Fortress Press

Preaching the Headlines: Possibilities and Pitfalls

Lisa L. Thompson (Author)

Preaching the Headlines reframes preaching as an ongoing conversation between the modern world and the world of the biblical text. Preachers use what they know about life as a bridge to the text, while life in the text provides the bridge back to faith in the contemporary world. The goal of the book is to provide a process to aid preachers in doing theological reflection on the everyday world as an integral part of sermon development.

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.

Elements of Christian Thought: A Basic Course in Christianese

Eugene F. Rogers Jr. (Author)

In the spring of 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted classrooms around the world, Eugene Rogers transcribed the lectures that make his Introduction to Christian Thought course justly famous.

The result is an engaging introduction to the language--"Christianese"--that participants use to discuss God's activity in and for our world.

From Anselm to Wyschogrod, Rogers introduces us to the most interesting speakers of Christianese, enabling us to take part in the living conversation.

The Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC): Bearing Witness to the Gospel and the Reign of God in Asia

Jonathan Y. Tan (Author)

This book presents the theological contributions of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC), a transnational body comprising fifteen Asian Catholic bishops' conferences as full members and ten associate members. The emphasis of the book is on the postcolonial dimensions of Asia and the challenges and implications of decolonization for shaping a postcolonial Asian church and way of doing theology.

Delivering the Sermon: Voice, Body, and Animation in Proclamation

Teresa L. Fry Brown (Author)

Teresa L. Fry Brown introduces preachers to the effective use of voice and body in the animation of the word in the preaching moment. Suggestions and exercises...

Teaching Reformation: Essays in Honor of Timothy J. Wengert

Luka Ilić (Editor), Martin J. Lohrmann (Editor)

Presented on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, this collection of essays honors the life and work of Dr. Timothy J. Wengert, a pastor and noted Reformation historian who brings to scholarship a deep sense of its practical dimensions in the life of the church.

In these essays, Wengert's students, colleagues, and peers follow in their honoree's footsteps by highlighting the implications of a rich tapestry of Reformation topics.

There Is No God and Mary Is His Mother: Rediscovering Religionless Christianity

Thomas Cathcart (Author)

In this personal, witty, and timely book, New York Times bestselling author Thomas Cathcart takes readers on a journey into belief and unbelief and leads them through to "religionless Christianity." He shows that, even absent traditional theological formulas and doctrines, Christianity can be credible, meaningful, and practical.

Resurrected to Eternal Life: On Dying and Rising

Jürgen Moltmann (Author), Ellen Yutzy Glebe (Translator)

In this daring meditation, Jürgen Moltmann interrogates dying, the nature of death, and the hope of eternal life. For Moltmann, the living soul that awakens to eternal life is not a ghost in a machine, but the Lebensgestalt, the shape and story of a life. Seasoned readers will find here a capstone to Moltmann's career of theological exploration, while those new to his thought will find a concise and elegant entry point into his work.

Is It Too Late?: A Theology of Ecology

John B. Cobb Jr. (Author)

Comprehensive in scope, non-technical in expression, and concise in length, Is It Too Late? provides the scholar and the student alike with a readable and compelling orientation to the philosophical and theological stakes of ecology. This Fortress edition includes a new preface in which Cobb reflects on the current situation, the specific promises and perils we now face, and how his own thinking on matters theological and ecological has evolved in the last half century.

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.

Shaping the Claim: Moving from Text to Sermon

Marvin A. McMickle (Author)

Shaping the Claim helps the preacher discover the core of the message to be preached—the sermonic "claim." In order to be effective, says...

Liberating Luther: A Lutheran Theology from Latin America

Vitor Westhelle (Author), Robert Butterfield (Translator)

Until his untimely death, Vitor Westhelle's incisive scholarship shaped a generation. As a continuation of that legacy, presented here for the first time in English is a collection of Westhelle's Portuguese-language essays.

In this collection, he addresses the most important issues of our day, including the cross and death, the ecological crisis, the ecumenical movement, the church's misuse of power, Luther's law-gospel dialectic, and the role of European theology in the conquest of the Americas.

Preaching without Contempt: Overcoming Unintended Anti-Judaism

Marilyn J. Salmon (Author)

Marilyn Salmon's persuasive and practical work helps preachers to identify the ways that Christian preachers perpetuate the long tradition of Christian...

Toni Morrison's Spiritual Vision: Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in Her Life and Literature

Nadra Nittle (Author)

Toni Morrison's Spiritual Vision unpacks an oft-ignored but essential element of her work--her religion--and in so doing gives readers a deeper, richer understanding of her life and her writing. Nadra Nittle's wide-ranging, deep exploration of Morrison's oeuvre reveals the role of religion and spirituality in her life and literature.

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."

Who Rules the World: Divine Providence and the Existence of Evil

Hans Schwarz (Author)

How is it possible to reconcile the manifest evil and pain in the world with the biblical promise of hope and redemption?

To this question, Schwarz brings both pastoral sensitivity and scholarly acumen. Informed by decades in the classroom, Schwarz offers a sweeping survey across the broad span of Christian history.

The book aims to help readers understand the broad sweep of human thought and make informed assessments of the issue for themselves.

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.

The Liberation of Method: The Ethics of Emancipatory Biblical Interpretation

David Janzen (Author)

The field of biblical studies has championed the historical-critical method as the only way to guarantee objective interpretation. But in recent decades, scholars have pursued hermeneutical approaches that provide interpretations useful for marginalized communities who see the Bible as a resource in their struggles against oppression. Such liberative strategies remain on the margins. The Liberation of Method argues that this marginality must end, and that liberative methods should become central to biblical studies.

Luther's Outlaw God Volume 3: Sacraments and God's Attack on the Promise

Steven D. Paulson (Author)

In this third of three volumes addressing Luther's outlaw God, Steven D. Paulson invites readers to embark on the deepest, hardest, most glorious of all God's ways of hiding: God hiding a third time in the preached word or sacraments. Paulson's grasp of historical, theological, and hermeneutical scholarship is on full display in this volume, but always in service of proclamation of the gospel. Readers and proclaimers: prepare to be provoked, enlightened, and inspired.

Pilgrim Letters: Instruction in the Basic Teaching of Christ

Curtis W. Freeman (Author)

In Pilgrim Letters, Curtis Freeman takes disciples on a contemporary journey into an ancient faith. The volume comprises a series of letters written by "Interpreter" to "Pilgrim" that provide "instruction in the basic teaching of Christ" for candidates preparing to be baptized. In these letters, Freeman lays the building blocks for the life of a disciple. He blends historic Christian teaching with illustrations from literature to form a guide to belief and practice.