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This chapter discusses al-Kindī’s main influences from Greek works produced by the translation movement, and how al-Kindī thought the ideas from these works should be put together into a coherent philosophical curriculum. In philosophy, al-Kindī was most influenced by Aristotle and by Neoplatonic works (such as the Liber de Causis and Theology of Aristotle, which are Arabic versions of works by Proclus and Plotinus). His vision of philosophical methodology follows a Greek tradition of dividing philosophy up in terms of the different objects studied in different sciences. Finally, the chapter discusses the role of the Arabic language and Islam in al-Kindī’s thought by surveying texts in which he engages in Koranic exegesis, and by explaining his project of developing a new Arabic terminology in philosophy.

Chapter 4 isolates several essential aspects of Balthasar's theodramatic theory and discusses how they “play” in and through Lars von Trier's dramatic film Breaking the Waves (1996), the first installment of his Golden Heart trilogy. It is no coincidence that Balthasar places his theodramatic program precisely between his Aesthetics and Logic in order to emphasize the spatial centrality of God's dramatic action in, with, and through the world. In addition to examining theological mysteries (such as kenosis and the “events” of Holy Saturday), the chapter demonstrates more acutely the many contributions that Balthasar provides the contemporary religious critic. The chapter finds that the retrieval of this powerful relationship between theology and narrative art—between theological rhetoric and dramatic representation—is a main topic of Balthasar's Theodrama and that a serious study of the implications of his theodramatics bears ripe fruit for theorists of contemporary literature.

This essay explores contemporary South African white (and especially Afrikaner) rhetoric on violent crime as an expression of what can be described as a quasi-soteriology of the laager. It presents this rhetoric on violent crime as a continuation of white rhetoric on the Day of the Vow and the Anglo-Boer War, which describes Afrikaners as being under threat and salvation being found by withdrawal into a segregated existence. The presentation of white Afrikaners as being specifically targeted by violent crime is presented as a deliberate rhetorical option which should be read within this soteriological logic. In response to this soteriological problem the challenge of a soteriology which finds salvation in the wholeness of the entirety of society and the end of racist structures is presented as a challenge to the White Church.

This chapter challenges Public Theology to draw on the emphasis within Black Theology on the involvement of God in the affairs of this world, and specifically the notion that God reveals Godself as the God who is identifying primarily, though not exclusively, with the poor and the wronged. The second crucial emphasis of Black Theology is the confession of the lordship of Jesus Christ over all dimensions and sectors of life - from the most intimate and personal to the most public, global and cosmic. To be a transforming and liberating Public Theology the vision, aim and methodology need to be informed by central convictions about God’s bias in favor of the wronged and against oppression, and about the Lordship of Jesus Christ within a world pervaded by a spirit and structures of empire.

This chapter locates this larger book project within the broader framework of Contextual Theology. It outlines the basic features and methodological points of departure in contextual theology, analyzing the seminal work of the Euro-American, Catholic theologian Stephen Bevans. It critiques Bevans’ typology driven, systematic approach to Contextual Theology, arguing that this method fails to appreciate the highly contested and politicized nature of the subject. The chapter concludes by highlighting the socio-political intent of black churches and Christianity across the world, demonstrating how this text seeks to problematize and articulate the dialectical nature of this growing phenomenon.

Chapter thirty-two explores the Didactic Theology lectures Hodge offered from the mid-1840s through the early 1870s. Hodge based these lectures on the doctrinal teachings found in the Westminster Confession. He paid great attention to the sacramental tradition of the Roman Catholics and Lutherans, and argued a hard line that the sacraments did not hold innate power, but were made effective by the faith of those who partook of them.

Chapter thirty-eight treats the threat of German Idealist thought as it came to influence the thinking of those who considered themselves part of the Reformed tradition. Particularly important in this regard stand: John Williamson Nevin, Charles Finney, and Horace Bushnell. Hodge considered each of these men as dangerous threats to traditional Reformed orthodoxy as they spread their own versions of the redemptive power of human moral intuition.

The chapter begins with a brief discussion of what Avicenna considers to be the proper subject matter of metaphysics, namely, existents qua existents, followed by a brief outline of his Metaphysics. Since it would be impossible to cover all of the issues with which Avicenna wrestles in his Metaphysics, this and the next chapter consider two closely related topics: Avicenna’s theology and cosmology. To appreciate Avicenna’s contribution to these two subjects, there is a brief history of how earlier philosophers had viewed God’s relation to the cosmos, which involved a cluster of core philosophical problems that Avicenna’s metaphysical system attempts to address. This brief history is followed by a look at Avicenna’s modal ontology, an investigation of Avicenna’s celebrated analysis of the Necessary Existent, and then ends with his account of the divine attributes.

The historic Calvinist churches that still enjoyed significant leadership in American public life thoroughly incorporated common sense and republican emphases into their theology. In general, these theologians condemned the revolutions in France and were suspicious of the “infidel” Thomas Jefferson and his friend James Madison. American Calvinists were, however, not unified; their disputes grew from the different approaches they took to the problems of religious organization and national civilization posed by the new American nation.

Threatened by Unitarianism and Finneyite progressives, the Edwardsians of the 1820s banded together to fight off the encroachment of theological liberalism and “new measures” revivalism. By 1828, with the publication of Taylor's Concio ad Clerum, the fissures in the Calvinist front that remained hidden during the first part of the decade became more noticeable. Fears spread that Taylor had fallen into Arminianism and abandoned Edwardsian Calvinism. As Lyman Beecher moved to Cincinnati to take the presidency of Lane Seminary, Bennet Tyler continued to warn of the dangers of Nathaniel William Taylor's teaching. By 1850, when the sabers ceased rattling between Taylor and Tyler, Catharine Beecher publicly began teaching a form of Arminianism, which she claimed she learned from Taylor. In his seventies, Taylor was unable to fight the errant claims. Sweeney argues that the battle between Taylor and Tyler was symptomatic of the decline of Edwardsian Calvinism in New England. The true decline of New England Calvinism began when the leaders of New England Theology became so self‐absorbed in their minor theological battles that they lost their voice in the culture wars of the mid‐nineteenth century.

In his conclusion, Sweeney moves beyond the usual story of Edwardsian decline to a summary of Taylor's own substantial legacy to post‐Edwardsian America. He notes that in New England, Taylor's theology managed to split Connecticut's General Association, but his opening up of the Edwardsian culture changed the face of New England Theology. As America moved westward, Taylor's dilation of New England's traditional regional orthodoxies paved the way for the spread of its churches and their theology on the frontier. For Taylor, as for his American successors, the proof of one's theology lay in preaching and virtuous living.

John Macquarrie (1919–2007), a Fellow of the British Academy, was the foremost Anglican systematic theologian of the twentieth century. His many books cover a wide range of topics, from studies of existentialist philosophy to expositions of systematic Christian theology, writings on mysticism and world religion, and analyses of ethical thought. Macquarrie was always a theologian of the church, using a philosophical vocabulary that united philosophical idealism, existentialism, and Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy in an original and fruitful way. His masterpiece was the 1966 Principles of Christian Theology, which works through almost every aspect of Christian doctrine in the light of the concepts of human nature and of God that he had forged from idealism, from Martin Heidegger, and from an increasingly sacramental and mystical approach to Christian faith. In 1970, Macquarrie was offered, without his prior knowledge, the Lady Margaret Chair of Divinity at Christ Church, University of Oxford. He received various honours that testify to the high regard in which he was held both in America and in Britain.

Chapter thirty-three is a study of Hodge’s career as both a teacher and a preacher. Never anything but a solid preacher in the pulpit, Hodge excelled in the classroom. He also was renowned for the meditative and practical talks he offered the Seminary’s students in the Sabbath afternoon Conferences. He excelled in teaching settings where people knew him personally. His personal example of holiness was his single best sermon and teaching illustration.

This chapter proposes a reconfigured Black Theology based on the contemporary context of the Black Church in the US in a contested post-racial, post-American world. In that context, Black churches are besieged by the “cultural hauntings” of race, in all of its shifting shapes and reinventions. This reference to shape-shifting is a form of critical signification on Black Church traditions. Historically, the Black Church has taken its metaphors, its parody and transformation of Western stories and ideas too literally and has mistaken these rhetorical devices for preordained things, essences. Shape-shifting is a form of postmodern self-reflexive critique of all signs which claim to be Absolute, including race, blackness, and theological metaphors. The chapter recommends, therefore, that the Black Church remain open to revisability of language and remember its own tradition of shape-shifting, signifying, reinterpreting in preaching, liturgy, and playing on words.