A bold and persuasive case for abandoning old religions and still believing in God In this book, Mark Johnston argues that God needs to be saved not only from the distortions of the "undergraduate atheists" (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris) but, more importantly, from the idolatrous tendencies of religion itself. Each monotheistic religion has its characteristic ways of domesticating True Divinity, of taming God's demands so that they do not radically threaten our self-love and false righteousness. Turning the monotheistic critique of idolatry on the monotheisms themselves, Johnston shows that much in these traditions must be condemned as false and spiritually debilitating. A central claim of the book is that supernaturalism is idolatry. If this is right, everything changes; we cannot place our salvation in jeopardy by tying it essentially to the supernatural cosmologies of the ancient Near East. Remarkably, Johnston rehabilitates the ideas of the Fall and of salvation within a naturalistic framework; he then presents a conception of God that both resists idolatry and is wholly consistent with the deliverances of the natural sciences. Princeton University Press is publishing Saving God in conjunction with Johnston's forthcoming book Surviving Death, which takes up the crux of supernaturalist belief, namely, the belief in life after death. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

"For all ages, read-aloud ages 3-up"--P. [4] of cover.

A revelatory manifesto on how we can reclaim faith from abstract doctrines and rigid morals to find God in the joys and ambiguities of everyday life, from the acclaimed author of Saving Jesus from the Church “In this book of stories from four decades of ministry, Meyers powerfully captures what it means to believe in a God who’s revealed not in creeds or morals but in the struggles and beauty of our ordinary lives.”—Richard Rohr, bestselling author of The Universal Christ People across the theological and political spectrum are struggling with what it means to say that they believe in God. For centuries, Christians have seen him as a deity who shows favor to some and dispenses punishment to others according to right belief and correct behavior. But this transactional approach to a God “up there”—famously depicted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—no longer works, if it ever did, leaving an increasing number of Christians upset, disappointed, and heading for the exits. In this groundbreaking, inspiring book, Robin R. Meyers, the senior minister of Oklahoma City’s Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ, shows how readers can move from a theology of obedience to one of consequence. He argues that we need to stop seeing our actions as a means for pleasing a distant God and rediscover how God has empowered us to care for ourselves and the world. Drawing on stories from his decades of active ministry, Meyers captures how the struggles of ordinary people hint at how we can approach faith as a radical act of trust in a God who is all around us, even in our doubts and the moments of life we fear the most.

Starting from the assumption that 'time is the horizon of the meaning of Being' (Heidegger), Eternal God/ Saving Time attempts to discover what the central religious idea of eternity or of God as 'the Eternal' might mean today. Negotiating ideas of divine timelessness and sempiternity (everlastingness) as well as the attempts of some philosophers to develop the idea of a temporal God, Professor George Pattison surveys a range of positions from analytic philosophy and from the continental tradition from Spinoza through Hegel to the present. Intellectual and cultural forces have tended to separate time and eternity, and both philosophical and theological examples of this tendency are examined. Nevertheless, starting from the experience of life in time, some modern thinkers have developed a new approach to the Eternal as what grounds or gives time. This leads through ideas of novelty, utopia, hope, promise, and call to the projection of a creative and transformative memory-remembering the future-that affirms human solidarity and mutual responsibility. Even if this cannot be made good in terms of knowledge, it offers a basis for hope, prayer, and commitment and these options are explored through a range of Christian, Jewish, Greek, and secular thinkers. This development re-envisages the idea of redemption, away from the Augustinian view that time is what we need to be rescued from and towards the idea that time itself might save us from all that is destructive and tyrannical in time's rule over human life.

Years ago, the author had a startling realization. Theologians and pastors have long taught on the glory of God and its central importance in the Bible. However, because he was living in East Asia, it also dawned on the author that this sort of talk about God's glory, praising Him, and magnifying His name was simply another way of talking about honor and shame. When the author looked at most theology and ministry-related books, he found that honor and shame seemed to be treated differently. Anthropologists talked about honor-shame, but theologians largely focused more on legal metaphors. The author could see both themes in Scripture but couldn't find help as to how to bring them together. This study was developed in order to address this gap and bring those themes together. Sign up for the WCIU Press newsletter to be notified about new books from this author and more! http: //eepurl.com/rB15L

This book pursues the conviction that the cosmic conflict imagery in Revelation is the primary and controlling element in the account of the aspiration of the Roman Empire and the imperial cult in Asia Minor.

You Can Love God and Still Get a Divorce. And get this, God will still love you. Really. Are you in a destructive marriage? One of emotional, physical, or verbal abuse? Infidelity? Neglect? If yes, you know you need to escape, but you're probably worried about going against God's will. I have good news for you. You might need to divorce to save your life and sanity. And God is right beside you. In "The Life-Saving Divorce" You'll Learn: - How to know if you should stay or if you should go.- The four key Bible verses that support divorce for infidelity, neglect, and physical and/or emotional abuse. - Twenty-seven myths about divorce that aren't true for many Christians. - Why a divorce is likely the absolute best thing for your children. - How to deal with friends and family who disapprove of divorce. - How to find safe friends and churches after a divorce. Can you find happiness after leaving your destructive marriage? Absolutely yes! You can get your life back and flourish more than you thought possible. Are you ready? Then let's go. It's time to be free. This book includes multiple first-person interviews. Explains psychological abuse, gaslighting, the abuse cycle, Christian divorce and remarriage, children and divorce, domestic violence, parental alienation, mental abuse, and biblical reasons for divorce. Includes diagrams such as the Duluth Wheel of Power and Control (the Duluth Model) and the Abuse Cycle, as well as graphs based on Paul Amato's 2003 study analyzing Judith Wallerstein's book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. Includes quotes by Leslie Vernick, Lundy Bancroft, Shannon Thomas, David Instone-Brewer, Natalie Hoffman, LifeWay Research, Kathleen Reay, Gottman Institute, Glenda Riley, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Steven Stosny, Michal Gilad, Leonie Westenberg, Nancy Nason-Clark, Julie Owens, Marg Mowczko, Justin Holcomb, Barna Group, Justin Lehmiller, Alan Hawkins, Brian Willoughby, William Doherty, Brad Wright, Bradford Wilcox, Sheila Gregoire, E Mavis Hetherington, John Kelly, Betsey Stevenson, Justin Wolfers, Norm Wright, Virginia Rutter, Judith Herman, and Bessel van der Kolk. Recommended reading list includes: Henry Cloud, John Townsend Boundaries books, Richard Warshack books.