Adam Seligman, one of our most important social thinkers, continues the incisive critique of modernity he began in his previously acclaimed The Idea of Civil Society and The Problem of Trust. In this provocative new work of social philosophy, Seligman evaluates modernity's wager, namely, the gambit to liberate the modern individual from external social and religious norms by supplanting them with the rational self as its own moral authority. Yet far from ensuring the freedom of the individual, Seligman argues, "the fundamentalist doctrine of enlightened reason has called into being its own nemesis" in the forms of ethnic, racial, and identity politics. Seligman counters that the modern human must recover a notion of authority that is essentially transcendent, but which extends tolerance to those of other--or no--faiths. Through its denial of an authority rooted in an experience of transcendence, modernity fails to account for individual and collective moral action. First, deprived of a sacred source of the self, depictions of moral action are reduced to motives of self interest. Second, dismissing the sacred leaves the resurgence of religious movements unexplained. In this rigorous and imaginative study, Seligman seeks to discover a durable source of moral authority in a liberalized world. His study of shame, pride, collective guilt, and collective responsibility demonstrates the mutual relationship between individual responsibility and communal authority. Furthermore, Seligman restores the indispensable role of religious traditions--as well as the features of those traditions that enhance, rather than denigrate, tolerance. Sociologists, political theorists, moral philosophers, and intellectual historians will find Seligman's thesis enlightening, as will anyone concerned with the ethical and religious foundations of a tolerant society.

Leaders in congregations and Christian organizations wrestle with an unraveling of the world in which they have little experience and training. While they are offered unending resources by experts on leadership, some with claims to biblical blueprints, the challenges seem mismatched to those methods. Branson and Roxburgh frame the situation as one in which "modernity's wager"--the conviction that God is not necessary for life and wisdom and meaning--has defined the Western imagination. Because churches and leaders are colonized by this ethos, even when God is named and beliefs are claimed, approaches to leadership are blind to God's agency. Branson and Roxburgh approach this challenge as a work in practical theology, attending to our cultural context, narratives of God's disruptive initiatives in Scripture, and a reshaping of leadership theories with a priority on God's agency. With years of experience as teachers, consultants, and guides, they name practices which lead to more faithful participation. Leadership, God's Agency, and Disruption is wide-ranging in cultural and biblical scholarship, challenging in its engagement with numerous leadership studies, and practical with its focus toward the on-the-ground life of churches and organizations.

In Power in Modernity, Isaac Ariail Reed proposes a bold new theory of power that describes overlapping networks of delegation and domination. Chains of power and their representation, linking together groups and individuals across time and space, create a vast network of intersecting alliances, subordinations, redistributions, and violent exclusions. Reed traces the common action of “sending someone else to do something for you” as it expands outward into the hierarchies that control territories, persons, artifacts, minds, and money. He mobilizes this theory to investigate the onset of modernity in the Atlantic world, with a focus on rebellion, revolution, and state formation in colonial North America, the early American Republic, the English Civil War, and French Revolution. Modernity, Reed argues, dismantled the “King’s Two Bodies”—the monarch’s physical body and his ethereal, sacred second body that encompassed the body politic—as a schema of representation for forging power relations. Reed’s account then offers a new understanding of the democratic possibilities and violent exclusions forged in the name of “the people,” as revolutionaries sought new ways to secure delegation, build hierarchy, and attack alterity. Reconsidering the role of myth in modern politics, Reed proposes to see the creative destruction and eternal recurrence of the King’s Two Bodies as constitutive of the modern attitude, and thus as a new starting point for critical theory. Modernity poses in a new way an eternal human question: what does it mean to be the author of one’s own actions?

This is a brief, authoritative and accessible introduction to the idea of modernity, written by a leading social theorist. Wagner shows that modernity was based on ideas of freedom, reason and progress, but he examines the extent to which these ideas have been, and can be, realized in the modern world.

A second edition of Memories, Hopes, and Conversations is now available! With helpful updates throughout, the new edition features five new chapters on Appreciative Inquiry applied in real congregations. When First Presbyterian Church in Altadena, California, was asked to provide a mission study report for its pastor nominating committee, the congregation was afraid they would find themselves engaging in busy work and producing a report that would wind up in a file gathering dust. They then asked professor Mark Lau Branson to consult with them on writing this report. He invited them to join in a process of Appreciative Inquiry--a transformational organization change process--which resulted in a major shift in congregational conversations and a new sense of hope. Memories, Hopes, and Conversations recounts the experience of First Presbyterian and outlines a process that any congregation can utilize to harness the energies of the congregation at all levels of its common life. Branson first leads readers through the foundations of Appreciative Inquiry and bracingly explores biblical texts for understanding the practice in a faith context. He then outlines and illustrates a four-step process--Initiate, Inquire, Imagine, Innovate--that creatively employs constructive conversations and questions to evoke storytelling and spur imaginations. Branson persuasively demonstrates how concentrating on needs and problems can mire a congregation in discouragement and distract it from noticing innate strengths. By focusing on memories of the congregation at its best, members are able to construct "provocative proposals" to help shape the church’s future. Grounded in solid theory and real-life practice, Memories, Hopes, and Conversations is a groundbreaking work of narrative leadership and the first book to apply the principles of Appreciative Inquiry to the lives of congregations.

In a world that is more culturally diverse than ever, pastors and lay leaders need skills and competencies to serve in multicultural contexts. This rich blend of astute analysis and practical guidance offers a praxis of paying attention, study, and discernment that leads to genuine reconciliation and shared life empowered by the gospel.

At The Beginning Of The Twenty-First Century, We Cannot Escape The Turbocharged Global Economy We Live In. Yet The Very Forces That Link All Of Us Have Accelerated The Dissolution Of Traditional Sources Of Social Authority And Historical Identity, Spurring Increasingly Violent Counter Movements. We Realize Traditional National Politics And The Reorganization Of All Social Values Around Markets Cannot Hold Together The Six And A Half Billion Inhabitants Of This Small Planet The World Needs A New Global Order Based On A Common Global Ethic And Global Justice. To Uphold The World Is Bruce Rich'S Deeply Illuminating And Thought-Provoking Exploration Of Such An Alternative. His Search To Found A Civil And International Order On Principles That Transcend The Goals Of Pure Economic Efficiency And Amoral Realpolitik Is Inspired By The Writings And Lives Of Two Of The Greatest Figures Of Ancient India Ashoka And Kautilya. Ashoka Provides A Unique Example Of A World Ruler His Empire At The Time Was Arguably The World'S Largest, Richest And Most Powerful Multi-Ethnic State Who Tried To Put Into Practice A Secular State Ethic Of Non-Violence And Reverence For Life, Which He Also Extended To International Relations. Kautilya, One Of History'S Greatest Political Geniuses, Wrote The World'S First Treatise On Political Economy, The Arthasastra, Which Proclaims Accumulation Of Material Riches As The Chief Underpinning Of Human Society. Both Addressed The Questions Of Political Realism And Idealism, The Role Of Force And Violence In International Relations, And The Tension Between Economics And Ethics. Through The Retelling Of Mythical And Historical Accounts, Bruce Rich Distils The Message Of Ashoka And Kautilya To Help Us Uphold Our World In The Twenty-First Century. A Unique Blend Of Historical And Political Narrative Combined With Reflections On Contemporary Society, The International Environment And Human Rights, To Uphold The World Is Particularly Timely, Because It Puts Forth A Truly Original Perspective And Thinking On Our Responses To The Political, Economic And Ethical Challenges Of Globalization. 'The Reader Is Drawn Powerfully Into A Long-Gone World In Which An Extraordinary Human Being Dramatically Changed His Own Life And The World Around Him . . . A Highly Readable Book On The Importance And Reach Of Some Arguments In Ancient India, And On Their Relevance For Global Problems Today.' From The Foreword By Amartya Sen. 'To Uphold The World Should Serve As A Source Of Great Inspiration . . . It Is My Hope And Prayer That Readers Today May Be Inspired By This Tale Of A Powerful Ruler To Find Ways To Contribute To Making The World . . . A More Just And Peaceful Place.' From The Afterword By His Holiness The Dalai Lama