School of Theology Undergraduate Faculty Books
The School of Theology faculty has published more than 50 books, on topics that include global Christianity, missiology, theodicy, pneumatology, ecclesiology, discipleship, women and Christianity, Christian ethics, popular culture and Christianity, Christian imagination, race and Christian identity, Christian reconciliation, and Wesleyan studies — as well as commentaries and scholarly monographs on numerous books and topics of the Bible.
By Author:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Refugee Diaspora: Missions amid the Greatest Humanitarian Crisis of the World
William Carey, 2018
Refugee Diaspora is a contemporary account of the global refugee situation and how the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ is shining brightly in the darkest corners of the greatest crisis on our planet. These hope-filled pages of refugees encountering Jesus Christ presents models of Christian ministry from the front lines of the refugee crisis and the real challenges of ministering to today’s refugees. It includes biblical, theological, and practical reflections on mission in diverse diaspora contexts from leading scholars as well as practitioners in all major regions of the world.
Wealth, Women and God: How to Flourish Spiritually and Economically in Tough Places, with Sadiri Joy Tira
LifeChange Publishing, 2014
Kingdom Without Borders: The Untold Story of Global Christianity
InterVarsity, 2009
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"A visceral call to Christians worldwide to engage in something bigger than their own culture and church...Adeney's work can be read by adherents of any religion as a primer to a new view of world Christianity...Not primarily a book about American Christians and what they should do, this is a humble and complex anthem to the diverse kingdom of Christ found in worldwide cultures." (Publishers' Weekly, 10-12-09).
How to Write: A Christian Writer's Guide
Regent College Publishers, 2006
Religious Disagreement and Pluralism
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022
Religious Disagreement and Pluralism
Edited with Jonathan L. Kvanvig. Epistemological questions about the significance of disagreement have advanced in concert with broader developments in social epistemology concerning testimony, the nature of expertise and epistemic authority, the role of institutions, group belief, and epistemic injustice (among others). During this period, related issues in the epistemology of religion have reemerged as worthy of new consideration, and available to be situated with new conceptual tools. This volume explores many of the issues at the intersection of the epistemology of disagreement and religious epistemology: in particular, how to think carefully about religious diversity and disagreement, balancing epistemic humility with personal conviction, the place of religious belief in our social lives, and how best to think about truths concerning religion.
Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018
Edited with John Hawthorne and Dani Rabinowitz. Recent decades have seen fertile theorizing within mainstream epistemology which has had a dramatic impact on how epistemology is done. Religion is the place where such rethinking can potentially have its deepest impact and importance. Yet there has been surprisingly little infiltration of these new ideas into philosophy of religion and the epistemology of religious belief. Knowledge, Belief, and God incorporates these new developments in mainstream epistemology, and extends these developments to questions and arguments in religious epistemology. The investigations proposed in this volume offer substantial new life, breadth, and sophistication to issues in the philosophy of religion and analytic theology. (For more, see: Revitalizing the Epistemology of Religion from the OUP blog.)
Baptized Imagination: The Theology of George MacDonald
Ashgate Publishing, 2006
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"The imagination has been called 'the principal organ for knowing and responding to disclosures of transcendent truth.' This book probes the theological sources of the imagination, which make it a vital and reliable tool for knowing and responding to such disclosures. It approaches this study through focus on the theological and imaginative writer George MacDonald." (1)
Cultivating Teen Faith: Insights from the Confirmation Project
Eerdmanns, 2018
What are churches doing to form the faith of their young people? Many church denominations that practice infant baptism offer confirmation or an equivalent ministry when children reach adolescence and enter a new phase of spiritual growth—but all churches, regardless of tradition, wrestle with how to get young adults to actively join the church. What really works?
In this book twelve authors draw on a three-year study of more than three thousand US congregations across five denominations—United Methodist Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Presbyterian Church (USA)—to answer this pressing question. They tell stories of excellent and innovative confirmation programs that work and that show, above all, what good discipleship with young people looks like. Youth pastors, church leaders, and parents alike will benefit from the practices and new ways of teaching presented here that have proven helpful in forming and enhancing the faith of youth.
Transforming Teaching for Mission: Educational Theory and Practice
First Fruits Press, 2014
Co-edited with Robert A. Danielson, this book contains the proceedings of the 2014 annual meeting of the Association of Professors of Mission, an organization for which Ben Hartley served as president in 2013-14. It contains over a dozen essays on the teaching of missiology by new as well as seasoned scholars.
Evangelicals at a Crossroads: Revivalism and Social Reform in Boston, 1860-1910
University of New Hampshire Press, 2011
Recipient, in 2007, of the Wesleyan Theological Society's "outstanding dissertation" award and the Jesse Lee Prize awarded once every four years by the General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church.
In this book, Ben Hartley sheds light on the history of Methodist, Salvation Army, Baptist, and nondenominational Christians for the ways they led social reform and evangelistic efforts in the late nineteenth century. Immigrant evangelical leaders from Italy, Sweden, and elsewhere are also highlighted in this book. Examining the contested nature of revivalism and social reform in a particular city like Boston helps provide a basis for understanding the current divisions in American Christianity today.
The Deacon: Ministry through Words of Faith and Acts of Love
UMC General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, 2000
Co-authored with Paul E. Van Buren, Ben Hartley wrote this book while still a seminary student at Boston University School of Theology. It was the first book-length examination of the Order of Deacon as it was re-conceptualized as an ordained office in the United Methodist Church at the 1996 General Conference.
Blur: A New Paradigm For Understanding Youth Culture
Zondervan, 2014
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Today’s blurred youth culture is mobile, connected, and wired in. This is a generation that skips over perceived cultural boundaries and resists definition. How does one reach a demographic that is so difficult to pin down? Dr. Jeff Keuss argues a qualitative approach to describing young people is needed, one that recognizes the “blurred” nature of today’s mobile youth culture. As we learn to see youth culture through this new lens, we will become better informed and better equipped to minister to the teens of today’s rapidly changing world.
Your Neighbor’s Hymnal: What Popular Music Teaches Us About Faith, Hope, and Love
Wipf and Stock, 2011
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"Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman once sang, 'Why should the devil have all the good music?' In reality, most of the good music belongs not to the devil but to our neighbor — those that Jesus calls us to love as ourselves. 'Your Neighbor’s Hymnal' is an opportunity to spend some time reflecting on the wide bandwidth of popular music that our neighbor listens to across the many genres of the FM dial and iTunes catalog — jazz, folk, pop, rock, electronic, and others — and see that our neighbor is not only listening to the music that many Christians listen to but also listening for the very things that animate the hearts and minds of those sitting in the pews on a Sunday morning." (5–6)
Bathsheba Survives
USC Press, 2018
Bathsheba is a mysterious and enigmatic figure who appears in only seventy-six verses of the Bible and whose story is riddled with gaps. But this seemingly minor female character, who plays a critical role in King David's story, has survived through the ages, and her "afterlife" in the history of interpretation is rich and extensive. In Bathsheba Survives, Sara M. Koenig traces Bathsheba's reception throughout history and in various genres, demonstrating how she has been characterized on the spectrum from helpless victim to unscrupulous seductress.
Isn't This Bathsheba?: A Study in Characterization
Pickwick, 2011
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"I offer a reading of Bathsheba that critiques some other readings of her, specifically those that see her as simple, stupid, seductive, or unchanging. I offer this different reading, first, because the text suggests it. But second, those other readings of Bathsheba are misogynistic, with harmful and even dangerous implications for the way women are viewed." (2)
Immersed in the Life of God: The Healing Resources of the Christian Faith: Essays in Honor of William J. Abraham (with Gavrilyuk, Paul L., and Vickers, Jason E.)
Eerdmans, 2008
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"Douglas M. Koskela reflects on ecclesial reconciliation as a healing practice. With attention to both ecumenical and intra-ecclesial relationships, he examines the impetus toward and patterns of reconciliatory practice ... He suggests that, by approaching reconciliation in a posture of humility and attentiveness to its own canonical riches, the church has genuine hope of restoration and revitalization." (x)
Soaring With St. John: Flight Paths of the Eagle — A Pedagogical Aid
Wipf & Stock, 2013
Wipf & Stock
Not a reference tool, this unique work is a teaching-learning guide to understanding the Fourth Gospel. The focus is on showing how rather than on telling. Thirty-five "Flight Paths," followed by leading questions and statements, help both faculty and students to see as well as read how the Evangelist plotted his itinerary: adopting, adapting, and arranging the texts (both biblical and extra-biblical) that constituted his horizon.
Travels with St. Mark: GPS for the Journey: A Pedagogical Aid
Wipf & Stock, 2012
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Not a reference tool, this unique work is a teaching-learning guide to studying the earliest Gospel. The focus is on showing how rather than on telling what. "Maps" followed by leading questions and statements help both faculty and students to see how the Evangelist adopted and adapted his sacred texts (as well as Jewish and Greco-Roman resources) in light of his convictions about and experience of Jesus.
The New Testament as Canon: A Reader in Canonical Criticism (with Wall, Robert W.)
Academic Press, 1992
SPU Library
"A New Testament theology of the church ... must be the yield of an interpretive strategy that seeks to relate the parts together as an interdependent whole; only then can the biblical theologian create a dynamic portrait of how the whole New Testament defines the church ...." (22)
Race and Place: How Urban Geography Shapes the Journey to Reconciliation
IVP Books, 2017
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Geography matters. We long for diverse, thriving neighborhoods and churches, yet racial injustices persist. Why? Because geographic structures and systems create barriers to reconciliation and prevent the flourishing of our communities. Race and Place reveals the profound ways in which these geographic forces and structures sustain the divisions among us. Urban missiologist David Leong, who resides in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country, unpacks the systemic challenges that are rarely addressed in the conversation about racial justice. The evening news may deliver story after story that causes us to despair. But Leong envisions a future of belonging and hope in our streets, towns, cities, and churches. A discussion about race needs to go hand in hand with a discussion about place. This book is a welcome addition to a conversation that needs to include both.
Street Signs: Toward a Missional Theology of Urban Cultural Engagement
Pickwick, 2012
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Street Signs is an engaging missiological inquiry into the cultural and theological meaning of the city. Through the lens of Seattle's Rainier Valley, one of the most ethnically and socioeonomically diverse communities in the US, this work constructs an urban, missional, and contextual theology shaped by the local realities of urban neighborhoods but relevant to cities everywhere. Focused on the themes of incarnation, confrontation, and imagination, Street Signs explores the contours of missional theology in urban contexts marked by physical density, social diversity, and economic disparity, utilizing creative research methods such as urban exegesis, cultural semiotics, and theology of the built environment.
A Concise Guide to Reading the New Testament: A Canonical Introduction
Baker Academic, 2018
The New Testament came together, and comes to us, not as a randomly sorted set of individual books but as a definitely shaped and ordered whole. This concise, theological introduction to the New Testament sheds light on the interpretive significance of the canon's structure and sequence and articulates how the final shape of the canon is formative for Christian discipleship. Providing an essential overview often missing from New Testament books and courses, this book will serve as an accessible supplement to any New Testament or Bible introduction textbook.
A Compact Guide to the Whole Bible: Learning to Read Scripture’s Story, with Rob Wall
Baker Academic Press, 2015
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This compact, one-semester introduction to the Bible prepares students to begin reading the biblical text as Christian Scripture, focusing on the meaning of Scripture for the church. The editors and contributors—experienced teachers with expertise in different parts of the Bible—orient students to the whole of Scripture so that they may read the biblical text for themselves. The book first explains what Christians believe about Scripture and gives a bird's-eye survey of the whole biblical story. Chapters then introduce the story, arrangement, style, and key ideas of each division of the Old and New Testament, helping readers see how the books of the Bible make a coherent whole.
Reading the Epistles of James, Peter, John, & Jude as Scripture: The Shaping & Shape of a Canonical Collection, with Robert W. Wall
Eerdmans, 2013
Amazon | with Robert W. Wall">SPU Library
Through a detailed examination of the historical shaping and final canonical shape of seven oft-neglected New Testament letters — James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1-2-3 John, and Jude — Reading the Epistles of James, Peter, John & Jude as Scripture introduces readers to the historical, literary, and theological integrity of this indispensable apostolic witness. It is the only treatment of the Catholic Epistles that approaches these seven letters as an intentionally designed and theologically coherent canonical collection.
Not By Paul Alone: The Formation of the Catholic Epistle Collection and the Christian Canon
Baylor University Press, 2007
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"This book makes a brilliant and original and (to my mind) convincing contribution to the current attempt to rethink the relationship between text and community, Scripture, and church" –Francis Watson
"This book proposes that the letter of James was written with the nascent apostolic letter collection in view, in order that it might forge together a discrete collection of non-Pauline letters, one shaped according to a particular logic of apostolic authority (that is, 'not by Paul alone') in order to perform a particular function in the larger Christian canon (the correction of Paulinist misreadings of the whole apostolic message)." (5)
Roadmap to Reconciliation: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice
IVP Books, 2016
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"It's time for the followers of Jesus to embark on the prophetic journey that leads to reconciliation and transformation around the world. Many of us may already be aware of the need for reconciliation in our own backyards. . . . We cannot ignore the plight of the people around us and as globalization continues its relentless march onward, we cannot turn a blind eye to the world at large either. We have to face the realities here at home and we must also embrace the stories of people all around the world."
Methodist Worship: Mediating the Wesleyan Liturgical Heritage
New York, NY: Routledge, 2019
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What makes Methodist worship "Methodist" or "Wesleyan?" How do Methodists evaluate emerging forms of worship in light of their own liturgical heritage? This book considers these questions by bringing to light the work and significance of three Methodist liturgists who have until now received precious little scholarly focus: Thomas O. Summers (1812-1882), Nolan B. Harmon (1892-1993), and James F. White (1932-2004). Exploring each one’s contribution to the Methodist movement, it evaluates their continuing legacies as scholars and practitioners of Methodist worship.
The Faith of the Outsider: Exclusion and Inclusion in the Biblical Story
Eerdmans, 2005
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"If someone were going to invent a story designed to make a people look good and therefore deserving of divine election, the result would never have been the Old Testament depiction of Israel... Just as Israel did not deserve to be divinely elected, the world did not deserve to receive the benefits of God’s grace either; but in both cases God’s limitless and amazing grace was operative." (7-8)
1 & 2 Timothy and Titus
Eerdmans, 2012
Eerdmans | SPU Library
This theological commentary powerfully demonstrates the ongoing relevance and authority of the Pastoral Epistles for the church today. This innovative yet reverent volume will help revive the interest of students, pastors, and other Christian leaders in the Pastoral Epistles.
"Heart Religion" in the Methodist Tradition and Related Movements
Scarecrow Press, 2001
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"This volume defends the cogency of [Methodism’s conviction that 'authentic knowledge of God is both an ineffably delightful experience and a life-transfiguring process'], and argues that a better understanding of what it does and does not mean may help us to overcome some of the chilling fractiousness which it has spawned. We take it that our founder would approve, for he insisted that Methodism is the religion of the heart warmed by divine grace and employed in neighbor love." (xxxviii)
Why the Church? (Reframing New Testament Theology)
Abingdon Press, 2015
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“Given the way many in the West have read the New Testament in the last century, the church might be regarded as an afterthought at best. But at the worst, it can be viewed as an unnecessary, perhaps even problematic, institutionalization of genuine faith especially in our post-denominational context. These perspectives fly in the face of the robust ecclesiological concerns and commitments of the New Testament documents when read as witnesses from, to, and for congregations of God’s people. Why the church? Because this peculiar fellowship of saints, whose loving communion is with the risen One, has been appointed by the triune God as God's herald.”
Reading the Epistles of James, Peter, John, & Jude as Scripture: The Shaping & Shape of a Canonical Collection, with David Nienhuis
Eerdmans, 2013
Amazon | with David Nienhuis">SPU Library
Through a detailed examination of the historical shaping and final canonical shape of seven oft-neglected New Testament letters — James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1-2-3 John, and Jude — Reading the Epistles of James, Peter, John & Jude as Scripture introduces readers to the historical, literary, and theological integrity of this indispensable apostolic witness. It is the only treatment of the Catholic Epistles that approaches them as an intentionally designed and theologically coherent canonical collection.
1 & 2 Timothy and Titus
Eerdmans, 2012
Eerdmans | SPU Library
This theological commentary powerfully demonstrates the ongoing relevance and authority of the Pastoral Epistles for the church today. This innovative yet reverent volume will help revive the interest of students, pastors, and other Christian leaders in the Pastoral Epistles.
Called to Lead: Paul's Letters to Timothy for a New Day, with Anthony B. Robinson
Eerdmans, 2012
Eerdmans | with Anthony B. Robinson">SPU Library
Featuring both exegetical study and dynamic contemporary exposition, each chapter of Called to Lead first interprets the text of 1 and 2 Timothy as Scripture and then engages 1 and 2 Timothy for today's church leaders. The book covers many vexing issues faced by church leaders then and now — such issues as the use of money, leadership succession, pastoral authority, and the role of Scripture. Through it all, Called to Lead shows how Timothy remains a text of great value for the church today.
For a taste of this important book, read “Preachers of Least Resistance” (PDF), a brand-new chapter, on 2 Timothy 3:1-9, not included in the book.
The New Testament as Canon: A Reader in Canonical Criticism (with Lemcio, Eugene)
Academic Press, 1992
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"A New Testament theology of the church, then, must be the yield of an interpretive strategy that seeks to relate the parts together as an interdependent whole; only then can the biblical theologian create a dynamic portrait of how the whole New Testament defines the church, which we argue is a truer and more useful portrait than merely describing the sum of the definitions found within the New Testament letters."
Revelation (New International Biblical Commentary)
Hendrickson, 1991
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"At the very center of Revelation the good interpreter will always find the simple (not simplistic!) gospel of God. In this way, any interpretation worthy of the gospel will bear witness to the slain, yet exalted, Lamb through whom the salvation of God breaks into and radically transforms those who depend upon his dependable work; it will celebrate the triumph of God's kingdom, which is already realized in the Lamb's shed blood and which will be fully realized at its return."