Engaging Theology: Catholic Perspectives – serie

Drawing on the wisdom and teaching experience of highly respected theologians, the Engaging Theology series builds a firm foundation for graduate study and other ministry formation programs. Each of the volumes—Scripture, Jesus, God, Anthropology, and Church—is concerned with retrieving, carefully evaluating, and constructively interpreting the Christian tradition. Comprehensive in scope and accessibly written, these volumes, used together or independently, will stimulate rich theological reflection and discussion. More important, the series will create and sustain the passion of the next generation of theologians and church leaders. The word God, said Martin Buber decades ago, is the most heavy-laden of all human words. None has become so soiled, so mutilated. Twenty-first-century discourse and action often perpetuate that lack of reverence. In this volume Joseph Bracken shows us a better way.• He begins with Christianity’s roots in Judaism and the inherent struggle to explain the reality of three persons in God who is one.• He allows readers to engage in the lively and fruitful trinitarian debates of the early church and discover how the classical doctrine of the Trinity has shaped the church through the centuries.• He offers a solid theological treatment of the history of the doctrine of God and its relevance for Christians today—for dialogue between Christian men and women, between Christianity and other religions, and between religion and science.Systematic theology at its best, God: Three Who Are One helps us find unexpected unity and consensus in a world full of troubling differences. Along the way, Bracken urges us to pray as well as think and to let rational reflection lead to praise and worship, thereby giving the doctrine of the Trinity its due reverence and care.

This book means to explore who Jesus was, is, and is to come, and by what series of events this man of Jewish history came to be viewed by millions as a man of God-like powers in their present lives and their hoped for future." Rich in familiarity with Jesus' Jewish world, Gerard Sloyan helps us discover a Jesus thoroughly situated in his own time and place. Grounded in the New Testament gospels, Sloyan's study leads us to an already interpreted Jesus, distinctly portrayed by each evangelist. Going outside the New Testament, Sloyan takes us into the theological questions and developments that culminated in the affirmations of the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon. This impressive, clearly written work challenges readers to see both the historical Jesus who preached the in-breaking of God's reign and the post-resurrection Jesus whom Christians named Lord and Savior.Gerard S. Sloyan, STD, PhD, is professor emeritus of religion at Temple University and currently visiting professor at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. He has written extensively on Jesus, including The Crucifixion of Jesus (Fortress Press, 1995) and Why Jesus Died (Fortress Press, 2004).

Drawing on the wisdom and teaching experience of highly respected theologians, the Engaging Theology series builds a firm foundation for graduate study and other ministry formation programs. Each of the volumes 'Scripture, Jesus, God, Anthropology, and Church 'is concerned with retrieving, carefully evaluating, and constructively interpreting the Christian tradition. Comprehensive in scope and accessibly written, these volumes, used together or independently, will stimulate rich theological reflection and discussion. More important, the series will create and sustain the passion of the next generation of theologians and church leaders.Paul Lakeland's recent award-winning books on the place of the laity in the contemporary Roman Catholic Church have prepared him well to take on this ecclesiology from below." While paying close attention to the classical "marks of the Church, "Lakeland's focus is on what we can learn about the nature of the Church as living communion by examining the values and practices of ordinary believers. Following the advice of Bernard Lonergan, Lakeland adopts a resolutely inductive approach to ecclesial reflection. He explores ten questions that the Church must address, both those that affect the internal workings of the faith community and those that have to do with its relationships to other groups, religious and secular. Finally, he offers a constructive proposal for a contextual ecclesiology of the U.S. Catholic Church that utilizes the images of hospice, pilgrim, immigrant, and pioneer.