Reading Responsibly: A Guide to Biblical Interpretation focuses on two key areas: methods and ethics of interpretation. The book introduces, explains, and guides students in the understanding and application of particular methods commonly used by biblical scholars in the study of the Bible. The methods discussed focus on historical, literary, and reader-oriented aspects of biblical interpretation. The attention to ethics occurs mainly in the last chapter. Because the Bible is an extremely influential book, it often motivates people to act in beneficial or harmful ways. The focus on love for others motivates charitable giving or actions designed to help others. Emphasis on God’s wrath may lead to exclusivism and even violence. Readings leading to disrespect and mental or physical abuse, stem from an irresponsible use of the Bible. Responsible readings give full consideration to the text in its proper context and never call for action that is inconsistent with love and justice.

Introducing readers to a new theory of 'responsible reading', this book presents a range of perspectives on the contemporary relationship between modernism and theory. Emerging from a collaborative process of comment and response, it promotes conversation among disparate views under a shared commitment to responsible reading practices. An international range of contributors question the interplay between modernism and theory today and provide new ways of understanding the relationship between the two, and the links to emerging concerns such as the Anthropocene, decolonization, the post-human, and eco-theory. Promoting responsible reading as a practice that reads generously and engages constructively, even where disagreement is inevitable, this book articulates a mode of ethical reading that is fundamental to ongoing debates about strength and weakness, paranoia and reparation, and critique and affect.

This volume deals with the varied forms of shame reflected in biblical, theological, psychological and anthropological sources. Although traditional theology and church practice concentrate on providing forgiveness for shameful behavior, recent scholarship has discovered the crucial relevance of social shame evoked by mental status, adversity, slavery, abuse, illness, grief and defeat. Anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists have discovered that unresolved social shame is related to racial and social prejudice, to bullying, crime, genocide, narcissism, post-traumatic stress and other forms of toxic behavior. Eleven leaders in this research participated in a conference on The Shame Factor, sponsored by St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Lincoln, NE in October 2010. Their essays explore the impact and the transformation of shame in a variety of arenas, comprising in this volume a unique and innovative resource for contemporary religion, therapy, ethics, and social analysis.

Newly available in paperback, this book traces a close engagement with Derrida's writing over two decades examining the relationship between deconstruction, literature and ethics.

Vols for 1967-1968, 1971-1983 constitute Proceedings of the meeting of Die Nuwe-Testamentiese Werkgemeenskap van Suid-Afrika.