Bøger udgivet af Cascade Books

2020 upended every aspect of our lives. But where is our world heading next? Will pandemic, protests, economic instability, and social distance lead to deeper inequalities, more nationalism, and further erosion of democracies around the world? Or are we moving toward a global re-awakening to the importance of community, mutual support, and the natural world? In our lifetimes, the future has never been so up for grabs. The New Possible offers twenty-eight unique visions of what can be, if instead of choosing to go back to normal, we choose to go forward to something far better. Assembled from global leaders on six continents, these essays are not simply speculation. They are an inspiration and a roadmap for action.With essays by:Kim Stanley Robinson, Michael Pollan, Varshini Prakash, Vandana Shiva, Jack Kornfield, Mamphela Ramphele, Justin Rosenstein, Jack Kornfield, Helena Nordberg-Hodge, David Korten, Tristan Harris, Eileen Crist, Francis Deng, Riane Eisler, Arturo Escobar, Rebecca Kiddle, Mike Joy, Natalie Foster, Jess Rimington, Jeremy Lent, Atossa Soltani, Mark Anielski, Ellen Brown, John Restakis, Zak Stein, Oren Slozberg, Anisa Nanavati, and Fr. Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam

Between the world of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Christianity there appears to be the widest difference. Coates's brief comments on Christianity in his highly acclaimed Between the World and Me make clear that religious faith is alien to his own experience. Still, Christian audiences from congregations to theological schools engaged the text for its analysis of the state of race relations in the United States. In September 2015, Ta-Nehisi Coates tweeted, ""Best thing about #BetweenTheWorldAndMe is watching Christians engage the work. Serious learning experience for me."" This volume takes that tweet as an invitation to theologians, ethicists, and religious studies scholars to engage the book, and as a challenge to do so in a way that is a learning experience for Coates, the authors, and readers.""At its best, theology wrestles with the world we live in and what God calls us to be in the midst of this world. Coates' Between The World and Me was an unrelenting description of this world we inhabit. This collection of essays takes up the theological challenge to listen to Coates and speak with him to discern what faithfulness might look like in a world shaped by the violence of racism. It is a critical read."" --Brian Bantum, Associate Professor of Theology, Seattle Pacific UniversityDavid Evans is Associate Professor of History and Intercultural Studies, and the Director of Cross Cultural Programs at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.Peter Dula is Professor of Religion and Culture, and Chair of the Department of Bible and Religion at Eastern Mennonite University.

Un ensayo analitico del poder, la vulnerabilidad y el sufrimiento en la vida y el ministerio de los lideres a mitad de carrera ofrece un correctivo necesario y un recordatorio para un replanteamiento del poder. La pugna en la dinamica del poder, a menos que se reconozca y se abandone, puede repercutir en la espiritualidad, las relaciones, el caracter y, en ultima instancia, en la fidelidad al ministerio de los lideres. Para complementar los numerosos libros sobre modelos de liderazgo, tecnicas y motivacion, este libro ofrece una contra-narrativa del poder informada por el mensaje de la cruz e incrustada en ella. Este libro elabora un uso humilde del poder y propone un replanteamiento del poder visto en la ascension descendente y la fuerza cruciforme de Cristo. Este libro es de vital importancia en el campo de la formacion ministerial (local y global) porque sondea hasta el nucleo mismo de nuestra condicion humana, iluminando uno de los principales peligros en las vidas de posicion y liderazgo: la mala interpretacion y el mal uso del poder, una realidad que puede ser especialmente destructiva en contextos espirituales y ministeriales. La comunidad cristiana en general tambien encontrara relevancia en este mensaje, ya que lideres de todo tipo comparten desafios comunes en las luchas por el poder y el control. Encontrara un estudio muy personal y profundamente reflexivo sobre nuestra comun condicion humana, y una invitacion a admitir nuestras luchas internas y externas sobre el uso y la practica del poder en el ministerio.

This is a work of doing, of poesis, an enacting philosophy and theology through immediacy. It seeks to call to mind our original interrogative stance in Being, as did the Eleatic poem, the dialogic power of Plato, even Heidegger's indwelling. Should the philosopher want to recover philosophical wonder, then this is the road to be traveled; thought needs raw unmanageable experience. Ordered thought dies without the first eventful taste of time briefly eclipsing Being, and Being thrusting time back down into supplication. Without this confrontation, the very measure of humans as the horizon between time and eternity, closer to angels, but neither angel nor fully animal, our thinking becomes ideological and self-enclosed patterns of attrition. The ten cycles of poetry--God, Sex, Surrender, Death, Time, Art, Prayer, Love, Rosary, Suffering--intend a new kind of philosophical and theological thinking. Here, the poet begins from the unrepeatable courtship with the intimate new, with the blushed and chaste forever-firsts of existence as Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in actus. In this new kind of philosophizing, love is the architect of the game. The poet has no chance of winning against the designer who can remove the pieces.

Ryan J. Stark surveys the classic monsters in great literature and film, television, the Bible, and, perhaps unexpectedly, the world in which we live. Monsterdom is real, Stark observes, but often hidden beneath the concealment spell of modern secular thought. This guidebook aims to break that spell, and, if so, to confirm once more a world that brims with high strangeness, or what Christian philosophers have always called ""reality."" The book appeals to those who study the paranormal dimensions of religion and horror, broadly imagined. The clergy will also find it helpful, as will players of monster-riddled video games.

Though James finds it a challenge being the oldest boy in a large extended family, he longs for something more exciting. Then, he and his cousins Isaiah and Kevin venture down the valley behind their grandmother's backyard fence, and embark on a stomach-turning voyage to times long ago and far away. Though they hope to keep their magical visits a secret from their older sisters, they discover that sometimes help is welcome. Join the three boys, their teen sisters, and their older friend TJ, as they go on a night quest for the apostle James, encounter mystery with the prophet Isaiah, and frolic with St. Kevin of Ireland and his animals. Shudder at the demons in Apollo's temple during the rescue of Kevin's little sister, who has been trapped in an ancient dungeon with the martyr Empress Alexandra. Travel to the cinnamon-scented shores of India, where peacocks dance, and where St. Thomas and TJ stand up to a hostile warrior. And in the end, return home and find that the world has changed: or maybe you have!

Chaplaincy. Pastoral care. Ministry. The care of souls. What lies beneath that which lies beneath them? Like Virgil, chaplain Stephen Faller guides an unusual tour winding through personal disclosure about ministry, adoption, chaplaincy, and disability. Contextualized within chaplaincy and clinical pastoral education, Faller examines these ""visions from a little-known country."" Within the landscape are the sights of living in a post-9/11 world as they prefigure the change and uncertainty that marked American life and ministry after the pandemic of 2020. A conclusion to ""a dialectical inquiry at the end of the world,"" Faller explores the history of philosophy and religion in order to navigate an already unusual life within strange times. Essential reading for chaplains, and helpful insights for all those within the helping professions. As ministry continues to move beyond the surrounding walls of the institutional building, Faller suggests that chaplaincy can be a meaningful space for ordained ministry as one of the great ""spaces between spaces."" Moreover, this confessor's confession spells a way for storytellers and story collectors to find direction when meaning is lost. Chaplaincy itself is a meaningful response to a world turned upside down.

The risen Jesus sends his disciples out as ""witnesses of repentance and the forgiveness of sins"" in his name. In a time of uncertainty for the western church--particularly for ""mainline"" congregations--this commission offers a simple framework for faithful, contextual work and witness, growing in the way of the God who sets captives free and raises the dead. One part call to action, one part celebration of the miracle that is the local church, Witnesses of These Things is an invitation to grab hold of the life that is truly life for which each one of us and this God-beloved world are made.

This book is written for the thinking person who is struggling to believe. It does this by presenting Christianity as a matter of relationships. Good behavior and correct belief do not build relationships, but grow from them. The Bible tells the unfolding story of a relationship given, lost, and reoffered again and again. This is more clear when we begin here, below, where we are, accentuating God's immanence over his transcendence. In such an approach, optional understandings of church teachings become evident, options that are biblically and theologically sound but are seldom offered. There is more than one way to skin a dogma. These alternatives to many teachings provide hope to those outside the church who wish for something more than competition for material possessions, and for those inside the church and struggling to stay. We are socialized into a scientific world view in which there is little room for spirituality. This tension between science and religion is addressed by the presentation of Christianity that is not anti-intellectual, rigid, or defensive. This book shows that we do not need to choose between our worldview and our faith.

Work, whether from home, in cyberspace, or in a factory or office, occupies a major chunk of our time, energy, and soul. This book seeks to make sense of our work in the world through adapting the pithy statement of the Puritan William Perkins to define marketplace theology as the "science of working blessedly forever." It is a science involving investigation, but not just with the head (thought), but also with heart (prayer) and hand (practice). But it is a science of working. So the book investigates a theology of work undertaken in the light of God's blessing and purpose. And our work is not just for this life but "forever," since some of it could last into the new heaven and new earth where, guess what, Scripture says we will work as fully human and resurrected beings. Stevens gathers his lifetime of research and teaching into this book showing through biblical research and contemporary analysis the meaning of work and human enterprise. It could change your lifestyle, your work style, and your soul.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ushered in a tumultuous period for Russia and Ukraine. The Soviet Union broke apart, Communism was exposed as morally bankrupt, and Russian leaders turned to the West for help. In an astonishing development, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin invited a group of American evangelicals to give advice on restoring morality to Russia. The nation was moving toward democratic and religious freedoms until, one decade later, Vladimir Putin abruptly reversed course. He labeled most religious organizations as "foreign agents" and set in motion an aggressive plan to restore the pride of the "Russian world." Putin's alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church, and his hostility to true democracy, led to the brutal invasion of Ukraine, which had opted for freedom and democracy. Other books have analyzed the economic and social dynamics in Russia and Ukraine after 1991. This one chronicles a previously untold story: the role religion played in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the rise of a newly autocratic Russia, and the emergence of democracy in Ukraine. What lay behind the radically different paths chosen by two former Soviet republics?

Europe has a tremendously important role in the history of Christianity and was the continent with the most Christians from roughly the year 900 to 1980. However, Europe is now home to only 22 percent of all Christians in the world, down from 68 percent in 1900. The major trend of European religion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been secularization--disestablishment and decreased influence of state churches, lower importance of religion in the public sphere, the decline of religious beliefs and practices, and individual religious switching from Christianity to atheism and agnosticism. One hundred years ago, it was true that the typical Christian in the world was a white European. Given current trends, however, Europe is clearly no longer the geographic nor demographic center of world Christianity. Yet, that does not mean Europe has no role in the future. It is still the home of major Christian communions, such as Catholics (Rome), Anglicans (Canterbury), Russian Orthodox (Moscow), and Lutherans (Geneva). European mission agencies are active throughout the world providing theological education and social welfare programs, combatting climate change, and advocating for gender equality.

This book is the seventh and final volume in the Global Story of Christianity series. The volume's chapters, written by major scholars in the field, spotlight vital episodes and themes for understanding the historical development of Christianity in the United States and Canada. Serving as an accessible text for students and an informative volume for scholars, the book provides new insights into Christianity's development in North America, offering fresh perspectives on topics frequently overlooked by scholars. The book situates the history of North American Christianity within broader themes associated with Christianity's role as a global religion.

Sharon E. Heaney describes how the life-giving interruption of Latin American poets, novelists, artists, and theologians changed her life in a conflict-ridden Northern Ireland. An outsider, in this study she provides an engagement with a stream of theology in the United States she takes to be exemplary. Latino/a/x theology is teologia en conjunto (collaborative theology). It models ways to examine complicated and contested histories and identities, and it resists dominant assumptions about theological points of departure in favor of also valuing the everyday as locus theologicus. Identifying major themes and foundational thinkers, alongside more recent developments, Heaney offers an overview and invites readers to further reading, study, and formation. Modelling what it esteems, each chapter closes in conversation with a Latino/a/x leader in the church. The conclusion is written by practical theologian, Altagracia Perez-Bullard. She affirms, this "is not just an intellectual exercise, . . . this engagement . . . is the practice of our lives as we journey with God and as we journey with one another. . . . It is an exciting journey. It changes us."

What does it mean to follow the Prince of Peace in a world plagued by war, violence, and killing? Can the foundational convictions of Christianity, and the experiences of Christians around the world, contribute to a more adequate practice of the faith in contemporary times on matters of war, violence, and peacemaking? This volume addresses these important questions with contributions from Christian scholars and practitioners from across the Majority World (including El Salvador, Brazil, Kenya, and the Philippines) and from the United States and Europe. They include proponents of Christian pacifism and just war theory, advocates for varieties of ""just peacemaking"" frameworks, and people pursuing slow, modest steps toward reconciling enemies without the use of overarching theoretical frameworks. What holds them together is a sense that the world and the church would benefit from a robust and gospel-based commitment to nonviolence as an alternative to lethal business as usual in addressing conflicts great and small. The topics they consider include constructive aspects of a Christian theology of nonviolence; case studies of gospel nonviolence and pastoral work from violent conflicts around the world; women as victims of violence and makers of peace; and theopolitical questions of just war, armed intervention, and Christian nonviolence.

Rooted in and advocating for a postmodern and postcolonial understanding of mission, Liberating Scripture is the first book-length study designed specifically to introduce readers to the emerging subfield of biblical interpretation known as missional hermeneutics. The authors provide a thoroughgoing overview of the background and development, rationale, terminology, and methodology of missional hermeneutics, doing for biblical interpretation what Missional Church (edited by Darrell Guder et al., 1998) did for reimagining the church in light of the missio Dei. As the initial volume in the new Studies in Missional Hermeneutics, Theology, and Praxis series, Liberating Scripture is a critical resource for study and practical application, and its accessibility will make it a go-to text for classrooms and congregations.

Worship is the fundamental form of Christian witness. It turns us away from the ideologies, cults, and gods of power that otherwise dominate our society and destroy lives. Since the church is the witness of God to the society to which it is sent, it worships out in the public square, where the world can watch and hear. In six themes of Gathering, Hearing, Singing, Praying, Eucharist, and Whole People of God, Worship and Eucharist tells how the Holy Spirit makes a rational and articulate people. We travel together as the body of Christ on a way of the cross through the world and often against its resistance. The Eucharist is presented here in its true context of the ongoing priesthood of Christ with a dynamic understanding of our transformation and sanctification. What we say about our identity and our own bodies depends on our future redemption in the eternal life God intends for us. Worship and Eucharist makes connections across the whole Christian faith with the breadth of a catechism, but the familiarity of a friend. Densely packed with biblical insight, this book will inspire Christian leaders and others interested in worship with a theology of Christian communal life and mission that is accessible yet challenging.

Pandemic at full tilt, the diagnosis came--cancer. Maybe you've known crisis or are walking a loved one through the terrible unknown. The heart plummets. The mind shrills. We blame genetics. Toxins. Lifestyle. How can we not blame ourselves? Can this be thrown on God? If we listen to the emptiness behind every unanswered why, what will we hear? While life and death circle overhead, heckle and intimidate, exhausting faith, these poems talk with touchstones around us. Eavesdrop on whispers for answers. These poems explore what we have--and what's left. Who made the hawk? And the lionhearted songbird? What do they tell us about courage? What else is present?

Fowler House, with its odd nooks, dicey wiring, and vast, unfinished attic playroom, shelters preteen Larkin. And yet, the house speaks of secrets no one else will. Wild creatures weigh in: a muskrat, fireflies, snails, a vesper bat. The menacing garfish. Troubled parents take on repairs: clanking radiators, crumbling plaster, and beloved Uncle Dunkel, finally home from the war in Korea, his mind splintering. Over three years, lived in the moment by Larkin--and relived in hindsight by Eldergirl--doors open and truth, long-stifled, emerges.

Frustrated by years of neglecting her creativity, Colleen Warren finally vowed in a New Year's resolution to do something creative every day, a decision that literally transformed her life. This book tells her story and reveals the ideas, mindsets, habits, and practices she adopted that enabled that change. The First Verb offers the encouraging message that creativity is every person's possession, by virtue of being created in the image of a creative God. Readers will be inspired by the book's celebration of God's own creative attributes, spiritually strengthened by its theological affirmation of creativity, motivated by exploring the benefits of creativity and the qualities of creative people, and energized by engaging in activities that enlarge creativity.

Philosophy is like a party that started over 2,500 years ago and is still going strong. When you take a philosophy class, you're invited to join this party; but walking into a party 2,500 years late can feel a little awkward. This book is meant to solve that problem. The best way to feel welcome is to focus on how funny philosophy is, simply because its ideals are so high that humans almost never manage to reach them. This book gives three answers to the question "What is philosophy?" (1) Philosophy is a conversation that has been going on for over 2,500 years which has been full of comedy from the beginning and will continue to be funny forever if we do it right. (2) Philosophy is a very awkward business that has always been on the verge of going out of business. (3) Philosophy is something that makes almost everyone write very badly. In addition to this three-act comedy the book also contains two practical guides to being happy and successful in philosophy classes.

This two-volume collection of essays on the Bible and social justice, liberation theology, and radical Christianity by Christopher Rowland addresses the question raised by Gustavo Gutierrez about how we can speak of God as a loving parent in a world that continues to be so inhumane. These essays by an esteemed New Testament scholar represent intellectual interests of a lifetime as he integrated exegesis of the New Testament texts in their first-century contexts and located their interpretations within the quests for meaning and significance that exist within contemporary society. These essays represent mostly the latter concern--exploring Christian Scripture, which has informed the lives of men and women down the centuries--as they interpret both contexts, and in doing so make a significant contribution to contextual theology that should be heard by the inhabitants of both contexts. The first volume of Speaking of God in an Inhumane World includes essays on liberation theology and radical Christianity; the second volume focuses primarily on radical Christianity and includes reflections on Gerrard Winstanley, William Blake, William Stringfellow, and others.

This three-volume commentary on the Psalms engages hermeneutics for preaching, employing theological exegesis that enables the preacher to utilize all the psalms in the Psalter to craft effective sermons. It unpacks the crucial link between Scripture and application: the theology of each preaching text/psalm--what the author is doing with what he is saying in each psalm--is explored and explicated. While the primary goal of the commentary is to take the preacher from text to theology, it also provides a sermon outline for each of the preaching units in the Psalms. The unique approach of this work results in a theology-for-preaching commentary that promises to be useful for anyone teaching from the Psalter with an emphasis on application.

Theology and Technique is a posthumous, incomplete volume drafted in the 1970s that nevertheless constitutes a significant addition to the Ellul corpus. Working from Jacques Ellul's original outline, a collaborative team including three of Ellul's children, a grandson, and Ellul scholars has assembled previous partial publications that Ellul himself approved for eventual incorporation along with relevant unpublished essays and notes into a book which throws the relationship between Ellul's radical theology and sociological critique into fresh perspective. Frederic Rognon contributes an especially insightful general introduction. The translation by Christian Roy is a model of rendering the complexities of the French original into English. This latest Ellul publication will be essential to any serious attempt to appreciate the scope and depth of Ellul's Christian engagement with the challenges of the contemporary world.

Work, whether from home, in cyberspace, or in a factory or office, occupies a major chunk of our time, energy, and soul. This book seeks to make sense of our work in the world through adapting the pithy statement of the Puritan William Perkins to define marketplace theology as the "science of working blessedly forever." It is a science involving investigation, but not just with the head (thought), but also with heart (prayer) and hand (practice). But it is a science of working. So the book investigates a theology of work undertaken in the light of God's blessing and purpose. And our work is not just for this life but "forever," since some of it could last into the new heaven and new earth where, guess what, Scripture says we will work as fully human and resurrected beings. Stevens gathers his lifetime of research and teaching into this book showing through biblical research and contemporary analysis the meaning of work and human enterprise. It could change your lifestyle, your work style, and your soul.