The Old Testament is transformed from problem to ally when preachers attend to power at work in ancient and modern contexts by mirroring Second Isaiah's proclamation, listening to contemporary servant Israel, and learning from African American preaching in context of domination. This book analyses the impact of domination on Old Testament proclamation and thus leads to several unique contributions. Firstly, it reads Second Isaiah as a homiletic model for proclaiming older (pre-exilic) texts in response to exilic domination. Secondly, it treats the Old Testament as a rich resource for confronting racism and anti-Semitism though teaching and it introduces contemporary Christian-Jewish dialogue in Germany as a model for the Church. Lastly, it highlights preaching traditions within the African American Church as instructive for formulating an effective Old Testament preaching strategy.

Translated by Daniel P. Bailey The Servant Song of Isaiah 53 has been highly significant in both Jewish and Christian thought. Rarely, however, has it been explored from the broad range of perspectives represented in this long-awaited volume. In "The Suffering Servant ten talented biblical interpreters trace the influence of the Servant Song text through the centuries, unpacking the theological meanings of this rich passage of scripture and its uses in various religious contexts. Chapters examine in depth Isaiah 52:13-53:12 in the Hebrew original and in later writings, including pre-Christian Jewish literature, the New Testament, the Isaiah Targum, the early church fathers, and a sixteenth-century rabbinic document informed by Jewish-Christian dialogue. Contributors: Jostein Adna Daniel P. Bailey Gerlinde Feine Martin Hengel Hans-Jurgen Hermisson Otfried Hofius Wolfgang Hullstrung Bernd Janowski Christoph Markschies Stefan Schreiner Hermann Spieckermann Peter Stuhlmacher

In this groundbreaking book, Antoinette Elizabeth DeNapoli examines the everyday religious worlds and lived practices of female Hindu ascetics (sadhus) in the north Indian state of Rajasthan. Real Sadhus Sing to God is the first book-length study to explore the ways that female sadhus perform and create gendered views of asceticism through their singing, storytelling, and sacred text practices .

This unique commentary is the first to help the preacher identify and reflect theologically and ethically on the social implications of the biblical readings in the Revised Common Lectionary. In addition to providing commentary for each day in the lectionary calendar, this series introduces twenty-two Holy Days for Justice. These days are intended to enlarge the church's awareness of God's call for justice and of the many ways that call comes to the church and world today. The days include Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Earth Day, World AIDS Day, International Women's Day, Cesar Chavez Day, Yom HaShoah, and Juneteenth. For each of the lectionary days and Holy Days for Justice there is an essay that helps the preacher integrate a variety of social justice concerns (including racial/ethnic issues, sexism, classism, ecology, and violence) into their preaching. The contributors are a diverse group of homileticians, pastors, biblical scholars, theologians, and social activists.

The description of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 is a beloved biblical text with an unshakable place in the theology and self-understanding of the church. Since New Testament times, this text has fed the church's thinking about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Leading Old Testament theologian Gordon McConville offers a lively exposition of Isaiah 53 that is at once true to its Old Testament context, conversant with the history of interpretation, and deeply Christian. McConville illuminates the text's contribution to our apprehension of who Jesus is and explores the various ways the text can speak to us in faithfulness to its scriptural authority and character. The author explores the theological and spiritual issues that arise from the poetry's words and phrases and shows how this classic text can speak to the life of the church today. The Touchstone Texts series addresses key Bible passages, making high-quality biblical scholarship accessible to the church. The series editor is Stephen B. Chapman, Duke Divinity School.

What happens to the Responsorial Psalm in the Sunday liturgy? How can it help us pray the Sunday readings? How can it help in planning the liturgy? The Responsorial Psalm is the most neglected part of the Liturgy of the Word, yet it can be the key to all the rest. Its intent is to help bring the message of the other readings into our lives. This book addresses the riches of the Responsorial Psalm for every Sunday of the three-year cycle. It explains the psalm genre, offers exposition on the meaning and beauty of the psalm itself, and comments on the relationship of the Responsorial Psalm to the other readings. It is the book for anyone who wants to understand and appreciate the Sunday readings -- preachers, catechists, liturgists and all the people in the pews.

Evangelical churches sing hymns written between 1870 and 1920 so often that many children learn them by rote before they are able to read religious texts. A cherished part of communal Christian life and an important and effective way to teach doctrine today, these hymns served an additional social purpose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: they gave evangelical women a voice in their churches. When the sacred music business expanded after the Civil War, writing hymn texts gave publishing opportunities to women who were forbidden to preach, teach, or pray aloud in mixed groups. Authorized by oral expression, gospel hymns allowed women to articulate alternative spiritual models within churches that highly valued orality.These feminized hymns are the focus of "I Sing for I Cannot Be Silent." Drawing upon her own experience as a Baptist, June Hadden Hobbs argues that the evangelical tradition is an oral tradition—it is not anti-intellectual but antiprint. Evangelicals rely on memory and spontaneous oral improvisation; hymns serve to aid memory and permit interaction between oral and written language. By comparing male and female hymnists' use of rhetorical forms, Hobbs shows how women utilized the only oral communication allowed to them in public worship. Gospel hymns permitted women to use a complex system of images already associated with women and domesticity. This feminized hymnody challenged the androcentric value system of evangelical Christianity by making visible the contrasting masculine and feminine versions of Christianity. When these hymns were sung in church, women's voices and opinions moved out of the private sphere and into public religion. The hymns are so powerful that they are suppressed by some contemporary fundamentalists today.In "I Sing for I Cannot Be Silent" June Hadden Hobbs employs an interdisciplinary mix of feminist literary analysis, social history, rhetoric and composition theory, hymnology, autobiography, and theology to examine hymns central to worship in most evangelical churches today.

Singing Utopia is an original study of voice in musical theatre. Rather than focusing on how actors sing or analysing voices using established approaches found in opera studies, this book offers readers ways to understand musical theatre voices from a cultural perspective. It argues that musical theatre singing allows listeners and audiences to escape their everyday lives; and that voices can 'be' utopian. It then considers what this means and uncovers some paradoxes and difficulties in this idea. Introducing a new set of terms, it provides a way to listen to, think about, and even perform, voice in popular musical theatre.

We know that the earliest Christians sang hymns. But are some of these early Christian hymns preserved for us in the New Testament? Matthew Gordley takes a new look at didactic hymns in the Greco-Roman and Jewish world of the early church, considering how they might function in the New Testament and what they could tell us about early Christian worship.

Two years after its initial publication, and aftersales of 120,000 copies, this Presentation Edition of Singing The Faith, the authorised hymn book of the Menthodist Church, is published to public demand. More than just a hymn book, the Church famously expresses its theology through its hymnody and thus it hymn book is also a devotional and theological resource. Seven years in development, Singing the Faith contains the classic, best loved hymns of Christian tradition and also incorporates many exciting new hymns, songs and liturgical chants from the world church. A large proportion of its 830+ items are 20th and 21st century compositions, offering a feast of musical choices spanning centuries and continents. It is arranged thematically in three parts: * God's Eternal Goodness - the Trinity, praise and adoration, creation, gathering for worship, Scripture and revelation. * God's Redeeming Work - the life of Christ revealed throughout the Christian year * God's Enduring Purposes - the Holy Spirit, our life in God, prayer, the sacraments, our human journeys, the saints and the life to come.