What role does, could or should theology play in current discussions about our political realities? Is there a place for theological worldviews in the public conversation about policy making? Should theology critically unmask the underlying theological and metaphysical sources of contemporary politics? The contributors to this volume reflect on new questions in public and political theology, inspired by the theology of Edward Schillebeeckx. They discuss a variety of theological traditions and theories that could offer substantial contributions to current political challenges, and debate whether theology should contribute to the liberation of communities of poor and suffering people.

Christianity struggles to show how living on earth matters for living with God. While people of faith increasingly seek practical ways to respond to the environmental crisis, theology has had difficulty contextualizing the crisis and interpreting the responses. In Ecologies of Grace, Willis Jenkins presents a field-shaping introduction to Christian environmental ethics that offers resources for renewing theology. Observing how religious environmental practices often draw on concepts of grace, Jenkins maps the way Christian environmental strategies draw from traditions of salvation as they engage the problems of environmental ethics. He then uses this new map to explore afresh the ecological dimensions of Christian theology. Jenkins first shows how Christian ethics uniquely frames environmental issues, and then how those approaches both challenge and reinhabit theological traditions. He identifies three major strategies for making environmental problems intelligible to Christian moral experience. Each one draws on a distinct pattern of grace as it adapts a secular approach to environmental ethics. The strategies of ecojustice, stewardship, and ecological spirituality make environments matter for Christian experience by drawing on patterns of sanctification, redemption, and deification. He then confronts the problems of each of these strategies through critical reappraisals of Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Sergei Bulgakov. Each represents a soteriological tradition which Jenkins explores as an ecology of grace, letting environmental questions guide investigation into how nature becomes significant for Christian experience. By being particularly sensitive to the ways in which environmental problems are made intelligible to Christian moral experience, Jenkins guides his readers toward a fuller understanding of Christianity and ecology. He not only makes sense of the variety of Christian environmental ethics, but by showing how environmental issues come to the heart of Christian experience, prepares fertile ground for theological renewal.

Finding Grace with God: A Phenomenological Reading of the Annunciation engages in an interweaving of phenomenology, mystical theology, and feminist philosophy to unfold a theopoetic interpretation of the narrative of the Annunciation in the Gospel of Luke. It begins with a discussion of the foundational phenomenologies of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger and then moves to the more recent work of several French phenomenologists, including Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Louis Chretien, and Michel Henry. The interpretation is then expanded through the philosophies of Luce Irigaray, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jacques Derrida. Finally, the phenomenologies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger provide a means to interpret the Annunciation through theopoetics, as a text that is infused with possibility. Mary, filled with grace, is beckoned by the divine into possibility; responding in grace, she in turn beckons the divine into possibility. Transgressing the limits of language, this possibility slips into apophasis--into a moment of Gelassenheit, a mutual "letting-be" or releasement of Mary and the divine into a mystical union of love, a love that becomes manifest through a gift of life.

These are the tales of Dave's adventurous, yet accident filled, youth set in a mostly rural environment. These stories will make you laugh until you cry, scratch your head in total puzzlement, just plain cry and then laugh some more, all the while bringing back many memories of your own childhood, or thankful that these weren't your childhood memories. Some of his laughter and pain, may be your own gain. His body of work has been compared to a cross between Patrick McManus and Garrison Keillor. His body has been compared to a cross between Fabio and Woody Allen. His mind has been compared to a cross between Shakespeare and biscuits & gravy. His stories are a down home account of the last forty years in this changing world. Most are of his youth but some also blend the past with the present. These tales take the reader back to simpler times of days gone by in a wonderful state called Oregon. The stories are all true and as he says, 'There are plenty of court records, witnesses, physical and emotional scars to prove all of them!' The book contains 65 chapters and these are but a few of the many subjects and exploits within: How Nutria came to Oregon - Little Connestogas or Spaceships? What mice and the Boot Scoot Boogie have in common, What the police did with the dead deer riding Dave's bicycle, Skinny-dipping with monsters, What love and moonstruck watermelon have in common, Elvis and the bloated cow, Raiding apple orchards at midnight, Why streaking and strolling are not conducive, Crawling naked into a nutria den, Why sometimes FIRE! Just happens, What NOT to do when FIRE! Just happens, Fighting Dust Spitting Cobras on a Christmas Tree farm, What 007, Calvin Klein, J.Edgar Hoover, and the Beatles had to do with bean picking, Hitchhiking do's and don'ts, The dangers of troutsicles, Why cats, pistachio's and bicycles can't be trusted, The downside to converting a chicken coop into a sauna, (Believe it or not, there is also an upside) Surviving your siblings in the country, Seeking fame and fortune in Alaska, Porcupines in my pants, And many, many more.

Although the act of preaching may take on various forms, Johan Cilliers ? professor in Homiletics and Liturgy at Stellenbosch University?s Faculty of Theology ? takes a look at preaching as being an event in space and time. Aesthetical-theological concepts such as space and time are innovatively combined with the sensory experiences, like preaching as hearing and as seeing. A Space for Grace truly is an inspiring aesthetic combination of academic reflection, art works and sermons.ÿ

The problem of eternal damnation is one that should trouble all believers and impels many to seek answers to fundamental questions outside of the Church. For this reason, theologians with a missionary heart of the last century or more from across the ecclesial spectrum have sought to refashion the gospel in our own estranged image. In dialogue with one of the leading figures of this movement, Joshua Brotherton tackles the question of the plausibility that all will be saved. Sympathetic to their cause, this volume seeks to revise the way in which they envision the reconciliation of divine love and moral evil.