"Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Mohandas Gandhi famously critiqued the contemporary church with this pithy phrase. Church planter Tim Morey keeps this challenge in mind as he coaches other planters in the Evangelical Covenant Church. In this book he brings his experience, combined with research and theological reflection, to help your church cultivate the irreducible qualities of an embodied apologetic: a community that is revealed by its faithful to be experiential, communal and enacted.

The materialist spirituality in Embodied Faith is biblically grounded, and it smells of earth even as it offers a taste of heaven. Taking an observation of St. Benedict as his starting point, Ola Tjrhom maintains that outward forms are fully capable of incorporating and expressing inner spiritual substance. / Tjrhom moves on to identify three crucial features of a materialist spirituality. First, it has a concrete substance primarily the sacraments and the sacramental dimension of our Christian life in its totality. Second, materialist spirituality cannot be lived out in a vacuum, but requires concrete spaces mainly the church and the world, which, though separate, are clearly interconnected. Third, this spirituality is grounded not in airy ideas and concepts but in plain empirical perception in things we can see and hear, smell and taste making it a spirituality eminently suited for our daily lives and the world. / Ola Tjrhom has written a wise book that bridges many gaps: between the material and the spiritual, the Catholic and the Protestant, the mystical and the everyday. His vision of a materialist spirituality is not a call to leave this world nor an invitation to extreme experiences, but a sober proposal for a Christian life that is in but not of the world. Firmly rooted in creation, such a spirituality still yearns for the transformation of all things. Few books are as ecumenical as Tjrhom s, drawing on a variety of Christian traditions in a way that respects each. Persuasively presented, his wide-ranging reflections cover such a range of topics, one is tempted to call it a systematics of spirituality. Michael Root / Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary

First book addressing the concerns and issues of people of color in spiritual direction “These essays speak of how we have incorporated our contemplative practices into our family life; our urban, non-religious background; how we have been nurtured in struggles for health and life through our contemplative prayer practices and our courage to survive and even thrive in the midst of dire circumstances. We speak of the unfolding bridge between faith and culture; our conflicts with an Interspiritual journey with a Christian foundation; our sexuality; our journey to healing and authenticity; and how we are taking this practice that began in the first centuries of the church with the desert mothers and fathers to the present and into the future with spiritual direction through the Internet across the world.” —from the Introduction

Embodied Hope explores implications of an embodied theology of hope for preachers' ability to nurture imaginative abundance and purposeful hope-filled action in the most chaotic of times. Embodied hope is grounded in a theological anthropology that foregrounds humanity's inherent identity as imago Dei and capacity to live as a nondistorting nondestructive reflection of God's presence in the earth. The conceptual metaphor embodied Hope represents that which creates within each of us yearning for wholeness and well-being, the always-speaking voice of God's Spirit assuring us of God's power, faithfulness, and redemptive presence and calling us toward loving, just, and restorative action in our world today. Humans possess the capacity to imagine and live toward a qualitatively better state of existence for all creation, but overwhelmed by the despairing realities of life, we often feel despondent and drained of imaginative potential. Preaching amplifies the voice of Hope, bearing witness and inviting us to imagine the possibility and efficacy of a new reality grounded in Jesus's gospel proclamation. Embodied Hope invites us to stand at the intersection of Hope and despair as we explore the contours and possibilities of living with Hope in times such as the present.

For women raising children while leading in ministry, life is a deep set of particular blessings intertwined with challenges. The book is for clergy who are also mothers, with powerful encouragement to share the teeth-gritting beauty of this tension with those who can support us. Stories worthy of tears, chuckles or groans from the lives of “clergy mamas” may echo the reader's as the author confronts the assumptions people make about mothers who lead. Every chapter ends with reflection questions for clergy mothers—and some specifically for the people who need to engage with them. The exhortations of this book are grounded in solid theological reflection. Ultimately, the author points to a practical, lived theology of the determined assertion that every Christian–not just mama, not just the clergy–is crucial to raising the family of God. This is the moment to lift up the gifts of women in ministry and the broader ministry of motherhood, creating an environment for all leaders and their relationships to thrive.

The Virtual Embodied is intended to inform, provoke and delight. It explores the ideas of embodiment, knowledge, space, virtue and virtuality to address fundamental questions about technology and human presence. It juxtaposes cutting-edge theories, polemics, and creative practices to uncover ethical, aesthetic and ecological implications of why, how and in particular where, human actions, observations and insights take place. In The Virtual Embodied, many of the authors, artists, performers and designers apply their interdisciplinary passions to questions of embodied knowledge and virtual space. In doing so it chooses to acknowledge the limitations of the conventional linear book and uses them creatively to challenge existing genres of multi-media and networked consumerism.

Our bodies have too long been in exile. We listen or pray with our hearts and minds but ignore much of our bodies; we become 'disembodied'. This illuminating book is about honouring what our bodies have to teach us. Brimming with words of wisdom that will allow you to discover what a gift your body is, 'Embodied Prayer' invites you towards wholeness of body, mind, and soul.

Nietzsche’s thought has been of renewed interest to philosophers in both the Anglo- American and the phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions. Nietzsche on Consciousness and the Embodied Mind presents 16 essays from analytic and continental perspectives. Appealing to both international communities of scholars, the volume seeks to deepen the appreciation of Nietzsche’s contribution to our understanding of consciousness and the mind. Over the past decades, a variety of disciplines have engaged with Nietzsche’s thought, including anthropology, biology, history, linguistics, neuroscience, and psychology, to name just a few. His rich and perspicacious treatment of consciousness, mind, and body cannot be reduced to any single discipline, and has the potential to speak to many. And, as several contributors make clear, Nietzsche’s investigations into consciousness and the embodied mind are integral to his wider ethical concerns. This volume contains contributions by international experts such as Christa Davis Acampora (Emory University), Keith Ansell-Pearson (Warwick University), João Constâncio (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Frank Chouraqui (Leiden University), Manuel Dries (The Open University; Oxford University), Christian J. Emden (Rice University), Maria Cristina Fornari (University of Salento), Anthony K. Jensen (Providence College), Helmut Heit (Tongji University), Charlie Huenemann (Utah State University), Vanessa Lemm (Flinders University), Lawrence J. Hatab (Old Dominion University), Mattia Riccardi (University of Porto), Friedrich Ulfers and Mark Daniel Cohen (New York University and EGS), and Benedetta Zavatta (CNRS).

Kelly M. Kapic meditates on how our suffering—particularly our physical suffering—relates to the Christian faith. This is not a theodicy or a book of easy answers. It is an invitation to reshape our understanding of suffering into the image of Jesus. What we discover is that in Christ and through his church, God displays his deep love and provision for his people.