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What Would Jesus Deconstruct? (The Church and Postmodern Culture)

Author: John D. Caputo

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9781441200365

This provocative addition to The Church and Postmodern Culture series offers a lively rereading of Charles Sheldon's In His Steps as a constructive way forward. John D. Caputo introduces the notion of why the church needs deconstruction, positively defines deconstruction's role in renewal, deconstructs idols of the church, and imagines the future of the church in addressing the practical implications of this for the church's life through liturgy, worship, preaching, and teaching. Students of philosophy, theology, religion, and ministry, as well as others interested in engaging postmodernism and the emerging church phenomenon, will welcome this provocative, non-technical work.

Deconstructing Jesus

Author: Robert M. Price

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2009-09-25

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1615921206

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After more than a century of New Testament scholarship, it has become clear that the Jesus of the gospels is a fictive amalgam, reflecting the hopes and beliefs of the early Christian community and revealing very little about the historical Jesus. Over the millennia since the beginning of Christianity various congregations, from fundamentalist to liberal, have tended to produce a Jesus figurehead that functions as a symbolic cloak for their specific theological agendas. Through extensive research and fresh textual insights Robert M. Price paves the way for a new reconstruction of Christian origins. Moving beyond the work of Burton L. Mack and John Dominic Crossan on Jesus movements and Christ cults, which shows how the various Jesus figures may have amalgamated into the patchwork savior of Christian faith, Price takes an innovative approach. He links the work of F.C. Baur, Walter Bauer, Helmut Koester, and James M. Robinson with that of early Christ-myth theorists-two camps of biblical analysis that have never communicated. Arguing that perhaps Jesus never existed as a historical figure, Price maintains an agnostic stance, while putting many puzzles and scholarly debates in a new light. He also incorporates neglected parallels from Islam, the Baha'i Faith, and Buddhism. Deconstructing Jesus provides a valuable bridge between New Testament scholarship and early freethinkers in a refreshing cross-fertilization of perspectives.

Before You Lose Your Faith

Author: Ivan Mesa

Publisher:

Published: 2021-04-15

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780999284377

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After Doubt

Author: A. J. Swoboda

Publisher: Brazos Press

Published: 2021-03-02

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1493429590

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Is there a way to walk faithfully through doubt and come out the other side with a deeper love for Jesus, the church, and its tradition? Can we question our faith without losing it? Award-winning author, pastor, and professor A. J. Swoboda has witnessed many young people wrestle with their core Christian beliefs. Too often, what begins as a set of critical and important questions turns to resentment and faith abandonment. Unfortunately, the church has largely ignored its task of serving people along their journey of questioning. The local church must walk alongside those who are deconstructing their faith and show them how to reconstruct it. Drawing on his own experience of deconstruction, Swoboda offers tools to help emerging adults navigate their faith in a hostile landscape. Doubt is a part of our natural spiritual journey, says Swoboda, and deconstruction is a legitimate space to encounter the living God. After Doubt offers a hopeful, practical vision of spiritual formation for those in the process of faith deconstruction and those who serve them. Foreword by pastor and author John Mark Comer.

The Great Reckoning

Author: Stephen Mattson

Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.

Published: 2018-10-23

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 1513803425

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What do we do when the church looks nothing like Jesus? Many followers of Jesus feel disillusioned by a broken religion—one that loves political power, promises prosperity, and feeds on fear. We are desperately trying to rationalize how a loving God can be connected to unloving churches, institutions, and people. We can no longer deny that our version of Christianity is not just imperfect but has been coopted to inflict violence, racism, abuse, hate, and even death. The question before many Christians is no longer how their faith can survive within a secular culture. It’s how their faith can survive Christianity itself. In The Great Reckoning, writer Stephen Mattson writes out of the rubble of the failed American faith. Instead of doomsaying or casting aspersions, however, Mattson offers hope for seekers looking for inspiration, solace for Christians fed up with an unsatisfying religion, and clarity for those sifting through the remains. The Great Reckoning is a clear-eyed yet tender critique of where we’ve gone wrong, and a guide away from the culture wars and toward the life of Jesus. Rather than further immersing ourselves in Christendom, what if we started rethinking what it means to be a Christian in the first place? What if Christians shed the hopes and dreams of Christianity and turned instead of the Christ at the center of our faith? Consider this a dispatch from the wreckage of American cultural Christianity, and an ode to the Jesus-looking faith we seek.

The Weakness of God

Author: John D. Caputo

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2006-04-27

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 0253013518

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The author of What Would Jesus Deconstruct? makes “a bold attempt to reconfigure the terms of debate around the topic of divine omnipotence” (Choice). Applying an ever more radical hermeneutics—including Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, Derridian deconstruction, and feminism—John D. Caputo breaks down the name of God in this irrepressible book. Instead of looking at God as merely a name, Caputo views it as an event, or what the name conjures or promises in the future. For Caputo, the event exposes God as weak, unstable, and barely functional. While this view of God flies in the face of most religions and philosophies, it also puts up a serious challenge to fundamental tenets of theology and ontology. Along the way, Caputo’s readings of the New Testament, especially of Paul’s view of the Kingdom of God, help to support the “weak force” theory. This penetrating work cuts to the core of issues and questions—What is the nature of God? What is the nature of being? What is the relationship between God and being? What is the meaning of forgiveness, faith, piety, or transcendence?—that define the terrain of contemporary philosophy of religion. “Caputo comes out of the closet as a theologian in this work.” —Catherine Keller, Drew University “Caputo has a gift for explaining Continental philosophy’s jargon succinctly and accurately, and despite technical and foreign terms, this book will engage upper-level undergraduates. Includes scriptural and general indexes . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

Make a Move

Author: Stephanie Williams O'Brien

Publisher: Broadleaf Books

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1506465935

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We make thousands of decisions each day, and while most of them are simple and relatively easy, many of us get stuck in the larger, life-altering decisions. This can lead to frustration, anxiety, and confusion. "It would be so much easier if life just came with a road map!" But life doesn't work like that--it's full of twists and turns, the unexpected and the unforeseen. And yet, the uncertainty of life also brings adventure and exploration, surprises and wonder. In Make a Move, pastor and coach Stephanie Williams O'Brien offers practical advice and action steps for moving through the experiments of life. These steps help us narrow down the choices when it seems like the options are endless, and allow us to discern God's leadership in a way we never could while standing still. It's time to move from a disoriented life to a life of direction and intention. It's time to make a move!

What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

Author: John D. Caputo

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 9781441259417

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Uses the postmodern theme of deconstruction to suggest a constructive and provocative way forward for the church.

The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida

Author: John D. Caputo

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1997-09-22

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 9780253211125

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The Prayer and Tears of Jacques Derrida takes its point of departure from Derrida's more recent, sometimes autobiographical writings and closely examines the religious motifs that have emerged in his later works. John D. Caputo's provocative interpretation of Derrida's thinking also makes an original contribution to the question of the relevance of deconstruction for religion. Caputo's Derrida is a man of faith who bridges Jewish and Christian traditions. The deep messianic, apocalyptic, and prophetic tones in Derrida's writings, Caputo argues, bespeak his broken covenant with Judaism. Through its startling exploration of Derrida's impossible religion, the book sheds light on the implications of deconstruction for an understanding of religion and faith today--from back cover.

Republican Jesus

Author: Tony Keddie

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2021-09-09

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0520385691

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The complete guide to debunking right-wing misinterpretations of the Bible—from economics and immigration to gender and sexuality. Jesus loves borders, guns, unborn babies, and economic prosperity and hates homosexuality, taxes, welfare, and universal healthcare—or so say many Republican politicians, pundits, and preachers. Through outrageous misreadings of the New Testament gospels that started almost a century ago, conservative influencers have conjured a version of Jesus that speaks to their fears, desires, and resentments. In Republican Jesus, Tony Keddie explains not only where this right-wing Christ came from and what he stands for but also why this version of Jesus is a fraud. By restoring Republicans’ cherry-picked gospel texts to their original literary and historical contexts, Keddie dismantles the biblical basis for Republican positions on hot-button issues like Big Government, taxation, abortion, immigration, and climate change. At the same time, he introduces readers to an ancient Jesus whose life experiences and ethics were totally unlike those of modern Americans, conservatives and liberals alike.