Relationships are the best of times and worst of times. There seems to be no getting around the fact we can get stressed out with people we relate to and love. This book will help you understand yourself under relational stress, and guide you through steps that can transform your way of thinking, feeling and behaving. It will also help you put your finger on why other people react the way they do, and help you with new responses to old problems. As you follow the principles on these pages, I sincerely hope you will discover a pathway toward fulfillment in your most important relationships. - Gerry

This book examines Christianity in China by building a constructive theology for the distinctive realities of Chinese culture, society, and politics. It proposes Christian public responsibility to identify the moral problems in Chinese public life and proposes a public face of Christianity in China theologically and ethically.

What is the heart and soul of African American religious life? Anthony Pinn searches out the basic structure of Black religion, tracing the Black religious spirit in its many historical manifestations. In this new edition, Pinn reflects on the argument and invites a panel of five scholars to examine what it means for current and future scholarship.

In this, the first of a six-volume contribution to systematic theology, Grenz creatively extends the insights of contemporary Trinitarian thought to theological anthropology. "The Social God and the Relational Self" is an example of theological construction as an ongoing conversation involving biblical texts, the theological heritage of the Christian tradition, and the contemporary historical-social context.

Recent years have witnessed an astonishing cultural and legal shift when it comes to homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Many Christians see these changes as a defeat for Christian values, often painting Christian opponents as sell-outs to secular culture. But can there be a genuinely Christian case for same-sex marriage? This book makes that case. While sensitive to scriptural issues, it focuses on a question that cannot be answered by Scripture alone: What does love for our gay and lesbian neighbors demand? This question calls us to pair theological, philosophical, and scriptural reflection with something else: attention to gay and lesbian lives. We must attend to the psychological research and, more importantly, to the stories our gay and lesbian neighbors tell us about themselves and their experience. Love does not permit us to plug our ears with Bible verses. While this book argues that Christian love calls us to make same-sex marriage available, the deeper conclusion is that Christian values prevail when we wrestle with these questions in a spirit of love: love for those with whom we disagree, and love for those most affected by the decisions we reach.

We confront failure in all levels of our humanity. There is failure in the use of the gifts of the earth, the unlimited exercise of intelligence, the enjoyment of freedom, and in the acceptance of the call of an infinite God. The failure to achieve fulfillment at any one of these levels may contribute to a particular frustration that may destroy the wholesome harmony necessary for happiness. In a period of utopian ideologies and theologies, this book may serve as a reminder that we do fail and that our faith does not promise that we shall not fail. Yet, precisely because we experience failures, we find cause for hope and deliverance outside ourselves. This is the theology of the cross--triumph through failure.