Presbyterian Publishing – förlag

The well-being of those who are financially secure depends on the well-being of those who are not, those who fall into the working poor, or Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed (ALICE). We are interdependent both materially and spiritually and are diminished by the extent to which we do not flourish together.

In Building the Good Life for All, L. Shannon Jung explores four strategies for mutual flourishing: charity, self-help, cultural value formation, and government action. Rather than theorizing on the causes of people''s poverty, the chapters demonstrate how these transformational strategies work and how others can participate in them. Discussion questions with each chapter help groups process what they are learning and how they can apply these strategies personally and in their community.

Designed to be read and discussed in seven sessions, this book encourages the social ministry of churches and the community development of neighborhoods. Churches and community groups will find themselves revitalized through this study and through enacting its strategies to help their neighbors.

2023 Award of Excellence, Religion Communicators Council

Like most Americans, Presbyterians in the United States know woefully little about the history of slavery and the rise of anti-Black racism in our country. Most think of slavery as a tragedy that “just happened,” without considering how it happened and who was involved. In What Kind of Christianity,William Yoo paints an accurate picture of the complicity of the majority of Presbyterians in promoting, supporting, or willfully ignoring the enslavement of other human beings. Most Presbyterians knew of the widespread physical and sexual violence that enslavers inflicted on the enslaved, and either approved of it or did nothing to prevent it. Most Presbyterians in the nineteenth century—whether in the South or the North–held racist attitudes toward African Americans and acted on those attitudes on a daily basis. In short, during that period when the Presbyterian Church was establishing itself as a central part of American life, most of its members were promoting slavery and anti-Black racism. In this important book, William Yoo demonstrates that to understand how Presbyterian Christians can promote racial justice today, they must first understand and acknowledge how deeply racial injustice is embedded in their history and identity as a denomination.

Karl Barth was the most influential theologian of the twentieth century, and his work continues to inspire both fresh theological thinking and critical debate. The period covered by the volumes in this series–1905 to 1933 –saw Barth emerge from his training under such theological giants as Adolph von Harnack and Wilhelm Herrmann; assert his rejection of liberal Protestant theology in his towering commentary on Romans; and work through an earlier uncertainty to become a critic on theological grounds of the rise of Nazism. These volumes contain essays, lectures, academic papers, correspondences, editorials, and other writings that were not previously translated into English and that provide insight into the development of Barth''s theology during this crucial period of his life.

When Granddad picks Ava up from school one Thursday afternoon, she''s quiet. She doesn''t want to talk about the lockdown drill that has stirred up her worries.

How can she be so afraid in a place that has always felt so safe?

Granddad doesn’t talk much either; he just offers creativity and companionship. And with his gentle encouragement, Ava begins to sense that although the world can be scary, it is still a beautiful place.

With tender insight, One Thursday Afternoon sheds light on how an unpredictable world can make a child feel, reminding us that big fears can become smaller when we take time together to look, listen, and create. An author’s note about the story’s real-life inspiration and recommendations for how adults can help children overcome fear is included.

"Adults may learn a trick or two from Granddad’s model of patience, acceptance, communication, and support, while sensitive children will see they are not alone and that it’s OK to feel upset. . . . A sweet,specific, and straightforward tale of dealing with good and bad in the world." —Kirkus Reviews

The Thessalonian correspondence represents the earliest writing in the New Testament, according to many scholars. It speaks to a group of Christians struggling with thorny questions, such as: How should we live in the shadow of the coming parousia? What are our obligations to one another as followers of Jesus? How do we learn to trust the truth of the gospel? For Paul, this earliest correspondence was a test of his apostolic authority and also a means to express his genuine warmth and affection for the Christian community at Thessalonica. In spite of their relative brevity, the letters to the Thessalonians wrestle with ideas and obligations that remain relevant today.

The volumes in the Belief series offer a fresh and invigorating approach to all the books of the Bible. Building on a wide range of sources from biblical studies and the Christian tradition, renowned scholars focus less on traditional historical and literary angles in favor of a theologically focused commentary that considers the contemporary relevance of the text. Why then and why now are overarching questions asked throughout the volumes in the series.

Where’s the baby? The Gospel of Mark doesn’t have a nativity story—so where’s the Advent message? It’s in every aspect of Jesus’ life, to his death and beyond.

The Incarnation—God come to earth in human form to be baptized, teach, heal, eat, and die—is what we celebrate at Christmas, and Mark shows us just how radical and celebration-worthy it is!

Holy Disruption presents a fresh understanding of the holiness of Christmas grounded, not in a conventional cozy Christmas message, but through Mark''s disquieting gospel which invites its readers to experience God''s disruptive but transformative love for us and our world.

The central focus of The Thanksgiving Hymns is thanksgiving and praise based on a living covenantal relationship with a Creator within a dualistic and apocalyptic worldview. This is an important reference book for specialists in biblical studies.

The beloved author of Bridge to Terabithia and other classics of children’s literature reveals the fascinating personal stories that have shaped her creative life.

For nearly fifty years, Katherine Paterson’s stories have captured readers young and old. From Bridge to Terabithia’s Leslie Burke to the unforgettable Gilly Hopkins to countless others, her characters are woven into the memories of several generations. Paterson’s writing has always explored the rich emotional landscape of childhood, for she has never forgotten how she felt as a child herself.

The writer she became grew from her own fascinating life, told here in a collection of stories that reach from earlier generations of her family to the present day. Born in China to Presbyterian missionary parents from the American South, her young adulthood led her to Japan and then back to the East Coast, where she began to raise her family and put stories on paper. Each of these experiences influenced the books that were to come. Through Paterson’s memories, we learn the origins of her characters and storylines and share in her unexpected literary acclaim. We see the intimate moments of family, creativity, and faith that come together for a life well lived.

With snapshots from her family albums and introductory remarks from fellow writers Kate DiCamillo and Nancy Price Graff, this is more than a behind-the-scenes look at favorite children’s books. It’s the story of a life infused with humor, joy, and gratitude; inspiring new stories embraced by readers everywhere.

While many histories of Christian worship exist, this project undertakes a task both more focused and more urgent. Rather than survey the whole history of the Christian church, it focuses on the formative period between the first and fifth centuries CE, when so many of the understandings and patterns of Christian worship came to be. And rather than include such developments as the monastic hours of prayer and the history of ordination, the authors deal primarily with those aspects of worship that recur on a weekly or regular basis: preaching, Eucharist, and baptism. The book divides its subject into three period. It begins with the emerging worship of the New Testament era. It moves to the second and third centuries, when the church’s main tasks of establishing its identity in relation to its Jewish roots and making its way in a hostile Roman environment showed up in its theology and practice of worship. And it concludes with the fourth and fifth centuries, when introducing the increasing numbers of converts after Constantine to Christian faith became one of the highest priorities of the church’s worship. This resource will serve as a valuable guide to the historical developments that brought about Christian worship as we know it today.

The United States is suffering through a season of social and political division unseen since the Civil War. Unrest over long-standing social (especially racial) injustices are confronting new, antidemocratic perspectives and practices. So much is at stake. Will this country fulfill or abandon its historic commitment to equality and civil liberties? Can a nation so divided come together again?

These questions cut to the core of the beliefs articulated by Christian communities. How can we as people of faith reconcile the call to participate in God''s ongoing struggle for justice while not losing our souls to hatred? How can we love our enemies in this time? Scott Black Johnston believes that there is a way to pursue this difficult work and that people of faith can light the way. He encourages us to recommit to our highest principles—our virtues—and to turn hearts poisoned by cynicism into instruments of love.

From his pulpit in midtown Manhattan, just one block from Trump Tower, Johnston has a unique perspective on the ideological discord tearing at the nation''s fabric. From there, he raises a moral voice that beckons us to become better neighbors, better citizens, better human beings. He calls for the church to model robust advocacy for justice, without denying the full humanity of those on the other side of the argument.

This provocative book brings the wisdom of Scripture into conversation with such diverse minds as Emily Dickinson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ayn Rand, and Mister Rogers. Johnston''s prose is by turns erudite and poignant, yet always insightful. He offers not just words of hope but a prescribed course of action for individuals and communities alike, as we look to mend our souls and restore our civic life.

The experience of growing up "different," coming out in a disapproving environment, having one''s identity and relationships questioned or downright rejected shapes the faith of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer Christians in ways those outside the community cannot fully understand. LGBTQ Christians need spiritual resources that speak to the unique joys and challenges of their journey.

E. Carrington Heath offers one hundred devotions on such topics as authenticity, coming out, relationships, chosen family, religious trauma, and more to nurture the faith of our LGBTQ siblings and help friends, family, and allies grow in understanding and faith.

Fully affirming of all, sensitive to the diversity of the entire LGBTQ community, and backed by theological depth, these devotions will lift the reader up and empower them for the work of transforming the world.

This is a beginner''s guide to biblical exegesis, providing exegetical methods, practices, and theories. This book provides simple, helpful information and guidance about doing exegesis, without being overly prescriptive; succinctly introduces students to various methods; provides basic bibliographies that take students beyond an introductory discussion; and emphasizes exegesis as an everyday activity based on commonsense principles rather than as an esoteric enterprise.

This revised edition of this perennially best-selling textbook includes discussions of emerging methods of interpretation aimed at a contemporary audience. Several chapters have been updated and improved, and readers will find an incisive new chapter on exegesis with a focus on identity and advocacy. Holladay has also written a new concluding chapter on exegesis as the art of seeing. Bibliographies are updated, and a helpful glossary is included in this new edition.

Black Americans’ resilience during centuries of racially-motivated violence is beyond remarkable. But continuing to endure this harm allows for generations of trauma to fester and grow. Healing has to be the priority going forward.

For decades, Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts clung to her upbringing in the church, believing that racial reconciliation would come through faith and discipline, being respectable, and doing what’s right. But when her cousin became the victim of a white supremacist’s hateful rampage, her body and soul said, “no more.”

The trauma of America’s racial history, wreaking havoc on not only Black and Brown folk but white people too, in its own way, will not be alleviated without the will to face it head-on. We must name the dehumanization that plagues us, practice truth-telling and self-care, and make space for our vulnerability—to do the hard work of healing ourselves and our communities.

This book is written with that healing in mind. It unpacks how American systems and institutions enable the kind of violence we’ve seen connected to white supremacy and nationalism. It examines the way media has created a desensitization to violence against Black bodies. It outlines what it looks like for a person who claims to follow Jesus to be anti-racist. But more than anything, it offers a blueprint for healing and reconciliation that includes the necessity of white people untangling from an ancestral mandate of colonization and false notions of supremacy, and Black and Brown people reckoning with the impact of trauma and feeling free to grieve in whatever way grief shows up.

In his classic essay "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," W. E. B. Du Bois asks, "how does it feel to be a problem?" This question has become a means of diagnosing the lived experience of Black men, particularly in America''s most neglected and feared environment: the ghetto. What is often overlooked, however, is the vital role that spirituality has in remedying the problem. A Gift Grows in the Ghetto examines how not being in relationship with one’s gift can lead to feelings of despair, entrapment, and abandonment, all of which contribute to Black men feeling as though they are nothing more than a problem. By utilizing the biblical story of Ishmael''s miraculous survival, growth, and giftedness in the wilderness, the book encourages Black men to embrace a life of faith that is dependent on the God who always sees, nurtures, and is in relationship with us and our gifts in the wilderness and the ghetto.

The Walter Brueggemann Library brings together the wide-ranging and enlivening thought of popular biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann over his storied career. Each volume collects previously published work on a biblical theme that has deeply informed Brueggemann’s scholarship, in an accessible digest for readers who want to engage his writing on the topic.

This first volume in the series, Deliver Us, fittingly begins with the narrative of the exodus. Brueggemann has consistently brought attention to how the themes of the exodus event and the stories of the giving of the law that follow lay the groundwork for a biblical understanding of salvation. Drawn from numerous publications in recent decades, this volume reveals Brueggemann''s clear understanding that divine liberation from exploitation and acquisitiveness also means liberation for generous action for the common benefit. This salvation involves not the security of the individual soul but a wholehearted transformation of social identities and relationships. With the gift of deliverance—dramatically enacted in the Hebrew people''s being led out from the oppression of pharoah—comes the task of obedience—articulated in the covenantal laws given at Mount Sinai, in the wilderness, and beyond.

Brueggemann shows how this double theme of the gift and the task is forged in the exodus narrative, then reenacted in salvation motifs throughout the Bible. The people of God, always susceptible to mentalities of scarcity, selfishness, and the compulsion to consume, are again and again called out by the subversive message of the prophets, and Jesus himself, to forsake exploitation and to liberate the marginalized—to return to covenant obedience and align themselves with God''s radical commitment to create and sustain a more just and flourishing world. Deliver Us extends this same message of salvation, insightfully elucidated by Brueggemann in this single volume, for the benefit of both individual readers and the contemporary church.

Questions for reflection are included at the end of each chapter, making this book ideal for individual or group study.

This volume of the Connections Worship Companion series offers complete liturgies—from the call to worship to the closing charge, with prayers and litanies for every need in between—for all worshiping occasions between Advent and Pentecost of Year A,. Part of the Connections commentary series, these worship resources help congregations illuminate the connections between Scripture and liturgical rhythms. A "Making Connections" essay precedes each liturgical season’s resources, providing context for worship within the themes and purpose of the season.

How did early Christians come to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the divine Son of God? This is the central question in this book. When Did Jesus Become God? is a transcribed conversation between Bart Ehrman and Michael Bird, with a helpful historiographic introduction by Robert Stewart that helps readers understand the conclusions reached by Ehrman and Bird.

Ehrman contends that neither Jesus himself nor the apostles believed that Jesus was divine during Jesus'' life; it was only after Jesus was crucified and the apostles began to have visions and revelations that they became convinced that Jesus was a godlike figure who was sent by God. Over an extended period of time, the early church solidified its belief that Jesus was "God"—first, with an inventive claim that Jesus was exalted to divinity, then later by seeing him as a preexistent angel become human. Bird disagrees. Based on different historiographic criteria and different readings of Scripture, he asserts that Jesus himself claimed to be the divine Son during his lifetime and that many of the apostles believed Jesus to be identified with God''s own prerogatives and identity. In Bird''s account of the early church, Jesus was the preexistent Son of God from the beginning, who then became human, exercised the role of Israel''s Messiah, and was exalted as God the Father''s vice-regent.

The Walter Brueggemann Library brings together the wide-ranging and enlivening thought of popular biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann over his storied career. Each volume collects previously published work on a biblical theme that has deeply informed Brueggemann''s scholarship, in an accessible digest for readers who want to freshly engage his prophetically minded but approachable writing on the topic.

In Our Hearts Wait, Brueggemann meditates on the emotional range of our longings and gratitudes in the psalms, revealing how this bold outpouring of our full selves to the divine has effects far beyond introspection. He traces how the language of the psalms offers a template for liturgies that shape not only our collective worship and communities, but the worlds they create and sustain. Words of worship do not fall vacant and inactive—they help bring into being realities both sacred and sociopolitical.

Throughout this exploration of the psalms, Brueggemann shows readers how the language we use in worship performs what it proclaims. It nurtures and challenges us in seasons of orientation and praise, disorientation and grief, reorientation, and thanksgiving—bringing our full attention to each experience in its turn. But in doing so, the words and deeds of worship can also sharpen our awareness of social constructions and relationships that undergird our common life. They reveal power imbalances and uneven distributions of resources, and, if we let them, urge us forward in our efforts toward justice. Thus, psalms of praise express trust in and abandonment to God, and also pose sharp critiques of unjust public policies that abandon those who are socially invisible. The psalms of grief and lament accompany communities through real experiences of loss and suffering—but also make room for the sufferers to be heard and to challenge the status quo.

The language of worship, when used intentionally and with care, helps to create a reality marked by fidelity, abundance, truth, hope, and dependence on God. With Brueggemann as guide, readers can apprehend the potency of the psalms'' bold petition and dialogue with God, giving voice to the distressed and anticipating the transformation of our lives together and as a society.

Questions for reflection are included at the end of each chapter, making this book ideal for individual or group study.

The late Katie Geneva Cannon was the founder of womanist ethics. Her work continues to generate new explorations of womanist moral thought. In this volume, leading womanist ethicists and theologians come together to continue Cannon’s work in four critical areas: justice, leadership, embodied ethics, and sacred texts. The goal is to continue Cannon’s pursuit of a world of inclusivity and hope, while realistically analyzing the discrimination, disenfranchisement, and systemic hatred that stand as obstacles to the world.

Contributors include Emilie Townes, Shawn Copeland, Eboni Marshall Turman, Angela Sims, Paula Parker, Nikia Robert, Alison Gise Johnson, Vanessa Monroe, Faith B. Harris, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Melanie Jones, Renita Weems.

Discussions of racial difference always embody a story. The dominant story told in our society about race has many components, but two stand out: (1) racial difference is an essential characteristic, fully determining individual and group identity; and (2) racial difference means that some bodies are less human than others.

The church knows another story, says Luke Powery, if it would remember it. That story says that the diversity of human bodies is one of the gifts of the Spirit. That story’s decisive chapter comes at Pentecost, when the Spirt embraces all bodies, all flesh, all tongues. In that story, different kinds of materiality and embodiment are strengths to be celebrated rather than inconvenient facts to be ignored or feared. In this book, Powery urges the church to live up to the inclusive story of Pentecost in its life of worship and ministry. He reviews ways that a theology and practice of preaching can more fully exemplify the diversity of gifts God gives to the church. He concludes by entering into a conversation with the work of Howard Thurman on doing ministry to and with humanity in the light of the work of the Spirit.

In this, his premiere work, Cornel West challenges African Americans to consider the incorporation of Marxism into their theological perspectives, thereby adopting the mindset that it is class more so than race that renders one powerless in America. His work reflects political and cultural perspectives borne out of his own formative life experiences. Decades later, his arguments continue to capture the theological imagination of many and influence the critical engagement of generations of scholars.

In this fortieth anniversary edition, West invites six prominent scholars—whose respective work are grounded in various aspects of black political, cultural, and theological thought—into dialogue with this work, each writing one chapter plus a foreword by Jonathan Lee Walton. Continuing and expanding on the revolutionary discourses that West introduced in the first published work, each new essay provides nuanced lens for thinking about movements of liberation in today''s African American communities

The Westminster Study Bible (WSB) is the first entirely new study Bible to utilize the recently released New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.

Soon to be an essential tool for all religious studies contexts, The Westminster Study Bible includes interpretive materials from over eighty leading biblical experts who, as teachers in a variety of educational settings, are sensitive to how the biblical texts have been received, what their cultural and social consequences have been, and how readers might hear them now in multiple contexts.

The Westminster Study Bible also pays close attention to the interdisciplinary connections that contemporary students, teachers, and other readers from diverse backgrounds will find both useful and relevant. It is an ideal textbook for a range of biblical studies courses, as well as courses in religion, philosophy, and the general humanities, whether introductory or advanced. The Westminster Study Bible''s emphasis on the cultural framing of the Bible''s theological, historical, literary, and philosophical elements allows it to be useful beyond the university and seminary classrooms, aiding teachers in religious congregations and organizations with their ministries as well.

Reading and engaging the Bible today is not as simple as discovering what it meant in its time in order to determine what it means for all time. All readers—whether students or instructors, clergy or general readers, religious or nonreligious—bring their own perspectives to the interpretation of the Bible. The themes and ideas that matter to twenty-first-century readers tend to resonate with our present situations in some way. The Westminster Study Bible takes this interactive dynamic between historical and contemporary interpretations seriously. Through study notes, thematic excursuses, and a range of illuminating essays, The Westminster Study Bible delves into the ancient contexts of the Bible, its continually evolving interpretations, and its contemporary reading and reception, critically exploring both the worlds of the text and the worlds of its many readers today.

Please visit www.wjkbooks.com/WSB for additional information and a more in-depth look at this exciting, new study Bible.

General Editors:

Mass trauma is an unavoidable reality in the United States. Trauma from violence, natural disasters, and disease has become all too familiar in the American experience, inevitably raising questions about where God is to be found in the midst of such tragedies. In every case, the aftermath leaves communities’ sense of well-being broken and capacity to imagine a way forward thwarted. Though language often fails us in the midst of trauma, preachers and religious leaders are nevertheless called on to offer a Word.

Fractured Ground helps pastors craft sermons that fully plumb the disorienting suffering created by events of mass trauma, while still offering an authentic word of hope. Kimberly Wagner provides both incisive explanations of what trauma is and especially how it affects communities of faith, along with practical guidance for crafting sermons that reflect the brokenness of the traumatic situation and the persistent love of God that binds the broken together. Drawing on the burgeoning field of trauma studies, eschatological theologies of hope, scriptural wisdom, and liturgies of lament, Wagner helps preachers imagine what it might mean to preach a narratively fractured sermon in the aftermath of a communal traumatic event, ultimately affirming that no amount of brokenness is beyond the presence and promise of God.

The Gospels are full of stories of Jesus sharing meals with disciples, friends, even tax collectors and Pharisees. Whether multiplying bread to feed a whole crowd, relaxing with his inner circle, or telling curious elites stories about even greater banquets, Jesus imparts wisdom as he shares the wine and grants forgiveness as he distributes the fish. This eight-chapter resource provides biblical insights along with thought-provoking queries regarding our own time, such as whom should we invite to Sunday dinner and who is left out and left behind in our culture today.

Illustrations by artist Kevin Burns complement each chapter and invite further meditation on the Gospel story and its meaning for our lives.

Each chapter includes questions for small group discussion or personal reflection. A guide for church leaders offers suggestions for preaching this book as a sermon series and incorporating food-related outreach and hospitality efforts.

What happens at the end of our lives and of the course of history? Will God bring about a just and peaceful world? What liesbeyond this realm, and what can we know of the beings who dwell there? In Death, the End of History, and Beyond, Greg Carey offers resources for understanding multiple, even conflicting, ways that the Bible imagines these ultimate realities. Carey opens the Scriptures with a breadth of insight that acknowledges its diversity of viewpoints about what lies beyond the veil, centering hope in God’s action to bring good out of evil in our lived realities, in our personal journeys through death, and in visions of resurrection and justice restored. An appendix on preaching also invites clergy to help their communities imagine when and how eschatology can inform our livestoday.

This collection of prayers by noted Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann can be used in both public worship and private devotion. These prayers run the gamut from particular days in the church year to special moments in the lives of worshiping communities to events playing out on the world stage. In all cases, the prayers spur us toward acts of justice and peacemaking and call on God to heal and restore God’s hurting and broken people.

After twenty years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a global pandemic, protests against racial violence, and frequent shootings, more Americans than ever are living with the effects of trauma. The good news is that Jesus was born and died in a traumatized world, and his story speaks forever to wounded people worldwide. Army veteran and Episcopal priest David Peters explores Jesus’ life story through the post-traumatic lens with which the Gospel writers first wrote it—as people who had seen their leader executed by the same oppressive government that had already shrouded their whole lives in anxiety and fear. Meeting the post-traumatic Jesus—the only Jesus the world has ever known—can be a balm to the wounds of modern Christians and spiritual seekers.

Various ideas float around about the subject of last things, leading many Christians to conclude that they don’t know what to think about the subject. Yet at the core of the Christian doctrine of last things lies two simple and complementary hopes: that God ever and always offers hope for our individual futures and for the future of the whole world.

In this helpful book, Allen and Cornwall explain how we don’t have to subscribe to sensationalist theories or sketchy interpretations to believe in Christian hope. They walk the reader through the central biblical teachings on last things and then show the ways the church has interpreted those teachings throughout the centuries. In a respectful way, the authors demonstrate that end-time beliefs centered on the Rapture came into existence only recently, and they then offer several more life-affirming, contemporary interpretations as alternatives.

The book includes a study guide and web-based appendixes designed to help pastors develop both topical and lectionary-based sermon series on Christian hope.