This is an introduction to the subject of academic theology. Its basic approach is interrogative, raising key questions so as to lead into a range of selected topics such as knowledge community, salvation, God, prayer and evil.
The Future of Christian Theology represents a personal manifesto from one of the world's leading theologians, exploring the ways Christian theology in the twenty-first century has been, and can now continue to be, both creative and wise. Represents an outstanding and engaging account of the task of theology today Offers an insightful description of what makes for discerning and creative theology. Written from the perspective of decades of experience, and in close dialogue with theologians of other faiths Features a strong interfaith and public theology dimension, and a contemporary portrait of the field from the inside A hopeful and illuminating search for wisdom and understanding in the increasingly complex religious and secular world of the twenty-first century.
Christianity Today 2023 Book Award Finalist (Biblical Studies) John is a Gospel of abundant truth, life, and love. David Ford, one of the world's leading Christian theologians, invites readers into a fresh, profound encounter with Jesus through the Gospel of John in this comprehensive theological commentary. This commentary will appeal to a wide audience, including pastors, church leaders, and other readers interested in the intersection of theology and spirituality. It will also be of interest to professors and students doing research on John and the reception of the Gospel in Christian theology.
How can we live wisely in the twenty-first century, alert to God and to other people amid the ups and downs of modern life? We find ourselves in the middle of complex situations, relationships, responsibilities, ongoing dramas, and challenges. Our response to these circumstances requires us to draw on many sources and to constantly exercise imagination, discernment, and judgment. In this sequel to his well-received book The Shape of Living, renowned theologian David Ford offers insights into living wisely in the Spirit in a culture of distraction. Ford provides a reflective contemporary Christian spirituality that is drawn from the Gospel of John, the work of internationally respected poet Micheal O'Siadhail, and his own life experiences. He explores themes such as the ordinary and public dramas of living, the centrality of face-to-face relationships, the habits that shape our lives, friendship and love, aging and dying, and jazz. Discussion questions for individual or group use are included.
This new and refreshing approach to 2 Corinthians shows how exegesis of the New Testament writing can issue in theology that is relevant to today. Beginning with an account of the essential thrust of the text, the authors argue for the unity of the letter, setting it against both its Jewish and Hellenistic backgrounds, and examining questions of meaning and reference in the interpretation of particular passages. They then consider how the text can be illuminated by the modern study of hermeneutics, as well as by new sociological approaches. The whole study reaches its climax with an assessment of Paul's authority then and now, and the importance of what he says about God. To conclude, the authors provide their own vivid and compelling translation of Paul's words, inviting a complete rereading of the letter in the light of all that has gone before.
In an overwhelming world, how can our lives be shaped to their greatest potential? David F. Ford examines the whirl of life today – the endless information that inundates us and pervades our lives. He serves up practical wisdom for coping creatively, offering a vision of genuine Christian life that can face the best and worst of today’s world.
This eagerly awaited book by David F. Ford makes a unique and important contribution to the debate about the Christian doctrine of salvation. Using the pivotal image of the face, Professor Ford offers a constructive and contemporary account of the self being transformed. He engages with three modern thinkers (Levinas, Jüngel and Ricoeur) in order to rethink and reimagine the meaning of self. Developing the concept of a worshipping self, he explores the dimensions of salvation through the lenses of scripture, worship practices, the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and the lives of contemporary saints. He uses different genres and traditions to show how the self flourishes through engagement with God, other people, and the responsibilities and joys of ordinary living. The result is a habitable theology of salvation immersed in Christian faith, thought and practice while also being deeply involved with modern life in a pluralist world.
What is Christian wisdom for living in the twenty-first century? Where is it to be found? How can it be learnt? In the midst of diverse religions and worldviews and the demands and complexities of our world, David Ford explores a Christian way of uniting love of wisdom with wisdom in love. Core elements are the 'discernment of cries', the love of God for God's sake, interpretation of scripture, and the shaping of desire in faith. Case studies deal with inter-faith wisdom among Jews, Christians and Muslims, universities as centres of wisdom as well as knowledge and know-how and the challenge of learning disabilities. Throughout, there is an attempt to do justice to the premodern, modern and postmodern while grappling with scripture, tradition and the cries of the world today. Ford opens up the rich resources of Christianity in engaging with the issues and urgencies of contemporary life.
When the theologian Daniel W. Hardy was given six months to live, he began three series of conversations - with his daughter, Deborah Hardy Ford, his close friend and collaborator the Jewish philosopher Peter Ochs, and his son-in-law the theologian David F. Ford. They ranged through deeply personal reflections in the face of death, accounts of his remarkable experiences during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, core questions of faith and practice, and a distillation of the unfinished work on the Church that he had been writing for many years. In this book, his three partners give accounts of their conversations with him, together with a short biography. The result is an extraordinary spiritual testimony, above all to what can happen through `allowing the divine to flood in without inhibition', and finding `things and people knit together in the divine abundance'. This is a prophetic vision of full human life with God in the twenty-first century, drawing on the deepest springs of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and secular wisdom.
This is an innovative book about the shape theology takes in its varied interactions – religious and secular, local and global, historical and contemporary, academic and practical. An innovative book about the shape of theology in reaction to its relationship with the Church, with theologians, with other religions, and with the university Written by David Ford, recognized internationally as one of the most creative of contemporary theologians Considers how theology shapes other areas of life via its conversations in the public sphere and with non-faith communities Views theology as both a way of thinking and a way of living, and considers how this lived character cannot be entirely grasped through reason alone The first volume to bring together a complete and well-rounded account of theology’s interaction with all its conversation partners.
Karl Barth interpreted the Bible in a creative and controversial way. One key to his method is his handling of biblical narratives. He argues from them to his theological conclusions in ways that have many parallels with the literary criticism of realistic novels. The role of the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel story is perhaps the most fascinating question, and Barth produces an original and, in literary terms, extremely sensitive understanding of it. The biblical narratives are also vital for his doctrine of God. Overall, there is in the Church Dogmatics a Christian spirituality that is based on reading the Bible in a particular way. Narrative has been one of the richest themes in recent Christian theology. Its importance in all religions and cultures is obvious, and one of the most powerful factors in the way the Bible crosses barriers of time and place is its inclusion of so many good stories. But what happens when these stories are rigorously examined and reflected upon in theology? What is the relationship of theological to literary interpretation? How can stories be central to a theology while keeping their integrity as vivid, universal literature? There is no general answer to such questions. I have taken one modern theologian of international significance, Karl Barth. By concentrating on that part of his method which has to do with narrative, I have attempted both to offer a new assessment of his achievement and also to open a door into his works that will help to make them accessible to those of many backgrounds and cultures with a keen interest in narrative and literature. --from the Preface
Two renowned theologians open up the reality of God's glory in this book, offering readers a dynamic foundation for glorifying God in the twenty-first century. Drawing from Christian spirituality, liturgy, poetry, hymns, iconography, seminal "glory" texts in the Bible, the Nicene Creed, and theologians throughout the ages who caught sight of the glory of God in diverse ways, this book explores the immensely rich and generative soteriological theme of glorification. It shows students how to integrate theology into the life of faith and demonstrates how the practices of Christian worship influence theological thinking. Metaphors, descriptions, evocations, concepts, narratives, and more highlight the amazing, abundant reality of glorification. This is the first book in the Soteriology and Doxology series. These introductory textbooks cover key topics in soteriology, providing substantive treatments of doctrine while pointing to the setting of theology in doxology. Series editors are Kent Eilers and Kyle C. Strobel.
This new and refreshing approach to 2 Corinthians shows how exegesis of the New Testament writing can issue in theology that is relevant to today. Beginning with an account of the essential thrust of the text, the authors argue for the unity of the letter, setting it against both its Jewish and Hellenistic backgrounds, and examining questions of meaning and reference in the interpretation of particular passages. They then consider how the text can be illuminated by the modern study of hermeneutics, as well as by new sociological approaches. The whole study reaches its climax with an assessment of Paul's authority then and now, and the importance of what he says about God. To conclude, the authors provide their own vivid and compelling translation of Paul's words, inviting a complete rereading of the letter in the light of all that has gone before.
Christianity Today 2023 Book Award Finalist (Biblical Studies) John is a Gospel of abundant truth, life, and love. David Ford, one of the world's leading Christian theologians, invites readers into a fresh, profound encounter with Jesus through the Gospel of John in this comprehensive theological commentary. This commentary will appeal to a wide audience, including pastors, church leaders, and other readers interested in the intersection of theology and spirituality. It will also be of interest to professors and students doing research on John and the reception of the Gospel in Christian theology.
This is an introduction to the subject of academic theology. Its basic approach is interrogative, raising key questions so as to lead into a range of selected topics such as knowledge community, salvation, God, prayer and evil.
This eagerly awaited book by David F. Ford makes a unique and important contribution to the debate about the Christian doctrine of salvation. Using the pivotal image of the face, Professor Ford offers a constructive and contemporary account of the self being transformed. He engages with three modern thinkers (Levinas, Jüngel and Ricoeur) in order to rethink and reimagine the meaning of self. Developing the concept of a worshipping self, he explores the dimensions of salvation through the lenses of scripture, worship practices, the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and the lives of contemporary saints. He uses different genres and traditions to show how the self flourishes through engagement with God, other people, and the responsibilities and joys of ordinary living. The result is a habitable theology of salvation immersed in Christian faith, thought and practice while also being deeply involved with modern life in a pluralist world.
David Emerton argues that Dietrich Bonhoeffer's ecclesial thought breaks open a necessary 'third way' in ecclesiological description between the Scylla of 'ethnographic' ecclesiology and the Charybdis of 'dogmatic' ecclesiology. Building on a rigorous and provocative discussion of Bonhoeffer's thought, Emerton establishes a programmatic theological grammar for any speech about the church. Emerton argues that Bonhoeffer understands the church as a pneumatological and eschatological community in space and time, and that his understanding is built on eschatological and pneumatological foundations. These foundations, in turn, give rise to a unique methodological approach to ecclesiological description – an approach that enables Bonhoeffer to proffer a genuinely theological account of the church in which both divine and human agency are held together through an account of God the Holy Spirit. Emerton proposes that this approach is the perfect remedy for an endemic problem in contemporary accounts of the church: that of attending either to the human empirical church-community ethnographically or to the life of God dogmatically; and to each, problematically, at the expense of the other. This book will act as a clarion call towards genuinely theological ecclesiological speech which is allied to real ecclesial action.
Two renowned theologians open up the reality of God's glory in this book, offering readers a dynamic foundation for glorifying God in the twenty-first century. Drawing from Christian spirituality, liturgy, poetry, hymns, iconography, seminal "glory" texts in the Bible, the Nicene Creed, and theologians throughout the ages who caught sight of the glory of God in diverse ways, this book explores the immensely rich and generative soteriological theme of glorification. It shows students how to integrate theology into the life of faith and demonstrates how the practices of Christian worship influence theological thinking. Metaphors, descriptions, evocations, concepts, narratives, and more highlight the amazing, abundant reality of glorification. This is the first book in the Soteriology and Doxology series. These introductory textbooks cover key topics in soteriology, providing substantive treatments of doctrine while pointing to the setting of theology in doxology. Series editors are Kent Eilers and Kyle C. Strobel.
The Future of Christian Theology represents a personal manifesto from one of the world's leading theologians, exploring the ways Christian theology in the twenty-first century has been, and can now continue to be, both creative and wise. Represents an outstanding and engaging account of the task of theology today Offers an insightful description of what makes for discerning and creative theology. Written from the perspective of decades of experience, and in close dialogue with theologians of other faiths Features a strong interfaith and public theology dimension, and a contemporary portrait of the field from the inside A hopeful and illuminating search for wisdom and understanding in the increasingly complex religious and secular world of the twenty-first century.
In this long awaited follow-on volume to his Archbishop of Canterburys Lent book, The Shape of Living, the renowned theologian David Ford explores how we can live wisely not poring earnestly over difficult choices, but in the presence of Holy Wisdom - Gods darling and delight, playing in his presence and over the whole world. Such wisdom fires our hearts and imaginations, as well as our intellects, and enables us to live fully open to God, to others, and to lifes complexities, in freedom and joy. Playfulness is something many of us leave behind in youth, yet it is a primary characteristic of the kingdom of God the joy of play pervades creation and should pervade our lives. Drawing on scripture and the poetry of Micheal OSiadhail, David Ford enable us to recover a lost dimension in our Christian living.
What is Christian wisdom for living in the twenty-first century? Where is it to be found? How can it be learnt? In the midst of diverse religions and worldviews and the demands and complexities of our world, David Ford explores a Christian way of uniting love of wisdom with wisdom in love. Core elements are the 'discernment of cries', the love of God for God's sake, interpretation of scripture, and the shaping of desire in faith. Case studies deal with inter-faith wisdom among Jews, Christians and Muslims, universities as centres of wisdom as well as knowledge and know-how and the challenge of learning disabilities. Throughout, there is an attempt to do justice to the premodern, modern and postmodern while grappling with scripture, tradition and the cries of the world today. Ford opens up the rich resources of Christianity in engaging with the issues and urgencies of contemporary life.
Do our images of "one God in three persons" reflect God well? Throughout history, Christians have pictured the relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through analogies. Such illustrations--some from the West but also from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and other places--come laden with theological ramifications that the church has rejected (heresies) or embraced (doctrines). In Three in One, William David Spencer shares a lifetime of insights from teaching within the global church, bringing fresh images and analogies of the Trinity to deepen our theological vocabulary. Drawing from his extensive teaching in geographically and culturally diverse contexts and his artist's passion for evocative words and visuals, Spencer offers readers a rich, multifaceted, and practical exploration of the Trinity. Alongside historical and contemporary theology and biblical studies, he considers the strengths and shortcomings of various analogies used to explain the Trinity, such as: Light Water The Celtic knot The totem pole Musical harmonies The human body The family Readers of Three in One will gain a personal understanding of the Trinity as well as tools for teaching about the Trinity in adult and children's ministry contexts.
Any healthcare professional with, or developing an interest in, clinical nutrition will be able to use this textbook, first published in 2001, as a source of information for the formation of a clinical nutrition support service of excellence. The first three parts of the book will enable a clear perspective of the metabolism and physiology of clinical nutrition to be related to the practical application of support techniques. The fourth part of the book highlights the role of nutrition support in specific disease groups. A number of additional chapters have been added for this second edition, and modifications made to the content of chapters from the first edition to cover newer areas or areas of omission.
Karl Barth interpreted the Bible in a creative and controversial way. One key to his method is his handling of biblical narratives. He argues from them to his theological conclusions in ways that have many parallels with the literary criticism of realistic novels. The role of the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel story is perhaps the most fascinating question, and Barth produces an original and, in literary terms, extremely sensitive understanding of it. The biblical narratives are also vital for his doctrine of God. Overall, there is in the Church Dogmatics a Christian spirituality that is based on reading the Bible in a particular way. Narrative has been one of the richest themes in recent Christian theology. Its importance in all religions and cultures is obvious, and one of the most powerful factors in the way the Bible crosses barriers of time and place is its inclusion of so many good stories. But what happens when these stories are rigorously examined and reflected upon in theology? What is the relationship of theological to literary interpretation? How can stories be central to a theology while keeping their integrity as vivid, universal literature? There is no general answer to such questions. I have taken one modern theologian of international significance, Karl Barth. By concentrating on that part of his method which has to do with narrative, I have attempted both to offer a new assessment of his achievement and also to open a door into his works that will help to make them accessible to those of many backgrounds and cultures with a keen interest in narrative and literature. --from the Preface
In an overwhelming world, how can our lives be shaped to their greatest potential? David F. Ford examines the whirl of life today – the endless information that inundates us and pervades our lives. He serves up practical wisdom for coping creatively, offering a vision of genuine Christian life that can face the best and worst of today’s world.
Skillful journalism and meticulous scholarship are combined in the full-bodied portrait of that enigmatic folk hero, Henry Ford, and of the company he built from scratch. Writing with verve and objectivity, David Lewis focuses on the fame, popularity, and influence of America's most unconventional businessman and traces the history of public relations and advertising within Ford Motor Company and the automobile industry.
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