so much around the Mediterranean as in the Near East.

The End of Sacrifice points to the role of Judaism, particularly its inventions of new religious life following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The end of animal sacrifice gave rise to new forms of worship, with a concern for personal salvation, scriptural study, rituals like praying and fasting, and the rise of religious communities and monasticism. It is what Christianity learned from Judaism about texts, death, and, above all, sacrifice that allowed it to supersede Greco-Roman religions and, Stroumsa argues, transform religion itself.

A concise and original approach to a much-studied moment in religious history, The End of Sacrifice will be heralded by all scholars of late antiquity.

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cover of The End of the World: Cultural Apocalypse and Transcendence

The End of the World

Cultural Apocalypse and Transcendence

Ernesto de Martino

University of Chicago Press, 2023

The first English translation of a classic work of twentieth-century anthropology and philosophy.
 
A philosopher, historian of religions, and anthropologist, Ernesto de Martino (1908–1965) produced a body of work that prefigured many ideas and concerns that would later come to animate anthropology. In his writing, we can see the roots of ethnopsychiatry and medical anthropology, discussions of reflexivity and the role of the ethnographer, considerations of social inequality and hegemony from a Gramscian perspective, and an anticipation of the discipline’s “existential turn.” We also find an attentiveness to hope and possibility, despite the gloomy title of his posthumously published book La fine del mondo, or The End of the World. Examining apocalypse as an individual as well as a cultural phenomenon, treating subjects both classic and contemporary and both European and non-Western, ranging across ethnography, history, literature, psychiatry, and philosophy, de Martino probes how we relate to our world and how we might be better subjects and thinkers within it. This new translation offers English-language readers their first chance to engage with de Martino’s masterwork, which continues to appear prescient in the face of the frictions of globalization and environmental devastation.
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cover of The Essential Joseph Smith

The Essential Joseph Smith

Marvin S. Hill

Signature Books, 1995

 As illuminating as commentaries are, nothing conveys Joseph Smith’s character like his own unadulterated words. In his distinctive language—a mix of biblical and frontier idioms—and in his famously spontaneous humor, one can imagine him speaking and feeling the force of his charisma. Like Old Testament prophets, he was alternately contemplative and poetic, animated and surprisingly earthy.

Previous, popular editions of Smith’s speeches and writings have edited out the extemporaneous complexities, as well as any deviations from present-day doctrines. Recent academic publications, for their part, have too often camouflaged the text in scholarly apparata. By contrast, this volume brings together a sampling of the prophet’s thinking from New York to Illinois in a complete, unabridged form, utilizing the earliest known sources, without excessive footnoting or commentary. No attempt is made to harmonize disparate, conflicting ideas. Readers can trace the developing, revelatory unfolding of ideas for themselves. They can also enjoy the text without reference to any interpretative agenda. In other words, The Essential Joseph Smith is readable and reliable. Bracketed material and punctuation are added where needed, but the text otherwise speaks for itself. These are Joseph Smith’s own words, his most essential messages.

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cover of The Essential Tillich

The Essential Tillich

Paul Tillich

University of Chicago Press, 1999

An essential collection of the best work by renowned Christian theologian Paul Tillich
 
In his lifetime, Paul Tillich became that rarest of things: a famous theologian. Known for marrying an approachable personal and intellectual manner with rigorous religious thought and analysis, Tillich was as influential as any writer on religion at mid-century, listened to not just by parishioners and students but by political leaders, intellectuals, artists, and scientists as well. 

This volume collects Tillich's best and most important work. Editor F. Forrester Church has structured the book around eight key areas of Tillich's thought, titled: Ultimate Concern; Symbols of Faith; The Protestant Principle; Addressing the Situation; Love, Power, and Justice; The Courage to Be; The Future of Religions; and Living on the Boundary. Through them we get a clear picture of the work of a man whom Church describes as “a man of rare genius and perspecuity, a modern man whose heart was in Jerusalem, whose spirit was with the ancient Greeks, and whose soul was committed to a better future.”
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cover of The Ethics of Oneness: Emerson, Whitman, and the Bhagavad Gita

The Ethics of Oneness

Emerson, Whitman, and the Bhagavad Gita

Jeremy David Engels

University of Chicago Press, 2021

We live in an era defined by a sense of separation, even in the midst of networked connectivity. As cultural climates sour and divisive political structures spread, we are left wondering about our ties to each other. Consequently, there is no better time than now to reconsider ideas of unity.

In The Ethics of Oneness, Jeremy David Engels reads the Bhagavad Gita alongside the works of American thinkers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. Drawing on this rich combination of traditions, Engels presents the notion that individuals are fundamentally interconnected in their shared divinity. In other words, everything is one. If the lessons of oneness are taken to heart, particularly as they were expressed and celebrated by Whitman, and the ethical challenges of oneness considered seriously, Engels thinks it is possible to counter the pervasive and problematic American ideals of hierarchy, exclusion, violence, and domination. 
 
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cover of The Eucharist in Modern Philosophy

The Eucharist in Modern Philosophy

Xavier Tilliette

Catholic University of America Press, 2022

The Eucharist in Modern Philosophy is one of the last books written by the renowned Jesuit philosopher Xavier Tilliette (1921-2018), and the first to be translated into English. Jonathan Martin Ciraulo, the translator, also provides an introduction to the thought of Tilliette and the content of this book, while Cyril O’Regan provides the foreword, noting the particular intellectual characteristics of Tilliette and his analysis of eucharistic philosophies. In addition to being known as one of the foremost experts on the German Idealist Friedrich Schelling, Tilliette wrote voluminously on the relationship between modern philosophy and theology, particularly concerning the way in which Christology is central to the development of modern philosophy. In this volume, he extends that project to look at how various philosophers, such as Descartes, Leibniz, Hegel, Blondel, and Marion, as well as poets and mystics, such as de Chardin, Simone Weil, and Paul Claudel, thought extensively about the question of the Eucharist. The result is an enormous diversity of Eucharistic thought, from Descartes’ attempt to justify transubstantiation in light of his philosophical revolution, to Feuerbach’s supposed exposure of the contradiction inherent to sacramentality, to Antonio Rosmini’s eucharistic piety and speculation, to Maurice Blondel’s recovery and expansion of Leibniz’s notion of the substantial bond. Tilliette shows that this philosophical conversation about the Eucharist is a living tradition, as the aporias and failures of one generation provide stimulus for all that follows. Much of the work is largely historical, showing in great detail the context of each particular eucharistic philosophy, but Tilliette also evaluates the relative fruitfulness of the various eucharistic theories for philosophy, theology, and the life of the Church. This book demonstrates that the Eucharist has been, and will likely continue to be, a major impetus for philosophical reflection.
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cover of The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si: Praise, Conversion, and Integral Ecology

The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si

Praise, Conversion, and Integral Ecology

Lucas Briola

Catholic University of America Press, 2022

No other encyclical has generated as much conversation—both Catholic and non-Catholic—as Laudato si’. Often forgotten in these conversations is the theological heart and eucharistic vision of the encyclical and its integral ecology. Even the title of Laudato si’—“Praised be!”—signals the centrality of right praise in caring for our common home. Using Bernard Lonergan’s theology of history, this book unearths the doxological, eucharistic vision that shapes the encyclical’s integral presentation of social and ecological conversion. It offers the first book-length study that recovers the eucharistic nature of Laudato si’. In drawing out the eucharistic vision of Laudato si’, the book accomplishes several feats for the reader. It roots the eucharistic dimensions of the encyclical in the writings of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, showing how Pope Francis develops their thought in notable ways. It introduces Bernard Lonergan’s theology of history, showing how his framework can capture the eucharistic contours of caring for our common home; so too, in light of Laudato si’, does the book expand his theology of history to incorporate both ecological concern and the doxological, eucharistic essence of the church. The book assembles a liturgically shaped, systematic account of the church’s social mission. It joins poles otherwise sundered in a polarized church and world: between worship and justice, between concerns for human life and concerns for the natural world. Realizing the eucharistic vision of Laudato si’ promises much for our contemporary moment. Pope Francis recently observed that the integral ecology of Laudato si’ holds the key for the world’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Catholic Bishops recently launched a Eucharistic Revival that aims to rekindle eucharistic devotion and praxis. The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si’: Praise, Conversion, and Integral Ecology supplies a timely study that helps fulfill these intertwined calls.
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cover of The Experiment of Faith: Pope Benedict XVI on Living the Theological Virtues in a Secular Age

The Experiment of Faith

Pope Benedict XVI on Living the Theological Virtues in a Secular Age

Catholic University of America Press, 2020

Pope Benedict XVI memorably remarked that the Christian faith is a lot like a Gothic cathedral with its stained-glass windows. From the outside, the Church can appear dark, dreary, and worn with age—the crumbling relic of an institution that no longer speaks to men and women living in our modern world. Indeed, for many people today, Christian morality with all of its commandments appears to be a source not of life and joy but instead of suffering and oppression. Even within the Church, many wonder: why should I submit to ancient doctrines and outdated practices that restrict my freedom and impede my happiness? In this timely and original book, his third exploring the riches of Benedict XVI’s vast corpus, theologian Matthew Ramage sets out to meet this challenge with an in-depth study of the emeritus pontiff’s wisdom on how to live Christian discipleship in today’s increasingly secularized world. Taking as his starting point Benedict’s conviction that the truth of Christianity—like the beauty of a cathedral’s glorious windows—can be grasped only from the inside, Ramage draws on Benedict’s insights to show how all Christians can make the “experiment of faith” by living the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity in daily life. Along the way, he shares his personal reflections on how Benedict’s wisdom has helped him to navigate difficulties in embracing the faith and provides a way forward to those struggling to live as disciples in a way that is intellectually serious without remaining merely intellectual. In so doing, he also presents a highly nuanced yet accessible approach to defending the truth of the gospel in a world where life in Jesus Christ tends to be seen as unfulfilling, irrelevant, or just one lifestyle choice among others.
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cover of The Exposition of 1 John and An Exposition upon Matthew V-VII

The Exposition of 1 John and An Exposition upon Matthew V-VII

William Tyndale

Catholic University of America Press, 2023

The Exposition of 1 John and An Exposition upon Matthew V-VII are William Tyndale’s two major exegetical writings, published respectively in 1531 and 1533 in Antwerp. By this period Tyndale’s English translations of the New Testament and Pentateuch had both been printed, and he was preparing a revised version of the former to be published in 1534. Among the books he produced in the interim are these verse-by-verse commentaries on St. John’s first epistle and on Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. In them Tyndale characteristically alternates between fierce polemics and solemn homilies that together, as has been claimed, amount to the most complete articulation of his theological positions. This volume replaces the nineteenth-century editions on which scholars and students have long relied by providing an original-spelling text of each Exposition with notes recording substantive textual variants in all sixteenth-century editions; an introduction and extensive commentary documenting, in particular, parallels and differences between the two texts and Tyndale’s other works, the works of Luther and other reform theologians, and the works of the Church Fathers and others; plus a comprehensive glossary, appendices, and indices.
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cover of The Family as Basic Social Unit: Living Out Catholic Social Teaching

The Family as Basic Social Unit

Living Out Catholic Social Teaching

Kevin Schemenauer

Catholic University of America Press, 2024

The Family as Basic Social Unit seeks to take seriously the claim that a family is a basic social unit. As a basic social unit, a family is both internally social, and socially interdependent with other communities. Since a family is a basic social unit, Schemenauer proposes that family life is a location for applying Catholic social teaching. Kevin Schemenauer specifically applies Catholic social principles concerning the dignity of work and peacemaking to household labor and violence among siblings, and he reflects on how individuals feed the hungry and care for the sick when they care for their family members. In the second part of the volume, Schemenauer describes the social interdependence of families. He analyzes the relationship between families and the Church, civil society, the economy, and the state. Schemenauer proposes that the question for families is not whether to engage with other social communities but how to do so well. He explicitly highlights how consumer capitalism creates obstacles for families attempting to live as a basic social unit. Then, employing the categories of infused simplicity and moral cooperation, he provides a framework for discerning family engagement with broader society. Finally, Schemenauer analyzes the relationship between family commitments and social ministry. Working from the family outward, Schemenauer describes how family commitments can motivate broader social service, but then employs the example of families involved in the Catholic Worker Movement to reflect on the joys and dangers of balancing commitment to one’s family with social ministry focused on the urgent needs of those outside of one’s household.
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cover of The Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien: Mythopeia and the Recovery of Creation

The Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien

Mythopeia and the Recovery of Creation

Robert J. Dobie, Robert J.

Catholic University of America Press, 2024

At the heart of Tolkienian fantasy is “recovery,” a “cleaning of the windows” of our perception that we may learn to see the world again in all its strange and bewildering beauty. And, for Tolkien, to recover the world anew is to recover a sense of the world as a meaningful act of creation by a living and loving Creator. How does Tolkien accomplish this? Through “sub-creation” or mythopoeia, the “fashioning of myth.” For it is in creating an imaginary world ourselves through poetry, fairy-story and myth that we come to “see” our “primary world” as itself an act of creation. In short, mythopoetic creation, far from being “lies breathed through silver,” uncovers for us the truth of our world as a story of creation. This book is the first sustained attempt to show not only the centrality of recovery to Tolkien’s fantasy but the way in which his fantasy affects that primal recovery in every reader. In doing so, this book not only reveals the marvelous philosophical and theological riches that underlie Tolkien’s fantasy but shows how his mythopoetic fiction allows the recovery and enactment of these riches in our own lives. In these pages we learn how Tolkien’s fantasy addresses fundamental problems such as the relation of language to reality, the nature of evil, the distinction between time and eternity and its relation to death and immortality, the paradox of necessity and free will in human action and the grounds for providential hope in a “happy ending.” Indeed, The Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien shows how for Tolkien fantasy has within itself a healing power through which intellectual, moral and existential paradoxes are resolved and our intellectual and perceptual faculties are made whole again so that they may participate with renewed vigor in the life-giving work of creation of every sort.
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cover of The Feeling of Forgetting: Christianity, Race, and Violence in America

The Feeling of Forgetting

Christianity, Race, and Violence in America

John Corrigan

University of Chicago Press, 2023

A provocative examination of how religious practices of forgetting drive white Christian nationalism.
 
The dual traumas of colonialism and slavery are still felt by Native Americans and African Americans as victims of ongoing violence toward people of color today. In The Feeling of Forgetting, John Corrigan calls attention to the trauma experienced by white Americans as perpetrators of this violence. By tracing memory’s role in American Christianity, Corrigan shows how contemporary white Christian nationalism is motivated by a widespread effort to forget the role race plays in American society. White trauma, Corrigan argues, courses through American culture like an underground river that sometimes bursts forth into brutality, terrorism, and insurrection. Tracing the river to its source is a necessary first step toward healing.
 
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cover of The Feeling of Forgetting: Christianity, Race, and Violence in America

The Feeling of Forgetting

Christianity, Race, and Violence in America

John Corrigan

University of Chicago Press, 2023

This is an auto-narrated audiobook edition of this book.

A provocative examination of how religious practices of forgetting drive white Christian nationalism.
 
The dual traumas of colonialism and slavery are still felt by Native Americans and African Americans as victims of ongoing violence toward people of color today. In The Feeling of Forgetting, John Corrigan calls attention to the trauma experienced by white Americans as perpetrators of this violence. By tracing memory’s role in American Christianity, Corrigan shows how contemporary white Christian nationalism is motivated by a widespread effort to forget the role race plays in American society. White trauma, Corrigan argues, courses through American culture like an underground river that sometimes bursts forth into brutality, terrorism, and insurrection. Tracing the river to its source is a necessary first step toward healing.
 
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cover of The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology

The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology

Ann Belford Ulanov

Northwestern University Press, 1971

The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology investigates the implications for Christian theology of Jung's special insights into the feminine. In it, Ann Belford Ulanov gathers together in one volume what Jung and Jungians have discovered about the feminine in order to explore what Jungian thought and methods may illuminate about the place of the feminine in Christian theology.

Jung focuses on the human person and sees as central its mixture of masculine and feminine elements. In a time when so much is asserted and written about women in society—their rights, roles, identities, needs, and contributions—it is especially significant that Jung asserts the existence of the feminine as a key element, not only in women but in men as well. No less contested are the roles and identities of Christians. Ulanov brings into focus the deep and fascinating connections between theology and psychology.
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cover of The Fifties Spiritual Marketplace: American Religion in a Decade of Conflict

The Fifties Spiritual Marketplace

American Religion in a Decade of Conflict

Ellwood, Robert S

Rutgers University Press, 1997

If you still hold the notion that the fifties were the "good old days," blessed with incomparable social affluence and widespread family unity, all buttressed by a strong, unconflicted spirituality, then look again. In this compelling narrative of religion in a decade still embraced by an indefatigable nostalgia, Robert Ellwood interrogates the notion of the fifties as an era of normalcy, and proves it to be full of spiritual strife.

A companion to his Sixties Spiritual Awakening, Ellwood explores the major Catholic-Protestant tensions of the decade, the conflict between theology and popular faith, and the underground forms of fifties religiosity like "Beat" Zen, UFO contactees, Thomas Merton monasticism, and the Joseph Campbell / Carl Jung revival of mythology. Ellwood frames his detailed and lively account with the provocative idea of the fifties as a "supply-side" free enterprise spiritual marketplace, with heady competition between religious groups and leaders, and with church attendance at a record high.

In addition to challenging an idealistic fifties cultural milieu, the book analyzes American religious responses to key historical events like the Korean War, McCarthyism, and the civil rights movement, turning a religious lens on the cultural history of the United States.
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cover of The First Urban Churches 1: Methodological Foundations

The First Urban Churches 1

Methodological Foundations

James R. Harrison

SBL Press, 2015

A fresh look at early urban churches

This collection of essays examines the urban context of early Christian churches in the first-century Roman world. A city-by-city investigation of the early churches in the New Testament clarifies the challenges, threats, and opportunities that urban living provided for early Christians. Readers will come away with a better understanding of how scholars assemble an accurate picture of the cities in which the first Christians flourished.

Features:

  • Analysis of urban evidence of the inscriptions, papyri, archaeological remains, coins, and iconography
  • Discussion of how to use different types of evidence responsibly
  • Outline of what constitutes proper methodological use for establishing a nuanced, informed portrait of ancient urban life
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cover of The First Urban Churches 2: Roman Corinth

The First Urban Churches 2

Roman Corinth

James R. Harrison

SBL Press, 2016

Investigate the challenges, threats, and opportunities experienced by the early church

Volume two of The First Urban Churches focuses on the urban context of Christian churches in first-century Roman Corinth. An investigation of the material evidence of Corinth helps readers today understand properly the challenges, threats, and opportunities that the early Corinthian believers faced in the city. The essays demonstrate decisively the difference that such an approach makes in grappling with the meaning and context of the Corinthian epistles in the New Testament.

Features:

  • Analysis of urban evidence of the inscriptions, papyri, archaeological remains, coins, and iconography
  • Proposed reeconstructions of the past and its social, religious, and political significance
  • A nuanced, informed portrait of ancient urban life in Corinth
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cover of The First Urban Churches 3: Ephesus

The First Urban Churches 3

Ephesus

James R. Harrison

SBL Press, 2018

Investigate the challenges, threats, and opportunities experienced by the early church in Ephesus

The third installment of The First Urban Churches focuses on the urban context of Christian churches in first-century Ephesus. As with previous volumes, contributors illustrate how an investigation of the material evidence will help readers understand properly the challenges, threats, and opportunities that the early Ephesian believers faced in that city. Brad Bitner, James R. Harrison, Michael Haxby, Fredrick J. Long, Guy M. Rogers, Michael Theophilos, Paul Trebilco, and Stephan Witetschek demonstrate decisively the difference that such an approach makes in grappling with the meaning and context of the New Testament writings, particularly Ephesians, Acts, and Revelation.

Features

  • Analysis of urban evidence of the inscriptions, papyri, archaeological remains, coins, and iconography
  • Proposed reconstructions of the past and its social, religious and political significance
  • A nuanced, informed portrait of ancient urban life in Ephesus
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cover of The First Urban Churches 4: Roman Philippi

The First Urban Churches 4

Roman Philippi

James R. Harrison

SBL Press, 2018

Investigate the challenges and opportunities experienced by the early church

This fourth installment of The First Urban Churches, edited by James R. Harrison and L. L. Welborn, focuses on the urban context of Christian churches in first-century Roman Philippi. The international team of New Testament and classical scholars contributing to the volume present essays that use inscriptions, papyri, archaeological remains, coins, and iconography to examine the rivalries, imperial context, and ecclesial setting of the Philippian church.

Features:

  • Analysis of the material and epigraphic evidence relating to first- and second-century CE Roman Philippi
  • Examination of important passages from Philippians within their ancient urban context
  • Investigation of the social composition and membership of the Philippian church from the archaeological and documentary evidence
[more]
cover of The First Urban Churches 5: Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea

The First Urban Churches 5

Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea

James R. Harrison

SBL Press, 2019

A fresh examination of early Christianity by an international team of New Testament and classical scholars

Volume 5 of The First Urban Churches investigates the urban context of Christian churches in first-century Roman Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea. Building on the methodologies introduced in the first volume and supplementing the in-depth studies of Corinth, Ephesus, and Philippi (vols. 2-4), essays in this volume challenge readers to reexamine preconceived understandings of the early church and to grapple with the meaning and context of Christianity in its first-century Roman colonial context.

Features:

  • Analysis of urban evidence found in inscriptions, papyri, archaeological remains, coins, and iconography
  • Proposed reconstructions of the past and its social, religious, and political significance
  • A nuanced, informed portrait of ancient urban life in the cities of the Lycus Valley
[more]
cover of The First Urban Churches 6: Rome and Ostia

The First Urban Churches 6

Rome and Ostia

James R. Harrison

SBL Press, 2021

An examination of early Roman Christianity by New Testament and classical scholars

Building on the methodologies introduced in the first volume of The First Urban Churches and supplementing the in-depth studies of Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea (vols. 2–5), essays in this volume challenge readers to reexamine what we know about the early church within Rome and the port city of Ostia. In the introductory section of the book, James R. Harrison discusses the material and documentary evidence of both cities, which sets the stage for the essays that follow. In the second section, Mary Jane Cuyler, James R. Harrison, Richard Last, Annelies Moeser, Thomas A. Robinson, Michael P. Theophilos, and L. L. Welborn examine a range of topics, including the Ostian Synagogue, Romans 1:2–4 against the backdrop of Julio-Claudian adoption and apotheosis traditions, and the epistle of 1 Clement. In the final section of this volume, Jutta Dresken-Welland and Mark Reasoner engage Peter Lampe’s magnum opus From Paul to Valentinus; Lampe wraps up the section and the volume with a response. Throughout, readers are provided with a rich demonstration of how the material evidence of the city of Rome illuminates the emergence of Roman Christianity, especially in the first century CE.

[more]
cover of The First Urban Churches 7: Thessalonica

The First Urban Churches 7

Thessalonica

James R. Harrison

SBL Press, 2022

The First Urban Churches 7 includes essays focused on the development of early Christianity from the mid-first century through the sixth century CE in the ancient Macedonian city of Thessalonica. An international group of contributors traces the emergence of Thessalonica’s house churches through a close study of the archaeological remains, inscriptions, coins, iconography, and Paul’s two letters to the Thessalonians. After a detailed introduction to the city, including the first comprehensive epigraphic profile of Thessalonica from the Hellenistic age to the Roman Empire, topics discussed include the Roman emperor’s divine honors, coins and inscriptions as sources of imperial propaganda, Thessalonian family bonds, Paul’s apostolic self-image, the role of music at Thessalonica and in early Christianity, and Paul’s response to the Thessalonian Jewish community. Contributors include D. Clint Burnett, Alan H. Cadwallader, Rosemary Canavan, James R. Harrison, Julien M. Ogereau, Isaac T. Soon, Angela Standhartinger, Michael P. Theophilos, and Joel R. White.

[more]
cover of The First Urban Churches 8: Galatia and Lycaonia

The First Urban Churches 8

Galatia and Lycaonia

James R. Harrison

SBL Press, 2025

This eighth volume of First Urban Churches explores the literary, archaeological, documentary, numismatic, and iconographic evidence from ancient Galatia and Lycaonia. Essays focus on the northern cities of Ancyra and Pessinous and the southern cities of Pisidian Antioch and Iconium. An introduction to the province of Galatia and contributions focused on various aspects of ancient benefaction, locals mistaking Paul and Barnabas for Zeus and Hermes, Paul’s maternal metaphor for his ministry, and more shed light on the rise of early Christianity in this region. D. Clint Burnett, Alan H. Cadwallader, Susan M. (Elli) Elliott, James R. Harrison, Peter Oakes, Wesley Redgen, Michael P. Theophilos, David Wyman, and Arjan Zuiderhoek present cutting-edge research that opens new interpretive possibilities for the Letter to the Galatians.
[more]
cover of The First Well: A Bethlehem Boyhood

The First Well

A Bethlehem Boyhood

Jabra Ibrahim Jabra

University of Arkansas Press, 1995

The First Well is an engaging autobiographical account of Jabra’s boyhood in Bethlehem, where he was born in 1920, and later in Jerusalem, where he moved as a teenager with his parents.Through the eyes and heart of a sensitive, highly imaginative boy, Jabra describes the first sources of his artistic sensibility—the houses, fields, and orchards of his childhood and the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The First Well is the story of his intellectual and spiritual growth nurtured and encouraged by his family, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and his teachers. His story is both captivatingly innocent and full of wisdom. Wordsworth’s observation, “The Child is father of the Man,” is entirely apt as Jabra’s literary and artistic interests take root and blossom. Here is a chronicle of the experiences and events he drew upon as he became one of the leading authors of the Arab world.
[more]
cover of The Formation of Affectivity: A Christian Approach

The Formation of Affectivity

A Christian Approach

Francisco Insa

St. Augustine's Press, 2023

The need and desire for the integral development of the person in his or her somatic, psychological and spiritual dimensions is growing faster than it can be answered. Ancient and classical wisdom gives us much to ponder and apply, but there is still much more to be given human life in the joy and integrity offered by Christianity. When one speaks of the meaningfulness and fruitfulness of life, there is an apostolic quality that makes of the beauty of a single individual a cause of fruitfulness in others as well. Yet many who are entrusted with the formation and care of souls have little at their disposal to foster or explain this.

The present book aims to respond to this need by addressing the consonance and individuality in human nature, and the ways in which ordering in personality and psychology are
not inhibiting, but potentially liberating and influential. Francisco Insa draws from his medical and theological background, which includes both clinical and pastoral experience, to address all those responsible for the formation of others––including parents, teachers, priests, spiritual directors––and enables them to confront their roles as formators with greater insight and confidence. Insa's guidance through the human personality and its various expressions, the education of the character, growth in maturity, the particularity of each stage of the life cycle, sexuality and celibacy, chastity in the context of post-modern life, and mental illnesses is a landmark presentation of scientific rigor matched with practical application. As often as one says, "My situation is unique,"; the author here responds: "Yes, but special even more than you can express"; Insa is forthright about what can never be lost in human beings, but only recovered when the head and heart are aligned and formed properly.

For as much as this book may help the reader understand himself, it will also render him better understood by others. The Christian approach to the formation of affectivity, as Insa shows, is indispensable to deep and enduring human development, and it is often the only way to identify and mediate interior dissonance and confusion.
[more]
cover of The Formation of Christendom

The Formation of Christendom

Christopher Dawson

Catholic University of America Press, 2026

Together with its sequel The Dividing of Christendom, this book was the fruit of the Harvard lectures that Christopher Dawson delivered as the first occupant of the Charles Chauncey Stillman Chair of Roman Catholic Studies from 1958-1962. Here, as in all his works, he sees religion as the dynamic element of culture. This work traces the formation of Christian culture from its roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition through the rise and fall of medieval Christendom, and ends with an epilogue in which the author reflects on the defining characteristics of Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular. In the introductory section of this work, Dawson highlights the importance of language in the origin and development of civilization. Christina Scott, the author’s daughter and first biographer, summarises Dawson’s ideas on this point in her work A Historian and his World: “In the beginning was the word: language was the gateway to the human world and was the single factor that distinguished man from the animal kingdom.” Language, as Dawson wrote, “enables man to think, to create a new world of imagination and reason.” In parts two and three Dawson traces the beginnings of Christian culture in the first centuries after Christ through to the decline of medieval unity. Some of the tantalizing chapter headings include The Christian and Jewish Idea of Revelation, The Foundation of Europe: The Monks of the West, The Carolingian Age, Feudal Europe and the Age of Anarchy, The Achievement of Medieval Thought, and East and West in the Middle Ages. Dawson shared with Arnold Toynbee the ideal of a universal spiritual society as the goal of history; but whereas Dr. Toynbee saw this as achievable by a consensus of the great world religions, Dawson concludes his work with a clear exposition of the Catholic ideal of a universal spiritual society. It provides an excellent summary of the author’s view of the uniqueness and universality of the Catholic Church, as well as its fundamentally non-sectarian basis. His concluding words demonstrate his commitment to the concept of unity: “On the other hand, if Christianity were to lead the nations still further apart from one another into spiritual disunity, it would defeat the central purpose of the Church’s institution.”
[more]
cover of The Forsaken Son: Child Murder and Atonement in Modern American Fiction

The Forsaken Son

Child Murder and Atonement in Modern American Fiction

Joshua Pederson

Northwestern University Press, 2015

The Forsaken Son engages the provocative coincidence of the vocabularies of infanticide and Christianity, specifically atonement theology, in six modern American novels: Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away, the first two installments of John Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Joyce Carol Oates’s My Sister, My Love, and Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark.

Christian atonement theology explains why God lets His son be crucified. Yet in recent years, as an increasing number of scholars have come to reject that explanation, the cross reverts from saving grace to trauma—or even crime. More bluntly, without atonement, the cross may be a filicide, in which God forces his son to die for no apparent reason. Pederson argues that the novels about child murder mentioned above likewise give voice to modern skepticism about traditional atonement theology.

[more]
cover of The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future

The Fragility of Freedom

Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future

Joshua Mitchell

University of Chicago Press, 1995

In this fresh interpretation of Tocqueville's thought, Joshua Mitchell explores the dynamic interplay between religion and politics in American democracy.

Focusing on Democracy in America, The Fragility of Freedom examines Tocqueville's key works and argues that his analysis of democracy is ultimately rooted in an Augustinian view of human psychology. As much a work of political philosophy as of religion, The Fragility of Freedom argues for the importance of a political theology that recognizes moderation.

"An intelligent and sharply drawn portrait of a conservative Toqueville."—Anne C. Rose, Journal of American History

"I recommend this book as one of a very few to approach seriously the sources of Tocqueville's intellectual and moral greatness."—Peter Augustine Lawler, Journal of Politics

"Mitchell ably places Democracy in America in the long conversation of Western political and theological thought."—Wilfred M. McClay, First Things

"Learned and thought-provoking."—Peter Berkowitz, New Republic
[more]
cover of The Full Gospel in Zion: A History of Pentecostalism in Utah

The Full Gospel in Zion

A History of Pentecostalism in Utah

Alan J. Clark

University of Utah Press, 2022

In The Full Gospel in Zion, Alan J. Clark explores the dynamic history of Pentecostalism in Utah. Although the story of Pentecostalism now spans the globe, there is no previous study of its growth and development among the mountains and valleys of the Beehive State. This book recovers and reveals the identities of the earliest Pentecostal pioneers across the state and places the founding churches within the historical narrative of Utah religion in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Utah Pentecostals faced difficulties establishing churches and congregations in a region dominated by a Latter-day Saint majority. Pentecostals found that they shared surprising similarities in belief but faced unexpected obstacles in evangelism, as Latter-day Saints did not respond as other Christians did to the Pentecostal message. Clark draws from interviews conducted with church leaders and congregants and from the rich documentary record to show Utah Pentecostals’ perseverance in creating a strong foothold in Utah. His work offers a new look at the diversity and richness of Utah’s religious history.

[more]
cover of The Fullness of Time: Temporalities of the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries

The Fullness of Time

Temporalities of the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries

Matthew S. Champion

University of Chicago Press, 2017

The Low Countries were at the heart of innovation in Europe in the fifteenth century. Throughout this period, the flourishing cultures of the Low Countries were also wrestling with time itself. The Fullness of Time explores that struggle, and the changing conceptions of temporality that it represented and embodied showing how they continue to influence historical narratives about the emergence of modernity today.
 
The Fullness of Time asks how the passage of time in the Low Countries was ordered by the rhythms of human action, from the musical life of a cathedral to the measurement of time by clocks and calendars, the work habits of a guildsman to the devotional practices of the laity and religious orders. Through a series of transdisciplinary case studies, it explores the multiple ways that objects, texts and music might themselves be said to engage with, imply, and unsettle time, shaping and forming the lives of the inhabitants of the fifteenth-century Low Countries. Champion reframes the ways historians have traditionally told the history of time, allowing us for the first time to understand the rich and varied interplay of temporalities in the period.
 
[more]
cover of The Galilean Economy in the Time of Jesus

The Galilean Economy in the Time of Jesus

David A. Fiensy

SBL Press, 2013

In order to provide an up-to-date report and analysis of the economic conditions of first-century C.E. Galilee, this collection surveys recent archaeological excavations (Sepphoris, Yodefat, Magdala, and Khirbet Qana) and reviews results from older excavations (Capernaum). It also offers both interpretation of the excavations for economic questions and lays out the parameters of the current debate on the standard of living of the ancient Galileans. The essays included, by archaeologists as well as biblical scholars, have been drawn from the perspective of archaeology or the social sciences. The volume thus represents a broad spectrum of views on this timely and often hotly debated issue. The contributors are Mordechai Aviam, David A. Fiensy, Ralph K. Hawkins, Sharon Lea Mattila, Tom McCollough, and Douglas Oakman.
[more]
cover of The Garden of God

The Garden of God

Pope Benedict XVI

Catholic University of America Press, 2014

This book gathers together the audiences, addresses, letters, and homilies of Benedict on a wide-ranging set of topics that deal with the world about us. The major themes and connections he explores are creation and the natural world; the environment, science, and technology; and hunger, poverty, and the earth's resources.
[more]
cover of The Gender of Piety: Family, Faith, and Colonial Rule in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe

The Gender of Piety

Family, Faith, and Colonial Rule in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe

Wendy Urban-Mead

Ohio University Press, 2015

The Gender of Piety is an intimate history of the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe, or BICC, as related through six individual life histories that extend from the early colonial years through the first decade after independence. Taken together, these six lives show how men and women of the BICC experienced and sequenced their piety in different ways. Women usually remained tied to the church throughout their lives, while men often had a more strained relationship with it. Church doctrine was not always flexible enough to accommodate expected masculine gender roles, particularly male membership in political and economic institutions or participation in important male communal practices.

The study is based on more than fifteen years of extensive oral history research supported by archival work in Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The oral accounts make it clear, official versions to the contrary, that the church was led by spiritually powerful women and that maleness and mission-church notions of piety were often incompatible.

The life-history approach illustrates how the tension of gender roles both within and without the church manifested itself in sometimes unexpected ways: for example, how a single family could produce both a legendary woman pastor credited with mediating multiple miracles and a man—her son—who joined the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union nationalist political party and fought in Zimbabwe’s liberation war in the 1970s. Investigating the lives of men and women in equal measure, The Gender of Piety uses a gendered interpretive lens to analyze the complex relationship between the church and broader social change in this region of southern Africa.

[more]
cover of The Glass Church: Robert H. Schuller, the Crystal Cathedral, and the Strain of Megachurch Ministry

The Glass Church

Robert H. Schuller, the Crystal Cathedral, and the Strain of Megachurch Ministry

Mark T. Mulder

Rutgers University Press, 2020

Robert H. Schuller’s ministry—including the architectural wonder of the Crystal Cathedral and the polished television broadcast of Hour of Power—cast a broad shadow over American Christianity. Pastors flocked to Southern California to learn Schuller’s techniques. The President of United States invited him sit prominently next to the First Lady at the State of the Union Address. Muhammad Ali asked for the pastor’s autograph. It seemed as if Schuller may have started a second Reformation. And then it all went away. As Schuller’s ministry wrestled with internal turmoil and bankruptcy, his emulators—including Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and Joel Osteen— nurtured megachurches that seemed to sweep away the Crystal Cathedral as a relic of the twentieth century. How did it come to this?

Certainly, all churches depend on a mix of constituents, charisma, and capital, yet the size and ambition of large churches like Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral exert enormous organizational pressures to continue the flow of people committed to the congregation, to reinforce the spark of charismatic excitement generated by high-profile pastors, and to develop fresh flows of capital funding for maintenance of old projects and launching new initiatives. The constant attention to expand constituencies, boost charisma, and stimulate capital among megachurches produces an especially burdensome strain on their leaders. By orienting an approach to the collapse of the Crystal Cathedral on these three core elements—constituency, charisma, and capital—The Glass Church demonstrates how congregational fragility is greatly accentuated in larger churches, a notion we label megachurch strain, such that the threat of implosion is significantly accentuated by any failures to properly calibrate the inter-relationship among these elements.

[more]
cover of The God of Faith and Reason

The God of Faith and Reason

Robert Sokolowski

Catholic University of America Press, 1995

[more]
cover of The Godly Image: Christian Satisfaction in Aquinas

The Godly Image

Christian Satisfaction in Aquinas

Romanus Cessario

Catholic University of America Press, 2020

Christian satisfaction stands at the center of the Church’s teaching about salvation. Satisfaction pertains to studies about Christ, redemption, the Sacraments, and pastoral practice. The topic also enters into questions about God and the creature as well as about the divine mercy and providence. Somewhat neglected in the period after Vatican II, satisfaction now appears to scholars as the forgotten key to entering deeply into the mystery of Christ and his work. Seminarians especially will benefit from studying the place satisfaction holds in Catholic life. Further, ecumenical work requires a proper understanding of the place that satisfaction holds in Christian theology. Various factors operative since the sixteenth century have worked to displace satisfaction almost entirely from reformed practice and theology. To address such concerns, The Godly Image, has, over the past several decades and more, done a great deal to put satisfaction within its proper context of image-restoration. That is, to interpret satisfaction within the context of the divine mercy and not the divine justice. This unique contribution to satisfaction studies owes a great deal to the achievement of Saint Thomas Aquinas. In this sense, the book enacts a retrieval of the theology of the high classical period. Like much of Aquinas’s refined teaching, a proper understanding requires appeal to the commentatorial tradition that follows him. Interested students will find in this study the touchstones for further studies of these authors. The Godly Image aims also to distinguish the theology of Aquinas from that of the medieval author with whom the notion of satisfaction remains mostly identified, that is, Anselm of Canterbury. Although not a developed focus of the book’s contents, the attentive reader will recognize that Aquinas treats Saint Anselm with a reverential reading, even as the Common Doctor moves significantly away from interpretations of satisfaction that suggest that an angry God exacts from his innocent Son a painful substitutional penalty for a fallen human race.
[more]
cover of The Good Is Love: The Body and Human Acts in Humanae Vitae and John Paul II

The Good Is Love

The Body and Human Acts in Humanae Vitae and John Paul II

Adrian Reimers

St. Augustine's Press, 2020

John Paul II in his personalist approach to moral questions reaffirmed that as sin offends that which is good, if we truly know what human love is––and that it is good––we would thereby see how certain acts can never be acceptable insofar as they in all cases wound this love. Yet in moral debates surrounding love, sex and contraception Adrian Reimers observes that we are not using this approach and these debates are not advancing the cause of real love. 

Reimers draws upon the encyclical Humanae Vitae and John Paul II’s catechesis known as the theology of the body to respond to the stalled development of moral theology on the issues most crucial to human love and intimacy. “It is time, we are told, for a ‘paradigm shift’ in the Catholic Church’s moral teaching, such shift representing a more pastoral and less dogmatic approach to moral issues,” writes Reimers. His claim that “a paradigm shift in moral theology and philosophy may be valuable––perhaps vital––to scholars who think and write about these sciences and to teachers who communicate moral truth” is not an exhortation to redefine moral truths. Rather, he argues that an approach to contraception, for example, that relies exclusively on natural law is a hackneyed one and often “tedious.”

John Paul II’s series of catechetical addresses known as the theology of the body was originally composed in the 1970s after Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae. Albeit derived from the writing of an archbishop and not yet pope, Reimers identifies John Paul II’s perspectives on love, sex and contraception as an essential force behind this so-called paradigm shift in continuity with the profound and unchanging truths set forth in Humanae Vitae. As Reimers states, “Moral truths do not change, even if our ways to understand them improve.”

How, then, is our sense of the goodness or badness of contraception meant to be helped by such a development of thought? Ethics grounded philosophically tends to lean toward legalism in the context of moral actions, says Reimers, as it emphasizes conformity to God’s law and largely overlooks “the relationship between moral behavior and the human person’s ultimate end of beatitude with God.” The important principle of the necessarily two-fold description that natural law gives to sex––namely, as unitive and procreative––must not be the authoritative end of the discussion regarding the moral nature of contraception. In an age where technology has given human beings new power it seems there must be new rules as well, and the conquest of procreative acts changes the human perception of the limitations once associated with harmful acts. Herein lies the importance of John Paul II’s catechesis––the goodness or badness of acts is not just concerned with end of a particular act. As Reimers writes, “If we are to understand the complex relationships among love, marriage, and their sexual expression, we must situate these within the context of the end of the human being.”

A position on contraception and human sexuality cannot be comprehensive without a concept of love properly understood. Human acts must bring us closer to sanctity, not to comfort or possession. Holiness is the perfection of love, and its pursuit aims at ultimate beatitude. This end, the truest love human can know, is the end which ultimately condemns contraception once and for all, as “contracepted sex is contrary to holiness.” Reimers unpacks this sometimes difficult truth in eight chapters, which begin with love and conclude with faithfulness to moral norms and a spirituality of marriage.  

The arguments surrounding contraception and “good sex” seem to have set the grounds for coherently choosing a side rather than to have succeeded in presenting certain human acts as definitively immoral. As Reimers notes, a natural law position on contraception often fails to employ its greatest ally: the reality of authentic human love and “victory” of the individual in one’s sanctity as achieved through that love. This work will reorient the objectives and claims of the moral debate, as well as influence the popular notion of what love is and what it cannot be. It is an aid to scholars, students and study groups, humanists, and those who seek to deepen the sense of love’s highest physical expression. 
[more]
cover of The Gospel of Happiness: How Secular Psychology Points to the Wisdom of Christian Practice

The Gospel of Happiness

How Secular Psychology Points to the Wisdom of Christian Practice

Christopher Kaczor

St. Augustine's Press, 2019

Just as Aristotelian metaphysics provided a new basis for the natural theology of Aquinas’s time, so too, positive psychology provides a basis for a natural moral theology in our own time. this book marshals the empirically verifiable findings of positive psychology that show the wisdom of the Christian tradition. Christian warnings about the dangers of greed, coveting a neighbor’s goods (social comparison), and pride find an empirical verification. Likewise, positive psychology vindicates the wisdom of Christian teaching on the importance of forgiveness, of gratitude, of humility, and of serving one’s neighbor. moreover, positive psychology also can be a service to Christian believers by helping them in their struggles with willpower, by providing new motivations for prayer, and by helping them identify their signature strengths. Finally, this book argues, in a variety of ways, that it is folly to think that even the best of psychology can serve as a replacement for Christianity.

[more]
cover of The Gospel of John Marrant: Conjuring Christianity in the Black Atlantic

The Gospel of John Marrant

Conjuring Christianity in the Black Atlantic

Alphonso F. Saville IV

Duke University Press, 2024

The Reverend John Marrant (1755–91) was North America’s first Black ordained minister and one of America’s earliest Black authors and preachers. In The Gospel of John Marrant, Alphonso F. Saville IV examines how Protestantism and West African indigenous religious practices deeply informed his life and ministry. Saville follows Marrant from his time evangelizing the Cherokee in Georgia to meeting with Black Freemasons in Boston to engaging with diasporic communities along the Eastern Seaboard and in England. Using the Black folk magic tradition of conjure as a lens for understanding Marrant’s religious imagination, Saville outlines the importance of Africana religious and cultural themes, symbols, and cosmologies in the biblical interpretation and ritual culture of early Black North American Christian communities. Marrant’s life and work, Saville contends, reveal the diverse religious cultures that contributed to the formation of African American Christianity and its evolution into a prominent institution during the colonial and early history of the United States. In so doing, he demonstrates the need to recenter both religion and Africa in the study of African American cultural and intellectual history.
[more]
cover of The Gospel of the Working Class: Labor's Southern Prophets in New Deal America

The Gospel of the Working Class

Labor's Southern Prophets in New Deal America

Erik S. Gellman and Jarod Roll

University of Illinois Press, 2011

In this exceptional dual biography and cultural history, Erik S. Gellman and Jarod Roll trace the influence of two southern activist preachers, one black and one white, who used their ministry to organize the working class in the 1930s and 1940s across lines of gender, race, and geography. Owen Whitfield and Claude Williams, along with their wives Zella Whitfield and Joyce Williams, drew on their bedrock religious beliefs to stir ordinary men and women to demand social and economic justice in the eras of the Great Depression, New Deal, and Second World War.

 
Williams and Whitfield preached a working-class gospel rooted in the American creed that hard, productive work entitled people to a decent standard of living. Gellman and Roll detail how the two preachers galvanized thousands of farm and industrial workers for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. They also link the activism of the 1930s and 1940s to that of the 1960s and emphasize the central role of the ministers' wives, with whom they established the People's Institute for Applied Religion.
 
This detailed narrative illuminates a cast of characters who became the two couples' closest allies in coordinating a complex network of activists that transcended Jim Crow racial divisions, blurring conventional categories and boundaries to help black and white workers make better lives. In chronicling the shifting contexts of the actions of Whitfield and Williams, The Gospel of the Working Class situates Christian theology within the struggles of some of America's most downtrodden workers, transforming the dominant narratives of the era and offering a fresh view of the promise and instability of religion and civil rights unionism.
[more]
cover of The Grasinski Girls: The Choices They Had and the Choices They Made

The Grasinski Girls

The Choices They Had and the Choices They Made

Mary Patrice Erdmans

Ohio University Press, 2004

The Grasinski Girls were working-class Americans of Polish descent, born in the 1920s and 1930s, who created lives typical of women in their day. They went to high school, married, and had children. For the most part, they stayed home to raise their children. And they were happy doing that. They took care of their appearance and their husbands, who took care of them. Like most women of their generation, they did not join the women’s movement, and today they either reject or shy away from feminism.

Basing her account on interviews with her mother and aunts, Mary Erdmans explores the private lives of these white, Christian women in the post-World War II generation. She compares them, at times, to her own postfeminist generation. Situating these women within the religious routines that shaped their lives, Professor Erdmans explores how gender, class, ethnicity, and religion shaped the choices the Grasinski sisters were given as well as the choices they made. These women are both acted upon and actors; they are privileged and disadvantaged; they resist and surrender; they petition the Lord and accept His will.

The Grasinski Girls examines the complexity of ordinary lives, exposing privileges taken for granted as well as nuances of oppression often overlooked. Erdmans brings rigorous scholarship and familial insight to bear on the realities of twentieth-century working-class white women in America.

[more]
cover of The Gridiron Gospel: Faith and College Football in Twentieth-Century America

The Gridiron Gospel

Faith and College Football in Twentieth-Century America

Hunter M. Hampton

University of Illinois Press, 2025

From the game’s early days, college football and a strain of muscular Christianity built a mutually reinforcing culture that taught lessons in America’s dominant religious, gendered, and racial belief systems. Christians of many denominations embraced the game to shape and reshape their faith to meet the changing social demands of the twentieth century. Hunter M. Hampton analyzes the impact of football on Christian college campuses. Baptists and Latter-day Saints, Evangelicals and Roman Catholics sought spiritual and personal meaning on the gridiron. Fans watched the action to find God’s lessons for them. Wins and losses expressed the divine will while the game’s popularity offered a potent way to evangelize non-believers. Hampton also investigates the sport’s place in providing a stage for fostering Christian manhood, male community, gender dominance, and on-the-field displays of heroic savagery that served a higher purpose. Provocative and engaging, The Gridiron Gospel looks at the All-American fusion of physical and spiritual muscle.
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