The author constructs A Theology of Traumatic Affect by employing affect and trauma theories conjointly. The interconnectedness of individuals is established, which in turn uncovers the social dimensions of all traumatic experiences. A collective engagement makes bearing witness and holding the space for prophetic public imagination possible.

In this book, Stan Harstine examines three passages in the Gospel of John in order to illustrate how diachronic and synchronic methodological approaches produce distinct results. Using Leitwörter from the gospel's opening verses to shape an interpretive lens, Harstine identifies these passages as crucial transition points in the plot of the Gospel.

Liberal democracies of the twenty-first century face the continuing economic tensions of globalization and the various populist political responses. In A Political Theology of the Bureaucratic State, Steven T. Lane argues that a deeper problem exists underneath the neoliberal system of contemporary democratic capitalism--the bureaucratic state and the ways it deploys its sovereignty. Yet these problems have received little attention from Christian political thinkers in the fields of ethics or political theology. By bringing thinkers from across the academic disciplines, from political philosophy and economics to biblical interpretation and public policy, and using modern case-studies related to public health and welfare state, Lane address the foundational issues affecting liberal democracies and the claims to power they make against their citizens.

In an increasingly secular, contemporary (postmodern) culture, many people have no understanding of Christianity or the importance and relevance of Jesus Christ. As a result, the Church's traditional liturgical texts, as well as the church-oriented language often used by Christians to explain the Gospel, are not helpful or accessible to those outside the Church. To respond to this challenge, the author uses a semiotic method, based on the work of Robert Schreiter, to engage and describe the nature of contemporary postmodern culture. Using a narrative approach to the Gospels based on the work of the 20th century historical theologian, Hans Frei, the author derives a more modest, open-ended Christology which will 'converse' with its cultural context and continue to be interpreted within contemporary Christian communities. Using social values analysis from a particular contemporary culture, the author then forms biblical statements about the person of Jesus Christ that are congruent with those values, and uses them to construct a new Eucharistic Prayer. The result is a liturgical prayer that is accessible and enables members of that local culture to be embraced by, and to embrace, the identity of Jesus Christ.

A Nondualistic Pentecostal Theology: Exploring Dialectics and Becoming through Amos Yong and Slavoj Zizek invites readers to consider a dialectical theology for the third millennium, grounded in nonduality and expressed from a pentecostal perspective. Amos Yong has laid a valuable foundation for such an approach, though his work stops short of fully achieving nondualism. Despite highlighting diverse voices within pentecostal theology through Pentecost-inspired themes, systematic complexity, and interdisciplinary input, Yong still speaks of God in dualistic terms. This work identifies missed opportunities to move beyond dualism and addresses them through a coherent nondualistic framework. With the aid of Slavoj Zizek, the pentecostal imagination reconfigures the essential themes of Yong's theology, resulting in a fresh take on pentecostal theology committed to the richness of connection and the expansive potential of becoming.

Paul and Seneca Among the Condemned explores the sites and images of spectacle that littered the landscapes of the ancient world. By examining archaeological remains alongside the letters of Paul and Seneca, we discover new readings and suggestive responses to sovereign power and state terror in the early empire.

J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epics are imbued with a deep sense of the spiritual from which readers discern aspects of his beliefs about God, life, good, and evil. In this book, an international group of scholars explore and build on numerous theological ideas that percolate through Tolkien's works.

Understanding Judaism and the Jews in the Gospel of John: Polemic, Tradition, and Johannine Self-Identity reopens the perennial question of the Fourth Gospel's perplexing characterization of the Jews. According to the reigning paradigm, the Gospel of John witnesses to a community's burgeoning sense of religious distinctiveness. Ethnically Jewish believers in Jesus had begun to forge a new identity in contrast to the Jews. Nathan Thiel assesses the weaknesses of the prevailing model, arguing that the fourth evangelist still saw himself as living and working within the Jewish tradition. Yet if the Gospel of John is the literary product of a self-consciously Jewish author, why would he speak so often and so critically of the Jews? Thiel considers the factors which have conditioned the evangelist's choice of terminology: the Gospel's setting, its intended audience, and, above all, John's indebtedness to Scripture. As a first-century Jew well-versed in Israel's sacred texts, the evangelist has modeled his story of Jesus after patterns familiar to him from the Scriptures--Scriptures in which Israelite authors consistently portray their ancestors as faithless despite God's powerful work on their behalf. John is a relentless critic, but such cutting theological assessment had long been part of Israel's counterintuitive way of telling its history.

Old Testament Narratives and Speech Act Theory explores the ways in which words can create worlds within Old Testament narratives. Whereas characters can use their words in particular ways to impact the imaginations of their listeners, the storyteller attempts to transform the audience with the world(s) of the narrative.