SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY - BOOK CELEBRATION
Tuesday, May 7, 2024 - 4:00-5:30 pm - Upper Gwinn (Queen Anne Room)
Join us as we celebrate books recently published by our SOT Faculty. We will enjoy reviews from local pastors on each book.
Afghan Mountain Faith: Stories of Justice, Beauty, and Relationships
Authored by Miriam Adeney and Rashid Aalish
Reviewed by Jeff Horton, Senior Pastor, Shoreline Free Methodist Church
Is There Hope for Afghans? Everyone has heard of the Taliban, but how well do we know the Afghan people? The winds of change are blowing through Afghanistan, one of the hardest countries in the world in which to be a Christian. How can Afghans build trusting, vibrant communities of believers? What are the best practices in discipleship? Afghan Mountain Faith explores relationships, justice, and beauty in God's unfolding kingdom. These never-before-recorded accounts show Jesus's followers in their unique Afghan context. Their stories extend worldwide as Afghan fellowships arise globally, even though there is not a single church building inside their country. Miriam Adeney and Rashid Aalish delve into challenging issues of our time, including refugees, women's rights, US military missions of mercy, church planting, ethnic identity, suffering, lament, orality, and ethnodoxology. If you want stories, there are stories. If you want strategies, there are strategies. If you want to wrestle with systemic issues, that is here too. These reflections will provoke you to think and propel you to hope.
Religious Disagreement and Pluralism
Edited by Matthew A. Benton and Jonathan L. Kvanvig
Reviewed by Trent Siverson, Pastor of Vision & Teaching, North Seattle Church
Epistemological questions about the significance of disagreement have advanced alongside 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 re-emerged as worthy of new consideration, and available to be situated with new conceptual tools. Does disagreement between, and within, religions challenge the rationality of religious commitment? How should religious adherents think about exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist frameworks as applied to religious truth, or to matters of salvation or redemption or liberation? This volume explores many of these issues at the intersection of the epistemology of disagreement and religious epistemology. It engages in careful reflection on religious diversity and disagreement, offering ways to balance epistemic humility with personal conviction. Recognizing the place of religious differences in our social lives, it provides renewed efforts at how best to think about truths concerning religion.
Domination or Empowerment? A Power Discourse Analysis of 1 and 2 Corinthians
Authored by Esther G. Cen
Reviewed by Laurie Brenner, Senior Pastor, West Side Presbyterian Church
This book argues that Paul, as God’s accountable steward, seeks not to dominate the Corinthians but to empower them to mature in their understanding and conduct themselves appropriately under the cruciform authority of Jesus Christ. It invites readers to revisit the merely negative notion of power in deconstructionist power discourses and reconsider the importance of good uses of power in building up a faith community.
The King Who Teaches: St. Matthew’s Royal Curriculum: A Pedagogical Aid
Authored by Eugene E. Lemcio
Reviewed by Jake Carlson, Director of Camp Casey, SPU
This unique work is a teaching-learning guide to help instructors and students to determine "What makes Matthew Matthew?" Displays followed by leading questions and statements help one to determine how the Evangelist adopted, adapted, and arranged his sources (both "sacred" and "secular") in light of his convictions about and experience of Jesus. Comparing and contrasting the first Gospel with the other Synoptics (and occasionally with John) also contributes to identifying his concerns. Neither standalone nor comprehensive in its intention, method, or scope, this work of pedagogy is meant to be used (and not simply read) alongside--rather than instead--of standard tools such as introductions and commentaries. Although no knowledge of biblical languages is presupposed, references to Matthew's own use of Greek--and the Greek of his Jewish Scriptures--also enrich this study.
Awakening to Justice: Faithful Voices from the Abolitionist Past
Authored by The Dialogue on Race and Faith Project, Jemar Tisby, Christopher P. Momany, Sègbégnon Mathieu Gnonhossou, David D. Daniels III, R. Matthew Sigler, Douglas M. Strong, Diane Leclerc, Esther Chung-Kim, Albert G. Miller, Estrelda Y. Alexander
Reviewed by Teylar Greer, Executive Pastor of Reconciliation & Justice, Bethany Community Church
In 2015, the historian Chris Momany helped discover a manuscript that had been forgotten in a storage closet at Adrian College in Michigan. He identified it as the journal of a nineteenth-century Christian abolitionist and missionary, David Ingraham. As Momany and a fellow historian Doug Strong pored over the diary, they realized that studying this document could open new conversations for twenty-first-century Christians to address the reality of racism today. They invited a multiracial team of fourteen scholars to join in, thus launching the Dialogue on Race and Faith Project. Awakening to Justice presents the groundbreaking work of these scholars. In addition to reflecting on Ingraham's journal, chapters also explore the life and writings of two of Ingraham's Black colleagues, James Bradley and Nancy Prince. Appendixes feature writings by all three abolitionists so readers can engage the primary sources directly.
This event is free, and does not require RSVPs.
Posted: Monday, April 1, 2024