Multireligious Reflections on Friendship: Becoming Ourselves in Community presents a multi-religious discussion of spiritual and ethical formation through friendship. Contributors discuss the positive effects of friendship and some of the culturally diverse ways that friendships develop. Friends help us co-exist in diverse societies, live sustainably in our ecosystems, heal from trauma, develop inner virtues, engage wisely in social action, and connect with the divine. While friendship is ...

The title of this book plays upon the central place a theology of the cross holds in Lutheran theologies, especially lucid in Luther's Heidelberg Disputation (1518). The 500th anniversary of this document coincided with the 70th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations wherein the preamble points to a global aspiration of a common good shaped by freedom, justice and peace. This book is located at the intersection of these two themes, asserting that the cross has...

Bodies Inhabiting the World: Scandinavian Creation Theology and the Question of Home offers a multidimensional investigation of how houses, bodies, communities and the whole universe may be conceived and refigured as places where we belong—where we are at home in God’s creation. In this way, revisiting the tradition of Scandinavian creation theology provides profound resources to make theological affirmations of God’s omnipresence in the human condition we all share. The emergence...

In Indigenous and Christian Perspectives in Dialogue, Allen G. Jorgenson asks what Christian theologians might learn from Indigenous spiritualties and worldviews. Jorgenson argues that theology in North America has been captive to colonial conceits and has lost sight of key resources in a post-Christendom context. The volume is especially concerned with the loss of a sense of place, evident in theologies written without attention to context. Using a comparative theology methodology, wherei...

In this book, leading American Lutheran theologians, inspired by the Scandinavian emphasis on theology as embodied practice, ask how Christian communities might be mobilized for resistance against systemic injustices. They argue that the challenges we confront today as citizens of the United States, as a species in relation to all the other species on the planet, and as members of the body of Christ require an imaginative reconceptualization of the inherited tradition. The driving force of...

Christian Theology after Christendom: Engaging the Thought of Douglas John Hall brings together contemporary thinkers to engage and build upon Douglas John Hall’s work—and to take up his challenge to reclaim a contextual and decolonizing theology of the cross as a means to speak to the realities of life and faith today. With a focus on contemporary issues, this edited collection critically analyzes and deconstructs the centuries-old colonial triumphalism of Christian theology and the churc...

Contributors to this book analyze areas of Martin Luther’s and Lutheran theology that have otherwise been neglected or underrepresented in the five hundred years since the Reformation. They constructively widen the scope of Luther and Lutheran theology by viewing both from the perspectives of the “subaltern,” those whose voices are barely or rarely heard. The book formulates an inclusive Lutheran theology that reaches out but does not close out.The book’s sections address “Precario...

The Meaning of My Neighbor’s Faith addresses two of the most critical challenges of our time: immigration and religious diversity. The diverse group of contributors, representing a variety of religious traditions, disciplines, and methodologies, explore “the meaning of my neighbor’s faith” in the age of migration. Each author reflects on the meaning of religious traditions in the context of the unprecedented migrations of people who look and believe differently than their hosts. The volume...

Awe and Expectation charts new territory in exploring the intersection of theology and stewardship. Theologians, ministers, and lay members of the church will find in this book material to fuel their imaginations as they rethink the role of stewardship in a post-Christendom church. Starting with sacrament and ending with word, Awe and Expectation surveys how a theology of stewardship illumines those core activities that define the church and how these same practices shape the contours of s...

Schleiermacher's preaching constituted a substantive part of his academic and pastoral life, and provides a foray into his thought that is both accessible and inspiring. In the form of the sermon, we discover Schleiermacher's theology at work in the context of the worship life of the community--especially important for this progenitor of liberal theology. Schleiermacher's Passion sermons are especially interesting, given that contemporary interpreters of his thought generally assume that h...

How might someone's disability shape not only their view of God, but of the church? Turning to the lived experiences of people with disabilities and caregivers for children with disabilities, this book provides theological reflections on their images of the church. Attuning to these often ignored voices provides thought-provoking insights into what the church and other religious communities can do and have failed to do for and alongside its disabled members and their caregivers. Embracing ...

Immigration is one of the most hotly debated topics today. But, the question involves more than politics and emotion; it includes such critical issues as law, justice, human rights, human dignity, and freedom. Strangers in This World is a collection that brings together an international consortium of scholars to reflect on the religious, political, anthropological, and social realities of immigration through the prism of the historical and theological resources, insights, and practices acr...