Over the space of a generation, Christianity in the Western world has gone from occupying a central place in the wider society to being eyed with increasing suspicion and, in some places, outright hostility. Although the church has always been a minority group, in the past decade or so it has become reawakened to that reality—and to the similarities it shares with the first followers of Jesus for whom the New Testament was written. In this book, Tim MacBride shows how New Testament texts functioned as rhetoric for the marginalized minority groups they addressed, encouraging hearers to resist the pressure to conform to the majority culture, yet in a way that remained attractively different to outsiders. He offers suggestions for how Christians today—and preachers in particular—can use and apply the New Testament’s minority-group rhetoric to speak into our own increasingly marginalized experience. Such preaching needs to guard against either being shaped by culture or isolating preacher and hearers against culture. It must instead champion the call of New Testament authors to a middle way—a call for communities of “aliens and exiles” to engage with culture by living out an attractive difference.

What did the future hold for Rhodesia's white population at the end of a bloody armed conflict fought against settler colonialism? Would there be a place for them in newly independent Zimbabwe? PIONEERS, SETTLERS, ALIENS, EXILES sets out the terms offered by Robert Mugabe in 1980 to whites who opted to stay in the country they thought of as their home. The book traces over the next two decades their changing relationshipwith the country when the post-colonial government revised its symbolic and geographical landscape and reworked codes of membership. Particular attention is paid to colonial memories and white interpellation in the official account of the nation's rebirth and indigene discourses, in view of which their attachment to the place shifted and weakened. As the book describes the whites' trajectory from privileged citizens to persons of disputed membership and contested belonging, it provides valuable background information with regard to the land and governance crises that engulfed Zimbabwe at the start of the twenty-first century.

Early Christians spoke about themselves as resident aliens, strangers, and sojourners, asserting that otherness is a fundamental part of being Christian. But why did they do so and to what ends? How did Christians' claims to foreign status situate them with respect to each other and to the larger Roman world as the new movement grew and struggled to make sense of its own boundaries? Aliens and Sojourners argues that the claim to alien status is not a transparent one. Instead, Benjamin Dunning contends, it shaped a rich, pervasive, variegated discourse of identity in early Christianity. Resident aliens and foreigners had long occupied a conflicted space of both repulsion and desire in ancient thinking. Dunning demonstrates how Christians and others in antiquity capitalized on this tension, refiguring the resident alien as being of a compelling doubleness, simultaneously marginal and potent. Early Christians, he argues, used this refiguration to render Christian identity legible, distinct, and even desirable among the vast range of social and religious identities and practices that proliferated in the ancient Mediterranean. Through close readings of ancient Christian texts such as Hebrews, 1 Peter, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle to Diognetus, Dunning examines the markedly different ways that Christians used the language of their own marginality, articulating a range of options for what it means to be Christian in relation to the Roman social order. His conclusions have implications not only for the study of late antiquity but also for understanding the rhetorics of religious alienation more broadly, both in the ancient world and today.

The history of exile literature is as old as the history of writing itself. Despite this vast and varied literary tradition, criticism of exile writing has tended to analyze these works according to a binary logic, where exile either produces creative freedom or it traps the writer in restrictive nostalgia. The Dialectics of Exile: Nation, Time, Language and Space in Hispanic Literatures offers a theory of exile writing that accounts for the persistence of these dual impulses and for the ways that they often co-exist within the same literary works. Focusing on writers working in the latter part of the twentieth century who were exiled during a historical moment of increasing globalization, transnational economics, and the theoretical shifts of postmodernism, Sophia A. McClennen proposes that exile literature is best understood as a series of dialectic tensions about cultural identity. Through comparative analysis of Juan Goytisolo (Spain), Ariel Dorfman (Chile) and Cristina Peri Rossi (Uruguay), this book explores how these writers represent exile identity. Each chapter addresses dilemmas central to debates over cultural identity such as nationalism versus globalization, time as historical or cyclical, language as representationally accurate or disconnected from reality, and social space as utopic or dystopic. McClennen demonstrates how the complex writing of these three authors functions as an alternative discourse of cultural identity that not only challenges official versions imposed by authoritarian regimes, but also tests the limits of much cultural criticism.

In this systematic, book-by-book exploration of the theology of each New Testament writing, Frank J. Matera explores theological diversity and unity in the writings of the New Testament. After an introduction to the history and method of New Testament theology, he explains and describes the theologies of the Synoptic, Pauline, and Johannine traditions, as well as the rich theology of other New Testament voices: Hebrews, the Catholic Epistles, and the book of Revelation. Integrating both Protestant and Catholic approaches, this work provides students, pastors, and scholars a comprehensive view of the New Testament that is rich in exegetical and theological insight.

1 Peter is a significant letter, seen by many scholars to be an ecumenical bridge and anchor. It is first and foremost about the transformative joy of faith in Jesus Christ. This commentary offers a close reading of the text from beginning to end, drawing on a multiplicity of voices and engaging in a number of foundational themes for the Christian community according to the apostolic author: hope, holiness, suffering, joy, witness, hospitality, exile, resurrection, leadership. Tackling the themes raised by the epistle including slavery, exile and refugees, patriarchy, hierarchy, oppression, gender justice, and the risk of hospitality, the book engages with these topics not only through commentary, but also through short excursuses which draw the reader more deeply into some of the difficult questions. Designed as the official commentary resource for the Lambeth Conference in 2020, and structured around the themes of the conference, the book offers a unique range of perspectives on an oft-overlooked epistle. With contributions from an impressive range of scholars including Paula Gooder, Emma Ineson, Paul Swarup, Musa Dube, Craig Keener, and Kwok Pui Lan, it will provide an important resource for anyone studying, teaching, or preaching from the letter.

The Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies (JBTS) is an academic journal focused on the fields of Bible and Theology from an inter-denominational point of view. The journal is comprised of an editorial board of scholars that represent several academic institutions throughout the world. JBTS is concerned with presenting high-level original scholarship in an approachable way. Academic journals are often written by scholars for other scholars. They are technical in nature, assuming a robust knowledge of the field. There are fewer journals that seek to introduce biblical and theological scholarship that is also accessible to students. JBTS seeks to provide high-level scholarship and research to both scholars and students, which results in original scholarship that is readable and accessible. As an inter-denominational journal JBTS is broadly evangelical. We accept contributions in all theological disciplines from any evangelical perspective. In particular, we encourage articles and book reviews within the fields of Old Testament, New Testament, Biblical Theology, Church History, Systematic Theology, Practical Theology, Philosophical Theology, Philosophy, and Ethics.

Works through the complete text of 1 Peter supplemented with discussion of the Greek text, main themes, and recent scholarship.

Embracing the viewpoints of Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox thinkers, of conservatives, liberals, radicals, and agnostics, Christianity today is anything but monolithic or univocal. In The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, general editor Adrian Hastings has tried to capture a sense of the great diversity of opinion that swirls about under the heading of Christian thought. Indeed, the 260 contributors, who hail from twenty countries, represent as wide a range of perspectives as possible.Here is a comprehensive and authoritative (though not dogmatic) overview of the full spectrum of Christian thinking. Within its 600 alphabetically arranged entries, readers will find lengthy survey articles on the history of Christian thought, on national and regional traditions, and on various denominations, from Anglican to Unitarian. There is ample coverage of Eastern thought as well, examining the Christian tradition in China, Japan, India, and Africa. The contributors examine major theological topics such as resurrection, the Eucharist, and grace as well as controversial issues such as homosexuality and abortion. In addition, short entries illuminate symbols such as water and wine, and there are many profiles of leading theologians, of non-Christians who have deeply influenced Christian thinking, including Aristotle and Plato, and of literary figures such as Dante, Milton, and Tolstoy. Most articles end with a list of suggested readings and the book features a large number of cross-references.The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought is an indispensable guide to one of the central strands of Western culture. An essential volume for all Christians, it is a thoughtful gift for the holidays.

Fresh research on the experiences of music and musicians in exile from Nazi Europe, exploring refugee experiences in Europe, the USA, Australia and Shanghai, the role of institutions, and the reception of individual creative work during and after the Second World War.