Incarnating Grace

Prioritizes survivors of abuse by reexamining Christian ideals about suffering and salvation More than half of women and almost one in three of men in the United States have experienced sexual violence at some time in their lives. Yet our Christian tradition has failed survivors of sexual violence, who have been taught to believe that traumatic suffering brings us closer to God. Incarnating Grace attempts to save our broken ways of talking about God’s grace by unearthing liberating resources buried in the Christian tradition. Christian ideas about salvation have historically contributed to sexual violence in our communities by reinforcing the idea that suffering is salvific. But a God worth worshiping does not want human beings to suffer. Drawing on the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila as well as contemporary political and feminist theologians, philosophers, and legal scholars, author and Associate Professor of theology Julia Feder offers an account of Christian salvation as mystical-political. Feder begins by describing the breadth of traumatic wounding and the shape of traumatic recovery, as articulated by psychologists. Since the fullness of post-traumatic healing requires reserves deeper than those which can be articulated by the secular field of psychology alone, the book then introduces the Spanish Carmelite Saint Teresa of Avila and her theological insights, which are most helpful for constructing a post-traumatic theology of healing. Arguing that God stands against violence and suffering, the book also examines the notion of “senseless suffering,” a technical term that comes from Edward Schillebeeckx, a Catholic twentieth-century Flemish priest and theologian. The suffering of sexual violence serves no higher purpose or greater human value and pushes against all ways of making sense of the world as good and orderly. In the following chapters, Feder turns to two Christian virtues that animate post-traumatic recovery, courage and hope, and explores how Christian hope can provide a language to empower courageous activity undertaken toward healing. Incarnating Grace opens a new dialogue about salvation and violence that does not allow evil to have the last word.

A Christian/Spiritual growth book focusing on the grace that God gives to believers in the Lord Jesus. It deals with issues such as overcoming sin, help in suffering and forgiveness. It also deals with our identity in Christ and living in the reality of who we are in Christ; as we are seen through the eyes of God. Included are problems in the church such a legalism and the unwillingness of many to accept those unlike themselves, problems which can be overcome by God's grace. The objective is to help Christians enjoy a full and fulfilling relationship with God.

The mystery of conception, pregnancy and birth evoke wonder, even in today's fast paced technical world.�The Incarnating Child�respects that, 'Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.' Joan Salter picks up Wordsworth's theme and follows the soul life of tiny babies into childhood and adolescence.

Abraham argues that a theological imagination can expand the contours of postcolonial theory through a reexamination of notions of subjectivity, gender, and violence in a dialogical model with Karl Rahner. She questions of whether postcolonial theory, with its disavowal of religious agency, can provide an invigorating occasion for Catholic theology.

Approaching the Threshold of Mystery brings two recently estranged strands of theology back together, to explore the same 'liturgical worlds' and to chart 'theological spaces'. The editors have assembled a formidable group of scholars from systematic and liturgical theology with the express purpose of examining the mystery of the liturgy with both expert perspectives in mind. The result is thirteen essays that return to a more 'synoptic' theology, seeing speculative and liturgical approaches as united together for a common purpose, and ultimately approaching the same mysterious, sacred reality. In today's fragmented world, this approach is sorely needed, and although many postmodern authors point out the need for healing this division, this volume actually attempts to bridge the disciplinary divide by placing specialists within the same prayerful 'space', oriented towards something greater than what is merely enacted in human words and deeds.

What difference does the Spirit make in the life of Jesus and in our lives? Answering that question without doing away with the divine dignity of Christ has been a challenge in the distant and recent past. But this need not be the case. The current work is a contribution to the growing field of Spirit Christology, which seeks to enrich the classic Logos Christology of the ecumenical Councils with a Spirit-oriented trajectory. Sanchez tests the productivity of a Spirit Christology as a theological lens for assessing the main events of Jesus' life and mission, accounts of the atonement, the significance of the incarnation, the concepts of person and relation, and models of the Trinity. Seeing Christ as the privileged locus of the Spirit also has implications for the church's life in the Spirit. Sanchez shows how a Spirit Christology fosters Christian practices such as proclamation, prayer, and sanctification. Among the highlights of this work the reader will note the author's assessment of early church fathers' readings of the place of the Spirit in the anointing of Jesus, a constructive proposal towards the complementarity of Logos and Spirit Christologies, ecumenical engagement with various theological traditions in the East and the West, and the first constructive assessment of the field informed by the Lutheran tradition.

Incarnation has always been an important concept within Christian theology. For centuries theologians have wrestled with how best to conceptualize the vexing problem of what it means that Jesus the Christ is fully God and fully human. In this book, Adam Pryor explores how the incarnation has intersected corresponding issues well beyond the familiar question of how any one person might have two natures. Beginning by identifying four critical themes that have historically shaped the development of this doctrine, Pryor goes on to offer a constructive account of the incarnation. His account seeks out the continued meaning of this doctrine given the increasing complexity that characterizes our understanding of human bodies—bodies that can no longer be understood as the locus of distinct subjects separated from the world of objects with the skin as an impenetrable boundary between the two. Making use of contemporary phenomenologies of the flesh and the erotic, Pryor develops an understanding of the incarnation that seeks to go beyond classical issues presented by two natures christologies. Incarnation, in guises as various as Jesus the Christ, cyborg bodies, and sacramental practices, becomes a way that God is diffused into the world, transforming how we are to be-with one another.

"For I know well the plans I have in mind for you ... plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope." Jeremiah 29:11 In her book Walk with me, Jesus, philosopher and writer Ronda Chervin, Ph.D. offers widows a practical spiritual path that can help them attain hope and faith in God's love and provision. Using the stories of women saints who suffered the loss of a husband, she encourages and affirms women in their new state in life while leading them on the journey to healing and interior joy. Drawing from the themes of the Stations of the Cross, Dr. Chervin ties the sufferings of widowhood with the Passion of the Savior in a way that is both beautiful and healing. Quotes from Scripture and the saints, and prayers to help you turn your heart toward the Lord and His Mother, offer consolation and hope.

Who are enemies of the cross, and who are defenders of the faith? In Defense of the Cross of Christ is a wake-up call to sleeping Christians who keep hitting the conviction snooze button of God's command for obedience and holiness through His grace that compels us and equips us to personify Jesus in selfless love. In Defense of the Cross of Christ is an uncompromising warning to church leaders who have invaded the church with humanistic thinking and become stumbling blocks for babes in Christ while deceiving others to follow their pernicious ways of iniquity and to rejoice in it. Over a decade in preparation, In Defense of the Cross of Christ is now ready for you. The question is, are you ready for it? "I know of no other current author who addresses the issue of iniquity among the body of Christ as clearly and concisely as it is dealt with in this work. Just as importantly, I testify that the words written have the testimony of the Spirit by the demonstration of a life lived by the principles here taught." Corey Dawes, Father's Honor Ministry "With passion and conviction, Steven has presented an excellent defense of the cross. Through Scripture and his insight, the reader is drawn to move away from elementary teachings of Scripture and toward deeper water by allowing the love of Christ to guide every decision of their lives. In Defense of the Cross of Christ is intended for slow digestion so the reader may obtain the full nutrients it contains." Kevin Clouse, pastor and writer, First Church of God