Can the comparison of two theologians vastly separated in space and time help contemporary theologians to think better? This book compares two preeminent theologians, Sri Ramanuja of the Hindu tradition and Friedrich Schleiermacher of the Christian tradition. Each argues that God sustains the universe at every moment of its existence, but they work out the divine sustenance in very different ways.

In this study, Paul S. Chung charts the history of social scientific study of religion from the axial age to the present day, and thereby lays a foundation for a new model of constructive theology in the comparative study of religion, culture and society. Analysing the thought of Max Weber, Alfred Schutz, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Edmund Husserl, Max Horkheimer and others, Chung deals effectively with material interests, power relations and the history of race, gender and sexuality. The result is a synthesis that is at once innovative, critical, and applicable to current methodology in theology and the social sciences.

Here freshly researched, unprecedented stories regarding modern American thought and religious life show how the scholar Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) provides ongoing influence still. They describe his influence on universal rights, American religious life, theology, philosophy, history, psychology, interpretation of texts, community formation, and interpersonal dialogue. Schleiermacher is an Einstein-like innovator in all these areas and more. This work contrasts chiefly "evangelical liberal" figures with others (between circa 1835 and the 1920s). It also looks ahead to several careers extended well into the twentieth century and offers numerous characterizations of Schleiermacher's thought. In six tightly organized parts, fourteen expert historians chronologically discuss the following: (1) Methodist leaders (1766-1924); (2) Stuart, Bushnell, Nevin, and Hodge; (3) Restorationists, Transcendentalists, women leaders, Schaff, and Rauschenbusch; (4) Clarke, Mullins, Carus, and Bowne; (5) Dewey, Royce, Ames, Knudson, Brown, Fosdick, Cross, Jones, and Thurman--within contemporary contexts. Unexpectedly, John Dewey lies at the epicenter of the narrative, and Harry Emerson Fosdick and Howard Thurman bring it to its climax. Recently, evidence displays a broadening influence advancing rapidly. The sixth part of the book surveys modern historiography, Schleiermacher on history and comparative method and on psychology as a basic scientific and philosophical field. That section also provides a critical survey of histories of modern theology and offers concluding questions and answers. The three editors contribute twenty of the thirty-one chapters.

This volume illuminates why Friedrich Schleiermacher is hailed as the father of modern theology. Terrence Tice generates a dialogue between Schleiermacher, readers, and himself by examining one of Schleiermacher’s Christmas sermons and commenting on the relationship between God, the human condition, and Jesus as the Redeemer of humankind that is at the center of Schleiermacher’s work. Following this, the major themes of his thought and the reception of the theologian since his lifetime are traced out in detail.

For generations, religion and music have been regarded as "universals," yet despite the fact that they have been frequently linked throughout history and topography, and despite the importance of music in the early stages of religious studies, their combined presence has not until now been considered a separate area of study and research. While there are well-developed fields of anthropology of religion, psychology of religion, and philosophy of religion, the widely recognized connections between religion and sound, chant, and music warrant comparable study. Drawing upon theories and methods in the study of both religion and music, referencing examples from world religious traditions, and addressing challenges posed by critics, this book envisions a unified field for religion and music: musicology of religion. Grounded in the scope and methods of phenomenology and comparative analysis, musicology of religion represents an innovative direction in interdisciplinary study, enriched by the social sciences, ethnomusicology, philosophy, theology, liturgical studies, and cognitive studies. As conceived, musicology of religion will spearhead new and creative paths in the study of religion.

"In the world but not of it"--an expression that has been interpreted in a multitude of ways. With the publication of Rod Dreher's much-debated book The Benedict Option in 2017, the question of just how the church is to exist "in but not of the world" is once again on the minds of many. To provide answers true to the context in which the Western church now finds itself, it is worth first investigating how the question has been answered in the past. In determining what to do today, it helps to understand how we got here in the first place. At the beginning of the fourth century, people were persecuted for being Christians; by the end of the fourth century, people were persecuted for not being Christians. This book is an academic investigation of how three paradigmatic theologians interpreted this so-called Constantinian shift: Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260-339), Augustine of Hippo (354-430), and John Howard Yoder (1927-1997). Surprising similarities between the theology of Eusebius and Yoder become apparent, and underlying theological structures of how to interpret what it looks like to be a community that follows Christ are revealed.

Learning in a Musical Key examines the multidimensional problem of the relationship between music and theological education. Lisa Hess argues that, in a delightful and baffling way, musical learning has the potential to significantly alter and inform our conception of the nature and process of theological learning. In exploring this exciting intersection of musical learning and theological training, Hess asks two probing questions. First, What does learning from music in a performative mode require? Classical modes of theological education often founder on a dichotomy between theologically musical and educational discourses. It is extremely difficult for many to see how the perceivedly nonmusical learn from music. Is musicality a universally human potential? In exploring this question Hess turns to the music-learning theory of Edwin Gordon, which explores music's unique mode of teaching/learning, its primarily aural-oral mode. This challenge leads to the study's second question: How does a theologian, in the disciplinary sense, integrate a performative mode into critical discourse? Tracking the critical movements of this problem, Hess provides an inherited, transformational logic as a feasible path for integrating a performative mode into multidimensional learning. This approach emerges as a distinctly relational, embodied, multidimensional, and non-correlational performative-mode theology that breaks new ground in the contemporary theological landscape. As an implicitly trinitarian method, rooted in the relationality of God, this non-correlational method offers a practical theological contribution to the discipline of Christian spirituality, newly claimed here as a discipline of transformative teaching/learning through the highly contextualized and self-implicated scholar into relationally formed communities, and ultimately into the world.

To what extent can non-Christian religious traditions utilize Plantinga’s epistemology? And, if there are believers from differing religious traditions that can rightfully utilize Plantinga’s religious epistemology, does this somehow prevent a Plantingian’s creedal-specific religious belief from being warranted? In order to answer these questions, Baldwin and McNabb first provide an introduction to Plantinga’s religious epistemology. Second, they explore the prospects and problems that members of non-Christian religions face when they attempt to utilize Plantingian religious epistemology. Finally, they sketch out possible approaches to holding that a Plantingian’s creedal-specific religious belief can be warranted, even given believers from other religious traditions who can also rightfully make full use of Plantinga’s religious epistemology.