The Politics of Discipleship (The Church and Postmodern Culture)

The Politics of Discipleship (The Church and Postmodern Culture)
Author: Graham Ward
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2009-09-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441206477

Internationally acclaimed theologian Graham Ward is well known for his thoughtful engagement with postmodernism. This volume, the fourth in The Church and Postmodern Culture series, offers an engaging look at the political nature of the postmodern world. In the first section, "The World," Ward considers "the signs of the times" and the political nature of contemporary postmodernism. It is imperative, he suggests, that the church understand the world to be able to address it thoughtfully. In the second section, "The Church," he turns to practical application, examining what faithful discipleship looks like within this political context. Clergy and those interested in the emerging church will find this work particularly thought provoking.

The Political Disciple

The Political Disciple
Author: Vincent E. Bacote
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2015-05-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310516080

What might it mean for public and political life to be understood as an important dimension of following Jesus? As a part of Zondervan’s Ordinary Theology series, Vincent E. Bacote’s The Political Disciple addresses this question by considering not only whether Christians have (or need) permission to engage the public square, but also what it means to reflect Christlikeness in our public practice, as well as what to make of the typically slow rate of social change and the tension between relative allegiance to a nation and/or a political party and ultimate allegiance to Christ. Pastors, laypeople, and college students will find this concise volume a handy primer on Christianity and public life.

Discipleship as Political Responsibility

Discipleship as Political Responsibility
Author: John Howard Yoder
Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.
Total Pages: 70
Release: 2003-10-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0836197216

John Howard Yoder went to Europe after the Second World War as a young volunteer. Yoder worked as an aide in a children's home in Elsace, France and completed his doctorate under Karl Barth in Basel, Switzerland. Because of his incomparably clear and sharp thinking he quickly became one of the most sought after speakers on pacifism at seminars as he worked towards an Anabaptist renewal of the church. In this context Yoder succeeded in reopening the theological debate on Christians and political responsibility with the larger church to which persecution had put an end 400 years earlier. Biblical scholar Timothy J. Geddert translated two of these lectures, originally given in Germany, as a resource to understand Yoder's invitation to begin an exploratory journey that leads to Jesus Christ's peace church.

The Politics of Jesús

The Politics of Jesús
Author: Miguel A. De La Torre
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2015-06-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1442250372

The Politics of Jesús is a powerful new biography of Jesus told from the margins. Miguel A. De La Torre argues that we all create Jesus in our own image, reflecting and reinforcing the values of communities—sometimes for better, and often for worse. In light of the increasing economic and social inequality around the world, De La Torre asserts that what the world needs is a Jesus of solidarity who also comes from the underside of global power. The Politics of Jesús is a search for a Jesus that resonates specifically with the Latino/a community, as well as other marginalized groups. The book unabashedly rejects the Eurocentric Jesus for the Hispanic Jesús, whose mission is to give life abundantly, who resonates with the Latino/a experience of disenfranchisement, and who works for real social justice and political change. While Jesus is an admirable figure for Christians, The Politics of Jesús highlights the way the Jesus of dominant culture is oppressive and describes a Jesús from the barrio who chose poverty and disrupted the status quo. Saying “no” to oppression and its symbols, even when one of those symbols is Jesus, is the first step to saying “yes” to the self, to liberation, and symbols of that liberation. For Jesus to connect with the Hispanic quest for liberation, Jesús must be unapologetically Hispanic and compel people to action. The Politics of Jesús provocatively moves the study of Jesús into the global present.

The Liturgy of Politics

The Liturgy of Politics
Author: Kaitlyn Schiess
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2020-09-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830853405

A generation of young Christians are weary of the political legacy they've inherited. Could it be that the church's politics are shaped by its habits and practices? Contending that we must recognize the formative power of the political forces around us, Kaitlyn Schiess urges the church to recover historic Christian practices that shape us according to the truth of the gospel.

Radical Discipleship

Radical Discipleship
Author: Jennifer M. McBride
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2016-12-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506401902

Reminiscent of Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, Jennifer McBride's Radical Discipleship utilizes the liturgical seasons as a framework for engaging the social evils of mass incarceration, capital punishment, and homelessness, arguing that to be faithful to the gospel, Christians must become disciples of, not simply believers in, Jesus. The book arises out of McBride's extensive experience teaching theology in a women's prison while participating in a residential Christian activist and worshipping community. Arguing that disciples must take responsibility for the social evils that bar "beloved community," Martin Luther King's term for a just social order, the promised kingdom of God, McBride calls for a dual commitment to the works of mercy and the struggle for justice. This work seeks to form readers into an understanding of the social and political character of the good news proclaimed in the Gospels. Organically connecting liturgy with activism and theological reflection, McBride argues that discipleship requires that privileged Christians place their bodies in spaces of social struggle and distress to reduce the distance between themselves and those who suffer injustice, and stand in solidarity with those whom society deems guilty, despises, and rejectswhich makes discipleship radical as Christians take seriously the Jesus of the Gospels.

Enfleshing Theology

Enfleshing Theology
Author: Michele Saracino
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2018-10-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1978704062

Enfleshing Theology honors and engages the life work of M. Shawn Copeland, whose theology is groundbreaking and prophetic, traversing the fields of Catholic Theology, Black Theology, Womanist Thought, and Semiotics. The book opens with a brief introduction, and then moves to an interview with Copeland, which connects her theology to her life stories. The conversation with Copeland also provides a backdrop to the seventeen essays that follow, extending Copeland’s theological worldview. The contributions are divided according to the following sections: embodiment, discipleship, and politics. The essays in the section entitled "Engaging Embodiment" critically reflect on the importance of embodiment in Christian theology and contemporary culture. Following Copeland’s lead, authors in this section theorize and theologize the body, particularly (but not limited to) Black women’s bodies, as a locus theologicus that reveals, mediates, and shapes the splendor and suffering reality of human existence. The next section, entitled "Engaging Discipleship," focuses on the concrete challenges of following Jesus in today’s world. The essays included in this section reflect on Copeland’s focus on Jesus’ particularity in terms of his solidarity with and for others. Discipleship is about modeling and mentoring, so scholars in this section also comment on Copeland’s contribution to teaching and pedagogy. The last section, entitled "Engaging the Political," interrogates the political implications of the theological. It is noteworthy that there are two trajectories of the political here, one is Copeland’s development of political theology through the lens of Canadian Jesuit theologian, Bernard Lonergan. The other trajectory focuses on the work of theology in contemporary art and politics. These three sections are fluid and overlap with one another. Several of the articles on embodiment speak to questions of solidarity and a few of the essays on discipleship clearly present as political. The ways in which each of the contributions in this volume overlap with each other attests to the complex nature of doing constructive theology today, and even more how Copeland’s work is at the forefront of that multi-layered, polyvalent, intersectional theological work.

The Politics of Discipleship and Discipleship in Politics

The Politics of Discipleship and Discipleship in Politics
Author: Jurgen Moltmann
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2006-02-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1597524832

'The Politics of Discipleship and Discipleship in Politics' is a work of dialog and cooperation at every level. At the core of this volume are lectures by Jÿrgen Moltmann, originally delivered at two Mennonite seminaries at the height of the Cold War. Theologians at those seminaries then responded to each of Moltmann's lectures, and those are included as well. Added to this collection are: a new essay by Moltmann on peacemaking and dragonslaying, a new foreword by Willard Swartley, and a new preface by Moltmann. In this post-9/11 world, this dialog has fresh relevance.

Being Disciples

Being Disciples
Author: Rowan Williams
Publisher: SPCK
Total Pages: 79
Release: 2016-07-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0281076634

"If discipleship is a journey, this book belongs in the rucksack. . . Like the scriptures on which it is based, it deserves repeated reading." Stephen Cherry, Dean of Kings College, Cambridge This fresh and inspiring look at the meaning of discipleship covers the essentials of the christian life, including: faith, hope and love; forgiveness; holiness; social action; life in the Spirit. Written for the general reader by one of our greatest living theologians, this book will help you to see more clearly, love more dearly and follow more nearly the way of Jesus Christ.

Christianity and Politics

Christianity and Politics
Author: C. C. Pecknold
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2010-08-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1621892204

It is not simply for rhetorical flourish that politicians so regularly invoke God's blessings on the country. It is because the relatively new form of power we call the nation-state arose out of a Western political imagination steeped in Christianity. In this brief guide to the history of Christianity and politics, Pecknold shows how early Christianity reshaped the Western political imagination with its new theological claims about eschatological time, participation, and communion with God and neighbor. The ancient view of the Church as the "mystical body of Christ" is singled out in particular as the author traces shifts in its use and meaning throughout the early, medieval, and modern periods-shifts in how we understand the nature of the person, community and the moral conscience that would give birth to a new relationship between Christianity and politics. While we have many accounts of this narrative from either political or ecclesiastical history, we have few that avoid the artificial separation of the two. This book fills that gap and presents a readable, concise, and thought-provoking introduction to what is at stake in the contentious relationship between Christianity and politics.