Download or read book Rethinking Early Christian Identity written by Maia Kotrosits and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2015-02-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maia Kotrosits challenges the contemporary notion of “early Christian literature,” showing that a number of texts usually so described—including Hebrews, Acts, the Gospel of John, Colossians, 1 Peter, the letters of Ignatius, the Gospel of Truth, and the Secret Revelation of John—are “not particularly interested” in a distinctive Christian identity. By appealing to trauma studies and diaspora theory and giving careful attention to the dynamics within these texts, she shows that this sample of writings offers complex reckonings with chaotic diasporic conditions and the transgenerational trauma of colonial violence.
Download or read book Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians written by Philip A. Harland and published by T&T Clark. This book was released on 2009-11-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study sheds new light on identity formation and maintenance in the world of the early Christians by drawing on neglected archaeological and epigraphic evidence concerning associations and immigrant groups and by incorporating insights from the social sciences. The study's unique contribution relates, in part, to its interdisciplinary character, standing at the intersection of Christian Origins, Jewish Studies, Classical Studies, and the Social Sciences. It also breaks new ground in its thoroughly comparative framework, giving the Greek and Roman evidence its due, not as mere background but as an integral factor in understanding dynamics of identity among early Christians. This makes the work particularly well suited as a text for courses that aim to understand early Christian groups and literature, including the New Testament, in relation to their Greek, Roman, and Judean contexts. Inscriptions pertaining to associations provide a new angle of vision on the ways in which members in Christian congregations and Jewish synagogues experienced belonging and expressed their identities within the Greco-Roman world. The many other groups of immigrants throughout the cities of the empire provide a particularly appropriate framework for understanding both synagogues of Judeans and groups of Jesus-followers as minority cultural groups in these same contexts. Moreover, there were both shared means of expressing identity (including fictive familial metaphors) and peculiarities in the case of both Jews and Christians as minority cultural groups, who (like other "foreigners") were sometimes characterized as dangerous, alien "anti-associations". By paying close attention to dynamics of identity and belonging within associations and cultural minority groups, we can gain new insights into Pauline, Johannine, and other early Christian communities.
Download or read book Exploring Early Christian Identity written by Bengt Holmberg and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main point of emphasis in the book is that approaching the Christian movement's early history through investigating its identity helps us to understand how the followers of Jesus developed from an intra-Jewish messianic renewal movement into a new religion with a major Gentile membership and major differences from its Jewish matrix - all in only a hundred years. Identity is not simply a collection of beliefs that was agreed upon by many first-century Christians. It is embedded, or rather, embodied in real life as participation in the founding myths (narrativized memory of and accepted teaching on Jesus), in cults and rituals as well as in ethical teaching and behavioral norms, crystallized into social relations and institutions. This is a dynamic feedback process, full of conflicts and difficulties, both internal and caused by the surrounding society and culture. The authors explore different aspects of identity, such as how the Gospels' narrativization of the social memory shapes and is shaped by the identity of the groups from which they emerge, how labels such as "Jewish" and "Christian" should and should not be understood, the identity-forming role of behavioral norms in letters, and the interplay between competing leadership ideals and the underlying unity of different Christian groups. They also show that identity formation is not necessarily related to innovation in moral teaching, nor averse to making use of ancient conventions of masculinity with their emphasis on dominance.
Download or read book Rethinking Christian Identity written by Medi Ann Volpe and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-01-04 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent decades have seen major shifts in our understanding of Christian identity. This timely book explores contemporary theological theory in asking what makes a Christian in the twenty-first century. Engages with developments in contemporary theological thought, assessing the work of leading figures Rowan Williams, John Milbank, and Kathryn Tanner Challenges accepted ideas of Christian identity by revealing largely unexplored perspectives on how sin affects its formation Contributes to vexed debates about Christian identity at a time when Christianity is expanding in some regions, yet in decline in many parts of the Western world
Download or read book Rethinking Early Christian Identity written by Maia Kotrosits and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers. This book was released on 2015 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Union Theological Seminary, 2013 under title: Affect, violence, and belonging in early Christianity.
Download or read book The Lives of Objects written by Maia Kotrosits and published by Class 200: New Studies in Religion. This book was released on 2020 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Judaism and Christianity as condensed illustrations of how people across time struggle with the materiality of life and death. Speaking across many fields, including classics, history, anthropology, literary, gender, and queer studies, the book journeys through the ancient Mediterranean world by way of the myriad physical artifacts that punctuate the transnational history of early Christianity. By bringing a psychoanalytically inflected approach to bear upon her materialist studies of religious history, Kotrosits makes a contribution not only to our understanding of Judaism and early Christianity, but also our sense of how different disciplines construe historical knowledge, and how we as people and thinkers understand our own relation to our material and affective past"--
Download or read book Christian Identity written by E. M. Conradie and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2005-07-01 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is rooted in the quest for Christian identity in the Southern African context where Christianity is faced with many stark challenges, internal tensions and experiences of rapid social change. The book explores six aspects of the highly complex notion of Christian identity, namely Christian institutions, a Christian ethos, Christian rituals, Christian experiences (with specific reference to the notion of “faith”), Christian narratives (with specific reference to the category of “revelation” and the place of the Bible in the Christian tradition) and Christian doctrine.
Download or read book The Self Examined written by Jenny McGill and published by ACU Press. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a fresh investigation of the relationship between faith and identity, this diverse group of international contributors offers an engaging discussion of human identity—and specifically, Christian identity. From a biblical foundation, they address theological discussions of identity and contemporary cultural themes, such as migration, ethnicity, embodiment, attachment, and gender. Straightforward and thought-provoking, The Self Examined is an accessible guide to this wide-ranging and important issue.
Download or read book Relating Through Prayer written by Maria Louise Munkholt Christensen and published by Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the interplay between prayer and identity formation and the socializing character of Christian prayer: how prayer established a relationship between the individual and God; how other social relations were reinforced by prayer; and how the individual Christian was connected to his/her own self in prayer.
Download or read book Who God Says You Are written by Klyne R. Snodgrass and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-08 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WHO ARE YOU? For respected New Testament scholar Klyne Snodgrass, this is the most important question a person can ask—the question from which everything else in life flows. Other questions follow: What made you who you are? Who gets to say who you are? And—perhaps most vital—Who does God say you are? In this book Snodgrass offers wise guidance to all who are wrestling with such universal human questions. He examines nine factors—including one’s body, personal history, commitments, and boundaries—that shape human identity, and he expertly draws out what the Bible tells us about who God says we are, how we fit within God’s purposes, and how our God-given identity can and must impact the way we live our lives.
Download or read book Making Christians written by Denise Kimber Buell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did second-century Christians vie with each other in seeking to produce an authoritative discourse of Christian identity? In this innovative book, Denise Buell argues that many early Christians deployed the metaphors of procreation and kinship in the struggle over claims to represent the truth of Christian interpretation, practice, and doctrine. In particular, she examines the intriguing works of the influential theologian Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-210 c.e.), for whom cultural assumptions about procreation and kinship played an important role in defining which Christians have the proper authority to teach, and which kinds of knowledge are authentic. Buell argues that metaphors of procreation and kinship can serve to make power differentials appear natural. She shows that early Christian authors recognized this and often turned to such metaphors to mark their own positions as legitimate and marginalize others as false. Attention to the functions of this language offers a way out of the trap of reconstructing the development of early Christianity along the axes of "heresy" and "orthodoxy," while not denying that early Christians employed this binary. Ultimately, Buell argues, strategic use of kinship language encouraged conformity over diversity and had a long lasting effect both on Christian thought and on the historiography of early Christianity. Aperceptive and closely argued contribution to early Christian studies, Making Christians also branches out to the areas of kinship studies and the social construction of gender.
Download or read book Transforming Conversion written by Gordon T. Smith and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers much-needed theological reflection on the phenomenon of conversion and transformation. Gordon Smith provides a robust evaluation that covers the broad range of thinking about conversion across Christian traditions and addresses global contexts. Smith contends that both in the church and in discussions about contemporary mission, the language of conversion inherited from revivalism is inadequate in helping to navigate the questions that shape how we do church, how we approach faith formation, how evangelism is integrated into congregational life, and how we witness to the faith in non-Christian environments. We must rethink the nature of the church in light of how people actually come to faith in Christ. After drawing on ancient and pre-revivalist wisdom on conversion, Smith delineates the contours of conversion and Christian initiation for today's church. He concludes by discussing the art of spiritual autobiography and what it means to be a congregation.
Download or read book Embracing Your Identity in Christ written by Robert Davis Smart and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although there is nothing sweeter than the Gospel, there is much more sweetness to be enjoyed. Few Christians seem to experience the transformation they hoped for, and often burn out too early. This is because we cannot escape the interpretation war each day over our identity. What if we are ruled by a lie more than the truth about who we are? What if condemnation has been their primary motivation, and has functioned for us more than grace, for too many years? What if, on the front end, we already have what we try so hard to obtain? Dr. Bob Smart walks us through the practical steps to embrace our true identity in Christ by helping us embrace our glory, gender, story, acceptance, sonship, and more by renouncing lies, condemning thoughts, and foolish strategies.
Download or read book Becoming Christian written by David G. Horrell and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first letter of Peter remains a relatively neglected corner of the New Testament: the number of monographs devoted to it is tiny, compared with those on the Gospels and Pauline letters. Yet it is a text - so this book argues - that offers much insight into crucial processes in the development of Christian identity. In particular, 1 Peter illustrates with particular clarity the complex ways in which Christian identity was forged from Jewish traditions and negotiated in the generally hostile Roman empire. As such, studies of this particular letter illuminate central themes in the making of Christianity in the earliest centuries. "Becoming Christian" is a collection of essays that treat various facets of the first letter of Peter, in its social and historical setting, in some cases using new social-scientific and postcolonial methods to shed light on the ways in which the letter contributes to the making of Christian identity. At the heart of the book are chapters 5-7, which examine the contribution of 1 Peter to the construction of Christian identity, the persecution and suffering of Christians in Asia Minor, the significance of the name 'Christian', and the response of the letter to the hostility encountered by Christians in society. There are no recent books which bring together such a wealth of information and analysis of this crucial early Christian text. "Becoming Christian" has developed out of Horrell's ongoing research for the International Critical Commentary on 1 Peter. Together these essays will offer a series of significant and original engagements with this letter, and a resource for studies of 1 Peter for some time to come.
Download or read book Knowing Who You Are written by Malcolm J. Gill and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-06-10 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the history of the church, many excellent books have been written addressing the theological significance of Christian identity. Such works have delineated important doctrines such as adoption, justification, and sanctification. While these studies of being "in Christ" have been fruitful, and numerous, they have often neglected one of the most useful tools in understanding Christian identity, namely, the use of metaphor. A search of Scripture reveals that Jesus and his apostles frequently utilized images from everyday life to illustrate spiritual truths about our identity. In this fresh work, Knowing Who You Are invites the reader to explore eight lesser-known images of Christian identity found in the New Testament. Among others, the author investigates how being a Christian is like being a boxer in ancient Corinth, a citizen in Philippi, a farmer in Galilee, and a sheep in a flock. This engaging assessment of first-century images will draw the reader in and leave them challenged, encouraged, and often surprised as they discover afresh what it means to be "Christian."
Download or read book The Christian Identity written by Ben Amponsah and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2012-06-08 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you want to know who a true Christian is? Are you craving to live as God wants you to live your life here on this earth? Do you want to know how to become a Christian? Based on the vivid illustrations Jesus Christ and His Apostles gave on true Christian living, this simple book will radically transform your life for good! In this edition, Ben Amponsah discusses the various identities of true Christians as they live their lives on earth and in times like these when the spiritual values expected of Christians are being compromised. For instance, at one point in the Bible, Jesus Christ identified His followers as being "Salt of the Earth". In another place, the Apostle Paul identified Christians as being "Living Sacrifices". What are these identities to you? You will be challenged to examine your life in the light of these identities from God's word as you go through the pages.
Download or read book Realize the Power of Your Christian Identity written by Julie Ngwabi and published by Charisma Media. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVWhen everything is stripped away—your wealth, family, career, and achievements—who are you? /div
