Theological Anthropology, 500 years after Martin Luther gathers contributions on the theme of the human being and human existence from the perspectives of Orthodox and Protestant theology. These two traditions still have much to learn from each another, five hundred years after Martin Luther's Reformation. Taking Martin Luther's thought as a point of reference and presenting Orthodox perspectives in connection with and in contradistinction to it, this volume seeks to foster a dialogue on some of the key issues of theological anthropology, such as human freedom, sin, faith, the human as created in God's image and likeness, and the ultimate horizon of human existence. The present volume is one of the first attempts of this kind in contemporary ecumenical dialogue.

The Palgrave Handbook of Religion and State Volume I: Theoretical Perspective deals with the relationship between Religion and its long history that has played out throughout time and across the globe. Countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe approach the subject of religion and the state in various ways. While the word religion to westerners usually brings Christianity to mind, in Japan it is Shintoism and Buddhism. Volume II offers chapters on the relationship of both Shintoism and Buddhism to the Japanese state. It is very easy to see how the deeply traditional Japanese citizens may come into conflict with the strictly secular Japanese state. It also contains chapters about mosque and state as well as synagogue and state.

Refiguring the Sacred: Conversations with Paul Ricoeur offers perspectives on the twenty-one papers collected by Mark I. Wallace in Paul Ricoeur’s Figuring the Sacred, translated by David Pellauer; this new collection by Joseph A. Edelheit, James Moore, and Mark I. Wallace gives Ricoeur scholars an opportunity to reflect and engage on critical issues of Ricoeur’s religious ideas. Contributions by several significant Ricoeur scholars prompt questions and invite new conversations more than 15 years after Ricoeur’s death. His life-long engagement with texts illuminates his embrace of the Sacred; his significant thinking and writings on Religious imagination, Theology, the Bible, Hope, and Praxis are all ideas that beg more reading, reflection, and refiguring of our understanding of Ricoeur. Wallace brings two additional essays that could not be included in his original collection and reflects on why they are essential to our understanding of Ricoeur and the Sacred. Refiguring the Sacred also provides a model of the interfaith and multidisciplinary dialogue that were foundational to Paul Ricoeur’s scholarship.

A comprehensive look at the background and context, the content, and the impact of Martin Luther's Theology, written by an international team of theologians and historians.

This new edition of the bestselling Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy is fully revised and significantly expanded. Major new features include a full chapter on Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movements, an expanded epilogue, and a new appendix ("How and Why I Became an Orthodox Christian"). More detail and more religions and movements have been included, and the book is now addressed broadly to both Orthodox and non-Orthodox, making it even more sharable than before.

Since the nineteenth century, scholars have debated the controversial relationships between humanism, the Renaissance and the Reformation. Challenging the dominant narrative on the subject, Giovanni Tortoriello reconstructs the debates that characterized the early Reformation movements. He shows that Martin Luther's theology of the cross developed in reaction to the irenic tendencies of the Renaissance. With the spread of Platonism, Hermeticism, and Kabbalah in the fifteenth century, the identity of Christianity shifted and the boundaries between the different religions thinned. In response to this attempt to minimize the differences among the various religions, Luther reiterated the centrality and uniqueness of the salvific event of the cross. Confessional biases and theological prejudices have obliterated the role that Platonism, Hermeticism, and Christian Kabbalah played in the early Reformation debates. The author reconstructs these controversies and situates Luther's theology of the cross in this historical context.

This book contributes to an extensive number of scholarly works produced in 2017 which commemorate the scientific revolution and paradigm shift that occurred in 1517. The year 2017 marks the 500th celebration of the Reformation actuated by Martin Luther when he published what later became known as the Ninety-Five Theses on indulgences. The Reformation was a religious, social, cultural and political event that reshaped the landscape of modern Europe and has had an influence on parts of the world far beyond. This includes the ‘far South’ such as South Africa where the legacy of the Reformers has moulded institutional and individual lives across boundaries of ethnicity and beliefs. Worldwide celebrations of this quincentenary anniversary provide scholars with an opportunity to reflect anew on the consequences and lasting import of the Reformation. This book provides one such a platform by discussing the scientific relevance of Reformed theology, specifically with regard to biblical, historical and systematic-theological themes. Comprising a collection of essays by scholars belonging to the Reformed tradition, it aims at examining the historical heritage of the Reformation, the current state of discourse in Reformed theology as well as the contemporary relevance of a Reformed approach to theology. It contains biblical, historical-theological and systematic-theological perspectives and addresses a variety of issues such as biblical interpretation, text-criticism, translation, constructive impulses emanating from classical Reformed thought, Christian freedom, anthropology and dialogue with non-Reformed traditions. Although the approaches followed are by no means exhaustive, they do provide the reader with some indication of approaches followed in Reformed discourse. Chapters 1–4 pertain to biblical interpretation. A variety of methods are discussed and employed, namely the grammatical-historical, text-immanent, socio-historical, redactional-historical, diachronic and synchronic approaches. These analyses confirm that biblical interpretation requires a multi-faceted approach to biblical texts. Chapters 5–9, conversely, discuss various historical and systematic-theological themes. Classical texts from the Reformation, specifically works by Calvin and Luther, are examined, and contemporary theological literature are analysed, compared and evaluated while innovative new ideas are proposed. This book is written in the reformed spirit of semper Reformanda. While it enters into dialogue with other traditions such as Pentecostal, Neo-Pentecostal, Roman Catholic and Lutheran theology, it also exhibits an attitude of self-reflection and self-correction. This contribution does not only affirm the Reformed heritage as a living tradition, but it also attempts to invigorate the tradition with innovating new ideas by drawing on classical and recent theological literature. The target audience is mainly Reformed theologians, but non- Reformed scholars, who are interested in engaging with the Reformed tradition, would find this book informative.