Books
The Good News of Church Politics
Ross Kane
Publisher : William B. Eerdmans Publishing
When we think about politics we often think about the privileged vying for power. Alternatively, we might think about gridlock, about frustration, or about how little our voices seem to matter. Our obsession with statecraft can both paralyze us and lead us to duplicate the tactics of this exasperating form of politics when we lead our church communities.
Ross Kane has good news for us: church politics doesn’t have to work this way! In fact, it can even become a spiritual practice. Drawing on his work as a pastor in the DC area, Kane shows how localized action by churches can make a real difference in their neighborhoods. Kane combines Scripture, political theology, and personal experience to reframe politics around shaping our common life. From community service to advocacy, congregations can practice politics in ways that embrace our loving interdependence as members of the body of Christ. Church leaders, whether lay or clerical, will find The Good News of Church Politics an uplifting guide to modeling God’s reign in our world by loving our neighbors.
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What people are saying:
“Ross Kane offers a new way of looking at politics, as another form of human interdependence through which we can prayerfully and intentionally live out the Way of Love and make a difference in our world. This is an important book of reimagining that is needed in this deeply divided age.” -The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church
“In this remarkable new book, Ross Kane writes with a pastor’s heart and a theologian’s imagination about how the church and politics (local and national) go together–indeed how they must go together for the church to be faithful to its calling.” -Douglas Brouwer, author of Chasing after Wind: A Pastor’s Life
Race and Revelation in the Study of Religious Mixture
Ross Kane
Publisher : Oxford University Press; 1st edition (December 1, 2020)
Syncretism has been a part of Christianity from its very beginning, when early Christians expressed Jesus’ Aramaic teachings in the Greek language. Defined as the phenomena of religious mixture, syncretism carries a range of connotations. In Christian theology, use of syncretism shifted from a compliment during the Reformation to an outright insult in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The term has a history of being used as a neutral descriptor, a pejorative marker, and even a celebration of indigenous agency. Its differing uses indicate the challenges of interpreting religious mixture, challenges which today relate primarily to race and revelation. Despite its pervasiveness across religious traditions, syncretism is poorly understood and often misconceived.
Ross Kane argues that the history of syncretism’s use accentuates wider interpretive problems, drawing attention to attempts by Christian theologians to protect the category of divine revelation from perceived human interference. Kane shows how the fields of religious studies and theology have approached syncretism with a racialized imagination still suffering the legacies of European colonialism. Syncretism and Christian Tradition examines how the concept of race figures into dominant religious traditions associated with imperialism, and reveals how syncretism can act a vital means of the Holy Spirit’s continuing revelation of Jesus.
with Simeon Ilesanmi, ed, essay collection on African political theologies
Transforming Political Theologies Routledge series
Ross Kane
with Simeon Ilesanmi, ed, essay collection on African political theologies
Ross Kane
Publisher : Transforming Political Theologies Routledge series
Coming Soon