Robert Benne elaborates a basic theological-ethical framework for engaging the Christian vision with its surrounding public environment-political, ethical, cultural, and intellectual. He assesses the nature and challenge of Christian public policy at the dawn of the twenty-first century, defines his paradoxical vision and its legacy in modern America, and then describes practical ways in which religious traditions do, in fact, engage the public environment.

This book by Hendrik Berkhof was the fountainhead of studies on the Powers. Yoder introduced it to an English-speaking audience and used it in his own groundbreaking work. Paperback, 80 pages.

Stanley Hauerwas is one of the most widely read and oft-cited theologians writing today. A prolific lecturer and author, he has been at the forefront of key developments in contemporary theology, ranging from narrative theology to the “recovery of virtue.” Yet despite his prominence and the esteem reserved for his thought, his work has never before been collected in a single volume that provides a sense of the totality of his vision.
The editors of The Hauerwas Reader, therefore, have compiled and edited a volume that represents all the different periods and phases of Hauerwas’s work. Highlighting both his constructive goals and penchant for polemic, the collection reflects the enormous variety of subjects he has engaged, the different genres in which he has written, and the diverse audiences he has addressed. It offers Hauerwas on ethics, virtue, medicine, and suffering; on euthanasia, abortion, and sexuality; and on war in relation to Catholic and Protestant thought. His essays on the role of religion in liberal democracies, the place of the family in capitalist societies, the inseparability of Christianity and Judaism, and on many other topics are included as well.
Perhaps more than any other author writing on religious topics today, Hauerwas speaks across lines of religious traditions, appealing to Methodists, Jews, Anabaptists or Mennonites, Catholics, Episcopalians, and others.

Helps members of every denomination understand how they fit into the mosaic of the many churches’ witness to the Gospel.

A fresh and up-to-date account of the ethical thought of one of the twentieth century's greatest theologians, Karl Barth. Dr Biggar recovers Barth's ethics from some widespread misunderstandings, and goes on to relate Barth's ideas to many of the central issues debated in contemporary Christian ethics - including the concept of human freedom and of created moral order; moral norms and their relation to individual vocation; the relative ethnical roles of the Bible, the Church, philosophy, and empirical science; moral character and its formation; and the problem of war.

Donald Bloesch turns to the hotly disputed theological subject of the person and work of Jesus Christ. This volume includes discussion of humanity's plight, the Incarnation, the virgin birth, and the lordship and finality of Christ.

Not so long ago it would have been fair to say that Christian faith played a leading role in cultural life. Today, however, culture has become largely "detraditionalized"; the impact of faith on society is minimal at best. This insightful book looks at the chasm that has opened up between faith and culture and exhorts Christians to reengage society in meaningful ways.

According to Lieven Boeve, every new age challenges the Christian tradition to recontextualize its presentation of meaning and purpose. Today's postmodern world may be an especially difficult setting for faith, yet it too affords Christians many opportunities for dialogue. In the first part of the book Boeve provides a pithy description of the vicissitudes of the Christian tradition in modernity and postmodernity. The second part of the book uses this background to equip Christians to reflect on their faith in a credible and relevant manner without withdrawing from the contemporary world.

The role of Christian faith in contemporary culture has changed dramatically. Both detraditionalization and pluralization have caused a rupture between faith and its social context. Modern correlationist theologies, which presume a fundamental continuity between faith and its context, no longer succeed in explaining the relation between Christian faith and contemporary society. But theologies of discontinuity eventually fail as well, because they risk forgetting the intrinsic link between faith and history, society and culture.

Christianity today demands a theology beyond theories of continuity and discontinuity. This book develops a theology of interruption. Boeve emphasizes the specificity of the Christian narrative about God, humanity, and their history together, and argues that this specificity urges Christians to be engaged in their context, because God interrupts history.

After an analysis of the contextual changes, the author sketches the fundamental aspects of a theology of interruption. This forms the basis for his further analysis of religious experience, rituals and sacraments, negative theology, religious plurality and incarnation, and apocalypticism.

Here is the key to thought of one of our time's central moral figures. It reveals Bonhoeffer's deep, firm roots in Christian doctrine, and it relates that doctrine to twentieth-century decisions every Christian must face. Essential for those interested in the developement of Bonhoeffer's thinking, Christ the Center is as well an important addition to Christological thought and a clear guides to how we are to believe and act in the uncertainty of the times. These lectures originally delivered at the University of Berlin (reconstructed by Eberhard Bethge from students' notes) have been completely retranslated by Edwin Robertson for this new edition.

The Christian does not live in a vacuum, says the author, but in a world of government, politics, labor, and marriage. Hence, Christian ethics cannot exist in a vacuum; what the Christian needs, claims Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is concrete instruction in a concrete situation. Although the author died before completing his work, this book is recognized as a major contribution to Christian ethics.

The root and ground of Christian ethics, the author says, is the reality of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. This reality is not manifest in the Church as distinct from the secular world; such a juxtaposition of two separate spheres, Bonhoeffer insists, is a denial of God's having reconciled the whole world to himself in Christ. On the contrary, God's commandment is to be found and known in the Church, the family, labor, and government. His commandment permits man to live as man before God, in a world God made, with responsibility for the institutions of that world.