Exploring a Wesleyan Political Theology


Book Description

This book explores the consequences of a Gospel message that calls for the transformation of individuals, communities, and the created order. How does a person or community, made whole by holy love, approach the great issues of our day? Past attempts have failed to take into account the strong emphases in Wesleyan thought on personal holiness, communal ("social") holiness, and social engagement.




For the Body


Book Description

An in-depth look at what it means to be created in the image of God and how our bodies serve as icons that illuminate God's purposes instead of ours. The human body is an amazing gift, yet today, many people downplay its importance and fail to understand what Christianity teaches about our bodies and their God-given purposes. Many people misunderstand how the body was designed, its role in relating to others; and we lack awareness of the dangers of objectifying the body, divorcing it from its intended purpose. Timothy Tennent covers topics like marriage, family, singleness, and friendship, and he looks at how the human body has been objectified in art and media today. For the Body offers a biblical framework for discipling people today in a Christian theology of the body. Tennent—theologian and president of Asbury Theological Seminary—explores the contours of a robust Christian vision of the body, human sexuality, and the variety of different ways we are called into relationships with others. This book will reveal a theological vision that: Informs our self-understanding of our own bodies. Examines how we treat others. Reevaluates how we engage today's controversial and difficult discussions on human sexuality with grace, wisdom, and confidence. For the Body is a call to a deeper understanding of our bodies and an invitation to recapture the wonder of this amazing gift.




The Routledge Companion to John Wesley


Book Description

The Routledge Companion to John Wesley provides an overview of the work and ideas of one of the principal founders of Methodism, John Wesley (1703-91). Wesley remains highly influential, especially within the worldwide Methodist movement of some eighty million people. As a preacher and religious reformer his efforts led to the rise of a global Protestant movement, but the wide-ranging topics addressed in his writings also suggest a mind steeped in the intellectual developments of the North Atlantic, early modern world. His numerous publications cover not only theology but ethics, history, aesthetics, politics, human rights, health and wellbeing, cosmology and ecology. This volume places Wesley within his eighteenth-century context, analyzes his contribution to thought across his multiple interests, and assesses his continuing relevance today. It contains essays by an international team of scholars, drawn from within the Methodist tradition and beyond. This is a valuable reference particularly for scholars of Methodist Studies, theology, church history and religious history.




Methodist Christology


Book Description

An international group of Pan-Wesleyan scholars address this question posed by Jaroslav Pelikan: What happened to Methodist Christology after Wesley? Vickers' work on Methodist Christology in The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies sketched a preliminary answer. This book fills it out. The book is in two parts. Part One is a robust study of Methodist Christology from the Wesleys onward. Moving beyond the historical survey, Part Two aims to set trajectories for the future of Pan-Wesleyan Christology.




Our Bodies Tell God's Story


Book Description

In response to a world awash in sexual chaos and gender confusion, this book offers a bold and thoroughly biblical look at the meaning of the body, sex, gender, and marriage. Bestselling author, cultural commentator, and popular theologian Christopher West is one of the world's most recognized teachers of John Paul II's Theology of the Body. He specializes in making this teaching accessible to all Christians, with particular attention to evangelicals. As West explains, from beginning to end the Bible tells a story of marriage. It begins with the marriage of man and woman in an earthly paradise and ends with the marriage of Christ and the church in an eternal paradise. In our post-sexual-revolution world, we need to remember that our bodies tell a divine story and proclaim the gospel itself. As male and female and in the call to become "one flesh," our bodies reveal a "great mystery" that mirrors Christ's love for the church (Eph. 5:31-32). This book provides a redemptive rather than repressive approach to sexual purity, explores the true meaning of sex and marriage, and offers a compelling vision of what it means to be created male and female. Foreword by Eric Metaxas.




Grace and Responsibility


Book Description

This first effort at constructive Wesleyan theology to appear in United Methodist circles since the formation of the denomination in 1868 draws on the historical and literary work that has characterized Wesley studies in recent years. However, it moves beyond them to propose a way of reconstructing essential elements of Wesley's thought in service of the life and mission of United Methodists today.




The Theology of John Wesley


Book Description

A rich articulation of John Wesley's theology that is appreciative of the old and mindful of the new, faithful to the past and attentive to the present. This work carefully displays John Wesley's eighteenth century theology in its own distinct historical and social location, but then transitions to the twenty-first century through the introduction of contemporary issues. So conceived, the book is both historical and constructive demonstrating that the theology of Wesley represents a vibrant tradition. Cognizant of Wesley's own preferred vocabulary, Collins introduces Wesley's theological method beginning with a discussion of the doctrine of God. "In this insightful exposition the leitmotif of holy love arises out of Wesley's reflection on the nature of the divine being as well as other major doctrines." (Douglas Meeks)




Pantheologies


Book Description

Pantheism is the idea that God and the world are identical—that the creator, sustainer, destroyer, and transformer of all things is the universe itself. From a monotheistic perspective, this notion is irremediably heretical since it suggests divinity might be material, mutable, and multiple. Since the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza, Western thought has therefore demonized what it calls pantheism, accusing it of incoherence, absurdity, and—with striking regularity—monstrosity. In this book, Mary-Jane Rubenstein investigates this perennial repugnance through a conceptual genealogy of pantheisms. What makes pantheism “monstrous”—at once repellent and seductive—is that it scrambles the raced and gendered distinctions that Western philosophy and theology insist on drawing between activity and passivity, spirit and matter, animacy and inanimacy, and creator and created. By rejecting the fundamental difference between God and world, pantheism threatens all the other oppositions that stem from it: light versus darkness, male versus female, and humans versus every other organism. If the panic over pantheism has to do with a fear of crossed boundaries and demolished hierarchies, then the question becomes what a present-day pantheism might disrupt and what it might reconfigure. Cobbling together heterogeneous sources—medieval heresies, their pre- and anti-Socratic forebears, general relativity, quantum mechanics, nonlinear biologies, multiverse and indigenous cosmologies, ecofeminism, animal and vegetal studies, and new and old materialisms—Rubenstein assembles possible pluralist pantheisms. By mobilizing this monstrous mixture of unintentional God-worlds, Pantheologies gives an old heresy the chance to renew our thinking.




The People Called Metodista


Book Description

“I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power.” — John Wesley, 1786 “Church renewal” is widely discussed across Methodism today, and yet such renewal will not happen apart from serious engagement with and from the margins of society. Through a series of new and previously published essays, this book looks to the experiences of Methodists in Latin American pueblos and Hispanic barrios to open new scholarly conversations about doctrine, worship, and mission for the sake of social renewal. The flames of renewal do not confine themselves to Methodism. But from the people called metodista they can spread, sharing in the Wesleyan movement’s fundamental calling to revitalize the church universal in its mission to the world. Praise for The People Called Metodista “What is the future of Methodism? Colón-Emeric offers a deep meditation on this difficult question and suggests an answer: we find its future in the margins of the church. Nashville and London must learn to sing together with Seoul, Latin America, and Africa.” —Pablo R. Andiñach, PhD, Instituto Teológico Santo Domingo “The Wesleyan tradition—as a piety, a community in mission, and a theology—took rise within and has found repeated renewal through engagement with those on the fringes of the reigning ‘powers.’ At its best, it has nurtured deep respect for its foundation in Scripture and earlier Christian witness, while cultivating openness to new understandings and expressions of ‘faith working by love.’ Colón-Emeric’s study exemplifies Wesleyanism at its best, probing the witness of Hispanic streams of Methodism for insights addressing the entire movement, much of which suffers from malaise and morbidity. Highly recommended.” —Randy L. Maddox, PhD, William Kellon Quick Emeritus Professor of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies, Duke Divinity School “In The People Called Metodista, Edgardo Colón-Emeric has mined treasures that have been hidden to many of us, particular in the North American and European expressions of Methodism. If Methodism is a renewal movement, voices speaking to us from the margins will lead us to new insight and to holy living. Through the translation of doctrine, worship and mission into a language that surfaces new accents and engages a wider community of conversation partners, Colón-Emeric has broken new ground that will hopefully enlarge our vision for who we are in the present moment.” —Ken Carter, Bishop, Florida and Western North Carolina Conferences, The United Methodist Church “The Holy Spirit, who blows wherever it wishes, continues to give life around the world. Across this book, Dr. Colón-Emeric helps us open our eyes to see and enjoy God’s new creation in and through the people called metodista. He reminds us of how the Spirit continues to create something new amid chaos. This book will renew your hope and inspire you to join God’s move!” —Eric A. Hernández López, DMin, Chair of the Board of Directors, Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico “Gratitude to God for this winsome, faithful, encouraging resource for the people of God in every place. Edgardo Colón-Emeric refreshes and deepens the powerful gospel summons to attentiveness at the margins. Let us go with him to the edge, where our strangely warmed hearts become hearts afire, corazones ardientes.” —Hope Morgan Ward, Retired Bishop, North Carolina Conference, The United Methodist Church




Doctrinal Standards in the Wesleyan Tradition


Book Description

The history of Wesleyan family of churches doctrines What are our core beliefs? Doctrinal Standards in the Wesleyan Tradition, Revised Edition, narrates the history of the formation of Wesleyan doctrines, describing how they were transplanted from the British Isles to North American, how they became constitutionally protected in Wesleyan-rooted churches. The first edition of this book affected the outcome of the 1988 General Conference of The United Methodist Church as the delegates decided many then-disputed doctrinal issues. This revised edition addresses the continuing hunger for more precise and useful information on the doctrinal traditions of mainline Protestantism. Hence the arguments have been updated with more than 400 changes. Included are doctrinal statements for the Evangelical United Bethren, Free Methodist, Methodist Protestant, Wesleyan, Nazarene, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal, and African Methodist Episcopal Churches; as well as an outline syllabus of a Course on the Articles of Religion.