Reference Works (Dictionaries/Encyclopedias, Handbooks)
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Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics by
This one-stop reference book on the vital relationship between Scripture and ethics offers needed orientation and perspective for students, pastors, and scholars. Written to respond to the movement among biblical scholars and ethicists to recover the Bible for moral formation, it is the best reference work available on the intersection of these two fields. The volume shows how Christian Scripture and Christian ethics are necessarily intertwined and offers up-to-date treatment of five hundred biblical, traditional, and contemporary topics, ranging from adultery, bioethics, and Colossians to vegetarianism, work, and Zephaniah. The stellar ecumenical list of contributors consists of more than two hundred leading scholars from the fields of biblical studies and ethics, including Darrell Bock, David Gushee, Amy Laura Hall, Daniel Harrington, Dennis Olson, Christine Pohl, Glen Stassen, and Max Stackhouse.
Call Number: Stamps Reference Floor BS680.E84 D53 2011ISBN: 9780801034060Publication Date: 2011-11-01
Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Ethics by
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Ethics (OEBE) explores the intersection between biblical sources and ethical issues, both historical and modern, through extensive analytical and constructive treatments of a wide range of topics by leading biblical scholars and ethicists. Combiningtraditional theoretical frameworks, such as comparative religion, with more recent approaches (postmodern, queer and gender theory, etc.), the OEBE provides a landmark reference overview of everything from ethics in books of the Bible to modern movements and hot-button issues, such as capitalpunishment, bioethics, and abortion.The two-volume Encyclopedia contains over 180 entries ranging in length from 1,000 to 7,000 words. With bibliographic references and suggestions for further reading, each entry provides a thorough introduction to the topic that will be of use to scholars and students alike. Given its contemporaryresonance and detailed summary of current scholarship, the OEBE offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary starting point for research.
Call Number: Stamps Reference Floor BS680.E84 O94 2014 (Vols. 1-2)ISBN: 9780199829910Publication Date: 2014-12-01
The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History by
The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History brings together a number of established scholars, as well as younger scholars on the rise, to provide a scholarly overview for those interested in the role of religion and race in American history. Thirty-four scholars from the fields of History, Religious Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, and more investigate the complex interdependencies of religion and race from pre-Columbian origins to the present. The volume addresses the religious experience, social realities, theologies, and sociologies of racialized groups in American religious history, as well as the ways that religious myths, institutions, and practices contributed to their racialization. Part One begins with a broad introductory survey outlining some of the major terms and explaining the intersections of race and religions in various traditions and cultures across time. Part Two provides chronologically arranged accounts of specific historical periods that follow a narrative of religion and race through four-plus centuries. Taken together, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History provides a reliable scholarly text and resource to summarize and guide work in this subject, and to help make sense of contemporary issues and dilemmas.
Call Number: Stamps Reference Floor BL65.E75 O95 2018ISBN: 9780190221195Publication Date: 2018-03-07
Denominational Statements
Monographs
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Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics by
Outlines the distinctive elements of Christian ethics while avoiding undue dogmatism. Introduces other ethical systems and their key historical proponents, including Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Immanuel Kant. Describes a seven-step procedure for tackling ethical dilemmas, then uses case studies to guide critical thinking on social issues including Abortion, Reproductive Technologies, Euthanasia, Capital Punishment, Sexual Ethics, The Morality of War, Genetic Technologies and Human Cloning Ethics and Economics NEW: Creation Care, Animal Rights, Gun-Control, Race, Gender, and Diversity, Immigration, Refugees, and Border Control.
Call Number: Stamps Reference Floor BJ1012 .R32 2009 (3rd ed.)ISBN: 9780310536420Publication Date: eBook 2018-10-16 (4th ed.)
Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (2nd ed.) by
"Kingdom Ethics is arguably the most significant and comprehensive Christian ethics textbook of our time." -- Michelle A. Clifton-Soderstrom, North Park Theological Seminary Christian churches across the spectrum, and Christian ethics as an academic discipline, are often guilty of evading what Jesus actually said about moral life, focusing instead on other biblical texts or traditions. This evasion of Jesus has seriously malformed Christian moral witness--which Jesus said is tested by whether we put his words "into practice." David Gushee and Glen Stassen's Kingdom Ethics is the leading Christian introductory ethics textbook for the twenty-first century. Solidly rooted in Scripture--and uniquely focusing on Jesus's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount--the book has offered students, pastors, and other readers a comprehensive and challenging framework for Christian ethical thought. Writing to recenter Christian ethics in Jesus Christ, Gushee and Stassen focus on the meaning of the Kingdom of God, perennial themes of moral authority and moral norms, and all the issues raised by the Sermon on the Mount--such as life and death, sexual and gender ethics, love and justice, truth telling, and politics. This second edition of Kingdom Ethics is substantially revised by Gushee and features enhanced and updated treatments of all major contemporary ethical issues--including updated data and examples, a more global perspective, gender-inclusive language, a clearer focus on methodology, discussion questions for every chapter, and a detailed new glossary. Kingdom Ethics is for readers anywhere wanting a robust, comprehensive understanding of Christian ethics founded on the concrete teachings of Jesus and will equip them for further exploration into the field.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BJ1251 .S8132 2016ISBN: 9780802874214Publication Date: 2016-06-29
The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by
How old is prejudice against black people? Were the racist attitudes that fueled the Atlantic slave trade firmly in place 700 years before the European discovery of sub-Saharan Africa? In this groundbreaking book, David Goldenberg seeks to discover how dark-skinned peoples, especially black Africans, were portrayed in the Bible and by those who interpreted the Bible--Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Unprecedented in rigor and breadth, his investigation covers a 1,500-year period, from ancient Israel (around 800 B.C.E.) to the eighth century C.E., after the birth of Islam. By tracing the development of anti-Black sentiment during this time, Goldenberg uncovers views about race, color, and slavery that took shape over the centuries--most centrally, the belief that the biblical Ham and his descendants, the black Africans, had been cursed by God with eternal slavery. Goldenberg begins by examining a host of references to black Africans in biblical and postbiblical Jewish literature. From there he moves the inquiry from Black as an ethnic group to black as color, and early Jewish attitudes toward dark skin color. He goes on to ask when the black African first became identified as slave in the Near East, and, in a powerful culmination, discusses the resounding influence of this identification on Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinking, noting each tradition's exegetical treatment of pertinent biblical passages. Authoritative, fluidly written, and situated at a richly illuminating nexus of images, attitudes, and history, The Curse of Ham is sure to have a profound and lasting impact on the perennial debate over the roots of racism and slavery, and on the study of early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BS580.H27 G65 2003ISBN: 9780691114651Publication Date: 2003-11-02
The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race by
Why has Christianity, a religion premised upon neighborly love, failed in its attempts to heal social divisions? In this ambitious and wide-ranging work, Willie James Jennings delves deep into the late medieval soil in which the modern Christian imagination grew, to reveal how Christianity’s highly refined process of socialization has inadvertently created and maintained segregated societies. A probing study of the cultural fragmentation—social, spatial, and racial—that took root in the Western mind, this book shows how Christianity has consistently forged Christian nations rather than encouraging genuine communion between disparate groups and individuals. Weaving together the stories of Zurara, the royal chronicler of Prince Henry, the Jesuit theologian Jose de Acosta, the famed Anglican Bishop John William Colenso, and the former slave writer Olaudah Equiano, Jennings narrates a tale of loss, forgetfulness, and missed opportunities for the transformation of Christian communities. Touching on issues of slavery, geography, Native American history, Jewish-Christian relations, literacy, and translation, he brilliantly exposes how the loss of land and the supersessionist ideas behind the Christian missionary movement are both deeply implicated in the invention of race. Using his bold, creative, and courageous critique to imagine a truly cosmopolitan citizenship that transcends geopolitical, nationalist, ethnic, and racial boundaries, Jennings charts, with great vision, new ways of imagining ourselves, our communities, and the landscapes we inhabit.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BT734.2 .J46 2010ISBN: 9780300152111Publication Date: 2010-05-25
Race: A Theological Account by
This groundbreaking monograph promises to open a new chapter in black theology. J. Kameron Carter argues that black theology's intellectual impoverishment in the Church and the academy is the result of its theologically shaky presuppositions, which are based largely on liberal Protestant convictions. He critiques the work of such noted scholars as Albert Raboteau, Charles Long and James Cone, and argues that black theology must rebuild itself on completely new theological foundations. He lays these foundations by means of a remarkable synthesis between African-American religious history and Christian orthodoxy. Carter urges black theologians to look back beyond the Enlightenment and the rise of race theory, and to bring patristic Christology into conversation with the modern construction of race and being. He himself draws primarily on the writings of Irenaeus of Lyons, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximos the Confessor in constructing his innovative Christology.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BT734 .C37 2008ISBN: 9780195152791Publication Date: 2008-09-02
Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science by
Divine Variations offers a new account of the development of scientific ideas about race. Focusing on the production of scientific knowledge over the last three centuries, Terence Keel uncovers the persistent links between pre-modern Christian thought and contemporary scientific perceptions of human difference. He argues that, instead of a rupture between religion and modern biology on the question of human origins, modern scientific theories of race are, in fact, an extension of Christian intellectual history. Keel's study draws on ancient and early modern theological texts and biblical commentaries, works in Christian natural philosophy, seminal studies in ethnology and early social science, debates within twentieth-century public health research, and recent genetic analysis of population differences and ancient human DNA. From these sources, Keel demonstrates that Christian ideas about creation, ancestry, and universalism helped form the basis of modern scientific accounts of human diversity--despite the ostensible shift in modern biology towards scientific naturalism, objectivity, and value neutrality. By showing the connections between Christian thought and scientific racial thinking, this book calls into question the notion that science and religion are mutually exclusive intellectual domains and proposes that the advance of modern science did not follow a linear process of secularization.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BT734 .K44 2018ISBN: 9780804795401Publication Date: 2018-01-09
Racializing Jesus: Race, Ideology and the Formation of Modern Biblical Scholarship by
Shawn Kelley's groundbreaking study shows how the major intellectual movements of the modern world, such as Orientalism and romantic nationalism, become infused with the category of race. He then traces the processes through which racially-grounded thinking has influenced modern biblical scholarship. Dynamic and thought-provoking, the book incorporates a wide range of current debate, from critical race theory to the relationship between Martin Heidegger and National Socialism. It will give every student and scholar of biblical studies awareness of the subtle ways in which racial thinking has permeated their discipline, and encourage them to create new modes of biblical analysis.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BS2350 .K45 2002ISBN: 9780415154024Publication Date: 2002-06-21
The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege by
Is privilege real or imagined?It's clear that issues of race and equality have come to the forefront in our nation's consciousness. Every week yet another incident involving racial tension splashes across headlines and dominates our news feeds. But it's not easy to unpack the origins of these tensions, and perhaps we wonder whether any of these issues really has anything to do with us.Ken Wytsma, founder of the Justice Conference, understands these questions. He has gone through his own journey of understanding the underpinnings of inequality and privilege. In this timely, insightful book Wytsma unpacks what we need to know to be grounded in conversations about today's race-related issues. And he helps us come to a deeper understanding of both the origins of these issues and the reconciling role we are called to play as ministers of the gospel.Inequality and privilege are real. The Myth of Equality opens our eyes to realities we may have never realized were present in our society and world. And we will be changed for the better as a result.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BR115.J8 W975 2017ISBN: 9780830844821Publication Date: 2017-06-06
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by
A landmark in the conversation about race and religion in America. The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. In this powerful new work, theologian James H. Cone explores these symbols and their interconnection in the history and souls of black folk. Both the cross and the lynching tree represent the worst in human beings and at the same time a thirst for life that refuses to let the worst determine our final meaning. While the lynching tree symbolized white power and black death, the cross symbolizes divine power and black life, God overcoming the power of sin and death. For African Americans, the image of Jesus, hung on a tree to die, powerfully grounded their faith that God was with them, even in the suffering of the lynching era. In a work that spans social history, theology, and cultural studies, Cone explores the message of the spirituals and the power of the blues; the passion and the engaged vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.; he invokes the spirits of Billie Holiday and Langston Hughes, Fannie Lou Hamer and Ida B. Wells, and the witness of black artists, writers, preachers, and fighters for justice. And he remembers the victims, especially the 5,000 who perished during the lynching period. Through their witness he contemplates the greatest challenge of any Christian theology to explain how life can be made meaningful in the face of death and injustice.
Call Number: BR563.N4 C648 2011 MISSINGISBN: 9781570759376Publication Date: 2011-10-01
Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God by
"If Trayvon was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?"--President Barack Obama The 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager in Florida, and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, brought public attention to controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. The verdict, as much as the killing, sent shock waves through the African-American community, recalling a history of similar deaths, and the long struggle for justice. On the Sunday morning following the verdict, black preachers around the country addressed the question, "Where is the justice of God? What are we to hope for?" This book is an attempt to take seriously social and theological questions raised by this and similar stories, and to answer black church people's questions of justice and faith in response to the call of God. But Kelly Brown Douglas also brings another significant interpretative lens to this text: that of a mother. "There has been no story in the news that has troubled me more than that of Trayvon Martin's slaying. President Obama said that if he had a son his son would look like Trayvon. I do have a son and he does look like Trayvon." Her book will also affirm the "truth" of a black mother's faith in these times of stand your ground.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BT734.2 .D664 2015ISBN: 9781626981096Publication Date: 2014-05-01
Slavery's Long Shadow: Race and Reconciliation in American Christianity by
How interactions of race and religion have influenced unity and division in the church At the center of the story of American Christianity lies an integral connection between race relations and Christian unity. Despite claims that Jesus Christ transcends all racial barriers, the most segregated hour in America is still Sunday mornings when Christians gather for worship. In Slavery's Long Shadow fourteen historians and other scholars examine how the sobering historical realities of race relations and Christianity have created both unity and division within American churches from the 1790s into the twenty-first century. The book's three sections offer readers three different entry points into the conversation: major historical periods, case studies, and ways forward. Historians as well as Christians interested in racial reconciliation will find in this book both help for understanding the problem and hope for building a better future. Contributors: Tanya Smith Brice Joel A. Brown Lawrence A. Q. Burnley Jeff W. Childers Wes Crawford James L. Gorman Richard T. Hughes Loretta Hunnicutt Christopher R. Hutson Kathy Pulley Edward J. Robinson Kamilah Hall Sharp Jerry Taylor D. Newell Williams
Call Number: Stamps Stacks E184.A1 S625 2019ISBN: 9780802876232Publication Date: 2019-02-01
Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by
Through a nationwide telephone survey of 2,000 people and an additional 200 face-to-face interviews, Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith probed the grassroots of white evangelical America. They found that despite recent efforts by the movement's leaders to address the problem of racial discrimination, evangelicals themselves seem to be preserving America's racial chasm. In fact, most white evangelicals see no systematic discrimination against blacks. But the authors contend that it is not active racism that prevents evangelicals from recognizing ongoing problems in American society. Instead, it is the evangelical movement's emphasis on individualism, free will, and personal relationships that makes invisible the pervasive injustice that perpetuates racial inequality. Most racial problems, the subjects told the authors, can be solved by the repentance and conversion of the sinful individuals at fault. Combining a substantial body of evidence with sophisticated analysis and interpretation, the authors throw sharp light on the oldest American dilemma. In the end, they conclude that despite the best intentions of evangelical leaders and some positive trends, real racial reconciliation remains far over the horizon.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BT734.2 .E48 2000ISBN: 9780199741199Publication Date: 2000-05-01
- "Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives"Chapter 6 in: Felder, Cain Hope, ed. Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. 1517 Media, 1991. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15wxn53 and Stamps Stacks BS511.2 .S84 1991
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Can "White " People Be Saved?: Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission by
Yes, White people can be saved. In God's redemptive plan, that goes without saying. But what about the reality of white normativity? This idea and way of being in the world has been parasitically joined to Christianity, and this is the ground of many of our problems today. It is time to redouble the efforts of the church and its institutions to muster well-informed, gospel-based initiatives to fight racialized injustice and overcome the heresy of whiteness. Written by a world-class roster of scholars, Can "White" People Be Saved? develops language to describe the current realities of race and racism. It challenges evangelical Christianity in particular to think more critically and constructively about race, ethnicity, migration, and mission in relation to white supremacy. Historical and contemporary perspectives from Africa and the African diaspora prompt fresh theological and missiological questions about place and identity. Native American and Latinx experiences of colonialism, migration, and hybridity inspire theologies and practices of shalom. And Asian and Asian American experiences of ethnicity and class generate transnational resources for responding to the challenge of systemic injustice. With their call for practical resistance to the Western whiteness project, the perspectives in this volume can revitalize a vision of racial justice and peace in the body of Christ. Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.
Call Number: Stamps Stacks BT734 C32 2018ISBN: 9780830851041Publication Date: 2018-11-06
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Black and Slave: The Origins and History of the Curse of Ham by
Studies of the Curse of Ham, the belief that the Bible consigned blacks to everlasting servitude, confuse and conflate two separate origins stories (etiologies), one of black skin and the other of black slavery. This work unravels the etiologies and shows how the Curse, an etiology of black slavery, evolved from an earlier etiology explaining the existence of dark-skinned people. We see when, where, why, and how an original mythic tale of black origins morphed into a story of the origins of black slavery, and how, in turn, the second then supplanted the first as an explanation for black skin. In the process we see how formulations of the Curse changed over time, depending on the historical and social contexts, reflecting and refashioning the way blackness and blacks were perceived. In particular, two significant developments are uncovered. First, a curse of slavery, originally said to affect various dark-skinned peoples, was eventually applied most commonly to black Africans. Second, blackness, originally incidental to the curse, in time became part of the curse itself. Dark skin now became an intentional marker of servitude, the visible sign of the blacks' degradation, and in the process deprecating black skin itself.
ISBN: 9783110522471Publication Date: 2017-05-22
Christians and the Color Line by
Since Oxford University Press's publication in 2000 of Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's groundbreaking study, Divided by Faith (DBF), research on racialized religion has burgeoned in a variety of disciplines in response to and in conversation with DBF. This conversation has moved outsideof sociological circles; historians, theologians, and philosophers have also engaged the central tenets of DBF for the purpose of contextualizing, substantiating, and in some cases, contesting the book's findings. In a poll published in January 2012, nearly 70% of evangelical churches professed adesire to be racially and culturally diverse. Currently, only around 8% of them have achieved this multiracial status.To an unprecedented degree, evangelical churches in the United States are trying to overcome the deep racial divides that persist in their congregations. Not surprisingly, many of these evangelicals have turned to DBF for solutions. The essays in Christians and the Color Line complicate the researchfindings of Emerson and Smith's study and explore new areas of research that have opened in the years since DBF's publication. The book is split into two sections. The chapters in the first section consider the history of American evangelicalism and race as portrayed in DBF. In the second sectionthe authors pick up where DBF left off, and discuss how American churches could ameliorate the problem of race in their congregations while also identifying problems that can arise from such attempted amelioration.
ISBN: 9780199329502Publication Date: 2013-11-06
Christology and Whiteness: What Would Jesus Do? by
This book explores Christology through the lens of whiteness, addressing whiteness as a site of privilege and power within the specific context of Christology. It asks whether or not Jesus' life and work offers theological, religious and ethical resources that can address the question of contemporary forms of white privilege. The text seeks to encourage ways of thinking about whiteness theologically through the mission of Jesus. In this sense, white Christians are encouraged to reflect on how their whiteness is a site of tension in relation to their theological and religious framework. A distinguished team of contributors explore key topics including the Christology of domination, different images of Jesus and the question of identification with Jesus, and the Black Jesus in the inner city.
ISBN: 9781136256714Publication Date: 2012-09-10
Preaching Black Lives (Matter) by
Preaching Black Lives (Matter) is an anthology that asks, "What does it mean to be church where if Black lives matter?" Prophetic imagination would have us see a future in which all Christians would be free of the soul-warping belief and practice of racism. This collection of reflections is an incisive look into that future today. It explains why preaching about race is important in the elimination of racism in the church and society, and how preaching has the ability to transform hearts. While programs, protests, conferences, and laws are all important and necessary, less frequently discussed is the role of the church, specifically the Anglican Church and Episcopal Church, in ending systems of injustice. The ability to preach from the pulpit is mandatory for every person, clergy or lay, regardless of race, who has the responsibility to spread the gospel. For there's a saying in the Black church, "If it isn't preached from the pulpit, it isn't important."
ISBN: 9781640652569Publication Date: 2020-07-17
Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/a Perspective by
2011 Winner of the Book Awards Contest in the Discipline of Theology Presented by Alpha Sigma Nu The apostle Paul wrote that "All of you are one in Christ Jesus." Given Paul's vision of God's kingdom defined by the breakdown of all distinctions and relationships of domination--no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female--how do we make sense of ethnic particularity within the church's theological formulations? Racism and God-Talk explores the biblical and religious dimensions of North American racism while highlighting examples of resistance within the Christian religious tradition. Social historians have seldom analyzed the problematic of race from a primarily theological perspective. This volume undertakes a critical examination of explicitly theological and confessional perspectives for understanding and transforming North American racism. Rosario Rodriguez offers insights from Latino/a theology for broader scholarly and social discussions concerning racism, borders, and immigration. The first to analyze race and racism from a Latino/a theological perspective, the volume makes use of a broadened conceptualization of "mestizaje," or mutual cultural exchange, to challenge the church to recognize the effects of racial and ethnic particularity in all theological construction.
ISBN: 9780814776100Publication Date: 2008-07-19
