Fortress Press

Athena to Barbie: Bodies, Archetypes, and Women's Search for Self

J. Lenore Wright (Author)

Athena to Barbie destabilizes a range of received social constructions of woman and expands the ways women conceive of themselves as female subjects. In the end, it inspires women's imagination about themselves, grounds that imagination in history by comparison, and empowers the lived lives of women. The book challenges the long-standing subordination of women and offers women fruitful, if still vexed, options to express female agency. It does all this in conversation with Christian tradition.

Black Hands, White House: Slave Labor and the Making of America

Renee K. Harrison (Author)

The book bears witness to the role enslaved, Black-bodied people played in building the US, its physical and fiscal infrastructure, and the nation's capital, and calls for a substantial monument on the National Mall to affirm and document their contributions. This book will impact lives by adding significantly to the burgeoning and in-depth conversations on racial disparity, race relations, history-making, reparations, and monument erection and removal.

Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community, Expanded 25th Anniversary Edition

Katie Geneva Cannon (Author)

Over the years, Katie Cannon's students referred to her work in progress as "Katie's canon." Not only does this book represent the canon of Cannon's best work; the book itself directly addresses the issues of canon formation and canon reformation. Cannon canonizes a literary tradition and directly addresses both oppression and liberation of African American women. Now in an expanded 25th-anniversary edition, Katie's Canon still packs firepower.

Luke's Jesus: Between Incarnation and Crucifixion

Joseph Blenkinsopp (Author)

In Luke's Jesus, Joseph Blenkinsopp provides a chronological reading of the Jesus of Luke's Gospel, beginning with Jesus's close relations with John the Baptist, turning upon Jesus's decision to leave Galilee and travel to Jerusalem, and extending to the narrative of Jesus's crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension. Blenkinsopp's study of Jesus focuses upon Jesus's humanity, his interaction with others, and his teaching on poverty and wealth. Blenkinsopp provides a fresh rendering of Luke's powerful and fascinating story, one that reveals a vivid portrait of Jesus.

The Herods: Murder, Politics, and the Art of Succession

Bruce Chilton (Author)

The Herods explores the Herodian rule from Herod the Great's father, Antipater, until the dynastic sunset with Bereniké, Herod's great-granddaughter, describing the theocratic aims that motivated Herod and his progeny, and the groups and factions within Judaism and Christianity that often defined themselves in opposition to the Herodian project.

Exploring Islam: Theology and Spiritual Practice in America

Salih Sayilgan (Author)

Exploring Islam is a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the foundations of the Islamic faith, including its history, theology, and spiritual practice. The book also deals with issues such as jihad, the status of women, and the various sectarian divisions in Islam. Most distinctive about this work is its analysis of the lived experience of Muslims in modern American life. Sayilgan offers readers a perspective that is scholarly, judicious, and engaging.

A New Climate for Christology: Kenosis, Climate Change, and Befriending Nature

Sallie McFague (Author)

For decades, Sallie McFague lent her voice and theological imagination to advocating for the most important issues of our time. In this final book, finished before her death in 2019, McFague summarizes the work of a lifetime with a clear call to live in "such a way that all might flourish." The way, she argues, is the "kenotic interpretation of Christianity: the odd arrangement whereby in order to gain your life, you must lose it."

N: My Encounter with Racism and the Forbidden Word in an American Classic

James Henry Harris (Author)

This book is about a Black man's experience of reading Mark Twain's classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the first time while in graduate school. It captures the author's emotional struggle with Twain's use of the racial epithet more than two hundred times in the text. In these pages, Harris challenges his instructor and classmates and inspires readers to redress the long history of American racism and white supremacy bound up with the N word.

Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age

Rodney Clapp (Author)

Neoliberalism is the spirit of our age. It consists of a panoply of cultural, political, and economic practices that set marketized competition at the center of social life. Though regnant, neoliberalism likes to hide. Naming Neoliberalism aims to expose the order to a wider range of readers--pastors, thoughtful laypersons, and students. It lays out what neoliberalism is, where it has come from, and how it can be confronted through and in the church.

Judges 1: A Commentary on Judges 1:1 – 10:5

Mark S. Smith (Author), Elizabeth M. Bloch-Smith (Author)

This groundbreaking volume presents a new translation and detailed interpretation of the book of Judges, drawing on archaeology and iconography, textual versions, biblical parallels, and extrabiblical texts, as well as a thorough review of modern scholarship. Full literary and redactional analyses are included. Notably, archaeology is used to show how a story of the Iron II period employed visible ruins to narrate supposedly early events from the so-called "period of the Judges."

Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. Thirtieth Anniversary Expanded Edition

Cain Hope Felder (Editor)

A hallmark of American Black religion is its distinctive use of the Bible in creating community, resisting oppression, and fomenting social change. Stony the Road We Trod accomplishes this--and much more. This expanded edition contains a new introduction and three new essays that underscore the historic importance of this book for a new generation.

The Fragility of Language and the Encounter with God: On the Contingency and Legitimacy of Doctrine

Florian Klug (Author), Marcus Pound (Foreword by)

The Fragility of Language and the Encounter with God offers a theological account of the contingency of language and perception and of how acknowledging that contingency transforms the question of the development of doctrine. Klug argues that statements of faith cannot overcome contingency. Instead, the Catholic notion of receptive tradition is an attempt to cope rationally with the fragility of perception and language in humanity's orientation toward God.

Paul on Identity: Theology as Politics

Troels Engberg-Pedersen (Author)

One of the most important and controversial questions in biblical studies is how Paul's view of the fundamental Christ identity relates to other possible identities in the Greco-Roman world--like being a Jew or a non-Jew, a man or a woman, a master or a slave. Paul on Identity explores these issues and, in particular, how Paul's view informs his writing. Engberg-Pedersen keeps an eye on what we may or may not accept from Paul and concludes by showing Paul's direct relevance to identity politics.

A Widower's Lament: The Pious Meditations of Johann Christoph Oelhafen

Ronald K. Rittgers (Author)

This book deals with Christian lament in the late Reformation by exploring the efforts of a talented yet little-known layman to cope with the death of his beloved wife. It provides full access to the remarkable work of private devotion that he authored to express his lament.

A work of haunting candor and searching faith, The Pious Meditations furnishes insight into life in the past as well as resources for life in the present.

Invisible: Theology and the Experience of Asian American Women

Grace Ji-Sun Kim (Author)

In Invisible, Grace Ji-Sun Kim examines encounters with racism, sexism, and xenophobia as she works toward ending Asian American women's invisibility. Speaking with the weight of her personal narrative, she proclaims that the histories, experiences, and voices of Asian American women must be rescued from obscurity. Speaking with the weight of a theologian, she powerfully paves the way for a theology of visibility that honors the voice and identity of these women.

Journeys of Asian Diaspora: Mapping Originations and Destinations

Sam George (Author)

This is a collection of essays by Asian-diaspora Christian scholars about their communities in different parts of the world. It paints a portrait of the widespread dispersion and establishment of distinctively Asian Christian communities in their places of settlement. The book makes a case about how migration of people has made Asian Christianity more global and how Asian-diaspora communities are playing a decisive role in transforming and advancing Christian faith in the twenty-first century.

One Life to Give: Martyrdom and the Making of the American Revolution

John Fanestil (Author)

One Life to Give explores the spiritual origins of the American Revolution: martyrdom. John Fanestil traces the deep history of the tradition of martyrdom from its classical and Christian origins to the onset of the Revolutionary War. Ultimately, he articulates how the tradition of American martyrdom animated countless personal commitments to American independence, and thereby to the war. Only by understanding the inextricable role played by martyrdom can we fully grasp the origins of the American Revolution.

Christian – Zen Dialogue: Sacred Stories as a Starting Point for Interfaith Dialogue

Jijimon Alakkalam Joseph SVD (Author)

Christian - Zen Dialogue aims to inspire and help Christian and Zen adherents, especially laity, to enter into meaningful interfaith dialogue using their own sacred stories. The book focuses on narratives of faith in both Christianity and Zen. Can these sacred stories--gospel stories of Jesus and Chan/Zen stories (Kōans)--be a starting point for dialogue between Christianity and Zen?

The Perfect Being: Selections from the Classic Islamic Text

Aziz O-Din Nasafi (Author), Amir Sabzevary (Translator)

Translated for the first time from the original Persian into English, these selected treatises from the thirteenth-century work The Perfect Being provide a fascinating glimpse into Sufism. With a helpful introduction and explanatory notes, The Perfect Being is a valuable introduction to classic Islamic texts for spiritual seekers and students.

Luther's Rome, Rome's Luther: How the City Shaped the Reformer

Carl P. E. Springer (Author)

This book offers a fresh reevaluation of Martin Luther's tempestuous relationship with Rome, the city he visited as a young Augustinian friar and never thereafter forgot. Luther's Rome, Rome's Luther will help readers see the ancient city, the long-lived empire, and the sacred home of the papacy from Luther's complicated perspective.