J. Aaron Simmons

Bruce Ellis Benson

Introduces and explores the work of the 'New Phenomenologists,' from Emmauel Levinas to Jacques Derrida, and considers the movement's contributions to key debates in philosophy.

A Philosophical Introduction

The New Phenomenology

Peter Goodwin Heltzel

Leading evangelical thinkers engage--and are engaged by--the most explosive and discussed theorists of empire in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.

Christian Alternatives to the Political Status Quo

Evangelicals and Empire

James K. A. Smith

Kevin J. Vanhoozer

In this multi-faceted volume, Christian and other religiously committed theorists find themselves at an uneasy point in history -- between premodernity, modernity, and postmodernity -- where disciplines and methods, cultural and linguistic traditions, and religious commitments tangle and cross. Here, leading theorists explore the state of the art of the contemporary hermeneutical terrain. As they address the work of Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Derrida, the essays collected in this wide-ranging work engage key themes in philosophical hermeneutics, hermeneutics and religion, hermeneutics and the other arts, hermeneutics and literature, and hermeneutics and ethics. Readers will find lively exchanges and reflections that meet the intellectual and philosophical challenges posed by hermeneutics at the crossroads. Contributors are Bruce Ellis Benson, Christina Bieber Lake, John D. Caputo, Eduardo J. Echeverria, Benne Faber, Norman Lillegard, Roger Lundin, Brian McCrea, James K. A. Smith, Michael VanderWeele, Kevin Vanhoozer, and Nicholas Wolterstorff.

Hermeneutics at the Crossroads

Norman Wirzba

What is the proper relationship between human beings and the more-than-human world? This philosophical question, which underlies vast environmental crises, forces us to investigate the tension between our extraordinary powers, which seem to set us apart from nature, even above it, and our thoroughgoing ordinariness, as revealed by the evolutionary history we share with all life. The contributors to this volume ask us to consider whether the anxiety of unheimlichkeit, which in one form or another absorbed so much of twentieth-century philosophy, might reveal not our homelessness in the cosmos but a need for a fundamental belongingness and implacement in it.

Human Responsibility in an Endangered World

Being-in-Creation

What do the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion have in common with Christianity? Surprisingly, they are all concerned about idolatry, about the tendency we have to create God in our own image and about what we can do about it. Can we faithfully speak of God at all without interposing ourselves? If so, how? Bruce Ellis Benson explores this common concern by clearly laying out the thought of each of these postmodern thinkers against the background of modern philosophers such as Descartes, Locke and Hume and in light of the rise of phenomenology as developed by Husserl and Heidegger. All these thinkers he brings into conversation with a full range of biblical teaching. The result is an illuminating survey of some key postmodern thinkers and profound insight into the nature of conceptual idolatry. Benson also exposes some of the limitations inherent in postmodern attempts to provide a purely philosophical solution to the problem of ideological idolatry. Ultimately, he argues, there is a need for something greater than human philosophy, religion or theology--namely, the biblical revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

Nietzsche, Derrida & Marion on Modern Idolatry

Graven Ideologies

Malinda Elizabeth Berry

In this inaugural Prophetic Christianity volume, fifteen contributors share their visions for a biblically centered, culturally engaged, and historically infused evangelicalism. Interacting with a wide variety of influential thinkers, they articulate several approaches to creating a socially responsible, gospel-centric, and ecumenical evangelical identity. Contributors: Raymond C. Aldred Vincent Bacote Bruce Ellis Benson Malinda Elizabeth Berry Chris Boesel John R. Franke David Gushee Peter Goodwin Heltzel Pamela Lightsey Cherith Fee Nordling Ruth Padilla-DeBorst Gabriel Salguero Helene Slessarev-Jamir Christian T. Collins Winn Telford Work

Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom

Prophetic Evangelicals

How do the arts inform and cultivate our service to God? In this addition to an award-winning series, distinguished philosopher Bruce Ellis Benson rethinks what it means to be artistic. Rather than viewing art as practiced by the few, he recovers the ancient Christian idea of presenting ourselves to God as works of art, reenvisioning art as the very core of our being: God calls us to improvise as living works of art. Benson also examines the nature of liturgy and connects art and liturgy in a new way. This book will appeal to philosophy, worship/liturgy, art, music, and theology students as well as readers interested in engaging issues of worship and aesthetics in a postmodern context, including Christian artists and worship leaders.

Embodying the Arts in Christian Worship

Liturgy as a Way of Life (The Church and Postmodern Culture)

Places hearmeneutics at a crossroads between disciplines, genres, languages, and religious commitments

Actively engages love in the practice of philosophy

Love's Wisdom

Transforming Philosophy and Religion

This groundbreaking collection considers empire from a global perspective, exploring the role of evangelicals in political, social, and economic engagement at a time when empire is alternately denounced and embraced. It brings noted thinkers from a range of evangelical perspectives together to engage the most explosive and discussed theorists of empire in the first decade of the twenty-first century--Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Using their work as a springboard, the contributors grapple with the concept of empire and how evangelicalism should operate in the world of empire.

Norman Wirzba, Bruce Ellis Benson, and an international group of philosophers and theologians describe how various expressions of philosophy are transformed by the discipline of love. What is at stake is how philosophy colors and shapes the way we receive and engage each other, our world, and God. Focusing primarily on the Continental tradition of philosophy of religion, the work presented in this volume engages thinkers such as St. Paul, Meister Eckhart, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, Ricoeur, Derrida, Marion, Zizek, Irigaray, and Michele Le Doeuff. Emerging from the book is a complex definition of the wisdom of love which challenges how we think about nature, social justice, faith, gender, creation, medicine, politics, and ethics.

Bruce Ellis Benson

Books

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