Download or read book Calvin Participation and the Gift written by J. Todd Billings and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-11-15 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the God of Calvin a fountain of blessing, or a forceful tyrant? Is Calvin's view of God coercive, leaving no place for the human qua human in redemption? These are perennial questions about Calvin's theology which have been given new life by Gift theologians such as John Milbank, Graham Ward, and Stephen Webb. J. Todd Billings addresses these questions by exploring Calvin's theology of `participation in Christ'. He argues that Calvin's theology of `participation' gives a positive place to the human, such that grace fulfils rather than destroys nature, affirming a differentiated union of God and humanity in creation and redemption. Calvin's trinitarian theology of participation extends to his view of prayer, sacraments, the law, and the ecclesial and civil orders. In light of Calvin's doctrine of participation, Billings reframes the critiques of Calvin in the Gift discussion and opens up new possibilities for contemporary theology, ecumenical theology, and Calvin scholarship as well.
Download or read book The End of the Christian Life written by J. Todd Billings and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We're all going to die. Yet in our medically advanced, technological age, many of us see death as a distant reality--something that happens only at the end of a long life or to other people. In The End of the Christian Life, Todd Billings urges Christians to resist that view. Instead, he calls us to embrace our mortality in our daily life and faith. This is the journey of genuine discipleship, Billings says: following the crucified and resurrected Lord in a world of distraction and false hopes. Drawing on his experience as a professor and father living with incurable cancer, Billings offers a personal yet deeply theological account of the gospel's expansive hope for small, mortal creatures. Artfully weaving rich theology with powerful narrative, Billings writes for church leaders and laypeople alike. Whether we are young or old, reeling from loss or clinging to our own prosperity, this book challenges us to walk a strange but wondrous path: in the midst of joy and lament, to receive mortal limits as a gift, an opportunity to give ourselves over to the Lord of life.
Download or read book Union with Christ written by J. Todd Billings and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2011-11 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accomplished theologian recovers the biblical theme of union with Christ, showing how it affects current theological and ministry issues.
Download or read book Calvin s Theology and Its Reception written by J. Todd Billings and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique resource for the study of John Calvin's theology, its reception, and insights for today.
Download or read book Rejoicing in Lament written by J. Todd Billings and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the age of thirty-nine, Christian theologian Todd Billings was diagnosed with a rare form of incurable cancer. In the wake of that diagnosis, he began grappling with the hard theological questions we face in the midst of crisis: Why me? Why now? Where is God in all of this? This eloquently written book shares Billings's journey, struggle, and reflections on providence, lament, and life in Christ in light of his illness, moving beyond pat answers toward hope in God's promises. Theologically robust yet eminently practical, it engages the open questions, areas of mystery, and times of disorientation in the Christian life. Billings offers concrete examples through autobiography, cultural commentary, and stories from others, showing how our human stories of joy and grief can be incorporated into the larger biblical story of God's saving work in Christ.
Download or read book The Word of God for the People of God written by J. Todd Billings and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book fills a real need for pastors and students. Though there is currently a large body of material on the theological interpretation of Scripture, most of it is highly specific and extremely technical. J. Todd Billings here provides a straightforward entryway for students and pastors to understand why theological interpretation matters and how it can be done. / A solid, constructive theological work, The Word of God for the People of God presents a distinctive Trinitarian, participatory approach toward reading Scripture as the church. Billings's accessible yet substantial argument for a theological hermeneutic is rooted in a historic vision of the practice of scriptural interpretation even as it engages a wide range of contemporary issues and includes several exegetical examples that apply to concrete Christian ministry situations.
Download or read book Calvin s Ladder written by Julie Canlis and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2010-06-28 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Calvin's Ladder traces the theme of participation in early Christian spirituality, then reveals how Calvin reworks it into the heart of his Protestant manifesto on theology. --from publisher description
Download or read book Calvin s Preaching written by and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rare and important study offering a complete review of John Calvin's preaching activity, purpose, method, and style. Parker's work includes Calvin's theological considerations, expository methods, applications of Scripture to the needs of his congregation, and his views of the preacher's office, duty and the congregation's active participation. Appendixes.
Download or read book Calvin s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament written by Ronald Wallace and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 1997-09-30 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Hodge viewed Calvin's doctrine of the union of believers with Christ's humanity in the Lord's Supper as an uncongenial foreign element in Calvin's thought, having no root in the system. Robert L. Dabney found Calvin's doctrine to be a strange opinion, which he had to reject because it is not only incomprehensible, but impossible. Were these eminent theologians correct, or did they miss the genius of Calvin's thinking at this point? Back in print at last, Ronald Wallace's classic study is a careful examination of Calvin's Commentaries, Institutes, Sermons, and Tracts, designed to clarify the teaching of the great Reformer. The following two sentences from the preface aptly sum up the author's intention: ÒWhat is most important in the study of Calvin today is to reveal what the Reformer himself actually said, in order that misconceptions about his teaching may be cleared away. Therefore this work is not a critical study of Calvin, but an attempt to express his teaching as copiously, fairly, and sympathetically as possible. Dr. Wallace's book is also valuable for the insight it gives into Calvin's method of interpreting Scripture, especially the Old Testament.
Download or read book Participation in Christ written by Adam Neder and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here Adam Neder offers an exploration of the concept of "participation in Christ" in Karl Barth'sChurch Dogmaticsand what it means for understanding Christian faith. He clarifies Barth's claim that humanity as a whole, and human beings individually, participate in Jesus Christ--revelation, election, creation, reconciliation, and redemption all take place in Christ; and their meaning may only be comprehended in Christ. In these acts of inclusion and realization, the creature is incorporated into a fellowship that is nothing less than participation in the being of God. The Columbia Series in Reformed Theology represents a joint commitment by Columbia Theological Seminary and Westminster John Knox Press to provide theological resources from the Reformed tradition for the church today. This series examines theological and ethical issues that confront church and society in our own particular time and place.
Download or read book Letters to a Young Calvinist written by James K. A. Smith and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when definitions of Calvinism are hotly contested, this book provides a vision of the Reformed faith that is generous, winsome, and imaginative.
Download or read book Heavenly Participation written by Hans Boersma and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveying the barriers that contemporary thinking has erected between the natural and the supernatural, between earth and heaven, Hans Boersma issues a wake-up call for Western Christianity. Both Catholics and evangelicals, he says, have moved too far away from a sacramental mindset, focusing more on the "here-and-now" than on the "then-and-there." Yet, as Boersma points out, the teaching of Jesus, Paul, and St. Augustine -- indeed, of most of Scripture and the church fathers -- is profoundly otherworldly, much more concerned with heavenly participation than with earthly enjoyment. In Heavenly Participation Boersma draws on the wisdom of great Christian minds ancient and modern -- Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, C. S. Lewis, Henri de Lubac, John Milbank, and many others. He urges Catholics and evangelicals alike to retrieve a sacramental worldview, to cultivate a greater awareness of eternal mysteries, to partake eagerly of the divine life that transcends and transforms all earthly realities.
Download or read book Calvin s Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church written by Matthew J. Tuininga and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-06 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Calvin's two kingdoms political thought offers a fresh paradigm for constructive Christian engagement in pluralistic liberal societies.
Download or read book The Christian Life written by John Calvin and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading expert on John Calvin brings together the reformer's most profound reflections on what it means to live a fully Christian life. The Christian Life includes excerpts from Calvin's impressive theological writings and illuminating sermons, as well as a selection of his stately prayers. Editor John H. Leith focuses on Calvin's spirituality, which arose out of the reformer's conviction that theology's primary importance is to encourage piety, to edify, and to transform human life and society. Calvin's writings have much to tell about the manner and style of Christian living. The writings gathered in The Christian Life draw upon Calvin's own heartfelt commitment to the ideals of life in Christ and to the responsibility to the community he served as pastor, preacher, teacher, and counselor. Here, then, is Calvin's own pattern for the conduct of the fully Christian life, which stresses that it is in Christian people living in Christian community and in society that we see most clearly the reality of faith. The Christian Life shares Calvin's thinking on such essential questions as the nature of sin; the importance of self-denial and cross-bearing to the Christian life; maintaining the proper balance between the present life and the life to come; the role of grace; the concept of Christian freedom; the place of prayer; the centrality of community; ideas of the elect and predestination; and the deepest purposes of God for his people. He relates all issues to the fundamental question of piety and how Christians can best attune themselves to God's unfolding plans in everyday life. This compact volume makes available to readers as never before some of the most accessible and rewarding writings of this foremost figure in the history of Christian thought. The selections in The Christian Life will introduce the reader to an influential form of Christian piety; but above all, they provide a clue to how Christians today may live and cope with the problems of personal and public life in a highly pluralistic and secular culture, in which the traditional guides and support for Christian living seem to have lost vitality and vigor.
Download or read book Christian Dogmatics written by Michael Allen and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This one-volume introduction to systematic theology draws deeply on the catholic and Reformed heritage to present the major doctrines of the Christian faith, displaying the power of theological retrieval for the church's renewal. Leading Reformed theologians, such as Kevin Vanhoozer, John Webster, Michael Horton, and Oliver Crisp, offer the "state of the question" on standard theological topics and engage in both exegetical and historical retrieval for the sake of theological analysis. The book represents the exciting new theological trajectory of Reformed catholicity.
Download or read book Fullerism as Opposed to Calvinism written by A. Chadwick Mauldin and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Calvinism and its impact upon Baptist and other free-church traditions is an issue of perennial importance. Indeed, much ink has been employed throughout the years for the purpose of considering just this topic. Obviously Calvinism is a complete doctrinal system, and it bears upon many other areas of theological concern beyond the doctrine of salvation. While many Baptists have had a long and historic association with Calvinistic soteriology, Calvinism's approach to ecclesiology and missiology should leave most self conscious Baptists dissatisfied at best. This book provides a missiological comparison of Fullerism and Calvinism. Andrew Fuller or Fullerism (while admittedly a form of Calvinism) is shown in this book to be an exciting and vibrant alternative to historic Reformed theology-particularly for Baptists and other free-church traditions. Fuller made a tremendous theological contribution in his day; through his writings he established the doctrinal rationale for indiscriminate gospel proclamation (a concept that was heavily under attack in eighteenth-century Baptist life). Consequently, this book hopes to encourage its readers to contemplate the lack of precision in the term "Calvinism" when used as a Baptistic nomenclature and to promote "Fullerism" (with its acute missiological emphasis) as a more helpful theological descriptor for the Baptist.
Download or read book The Virtual Body of Christ in a Suffering World written by Deanna A. Thompson and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a wired world where 24/7 digital connectivity is increasingly the norm. Christian megachurch communities often embrace this reality wholeheartedly while more traditional churches often seem hesitant and overwhelmed by the need for an interactive website, a Facebook page and a twitter feed. This book accepts digital connectivity as our reality, but presents a vision of how faith communities can utilize technology to better be the body of Christ to those who are hurting while also helping followers of Christ think critically about the limits of our digital attachments. This book begins with a conversion story of a non-cell phone owning, non-Facebook using religion professor judgmental of the ability of digital tools to enhance relationships. A stage IV cancer diagnosis later, in the midst of being held up by virtual communities of support, a conversion occurs: this religion professor benefits in embodied ways from virtual sources and wants to convert others to the reality that the body of Christ can and does exist virtually and makes embodied difference in the lives of those who are hurting. The book neither uncritically embraces nor rejects the constant digital connectivity present in our lives. Rather it calls on the church to a) recognize ways in which digital social networks already enact the virtual body of Christ; b) tap into and expand how Christ is being experienced virtually; c) embrace thoughtfully the material effects of our new augmented reality, and c) influence utilization of technology that minimizes distraction and maximizes attentiveness toward God and the world God loves.
