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A monumental work in scope and content, Aloys Grillmeier's Chirst in the Christian Tradition offers students and scholars a comprehensive exposition of Western writing on the history of doctrine. Volume One covers the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451).
Examines the development of Christology and the concept of Christ and His presence through the late eighth century
Avery Dulles, well-known for several previous works in ecclesiology, including Models of the Church, here surveys a theme that demands new treatment in the present global and ecumenical context. He deals with questions that are vital for the identity of churches that designate themselves Catholic, and for the relationship between these churches and Protestant forms of Christianity. The prospects of Catholicism are realistically appraised. The Catholicity of the Church reproduces, in slightly revised form, the Martin D'Arcy Lectures delivered by Fr Dulles at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. 'In theology such as this the seeds of real unity between divided Christendom are being sown.' B.L. ...
Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a "Christian-Muslim divide"--and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities--a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world's Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule. Just who were the Christians in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Mohammed and the Qur'an? The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque is the first book-length discussion in English of the cultural and intellectual life of such Christians indigenous to the Islamic world. Sidney Griffith offers an engaging overview of their initial reaction...
This work represents the current and most relevant content on the studies of how Christianity has fared in the ancient home of its founder and birth. Much has been written about Christianity and how it has survived since its migration out of its homeland but this comprehensive reference work reassesses the geographic and demographic impact of the dramatic changes in this perennially combustible world region. The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Christianity in the Middle East also spans the historical, socio-political and contemporary settings of the region and importantly describes the interactions that Christianity has had with other major/minor religions in the region.
God Visible: Patristic Christology Reconsidered considers the early development and reception of what is today the most widely professed Christian conception of Christ. The development of this doctrine admits of wide variations in expression, understanding, and interpretation that are as striking in authors of the first millennium as they are among modern writers. The seven early ecumenical councils and their dogmatic formulations were crucial facilitators in defining the shape of this study. Focusing primarily on the declaration of the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, Brian E. Daley argues that previous assessments that Christ was one Person in two natures - the Divine of the same substance as the Father and the human of the same substance as us - can sometimes be excessively narrow, even distorting our understanding of Christ's person. Daley urges us to look beyond the Chalcedonian formula alone, and to consider what some major Church Fathers - from Irenaeus to John Damascene - say about the person of Christ.
In 1988 William Rusch wrote a book tracing the development of the idea of reception up to that time. During the intervening years, both reflection on reception and the experience of attempting to engage in it have progressed considerably.Rusch begins with a bird's-eye view of the term reception across several disciplines -- law, philosophy, literary criticism -- before homing in on its theological import. He traces its use as a term and as a practice from the New Testament up to the twentieth century, painting a picture of a dynamic process that fosters unity and diversity among churches and spiritual communities. Finally, he examines the new chapter in the history of reception due to the establishment of the ecumenical movement, and considers what will be necessary for it to continue to move the church forward.
This timely book, which arises out of consultations under the auspices of the Centre for the Study of the Christian Church, examines the Church of England's decision to ordain women to the priesthood and to make pastoral provision for those opposed. It attempts to discover and define the theological principles underlying both the ordination of women and the determination of the Church to maintain communion when these developments provoke fundamental disagreements.
The mystery of the Trinity is the central Christian belief that defines God's essence, God's ongoing love for humanity, and saving grace. Yet, over the past few centuries, especially in the West, Christians have either ceased believing in the Trinity or simply no longer recognize its relevance in their ecclesial or individual lives. Written in an ecumenical spirit that engages contemporary questions and theological viewpoints, The Trinity: Rediscovering the Central Christian Mystery articulates the mystery of the Trinity for people formed by modern historical consciousness, science, awareness of the equal dignity of men and women, and respect for world religions. By first identifying contemp...
Messianism is one of the great themes in intellectual history. But because it has done so much important ideological work for the people who have written about it, the historical roots of the discourse have been obscured from view. What did it mean to talk about "messiahs" in the ancient world, before the idea of messianism became a philosophical juggernaut, dictating the terms for all subsequent discussion of the topic? In this book, Matthew V. Novenson offers a revisionist account of messianism in antiquity. He shows that, for the ancient Jews and Christians who used the term, a messiah was not an article of faith but a manner of speaking. It was a scriptural figure of speech, one among nu...