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Larry Axel played a significant role in advancing the interface between theology and philosophy, especially where theological efforts have utilized the American philosophical tradition; the history and development of liberal religious thought in America; themes of relevance to the Chicago School of theology; and naturalism in American theology and philosophy, by founding and editing the American Journal of Theology & Philosophy. His writings also offer a possible response of creative interchange between humankind and the rest of creation through lived religious creaturalism. $89.95 276pp. 1993
In the preface to this 2000 edition, the authors point out that with the advent of the millennium, it is important to take stock of the 20th century, which has been labelled as the Age of Genocide.
Charts a spiritual path that skirts the choice between the old notion of God and atheism, between foundationalism and relativism. Describes a Neo-naturalistic philosophy of religion that combines a vision of this-worldly transcendence with an attitude of openness in inquiry and action. Part of the revival of radical empiricism in religious thought. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
In this first of three volumes, Dorrien identifies the indigenous roots of American liberal theology and demonstrates a wider, longer-running tradition than has been thought. The tradition took shape in the nineteenth century, motivated by a desire to map a modernist "third way" between orthodoxy and rationalistic deism/atheism. It is defined by its openness to modern intellectual inquiry; its commitment to the authority of individual reason and experience; its conception of Christianity as an ethical way of life; and its commitment to make Christianity credible and socially relevant to modern people. Dorrien takes a narrative approach and provides a biographical reading of important religious thinkers of the time, including William E. Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Charles Briggs. Dorrien notes that, although liberal theology moved into elite academic institutions, its conceptual foundations were laid in the pulpit rather than the classroom.
Among the greatest challenges facing religious thinkers today is that created by historicism, the notion that human beings and their myriad understandings of reality are utterly historical, conditioned by contingent circumstances and tied to particular contexts. In this book, Demian Wheeler confronts the historicist challenge by delineating and defending a particular trajectory of historicist thought known as pragmatic historicism. Rooted in the German Enlightenment and fully developed within the early Chicago school of theology, pragmatic historicism is a predominantly American tradition that was philosophically nurtured by classical pragmatism and its intellectual siblings, naturalism and ...
This title was first published in 2002. One of the most fascinating and controversial interpretations of religious diversity is 'religious pluralism.' According to John Hick's model of religious pluralism, all the world's great religions are equally valid ways of understanding and responding to the ultimate spiritual reality. This book offers an exposition of, and critical response to, John Hick's model. Introducing the various interpretations of religious diversity being discussed today, this book presents constructive suggestions as to how things could be further developed to offer a more accurate, less confusing presentation of the various options in theology of religions. The standard th...
At the heart of process-relational theology in the tradition of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) is the rejection of coercive omnipotence and the embrace of divine persuasion as the patient and uncontrolling means by which God works with a truly self-creative world. According to Whitehead, Plato's conviction that God is a persuasive agency and not a coercive agency constitutes "one of the greatest intellectual discoveries in the history of religion." According to Hartshorne, omnipotence is a "theological mistake." What is behind these claims? Why do process-relational philosophers and theologians reject divine omnipotence? How have they justified a commit...
This title was first published in 2002. How does one go about "doing Christian theology"? Yong explores this question by proposing a pneumatological-trinitarian hermeneutic. Its thesis is that interpretation and theological method is an ongoing tri-logue of Spirit-Word-Community: of interpretive subjects as imaginative, obligated and relational agents; of the horizons of the interpreter, the biblical and ecclesial traditions, and the world; and of founding, historical, and ongoing communities of faith and inquiry. Ecumenical perspectives on the topics of pneumatology (the doctrine of the Spirit), metaphysics (foundational pneumatology), epistemology (the pneumatological imagination), and trinitarian theology converge in this book to move forward the present discussion of theological method.
This book is a collection of engaging, entertaining, and often confronting dialogues with nine thinkers of faith in postmodernity, some of them more prominent than others, all of them possessing the rare quality or gift of thinking rigorously-tentatively-passionately: John D. Caputo, Kevin Hart, Robyn Horner, Richard Kearney, Catherine Keller, Kate Rigby, Mark C. Taylor, Mark I. Wallace, and Merold Westphal. The project was driven by two ambitions: to seek out their thoughts on the question of the gift, which has become a hot topic since the early 1990s in philosophy, theology, and a whole range of academic disciplines, and which was the subject of the interviewer's doctoral work; and, more generally, to examine key elements of these thinkers' most important works. Hence, the dialogues traverse a splendid range of issues - philosophical, theological, ecological, hermeneutical, biblical, scientific, and more. What's more, the dialogical medium has the advantage of casting complex issues in extremely accessible terms, thereby making this collection a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Continental theory.
Alfred North Whitehead's master work, Process and Reality, is intended to extend the cosmological vision of Whitehead in a new direction. By interpreting societies within Whitehead's scheme as structured fields of activity, the author projects a universe of hierarchically ordered fields of activity, up to and including the all-compassing field of activity constituted by the Christian Trinity.