Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Arthur McGill had numerous opportunities to air his rich theological musings outside of the classroom. We are now fortunate, some twenty-five years after his death, to have seventeen sermons brought to us by the aid of his wife Lucille McGill and editor David Cain (University of Mary Washington). These homilies reveal the core themes that distinguish his theological writings: relaxing in our neediness before God, participating in the death-to-life pattern of self-expenditure, and rooting our hope in the unique power of Christ. The collection culminates with what Cain notes as McGill's "signature" sermon on The Good Samaritan, wherein we see that the reception of grace always precedes the extension of grace. In addressing day-to-day issues such as possessions, speech, loneliness, and anger, McGill is both prophetic and pastoral. He does not hesitate to say that "the wickedness of Nineveh--alas!--is the wickedness of the United States." At the same time, he brings a refreshing word with theological depth about human suffering and the God who models ultimate vulnerability.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Arthur McGill had numerous opportunities to air his rich theological musings outside of the classroom. We are now fortunate, some twenty-five years after his death, to have seventeen sermons brought to us by the aid of his wife Lucille McGill and editor David Cain (University of Mary Washington). These homilies reveal the core themes that distinguish his theological writings: relaxing in our neediness before God, participating in the death-to-life pattern of self-expenditure, and rooting our hope in the unique power of Christ. The collection culminates with what Cain notes as McGill's signature sermon on The Good Samaritan, wherein we see that the reception of grace always precedes the extension of grace. In addressing day-to-day issues such as possessions, speech, loneliness, and anger, McGill is both prophetic and pastoral. He does not hesitate to say that the wickedness of Nineveh--alas!--is the wickedness of the United States. At the same time, he brings a refreshing word with theological depth about human suffering and the God who models ultimate vulnerability. This book is Theological Fascinations, Volume One, marking the hope that further volumes might emerge from the papers of Arthur C. McGill, evidencing the richness of his theological fascinations.

""McGill has the power to make ideas, concepts, differing perspectives vivid--to 'in-flesh' them. . . .Then comes the ""switch"" or reversal or inversion empowered by the very confrontation McGill has arranged. . . . McGill leaves only the demonic as the object of our worship. Just when we supposed that he was about to come to the defense of this ""world-governing, background God,"" he dismisses such a God, leaving us with the demonic, leaving us room to affirm our own doubts and perplexities, leaving us with a harsher formulation than we might have ventured, leaving us attentive to what he is going to do next and to where he is going to lead us. Because by now we are following him."" --From the ""Introduction."" One of Art McGill's favorite passages from the Gospel of John (12:24) notes that a grain of wheat becomes fruitful not when it is on the stalk but when it falls to the ground and dies. The stalk of wheat must expend itself in letting a new crop flourish. Nourishment rather than domination described McGill's sense of the Christian life. It is the theme of this collection of his writings on the New God, New Death, and New Life. David Cain has admirably, painstakingly, and patiently expended himself in making McGill's work available for our tasting and nourishment. --William F. May, Testing the National Covenant: Fears and Appetites in American Politics Arthur C. McGill was the Bussey Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School. A distinguished philosopher and theologian, he also taught at Amherst College, Wesleyan University, and Princeton University. David Cain is Distinguished Professor of Religion at the University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia, and minister in the United Church of Christ. He is editor of Sermons of Arthur C. McGill, (Cascade Books, 2007), and author and photographer of An Evocation of Kierkegaard / En Fremkaldelse af Kierkegaard (1997).

For decades, Sallie McFague lent her voice and her theological imagination to addressing and advocating for the most important issues of our time. In doing so, she influenced an entire generation and empowered countless people in their efforts to put religion in the service of meeting human needs in difficult times. In this final book, finished in the year before her death in 2019, McFague summarizes the work of a lifetime with a clear call to live in "such a way that all might flourish." The way, she argues, is the "kenotic interpretation of Christianity: the odd arrangement whereby in order to gain your life, you must lose it. The way of the cross is total self-emptying so that one can receive life, real life, and then pass this life on." A masterful and life-giving summing-up of a theology that makes a profound difference for us, our communities, and our planet.

"McGill has the power to make ideas, concepts, differing perspectives vivid--to 'in-flesh' them. . . .Then comes the "switch" or reversal or inversion empowered by the very confrontation McGill has arranged. . . . McGill leaves only the demonic as the object of our worship. Just when we supposed that he was about to come to the defense of this "world-governing, background God," he dismisses such a God, leaving us with the demonic, leaving us room to affirm our own doubts and perplexities, leaving us with a harsher formulation than we might have ventured, leaving us attentive to what he is going to do next and to where he is going to lead us. Because by now we are following him." --From the "Introduction."

For decades, Sallie McFague has lent her voice and her theological imagination to addressing and advocating for the most important issues of our time. In doing so, she has influenced an entire generation, and empowered countless people in their efforts to put religion in the service of meeting human needs in difficult times. In this timely book, McFague recalls her readers to the practices of restraint. In a world bent on consumption it is imperative that people of religious faith realize the significant role they play in advocating for the earth, and a more humane life for all. The root of restraint, she argues, rests in the ancient Christian notion of Kenosis, or self-emptying. By introducing Kenosis through the life stories of John Woolman, Simone Weil, and Dorothy Day, McFague brings a powerful theological concept to bear in a winsome and readable way.

Arthur McGill did not write very much, but what he did write is as theologically suggestive and startling today as it was when it was written in the 1960s and 1970s. He was not well known during his lifetime, but those who cared about the work of theology knew Arthur McGill. Writing during the ascendency of the "Death of God" theologies, McGill's words have a freshness that the more widely known theological writing of that time has lost. McGill wrote only two short books during his life, and just a handful of scattered essays, often published in obscure places. We are fortunate that Kent Dunnington has collected and introduced those essays here. The essays reveal a theologian with an uncanny and intrepid resolve to make theological claims illumine and unsettle our lives. As Stanley Hauerwas writes in his afterword to the collection, "To read McGill is to discover a way to do theology without fear. God knows from where he came, but McGill, as the chapters in this welcome and important book demonstrate, had the ability to make theology do work so that we might better negotiate the imponderable reality we call 'our life.'"