Burning Center, Porous Borders articulates what the church is and is called to be about in the world, a world now globalized to the point that the local is lived globally and the global is lived locally. The church must respond creatively and prophetically to the challenges-economic disparity, war and terrorism, diaspora, ecological threat, health crisis, religious diversity, and so on-posed by our highly globalized world. It can do so only if the church's spiritual center burns mightily. Conversely, it can burn mightily in the spirit of Christ only if its borders are porous and allows the fresh air/spirit of change to blow in and out. While there is much rhetoric about change, the most common response to change is to continue doing business as usual. This is particularly the case in the face of perceived global threats. In spite of the hoopla and euphoria of the global village, walls of division and exclusion are rising, hearts are constricting, and moral imagination shrinking. In response to this context, Burning Center, Porous Borders proposes alternative ways or images of being a church: burning center and porous borders, wall-buster and bridge-builder, translocal (glocal), mending-healer, radical hospitality, community of the earth-spirit, household of life abundant, dialogians of life, and community of hope. In Burning Center, Porous Borders congregational vitality and progressive praxis kiss and embrace!

Description: Burning Center, Porous Borders articulates what the church is and is called to be about in the world, a world now globalized to the point that the local is lived globally and the global is lived locally. The church must respond creatively and prophetically to the challenges-economic disparity, war and terrorism, diaspora, ecological threat, health crisis, religious diversity, and so on-posed by our highly globalized world. It can do so only if the church's spiritual center burns mightily. Conversely, it can burn mightily in the spirit of Christ only if its borders are porous and allows the fresh air/spirit of change to blow in and out. While there is much rhetoric about change, the most common response to change is to continue doing business as usual. This is particularly the case in the face of perceived global threats. In spite of the hoopla and euphoria of the global village, walls of division and exclusion are rising, hearts are constricting, and moral imagination shrinking. In response to this context, Burning Center, Porous Borders proposes alternative ways or images of being a church: burning center and porous borders, wall-buster and bridge-builder, translocal (glocal), mending-healer, radical hospitality, community of the earth-spirit, household of life abundant, dialogians of life, and community of hope. In Burning Center, Porous Borders congregational vitality and progressive praxis kiss and embrace! Endorsements: ""This superb book is theologically profound and ethically astute in its critique of the church in a globalized world. Fernandez draws on his own rich personal, pastoral, and academic experiences, as well as an abundance of scholarship, to insightfully illuminate the connections between a range of crucial issues and to prophetically revision the church's mission in transformative and hopeful ways."" -Pamela Brubaker Professor Emeritus of Religion California Lutheran University About the Contributor(s): Eleazar S. Fernandez is Professor of Constructive Theology at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, New Brighton, Minnesota. He is the author of Reimagining the Human: Theological Anthropology in Response to Systemic Evils (2004).

"Feasting on the Gospels is a new series that follows up on the success of the Feasting of the Word series to provide another trusted preaching resource, this time on the most preached-on books in the Bible, the four Gospels." -- Inside cover

This book focuses on the Philippines as a powerhouse in the Catholic and global migration landscape. It offers a wide-ranging look at the roles, dynamics, character, and trajectories of Catholic faith and practice in the age of migration through an interdisciplinary, religious, and theological approach to Filipino Catholics’ experience of migration and diaspora both at home and overseas. In so doing, the book introduces the reader to the hallmarks and characteristics of a contextual model of world Christianity and global Catholicism in the twenty-first century.

When religious diversity is our reality, radical hospitality to people of other faiths is not a luxury but a necessity. More than necessary for our survival, radical hospitality to religious diversity is necessary if we are to thrive as a global society. By no means does the practice of hospitality in a multifaith world require that we be oblivious of our differences. On the contrary, it demands a respectful embrace of our differences because that's who we are. Neither does radical hospitality require that we water down our commitment, because faithfulness and openness are not contradictory. We must be able to say with burning passion that we are open to the claims of other faiths because we are faithful to our religious heritage. The essays in this book do not offer simply theological exhortations; they offer specific ways of how we can become religiously competent citizens in a multifaith world. Let's take the bold steps of radical openness with this book on our side!

The painful reality faced by refugees and migrants is one of the greatest moral challenges of our time, in turn, becoming a focus of significant scholarship. This volume examines the global phenomenon of migration in its theological, historical, and socio-political dimensions and of how churches and faith communities have responded to the challenges of such mass human movement. The contributions reflect global perspectives with contributions from African, Asian, European, North American, and South American scholars and contexts. The essays are interdisciplinary, at the intersection of religion, anthropology, history, political science, gender and post-colonial studies. The volume brings together a variety of perspectives, inter-related by ecclesiological and theological concerns.

Inspire your students to develop their sociological imaginations in Our Social World. Focused on deep learning rather than memorization, this book encourages readers to analyze, evaluate, and apply information about the social world; to see the connection between the world and personal events from a new perspective; and to confront sociological issues on a day-to-day basis. Organized around the "Social World Model”, a conceptual framework used across chapters to see the complex links between various micro- to macro-levels of the social system, students will develop the practice of using three levels of analysis, and to view sociology as an integrated whole, rather than a set of discrete subjects.

Many people in Christian ministry are tired of simplistic certainties; what they need is permission to live with uncertainty, with mystery, ambiguity, and paradox. Because we live in a world that is far removed from the modernist version of reality,with its rational, clinical, and superficial presentation of life, we need the courage and wisdom to embrace the presence of uncertainties in the midst of certainty. In this book, the author offers snapshots of a number of central Christian topics-God, the gospel, the church, salvation, ministry-inviting us to treat them as features of a landscape to explore rather than a set of propositional statements to sign up to. Each chapter-short enough to provoke interest and curiosity-will be a catalyst for deeper reflection and enquiry, inviting us to discover a new freedom in ministry as we embrace a more generous both-and perspective in place of a more narrow either-or interpretation of the Christian faith. In the process, we may find ourselves rediscovering the Life we have lost in living as we imaginatively participate in the life, ministry, and mystery of the triune God of grace in our midst.

Christians are often tempted to encapsulate God in their own little boxes, as if God could be tied down to our finite way of thinking. But we can neither domesticate nor fully understand God, for theology has a lot to do with coming to terms with the mystery of God. This revised edition of Dancing in the Dark--shaped, as in the first edition, by the two overarching themes of God as Trinity and a theology of participation--embraces the notion of mystery in presenting a compelling vision of seeing all things finally united within the inner life of God. As we engage in Christian ministry, we are summoned to participate as grace-filled faith communities in the triune God's immeasurably loving and healing work in the world, leading those who are in darkness into an awareness of the God who imparts life in all its glorious abundance, that which is so . . . and a journey into the mystery of that which is to come. The liberating ministry of the gospel is both a declaration and an invitation--an invitation to the dance!

This volume takes its title from the first-century Christian catechism called the Didache: “Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills . . . gathered together and became one, so let Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth.” For Christians today, these words remain relevant in an era of massive human movements (voluntary and coerced), hybrid identities, and wide-ranging cultural interactions. How do modern Christians live as both a “scattered” and “gathered” people? How do they live out the tension between ecclesial universality (catholicity) and particularity (distinctive ways of being church in a given culture and context)? Do Christians today constitute a “diaspora,” a people dispersed across borders and cultures that nonetheless maintains a sense of commonality and mission? Scattered and Gathered: Catholics in Diaspora explores these questions through the work of fourteen scholars in different fields and from different corners of the world. Whether through reflections on Zimbabweans in Britain, Levantines in North America, or the remote island people of Chiloé now living in other parts of Chile, they guide readers along the winding road of insights and challenges facing many of today’s Christians.