This book brings together philosophical and theological perspectives on agapistic love. The aim of the text is to illuminate the nature of unlimited love by distinct and integrative approaches to the intersection of the divine and the human. Various scientific approaches to human forms of love seem to shed light on our nature as social beings. But to what extent are the natural desires for affection, sexual love and friendship augmented, revised, perfected or replaced by the gift of grace? In other words, we can ask how is it that agapé modifies or shapes the natural loves? Diverse theological and moral traditions address the question in quite startling contrast. Thomists follow the dictum that 'Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it'. Lutherans draw a sharp contrast between law and Gospel while Wesleyans see charity as the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. Some feminist theorists see the idea of self-giving love as contrary to genuine self-fulfilment while the neo-Kantians see love as a duty to others, and some Kierkegaardians see the command to love as an unusual manifestation of divine command ethics. These diverse approaches, in light of contemporary research in the natural and social sciences, can provide fertile ground for the exploration of the intersection of human and divine love. To date, there is no text available that brings scholars from various theological and philosophical backgrounds together to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue on this important and much neglected aspect of research into the human and divine loves. This book offers a significant attempt to remedy the situation.

In our fraught global environment, when political and ideological lines are drawn ever sharper and old allegiances are increasingly strained, love for neighbor as both individual and societal obligation needs to be thematized and justified anew. At the same time, the New Testament call to love one's enemies forms a sharp point of contrast to the current non-culture of hatred for all things different and foreign. Oda Wischmeyer's Love as Agape: The Early Christian Concept and Modern Discourse, the ninth volume in the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series, aims to bring the New Testament concept of love into conversation with the current discussion about love. Wischmeyer investigates the commandment tradition of love for God and for neighbor, the ways in which the Septuagint and Plutarch speak of love, and the innovative concepts of love developed by Paul and John. She also presents an exegetically informed construction of the New Testament concept of love that is sharpened through a penetrating comparison with counter-, parallel, and alternative concepts from the ancient world. The book brings this holistic biblical vision forward into critical and constructive dialogue with key contemporary visions of love, including those of Julia Kristeva, Martha Nussbaum, Pope Benedict XVI, and Simon May. The tension that emerges stresses the need for fresh conceptualizations of ancient Jewish-Christian understandings, giving rise to the concluding question of the profile, limits, and impulses of the agape concept for present challenges. Through this academically rigorous and pastorally sensitive exploration, Wischmeyer points to the great love story between God and humanity, which realizes itself in the figure of Jesus Christ. This divine romance places love as the most intense, affirming, and life-creating relationship in God's own self, a relationship into which human beings are drawn and by which they obtain special dignity when God's love becomes their life.

Thirty-five years ago Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue established virtue ethics as a major challenger to competing visions of morality, but there is still considerable disagreement concerning which version of virtue ethics provides the best approach. The Supremacy of Love describes and advocates an agape-centered vision of Aristotelian virtue ethics that portrays love as the most important moral virtue, and the goals of love as a partial constituent of every genuine virtue. This structural improvement to Aristotelian virtue ethics—found originally in the ethics of Thomas Aquinas—enables this account to address several controversial topics in contemporary virtue ethics, including why the virtues cannot be used badly, in what sense is there a unity between the virtues, how the virtues benefit the virtuous person, and how virtues provide action guidance. Eric J. Silverman demonstrates how and why a distinctly love-centered approach to virtue ethics should make the view widely attractive in comparison to alternative accounts of virtue ethics, duty based deontological theories, as well as results-based consequentialist views.

In a provocative essay, philosopher Jeffrie G. Murphy asks: 'what would law be like if we organized it around the value of Christian love, and if we thought about and criticized law in terms of that value?'. This book brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to address that question. Scholars have given surprisingly little attention to assessing how the central Christian ethical category of love - agape - might impact the way we understand law. This book aims to fill that gap by investigating the relationship between agape and law in Scripture, theology, and jurisprudence, as well as applying these insights to contemporary debates in criminal law, tort law, elder law, immigration law, corporate law, intellectual property, and international relations. At a time when the discourse between Christian and other world views is more likely to be filled with hate than love, the implications of agape for law are crucial.

In Continuity collects more than twenty years of distinguished essays by Austin Warren and completes his trilogy that began with Rage for Order (1948) and Connections (1970). These last essays of Warren include discussions of the writings and philosophies of Allen Tate, Lewis Carroll, William Law, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Robert Herrick, Walter Pater, and Robert Frost, as well as an autobiographical essay on Warren's own religious influences. Through his essay collections and other literary studies, Warren helped shape generations of scholars; the approach represented here might best be called New England Common Sense New Criticism. With art and grace, this self-termed literary "generalist" reminds us through his lively prose of the continuity of great Western literature through the centuries, focusing in these essays on nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors.

Dreamers hope Visionaries see Vanguards hope, see and lead ! This book is a dreamers tool box, packed with what they need to know about provision for the vision, the journey of a vision and the visionarys cup. This book will speak to those that are at a spiritual crossroad and intersection of the vision; or on the edge of a cliff called faith, living in two realms at the same time and pushing through the contractions of a vision in the birth canal. The author expounds on the seven types of vanguards needed in every generation: Presidents, Pastors, Parents, Pioneers, Prayer Warriors, Prisoners and Prophets. This book will reveal how and why God is deploying His end time vanguards throughout the earth. Bishop Green throws out a holy lifeline to dreamers and visionaries so that they will not throw away their inspiration, perspiration and determination for the future. The Word for the Church as well as for our nation this hour is GO FORWARD WITH GOD!

Peter Serra did. "Christian Visions from a Common Man" is an in-depth look at the creative genius that is Peter Serra. His life stories before and after salvation are shown in a compelling way that will echo the sounds of his life into yours. Life lessons are taught, learned, and some experienced in what is to be a common man's vision from a God-given righta "the right to live. Peter Serra's dramatic aperture is sure to enhance your stimuli, and leave you grasping for more. Christian Visions from a Common Man brings the most uncommon of things, to the most common purposes."