How does Christian ethics begin? This pioneering study explores the grammar of the Christian life as it is embodied and learned in worship as the formative experience of the ''fellow citizens of God''s people''. The book presents the first in-depth theological investigation of the phenomenon of ''political worship'' by exposing the political nature of worship and the worship dimension of politics. In a careful analysis of biblical and traditional conceptions of worship, Wannenwetsch demonstrates how the genuine political character of worship neutralizes attempts to politicize or de-politicize it. In the imprinting of the experience of divine reconciliation on the Christian body, worship challenges the deepest antagonisms of political theory and practice: antagonisms of ''private and public'', ''freedom and necessity'', and ''action and contemplation''. At the same time, the ''spill over'' of worship into every sphere of life instils a healthy suspicion of post-liberal conceptualizations of role-mobility. In the experience of ''hearing in communion'', an encounter with a word that does not deceive announces the end of the rule of the hermeneutics of suspicion.Further questions discussed include the conditions of true consensus, forgiveness as a political virtue, `political rhetoric'' between accountability and self-justification, how ''reversible role-taking'' can avoid losing the otherness of the other, and how the rhetoric of ''responsibility'' can be saved from hubris or depression. Particular practices or dimensions of worship (confession, preaching, praising, intercession, observance of holy days) are examined and their heuristic and formative potentials explored in relation to these topics. A special feature of the study is a strong ecumenical and international focus. The book brings into conversation a variety of traditions (including Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox) and contemporary voices. An original contribution to Christian ethics, the book addresses systematic and practical theology as well as political theory, while indicating the essential interpenetration of these disciplines.

How does Christian ethics begin? This pioneering study explores the grammar of the Christian life as it is embodied and learned in worship as the formative experience of the 'fellow citizens of God's people'. The book presents the first in-depth theological investigation of the phenomenon of 'political worship' by exposing the political nature of worship and the worship dimension of politics. In a careful analysis of biblical and traditional conceptions of worship, Wannenwetsch demonstrates how the genuine political character of worship neutralizes attempts to politicize or de-politicize it. In the imprinting of the experience of divine reconciliation on the Christian body, worship challenges the deepest antagonisms of political theory and practice: antagonisms of 'private and public', 'freedom and necessity', and 'action and contemplation'. At the same time, the 'spill over' of worship into every sphere of life instils a healthy suspicion of post-liberal conceptualizations of role-mobility. In the experience of 'hearing in communion', an encounter with a word that does not deceive announces the end of the rule of the hermeneutics of suspicion.Further questions discussed include the conditions of true consensus, forgiveness as a political virtue, `political rhetoric' between accountability and self-justification, how 'reversible role-taking' can avoid losing the otherness of the other, and how the rhetoric of 'responsibility' can be saved from hubris or depression. Particular practices or dimensions of worship (confession, preaching, praising, intercession, observance of holy days) are examined and their heuristic and formative potentials explored in relation to these topics. A special feature of the study is a strong ecumenical and international focus. The book brings into conversation a variety of traditions (including Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox) and contemporary voices. An original contribution to Christian ethics, the book addresses systematic and practical theology as well as political theory, while indicating the essential interpenetration of these disciplines.

How does Christian ethics begin? This pioneering study explores the grammar of the Christian life as it is embodied and learned in worship as the formative experience of the 'fellow citizens of God's people'. The book presents the first in-depth theological investigation of the phenomenon of 'political worship' by exposing the political nature of worship and the worship dimension of politics. In a careful analysis of biblical and traditional conceptions of worship, Wannenwetsch demonstrates how the genuine political character of worship neutralizes attempts to politicize or de-politicize it. In the imprinting of the experience of divine reconciliation on the Christian body, worship challenges the deepest antagonisms of political theory and practice: antagonisms of 'private and public', 'freedom and necessity', and 'action and contemplation'. Further questions discussed include the conditions of true consensus, forgiveness as a political virtue, the accountability of political rhetoric and self-justification, how 'reversible role-taking' can avoid losing the otherness of the other, and how the rhetoric of 'responsibility' can be saved from hubris or depression. Particular practices or dimensions of worship (confession, preaching, praising, intercession, observance of holy days) are examined and their heuristic and formative potentials explored in relation to these topics. A special feature of the study is a strong ecumenical and international focus. The book brings into conversation a variety of traditions (including Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox) and contemporary voices. An original contribution to Christian ethics, the book addresses systematic and practical theology as well as political theory, while indicating the essential interplay of these disciplines.

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis. Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be ‘explained' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer's life and his theology. These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer's theology, in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years. Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement of the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis. Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be 'explained' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer's life and his theology. These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer's theology, in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years.Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement of the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis. Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be ''explained'' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer''s life and his theology. These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer''s theology, in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years. Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement of the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis. Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be ''explained'' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer''s life and his theology. These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer''s theology, in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years. Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement of the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

The troubles and ills of the church today can only be understood and healed when Christians begin to face up to their hidden alliances with the Corinthians of the first century and embrace both the Apostle''s diagnosis and therapy offered in the epistle.This is the challenge of The Malady and Therapy of the Christian Body, a two-volume commentary by two leading theologians that presents the fruits of a reading strategy that deliberately reflects ecclesial commitment by "reading the Apostle over against ourselves."Sharing their discoveries about the way Paul deals with questions of factionalism, sexuality, legal conflict, idolatry, dress codes, and eating habits, Brock and Wannenwetsch demonstrate how neither the malady nor the therapy that Paul describes conforms to dominant analyses of the malaise of the contemporary church, which tend to be as "organ centered" as modern medicine. The authors describe the way the Apostle engages in "feeling-into" the organic whole of the body in order to detect blockages to the healthy flow of powers by redirecting their vision to how God is working among them toward the "building up" of the Christian body.The book breaks new ground in crossing the traditional disciplinary boundaries between biblical studies, systematic theology, and theological ethics.

The ailments of the contemporary church are remarkably similar to those suffered by the fractious Corinthian church in the first century. This is the challenge presented in The Malady of the Christian Body, a two-volume commentary by Brian Brock and Bernd Wannenwetsch.The manner in which Paul engages questions of factionalism, sexuality, legal conflict, idolatry, dress codes, and eating habits reveals that neither the malady he diagnoses nor the therapy he offers track the dominant accounts currently on offer of the malaise suffered by today''s church. This volume depicts the Apostle as carefully examining the organic whole that is the body of Christ in order to detect obstacles to the healthy flow of powers that sustain its life. The therapy that is then offered comes by way of a redirection of the Corinthian believers'' attention to the ways in which they can embrace God''s active working among them to heal their broken unity.This book breaks new ground in crossing and reconfiguring the traditional disciplinary boundaries between biblical studies, systematic theology, and theological ethics.

How does Christian ethics begin? This pioneering study explores the grammar of the Christian life as it is embodied and learned in worship as the formative experience of the ''fellow citizens of God''s people''. The book presents the first in-depth theological investigation of the phenomenon of ''political worship'' by exposing the political nature of worship and the worship dimension of politics. In a careful analysis of biblical and traditional conceptions of worship, Wannenwetsch demonstrates how the genuine political character of worship neutralizes attempts to politicize or de-politicize it. In the imprinting of the experience of divine reconciliation on the Christian body, worship challenges the deepest antagonisms of political theory and practice: antagonisms of ''private and public'', ''freedom and necessity'', and ''action and contemplation''. At the same time, the ''spill over'' of worship into every sphere of life instils a healthy suspicion of post-liberal conceptualizations of role-mobility. In the experience of ''hearing in communion'', an encounter with a word that does not deceive announces the end of the rule of the hermeneutics of suspicion.Further questions discussed include the conditions of true consensus, forgiveness as a political virtue, `political rhetoric'' between accountability and self-justification, how ''reversible role-taking'' can avoid losing the otherness of the other, and how the rhetoric of ''responsibility'' can be saved from hubris or depression. Particular practices or dimensions of worship (confession, preaching, praising, intercession, observance of holy days) are examined and their heuristic and formative potentials explored in relation to these topics. A special feature of the study is a strong ecumenical and international focus. The book brings into conversation a variety of traditions (including Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox) and contemporary voices. An original contribution to Christian ethics, the book addresses systematic and practical theology as well as political theory, while indicating the essential interpenetration of these disciplines.

How does Christian ethics begin? This pioneering study explores the grammar of the Christian life as it is embodied and learned in worship as the formative experience of the 'fellow citizens of God's people'. The book presents the first in-depth theological investigation of the phenomenon of 'political worship' by exposing the political nature of worship and the worship dimension of politics. In a careful analysis of biblical and traditional conceptions of worship, Wannenwetsch demonstrates how the genuine political character of worship neutralizes attempts to politicize or de-politicize it. In the imprinting of the experience of divine reconciliation on the Christian body, worship challenges the deepest antagonisms of political theory and practice: antagonisms of 'private and public', 'freedom and necessity', and 'action and contemplation'. At the same time, the 'spill over' of worship into every sphere of life instils a healthy suspicion of post-liberal conceptualizations of role-mobility. In the experience of 'hearing in communion', an encounter with a word that does not deceive announces the end of the rule of the hermeneutics of suspicion.Further questions discussed include the conditions of true consensus, forgiveness as a political virtue, `political rhetoric' between accountability and self-justification, how 'reversible role-taking' can avoid losing the otherness of the other, and how the rhetoric of 'responsibility' can be saved from hubris or depression. Particular practices or dimensions of worship (confession, preaching, praising, intercession, observance of holy days) are examined and their heuristic and formative potentials explored in relation to these topics. A special feature of the study is a strong ecumenical and international focus. The book brings into conversation a variety of traditions (including Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox) and contemporary voices. An original contribution to Christian ethics, the book addresses systematic and practical theology as well as political theory, while indicating the essential interpenetration of these disciplines.

How does Christian ethics begin? This pioneering study explores the grammar of the Christian life as it is embodied and learned in worship as the formative experience of the 'fellow citizens of God's people'. The book presents the first in-depth theological investigation of the phenomenon of 'political worship' by exposing the political nature of worship and the worship dimension of politics. In a careful analysis of biblical and traditional conceptions of worship, Wannenwetsch demonstrates how the genuine political character of worship neutralizes attempts to politicize or de-politicize it. In the imprinting of the experience of divine reconciliation on the Christian body, worship challenges the deepest antagonisms of political theory and practice: antagonisms of 'private and public', 'freedom and necessity', and 'action and contemplation'. Further questions discussed include the conditions of true consensus, forgiveness as a political virtue, the accountability of political rhetoric and self-justification, how 'reversible role-taking' can avoid losing the otherness of the other, and how the rhetoric of 'responsibility' can be saved from hubris or depression. Particular practices or dimensions of worship (confession, preaching, praising, intercession, observance of holy days) are examined and their heuristic and formative potentials explored in relation to these topics. A special feature of the study is a strong ecumenical and international focus. The book brings into conversation a variety of traditions (including Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox) and contemporary voices. An original contribution to Christian ethics, the book addresses systematic and practical theology as well as political theory, while indicating the essential interplay of these disciplines.

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis. Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be ‘explained' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer's life and his theology. These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer's theology, in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years. Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement of the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis. Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be 'explained' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer's life and his theology. These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer's theology, in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years.Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement of the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis. Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be ''explained'' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer''s life and his theology. These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer''s theology, in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years. Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement of the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

It has often been noted that poetry is a particularly suitable medium when it comes to understanding the connection between theology and biography. Needless to say that this is particularly exciting in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the poems he wrote during his imprisonment by the Nazis. Although any one of his ten poems should be read within their respective historical and biographical context, they are also rounded, self-sufficient pieces of work that cannot be ''explained'' by the biographical and theological prose that surrounds them. They rather serve as a sort of creative and perhaps sometimes even critical interlocutor to these contexts. This is why the contributors to this volume have not been asked to explain the poems but to facilitate this conversation: the conversation between the reader and the poems, between the individual poems as well as between the poems and Bonhoeffer''s life and his theology. These poems lend themselves ideally as an entry point into Bonhoeffer''s theology, in that each one of them resonates with a particular central theological concept that Bonhoeffer was developing in his prison years. Themes and concepts such as "friendship", "religion", "identity", "freedom", "representative action" and others are not only represented in these poems but often expressed in the dense and compelling fashion that only poetic language affords. As such, they deserve the thorough and imaginative engagement of the international line-up of first-class theological authors gathered in this book.

The troubles and ills of the church today can only be understood and healed when Christians begin to face up to their hidden alliances with the Corinthians of the first century and embrace both the Apostle''s diagnosis and therapy offered in the epistle.This is the challenge of The Malady and Therapy of the Christian Body, a two-volume commentary by two leading theologians that presents the fruits of a reading strategy that deliberately reflects ecclesial commitment by "reading the Apostle over against ourselves."Sharing their discoveries about the way Paul deals with questions of factionalism, sexuality, legal conflict, idolatry, dress codes, and eating habits, Brock and Wannenwetsch demonstrate how neither the malady nor the therapy that Paul describes conforms to dominant analyses of the malaise of the contemporary church, which tend to be as "organ centered" as modern medicine. The authors describe the way the Apostle engages in "feeling-into" the organic whole of the body in order to detect blockages to the healthy flow of powers by redirecting their vision to how God is working among them toward the "building up" of the Christian body.The book breaks new ground in crossing the traditional disciplinary boundaries between biblical studies, systematic theology, and theological ethics.

The ailments of the contemporary church are remarkably similar to those suffered by the fractious Corinthian church in the first century. This is the challenge presented in The Malady of the Christian Body, a two-volume commentary by Brian Brock and Bernd Wannenwetsch.The manner in which Paul engages questions of factionalism, sexuality, legal conflict, idolatry, dress codes, and eating habits reveals that neither the malady he diagnoses nor the therapy he offers track the dominant accounts currently on offer of the malaise suffered by today''s church. This volume depicts the Apostle as carefully examining the organic whole that is the body of Christ in order to detect obstacles to the healthy flow of powers that sustain its life. The therapy that is then offered comes by way of a redirection of the Corinthian believers'' attention to the ways in which they can embrace God''s active working among them to heal their broken unity.This book breaks new ground in crossing and reconfiguring the traditional disciplinary boundaries between biblical studies, systematic theology, and theological ethics.