Search results for ""Author Rowan Williams""

En "Sobre San Agustín", Rowan Williams ofrece los frutos de su estudio de San Agustín a lo largo de veinticinco años de reflexión erudita. Aunque la bibliografía especializada sobre el santo pudiera parecer interminable, Williams nos muestra su propia y excepcional percepción, conocimiento y comprensión perspicaces, y el resultado es una contribución de primera magnitud al pensamiento moderno acerca de este gran filósofo y teólogo.No se trata de una revisión exhaustiva de las obras de San Agustín, sino de reflexiones sobre algunos temas claves como la teología trinitaria agustiniana, su cristología, el mal, el amor, la consciencia de sí y la memoria, además del desasosiego propio del corazón humano.San Agustín destaca muy por encima de sus contemporáneos y de otros Padres de la Iglesia primitiva por la calidad de su inteligencia, la hondura de sus percepciones espirituales y la trascendencia de su influencia ulterior sobre la historia del cristianismo. En su prefacio introductorio el D

Read more less

Rowan Williams on critical contemporary issues in his final book as Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Rowan Williams is the most gifted Anglican priest of his generation. His views are consistent and orthodox and yet he has been consistently misunderstood - especially in relation to his views on contemporary society, public morality and the common good. In this, the final published work of his Archepiscopate, Dr Williams has assembled a series of chapters on matters of immediate public concern and the relationship of Christianity to these issues. Among his topics are 'Has Secularism Failed?: Europe, Faith and Culture', 'Human Rights and Religious Faith', 'Changing the Myths We Live By', 'Housekeeping: The Economic Challenge', 'The Gifts Reserved for Age: Perceptions of the Elderly', and 'Analysing Atheism'.

Read more less

The Eastern Christian tradition is filled with theological and spiritual riches. In Passions of the Soul, Rowan Williams opens up the great classics of Eastern Christian writing to show how it can help us to understand and cope with the ups and downs of modern life. With compelling and illuminating insight, he shows the cost of living in a culture that is theologically and philosophically undernourished, working with a diminished and trivialized picture of the human self. The Eastern tradition teaches us how to develop our self-knowledge and awareness, so that we can relate to the world without selfish illusions. Only then can we be ready for our eyes to be opened to God, and avoid destructive patterns of behaviour. Only in this way can we understand the kind of people we need to become.

Read more less

The old saying about being condemned to repeat the history we don’t know applies to Church history as much as to anything else. But we are often at a loss to know how to approach it. Much of what passed once for Church history was propagandist; and much of the best now written is brilliantly done but apparently detached from the Church’s present needs. We need a theological approach to Church history but not one that is just partisan. In seeking to explore this need, Rowan Williams offers some reflection on how we think about the past in general – a complex issue in today’s culture. Emerging from this is a sense of the importance of Church history as something that deepens our present thinking and obliges us to think with more varied and resourceful analogies about our present problems.

Read more less

In this wide-ranging book, Rowan Williams argues that what we say about Jesus Christ is key to understanding what Christian belief says about creator and creation overall. Through detailed discussion of texts from the earliest centuries to the present day, we are shown some of the various and subtle ways in which Christians have discovered in their reflections on Christ the possibility of a deeply affirmative approach to creation, and a set of radical insights in ethics and politics as well. Throughout his life, Rowan Williams has been deeply influenced by thinkers of the Eastern Christian tradition as well as Catholic and Anglican writers. This book draws on insights from Eastern Christianity, from the Western Middle Ages and from Reformed thinkers, from Calvin to Bonhoeffer – as well as considering theological insights sparked by philosophers like Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. Christ the Heart of Creation concerns fundamental issues for Christian belief and Williams tackles them head-on: he writes with pellucid clarity and shows his gift for putting across what are inevitably complex ideas to a wide audience.

Read more less

Starting in the first century with St Paul and ending in the twentieth with St Oscar Romero, Rowan Williams invites you to reflect with him on the lives and legacies of twenty great Christians – saints, martyrs, poets, theologians and social reformers. Their stories and writings have profoundly influenced his own life and thought, and this sequence of short reflections is sure to sharpen your theological vision and cast a fresh light on what it means to live and breathe the gospel. Included among these 'luminaries' are Augustine of Hippo, William Tyndale, Teresa of Avila, Charles Dickens, Florence Nightingale, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Simone Weil, Let these brilliant meditations light your way as you follow the footsteps of the faithful who have gone before.

Read more less

The Literary Agenda is a series of short polemical monographs about the importance of literature and of reading in the wider world and about the state of literary education inside schools and universities. The category of 'the literary' has always been contentious. What is clear, however, is how increasingly it is dismissed or is unrecognised as a way of thinking or an arena for thought. It is sceptically challenged from within, for example, by the sometimes rival claims of cultural history, contextualized explanation, or media studies. It is shaken from without by even greater pressures: by economic exigency and the severe social attitudes that can follow from it; by technological change that may leave the traditional forms of serious human communication looking merely antiquated. For just these reasons this is the right time for renewal, to start reinvigorated work into the meaning and value of literary reading. This short but thought-provoking volume asks the question 'What is it that tragedy makes us know?'. The focus is on tragedy as a mode of representing the experience of radical suffering, pain, or loss, a mode of narrative through which we come to know certain things about ourselves and our world--about its fragility and ours. Through a mixture of historical discussion and close reading of a number of dramatic texts--from Sophocles to Sarah Kane--the book addresses a wide range of debates: how tragedy is defined, whether there is such a thing as 'absolute tragedy', various modern attempts to rework the classical heritage and the relation of comedy to tragedy. There is also a fresh discussion of whether religious--particularly Christian--discourse is inimical to the tragic, and of the necessary tension between tragic narrative and certain kinds of political as well as religious rhetoric. Rowan Williams argues that tragic drama both articulates failure and frailty and, in affirming the possibility of narrating the story of traumatic loss, refuses to settle for passivity, resignation, or despair. In this sense, it still shows the trace of its ritual and religious roots. And in challenging two-dimensional models of society, power, humanity and human knowing, it remains an intrinsic part of any fully humanist culture.

Read more less

Collected Poems contains the previously published poetry of Rowan Williams, together with a significant body of new work. Also included are his celebrated translations from Welsh, German and Russian poetry. His earlier collections have included pieces prompted by the landscape and literature of West Wales, and a sequence of poems on the varieties of love in the plays of Shakespeare. This Collected adds a sequence commissioned for the fiftieth anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, tributes to writers as different as Alan Garner and John Milton, and a reflection on sculptures by Antony Gormley. The book reflects the poet's wide range of interest and the variety of poetic mediums he has explored. His poems continue to respond vividly to the visual arts, and to the experience and imagination of 'pre-modern' cultures, as well as to the crises and tragedies of our time. He continues to read with uncanny clarity the signs that are manifest in nature and history. Imagination working through language brings us as close as we can get to our condition. 'I dislike the idea of being a religious poet,' he says. 'I would prefer to be a poet for whom religious things mattered intensely.'

Read more less

What is consciousness? Is the mind a machine? What makes us persons? What does it mean to aspire to human maturity? These are among the fundamental questions that Rowan Williams helps us to think about in this deeply engaging exploration of what it means to be human. The book ends with a brief but profound meditation on the person of Christ, inviting us to consider how, through him, 'our humanity in all its variety, in all its vulnerability, has been taken into the heart of the divine life'.

Read more less

In this classic treatise on Christian spirituality, Rowan Williams takes us with a new eye along a road marked out by Paul, John, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, and finally to Luther and St. John of the Cross. The Wound of Knowledge is a penetrating psychological and intellectual analysis of Christian spirituality from one of the finest theological minds of our day.

Read more less

With typical eloquence and wisdom, in The Way of St Benedict Rowan Williams explores the appeal of St Benedict’s sixth-century Rule, showing it to be a document of great relevance to present day Christians and non-believers at our particular moment in history. For over a millennium the Rule – a set of guidelines for monastic conduct – has been influential on the life of Benedictine monks, but has also served in some sense as a ‘background note’ to almost all areas of civic experience: artistic, intellectual and institutional. The effects of this on society have been far-reaching and Benedictine communities and houses still attract countless visitors, testifying to the appeal and continuing relevance of Benedict’s principles. As the author writes, the chapters of his book, which range from a discussion of Abbot Cuthbert Butler’s mysticism to ‘Benedict and the Future of Europe’, are ‘simply an invitation to look at various current questions through the lens of the Rule and to reflect on aspects of Benedictine history that might have something to say to us’. With Williams as our guide, The Way of St Benedict speaks to the Rule’s ability to help anyone live more fully in harmony with others whilst orientating themselves fully to the will of God.

Read more less

Rowan Williams writes accessibly and for the general reader on belief, Christianity and the place of religion today. Apart from being a scholar and theologian, Rowan Williams has also demonstrated a rare gift for speaking and writing plainly and clearly about essentials of the Christian faith. In the chapters of this book he writes with profound perception about the life of holiness to which we are called. The range of Williams’ frame of reference is astonishing – he brings poets and theologians to his aid, he writes about the Rule of St Benedict, the Bible, Icons, contemplation, St Teresa of Avila and even R. D. Laing. He concludes with two chapters on the injunction ‘Know Thyself’ in a Christian context. Throughout, Williams points out that holiness is a state of being – it is he writes ‘completely undemonstrative and lacking any system of expertise. It can never be dissected and analysed.’

Read more less

In many ways, we seem to be living in wintry times at present in the Western world. In this new book, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a noted scholar of Eastern Christianity, introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era, that suggest where we might look for fresh light and warmth. He shows how this rich and diverse world opens up new ways of thinking about spirit and body, prayer and action, worship and social transformation, which go beyond the polarisations we take for granted. Taking in the world of the great spiritual anthology, the Philokalia, and the explorations of Russian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, discussing the witness of figures like Maria Skobtsova, murdered in a German concentration camp for her defence of Jewish refugees, and the challenging theologies of modern Greek thinkers like John Zizioulas and Christos Yannaras, Rowan Williams opens the door to a ‘climate and landscape of our humanity that can indeed be warmed and transfigured’. This is an original and illuminating vision of a Christian world still none too familiar to Western believers and even to students of theology, showing how the deep-rooted themes of Eastern Christian thought can prompt new perspectives on our contemporary crises of imagination and hope.

Read more less

Since his retirement as Archbishop of Canterbury and his return to academic life (Master of Magdalene College Cambridge) Rowan Williams has demonstrated a massive new surge of intellectual energy. In this new book he turns his attention to St Augustine. St Augustine not only shaped the development of Western theology, he also made a major contribution to political theory (City of God) and through his Confessions to the understanding of human psychology. Rowan Williams has an entirely fresh perspective on these matters and the chapter titles in this new book demonstrate this at a glance - 'Language Reality and Desire', 'Politics and the Soul', 'Paradoxes of Self Knowledge', 'Insubstantial Evil'. As with his previous titles, Dostoevsky, The Edge of Words and Faith in the Public Square this new study is sure to be a major contribution on a compelling subject.

Read more less

This distillation of 20 years of Rowan Williams' pastoral and academic work tackles many of the most searching questions of theology and society at the end of the twentieth century. Collects the work of a prominent writer and serving bishop on the history of Christian theology and spirituality. Brings together Rowan Williams' theological essays with studies of wider issues from a theological point of view. Includes an introduction to his work by Bishop Williams.

Read more less

'As we contemplate the coming months, not knowing when we can breathe again, it's worth thinking about how already the foundations have been laid for whatever new opportunities God has for us on the far side of this crisis.' Rowan Williams offers these words of wisdom and many more in Candles in the Dark. This powerful and timely book brings together the 26 weekly Christian meditations originally posted online from March to September 2020, during lockdown in the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, for the congregation of his local parish church. Candles in the Dark is a lovely Christian book of comfort for anyone looking for the light in these dark times. Written with warmth and compassion, these meditations offer us hope and encouragement as we continue to endure the most devastating and disturbing world crisis for over a generation. They will leave you spiritually uplifted and with a strengthened faith to guide you through whatever may come.

Read more less

A collection of talks and sermons from Rowan Williams, one of the finest theological minds of our day, covering a range of issues from war, social justice and sexuality to prayer, spirituality and evangelism. Williams shows the connections between contemporary issues, biblical texts and the Christian tradition, each element drawing new and often surprising things out of the others, and challenges us to make our own connections between the gospel, contemporary problems and our personal struggles.

Read more less

In Hidden Holiness, Michael Plekon challenges us to examine the concept of holiness. He argues that both Orthodox and Catholic churches understand saints to be individuals whose lives and deeds are unusual, extraordinary, or miraculous. Such a requirement for sainthood undermines, in his view, one of the basic messages of Christianity: that all people are called to holiness. Instead of focusing on the ecclesiastical process of recognizing saints, Plekon explores a more ordinary and less noticeable “hidden” holiness, one founded on the calling of all to be prophets and priests and witnesses to the Gospel. As Rowan Williams has insisted, people of faith need to find God’s work in their culture and daily lives. With that in mind, Plekon identifies a fascinatingly diverse group of faithful who exemplify an everyday sanctity, as well as the tools they have used to enact their faith. Plekon calls upon contemporary writers—among them, Rowan Williams, Kathleen Norris, Sara Miles, Simone Weil, and Darcey Steinke—as well as such remarkable and controversial figures as Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day—to demonstrate ways to imagine a more diverse and everyday holiness. He also introduces four individuals of "hidden holiness": a Yup'ik Alaskan, Olga Arsumquak Michael; the artist Joanna Reitlinger; the lay theologian Elisabeth Behr-Sigel; and human rights activist Paul Anderson. A generous and expansive treatment of the holy life, accessibly written for all readers, Plekon's book is sure to inspire us to recognize and celebrate the holiness hidden in the ordinary lives of those around us.

Read more less

The great work of Welsh literature, translated in full for the first time in over 100 years by two of its country's foremost poetsTennyson portrayed him, and wrote at least one poem under his name. Robert Graves was fascinated by what he saw as his work's connection to a lost world of deeply buried folkloric memory. He is a shapeshifter; a seer; a chronicler of battles fought, by sword and with magic, between the ancient kingdoms of the British Isles; a bridge between old Welsh mythologies and the new Christian theology; a 6th-century Brythonic bard; and a legendary collective project spanning the centuries up to The Book of Taliesin's compilation in 14th-century North Wales. He is, above all, no single 'he'.The figure of Taliesin is a mystery. But of the variety and quality of the poems written under his sign, of their power as exemplars of the force of ecstatic poetic imagination, and of the fascinating window they offer us onto a strange and visionary world, there can be no question. In the first volume to gather all of the poems from The Book of Taliesin since 1915, Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams's accessible translation makes these outrageous, arrogant, stumbling and joyful poems available to a new generation of readers.

Read more less

How did earliest Christians receive and understand the teaching of Jesus and the apostles? These writings, among the earliest used in training new disciples, show a clear, vibrant, practical faith concerned with all aspects of discipleship in daily life—vocation, morality, family life, social justice, the sacraments, prophesy, citizenship, and leadership. For the most part, these writings have remained buried in academia, analyzed by scholars but seldom used for building up the church community. Now, at a time when Christians of every persuasion are seeking clarity by returning to the roots of their faith, these simple, direct teachings shed light on what it means to be a follower of Christ in any time or place. The Didache, an anonymous work composed in the late first century AD, was lost for centuries before being rediscovered in 1873. The Shepherd was written by a former slave named Hermas in the second century AD or possibly even earlier.

Read more less

In Hidden Holiness, Michael Plekon challenges us to examine the concept of holiness. He argues that both Orthodox and Catholic churches understand saints to be individuals whose lives and deeds are unusual, extraordinary, or miraculous. Such a requirement for sainthood undermines, in his view, one of the basic messages of Christianity: that all people are called to holiness. Instead of focusing on the ecclesiastical process of recognizing saints, Plekon explores a more ordinary and less noticeable “hidden” holiness, one founded on the calling of all to be prophets and priests and witnesses to the Gospel. As Rowan Williams has insisted, people of faith need to find God’s work in their culture and daily lives. With that in mind, Plekon identifies a fascinatingly diverse group of faithful who exemplify an everyday sanctity, as well as the tools they have used to enact their faith. Plekon calls upon contemporary writers—among them, Rowan Williams, Kathleen Norris, Sara Miles, Simone Weil, and Darcey Steinke—as well as such remarkable and controversial figures as Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day—to demonstrate ways to imagine a more diverse and everyday holiness. He also introduces four individuals of "hidden holiness": a Yup'ik Alaskan, Olga Arsumquak Michael; the artist Joanna Reitlinger; the lay theologian Elisabeth Behr-Sigel; and human rights activist Paul Anderson. A generous and expansive treatment of the holy life, accessibly written for all readers, Plekon's book is sure to inspire us to recognize and celebrate the holiness hidden in the ordinary lives of those around us.

Read more less

Our writers celebrate the work of repair – of objects, relationships, communities, and landscapes – and reckon with its limits. Consumers campaign for a “right to repair” in protest of products’ wasteful “planned obsolescence.” Repair cafés spring up, in which old-timers teach greenhorns to mend clothes and appliances. But much more than our possession stand in need of repair. For some, the Jewish phrase tikkun olam – to repair the world – may have become little more than a secular social justice mandate, not unlike the Christian cliché “God has no hands but ours.” Yet while we wait on God to repair the cosmos, there are indeed countless ways one can participate in this work, whether one is a mother, a handyman, a farmer, an artist, an teacher, or a pastor. The work may not be glamorous, but it calls forth our creativity and holds its own rewards. On this theme: - A handyman settles for humble work and doesn’t wish more for his children. - A mother mends her daughters’ clothes into extravagant works of arts. - A pastor in a declining denomination asks where to start repairing the church. - A farmer says a restored landscape will be more than it was before. - Yazidi, Rohingya, and Uyghur survivors of sexual violence find ways to reclaim their dignity. - Painter Makoto Fujimura says artists don’t fight culture wars, they make culture. - Prisoners and staff say prisons don’t rehabilitate, but education in prison just might. - A schoolteacher says education requires family, school, and community. - A church that prays in the language of Jesus, scattered by war, lives on in new places. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

Read more less

“Doing” theology ought to be deep, creative, and awe-inspiring. Big theological questions should be asked in the most genuinely helpful manner. Often, and inevitably from a human perspective, we ask questions such as “Why doesn’t God…?” or “Why does God allow…?” or, perhaps more appropriately, “What is the best way to conceive of God through His engagement with creation?” In Real Divine Insight and Human Consciousness, Andrew Bigg considers the logical and eschatological consequences of the pivotal union of “perspectives” in the Christian concept of Incarnation. The systematic approach proceeds as “according to a whole,” or both theologically and scientifically relevant.We are aware, not least through Biblical texts, that there is a divine viewpoint of creation. The Bible says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways…For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). Furthermore, “the Lord does not see as mortals see” (1 Samuel 16:7), and we even hear the charge “you thought that I was one just like yourself” (Psalm 50:21).Humanity, however, asks questions about God’s “perspective,” while God asks rhetorical questions about human perspectives. In the Incarnation, however, these conflicting perspectives are somehow established in union with one another. From this divine-human perspective, Christ asks His disciples the incisive opening question “What are you looking for?,” followed by the invitation “come and see” (John 1:37-39). Engaging theologically, learning what best to ask and how best to ask it, is inseparable from a journey of formation, preparation, and growth towards that ultimately shared self-knowledge to which Christ’s invitation directs us, pointing towards a nuanced way of “seeing” and, eventually, “seeing together.”

Read more less

"Science and Religion" is a record of the 2009 Building Bridges seminar, a dialogue between leading Christian and Muslim scholars convened annually by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The essays in this volume explore how both faith traditions have approached the interface between science and religion and throw light on the ongoing challenges posed by this issue today. The volume includes a selection of relevant texts together with commentary that illuminates the scriptures, the ideas of key religious thinkers, and also the legacy of Charles Darwin.

Read more less

The title ‘the Son of Man’ evokes the different aspects of the whole Christ: the humanity and divinity of Christ, his earthly ministry, his sacramental presence, and the eschatological consummation of his work. It is also a term of relationship, suggestive of both the relations constitutive of the life of the Holy Trinity, and also of the way that our knowing and loving the Son of Man is always an invitation to communion - with the Triune God, as the Body of Christ, and for the life of the world. Contributors to this collection explore some of the many registers of the mystery of Christ, both historically and thematically. Contributors include some of today’s leading theological thinkers, including N.T. Wright, Rowan Williams, Lydia Schumacher, Kallistos Ware and Oliver O’Donovan. With poetic reflections from Malcolm Guite. Chapters include: "Son of Man and the New Creation" (N.T. Wright), "The Son of Man in the Gospel of John" (John Behr), "Sound and Silence in Augustine’s Christological Exegesis" (Carol Harrison), "According to the Flesh?: The Problem of Knowing Christ in Chalcedonian Perspective" (Ian Mcfarland), "Christ and the Moral Life" (Oliver O'Donovan), "Christ and the Poetic Imagination" (Malcolm Guite)

Read more less

The perennial classic: this intimate journal chronicling the Narnia author's experience of grief after his wife's death has consoled readers for half a century; this edition features responses from authors like Hilary Mantel, Francis Spufford, Rowan Williams, Jenna Bailey ...'An intimate, anguished account of a man grappling with the mysteries of faith and love ... Elegant and raw ... A powerful record of thought and emotion experienced in real time.' Guardian 'Raw and modern ... This unsentimental, even bracing, account of one man's dialogue with despair becomes both compelling and consoling ... A contemporary classic.' Observer'A source of great consolation ... Lewis deploys his genius for vivid imagery ... It is a relief for the reader to find that he or she is not alone in the intense loneliness or feelings of anguish that bereavement brings.' Henry Marsh, The Times'Testimony from a sensitive and eloquent witness [on] 'The Human Condition'. It offers an interrogation of experience and a glimmer of hardwon hope. It allows one bewildered mind to reach out to another. Death is no barrier to that.' Hilary Mantel'Here, sorrow and despair, the tiredness and numbness and petulance and nightmarishness of grief, all have their full, uncontrolled, experienced force ... [Such] radical openness ... Brilliant.' Francis Spufford***No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.Narnia author C.S. Lewis had been married to his wife for four blissful years. When she died of cancer, he found himself alone, inconsolable in his grief. In this intimate journal, he chronicles the aftermath of the bereavement and mourning with blazing honesty. He grapples with a crisis of religious faith, navigating hope, rage, despair, and love - but eventually regains his bearings, finding his way back to life.A luminous modern classic, A Grief Observed has offered solace to countless readers for decades. This companion edition combines the original text with personal responses from Hilary Mantel, Rowan Williams, Francis Spufford, Maureen Freely, Kate Saunders, Jessica Martin and Jenna Bailey.***What readers are saying:'A truly great book - inspirational and untold help.' 'Every human being, living or dead, understands what Lewis means ... One of the most valuable books ever written.' 'Lewis, as always, sits down next to you and validates your grief like a true friend. He lets you rage, and cry, and even be furious with God, just as he did.''If you are grieving an enormous loss, you may find comfort here ... A great mind and wonderful writer who understands your grief well enough to put words to it.''His journal was also my journal as I worked through my own grief. Reading this book was actually comforting in that I knew that someone else understood my situation and offered insight and hope ... I highly recommend this book for anyone who has gone through the death of a loved one or who wants to comfort." 'This little book has had me in floods of tears [and] shows a real understanding of grief ... To read the words of this great man who shared and understood my pain and is a life affirming and faith affirming experience.'

Read more less

On the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, this issue of Plough Quarterly explores the reformation the church needs today. This year’s five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation comes just as Christianity is undergoing what may prove to be its biggest recalibration since the fourth century. Christendom, the system in which Christianity shaped Western laws and society as the majority religion, has been shaky since the Enlightenment. Now it’s in its death throes, felled by secularization, consumerism, and the sexual revolution. For better or worse, Christians must learn to be a minority. There’s no better time than now to recall Karl Barth’s dictum: the church must always be reformed. What is the re-formed church we need now? In this issue, George Weigel and Eberhard Arnold call the church to turn back to its sources and to seek renewal in the example of the first Christians, for whom Christianity was not just a Sunday religion or a private affair. It meant belonging to the fellowship of disciples, whose way of life was countercultural to that of the surrounding pagan society, as Rowan Williams points out. Today, Christians of all traditions are realizing that we are again called, in the words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, to form a creative minority. Pastors Jin Kim and Claudio Oliver explore how to practice communal Christianity in different contexts, and Andreas Knapp and Cécile Massie document the vibrancy of the persecuted church in Syria and Turkey. Editor Peter Mommsen explores the legacy and triumph of the Radical Reformation. Also in this issue: Reviews of Ben Sasse’s The Vanishing American Adult, Alan Kreider’s The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, Tobias Jones’s A Place of Refuge, and Andrzej Franaszek’s Miłosz Poetry by Mary M. Brown Insights from early church leaders Ignatius, Hermas, and Polycarp An excerpt from Renegade, Plough’s graphic novel on Martin Luther’s life Art and photography by Daniel Bonnell, Jason Landsel, Randall M. Hasson, Rachel Wright, Arthur Brouthers, Andrea Grosso Ciponte, Olivia Clifton-Bligh, Malcolm Coils, Cécile Massie, Jader Gneiting, and Dean Mitchell Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

Read more less

A Treasury of Virtues is a collection of sayings, sermons, and teachings attributed to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 40/661), the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, the first Shia Imam and the fourth Sunni Caliph An acknowledged master of Arabic eloquence and a sage of Islamic wisdom, 'Ali was renowned for his eloquence: his words were collected, quoted, and studied over the centuries, and extensively anthologized, excerpted, and interpreted. Of the many compilations of 'Ali’s words, A Treasury of Virtues, compiled by the Fatimid Shafi'i judge al-Quda'i (d. 454/1062), arguably possesses the broadest compass of genres and the largest variety of themes. Included are aphorisms, proverbs, sermons, speeches, homilies, prayers, letters, dialogues, and verse, all of which provide instruction on how to be a morally upstanding human being. The shorter compilation included here, One Hundred Proverbs, is attributed to the eminent writer al-Jahiz (d. 255/869). This volume presents the first English translation of both of these important collections. An English-only edition.

Read more less

Growing up in Bulgaria, Julia Kristeva was warned by her father not to read Dostoyevsky. “Of course, and as usual,” she recalls, “I disobeyed paternal orders and plunged into Dosto. Dazzled, overwhelmed, engulfed.” Kristeva would go on to become one of the most important figures in European intellectual life—and she would return over and over again to Dostoyevsky, still haunted and enraptured by the force of his writing.In this book, Kristeva embarks on a wide-ranging and stimulating inquiry into Dostoyevsky’s work and the profound ways it has influenced her own thinking. Reading across his major novels and shorter works, Kristeva offers incandescent insights into the potent themes that draw her back to the Russian master: God, otherness, violence, eroticism, the mother, the father, language itself. Both personal and erudite, the book intermingles Kristeva’s analysis with her recollections of Dostoyevsky’s significance in different intellectual moments—the rediscovery of Bakhtin in the Thaw-era Eastern Bloc, the debates over poststructuralism in 1960s France, and today’s arguments about whether it can be said that “everything is permitted.” Brilliant and vivid, this is an essential book for admirers of both Kristeva and Dostoyevsky. It also features an illuminating foreword by Rowan Williams that reflects on the significance of Kristeva’s reading of Dostoyevsky for his own understanding of religious writing.

Read more less

A stunning photo essay paired with 100 stories of members gives a rare glimpse into the Bruderhof, a Christian community that has stood the test of time. Yes, it is possible to create a society where there are no rich or poor, where children and elderly are welcome, where no one lives in isolation. Meet 100 individuals from diverse backgrounds who ventured everything to build a life together where everyone belongs and each can contribute, pooling their income, possessions, talents, and energy. As the community marks its first 100 years, the people in this book tell why they have chosen this radical way of life and share insights gleaned along the way. Their stories represent a cross section of the Bruderhof as an international and intergenerational community. With photography by British photojournalist Danny Burrows, this book celebrates what is possible when people take a leap of faith. It will inspire anyone working to build a more just, peaceful, and sustainable future.

Read more less

Richard Carter swapped a life of simplicity with an Anglican religious order in the Solomon Islands for parish ministry in one of London's busiest churches, St Martin-in-the-Fields. Seeing a need for monastic values in the centre of the city, he founded the Nazareth Community. Its members gather from everyday life to seek God in contemplation, to acknowledge their dependence on God’s grace and to learn to live openly and generously with all. Part story, part spiritual meditation, The City is My Monastery offers spiritual wisdom for daily life rooted in the Nazareth Community’s seven guiding principles: Silence, Service, Scripture, Sacrament, Sharing, Sabbath Time and Staying.

Read more less