Apocalyptic expectations played a key role in defining the horizons of life and expectation in early modern Europe. Hope and Heresy investigates the problematic status of a particular kind of apocalyptic expectation—that of a future felicity on earth before the Last Judgement—within Lutheran confessional culture between approximately 1570 and 1630. Among Lutherans expectations of a future felicity were often considered manifestations of a heresy called chiliasm, because they contravened the pessimistic apocalyptic outlook at the core of confessional identity. However, during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, individuals raised within Lutheran confessional culture—mathematicians, metallurgists, historians, astronomers, politicians, and even theologians—began to entertain and publicise hopes of a future earthly felicity. Their hopes were countered by accusations of heresy. The ensuing contestation of acceptable doctrine became a flashpoint for debate about the boundaries of confessional identity itself. Based on a thorough study of largely neglected or overlooked print and manuscript sources, the present study examines these debates within their intellectual, social, cultural, and theological contexts. It outlines, for the first time, a heretofore overlooked debate about the limits and possibilities of eschatological thought in early modernity, and provides readers with a unique look at a formative time in the apocalyptic imagination of European culture.

Free will is fundamental to our interaction with everyone we come into contact with. While we've come to presume freedom to think and act for ourselves, we sometimes struggle with allowing others that same privilege. It gets even harder when their behavior is irritating or in conflict with our beliefs! Today's heretic may be just another fool, OR tomorrow's visionary! How can we tell the difference? How can we decide when to be patient and when to take action? This book examines our freedoms, beliefs and responsibilities as we attempt to live in harmony with others.

Written in a theopoetic key, this book challenges Christian reliance on the motif of promise, especially where promise is regarded as a prerequisite for the experience of hope. It pursues instead an unpromising hope available to the agnostic or belief-fluid members and leaders of faith communities. The book rejects any theological judgement about doubt and hopelessness being sinful. It also rejects any hope which is grounded in a sense of Christian supremacy. Chapter 1 focuses on Ernst Bloch’s antifascist concept of utopian surplus, putting Bloch in conversation with queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz and womanist theologian M. Shawn Copeland. Chapter 2 explores the saudadic and theopoetic hope of Rubem Alves. Chapter 3 turns to the womanist theologies of Delores Williams, Emilie Townes, and A. Elaine Brown Crawford. Finally, chapter 4 engages the post-colonial eschatology of Vítor Westhelle, framing hope as nearby in space, rather than nearby in time. Each chapter offers an unpromising hope that may be tapped into by those who wish to affirm belief-fluidity in their own communities, and by those who wish to speak of hope honestly, whether or not, at any given moment, they believe in God or in the promises of a god.

Heresy studies is a new interdisciplinary, supra-religious, and humanist field of study that focuses on borderlands of dogma, probes the intersections between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and explores the realms of dissent in religion, art, and literature. Free from confessional agendas and tolerant of both religious and non-religious perspectives, heresy studies fulfill an important gap in scholarly inquiry and artistic production. Divided into four parts, the volume explores intersections between heresy and modern literature, it discusses intricacies of medieval heresies, it analyzes issues of heresy in contemporary theology, and it demonstrates how heresy operates as an artistic stimulant. Rather than treating matters of heresy, blasphemy, unbelief, dissent, and non-conformism as subjects to be shunned or naively championed, the essays in this collection chart a middle course, energized by the dynamics of heterodoxy, dissent, and provocation, yet shining a critical light on both the challenges and the revelations of disruptive kinds of thinking and acting.

Robert Mounce, who was for 21 years a regular columnist in 'Eternity' as well as the author of several popular articles in such publications as 'Christianity Today', here demonstrates his scholarship, lucidity, and pastoral heart in this commentary designed to meet the needs of laypersons and pastors looking for a balanced, effective, and relevant interpretation of Peter's epistles. Mounce sees the keynote of the letters as hope, but the main purpose as hortatory - that is, they were written "to encourage believers in Asia Minor to expect and endure hardship as a result of their commitment to the Christian faith" and "to stimulate them to wholesome thinking" vis-a-vis false teachers who had risen within the church itself. Central to Mounce's commentary is the remarkable fact that although the letters are packed with imperatives, they do not merely offer ethical instructions or "lessons for living," but move freely from doctrine to duty and back again. Thus, the purpose of doctrine is seen here as less to instruct than to provide the theological basis for a new way of living. More specifically, because Christians have been born anew to a living hope, there is a serious challenge to holy living. Mounce effectively "updates" this challenge, applying it to modern living - and chapter titles such as "How to Get Along With Your Spouse," "Living in an Alien Society," and "How to Live in the Family of God" reflect the author's timely and practical application. Study questions are included to facilitate individual and group Bible study.

Jesus Christ is coming again! That is the Blessed Hope which has since the earliest days of the Church energized Biblical Christians looking for the full revelation of God's redemption. The author sketches the history of interpretations of Christ's second coming and then carefully and lucidly examines the Biblical passages on which this doctrine is based. His conclusion is that the Blessed Hope is the second coming of Jesus Christ, not a pretribulation rapture that believers in a secret coming of Jesus. Yet he concludes that there should be liberty and charity within the Christian community for all who hold to the expectation of "the blessed hope and appearing in glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ."