New Titles Tuesday, October 17

This week Alloway Library added 26 titles to the collection. Here is a sample to click and explore. TWU login may be required.

Bending toward heaven: poems after the art of Vincent van Gogh /Sharon Fish Mooney.  In these ekphrastic sonnets, the author reflects on themes Van Gogh returned to over and over again in his brief but intense journey from evangelist and pastor-in-training to painter of peasants, still lifes and growing things. As these poems reflect, Van Gogh’s poetic imagination was best expressed in blossoming orchards, starry nights, sheaves of wheat, final harvests, and in his signature sunflowers–a metaphor for his own life, lifting petals to the sky, bending toward heaven.

 Between the desert and the sea [electronic resource] /I. Lilias Trotter. Trotter [1853-1928] was a noted watercolour artist, who having attended several of the Keswick Conventions, became a missionary in North Africa. She was one of the founder members of the Algier Mission Band, which, as the Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions notes, “…became part of the North Africa Mission, which continues to the present day, now as Arab World Ministries.” [p.680]. This present volume contains 16 stunning pages of watercolours, which have been scanned in full-colour.

 Calvin the man and the legacy /edited by Murray Rae, Peter Matheson and Brett Knowles. Alongside essays on aspects of Calvin’s theology, Calvin: The Man and the Legacy includes studies of Calvin as pastor, preacher and liturgist and traces the influence of Calvin as it was conveyed through Scottish migration to Australia and New Zealand. Fascinating stories are told of the ways in which the Calvinist tradition has contributed much to the building of colonial societies, but also of the ways it has attracted ridicule and derision and has been subject to caricature that is sometimes deserved, sometimes humorous, but often grossly misleading.

The Christian roots of religious freedom /by Robert Louis Wilken.

 Church in translation: vibrant Christianity in your time and place /Dan Collison with Shelly Barsuhn.

The cross of reality: Luther’s Theologia crucis and Bonhoeffer’s christology /H. Gaylon Barker.

Does God have a strategy?: a dialogue /Phillip Cary, Jean-François Phelizon ; with translation by Anne François. A philosopher and a business leader have a friendly debate about whether it makes sense to speak of God having a strategy for the human race. If so, to what future might it point us?

  Exploring practices of ministry /Pamela Cooper-White, Michael Cooper-White. The authors share their wisdom with seminarians and other readers seeking to deepen theological reflection and expand skills as ministry practitioners. While not all readers are preparing to be ordained ministers, most will engage in many of the practices described in the book: preaching and public speaking, teaching, leading liturgies, conducting ceremonies, counseling and offering pastoral support for persons undergoing life transitions, and serving as organizational leaders in congregations, chaplaincies, social ministries, and in the public arena. This book is a companion journal for pilgrims on the way to becoming confident practitioners of ministry.

 In brigands’ hands and Turkish prisons, 1914-1918| [electronic resource] /by A. Forder ; illustrated by author’s own photographs. Archibald Forder (1863-1934] ) was a Pentecostal missionary in Palestine. He wrote this account of his work there during his internment during World War I in a Turkish prison in Damascus.

 John’s use of Matthew /James W. Barker. Barker demonstrates John’s use of the redacted Gospel of Matthew. After reviewing the history of interpretation on the question, Barker develops three case studies. Concerning ecclesial authority, Barker contends that John’s sayings concerning forgiving and retaining sins derives from Matthew’s binding and loosing logion. Regarding proof from prophecy, he argues that John relies on Matthew for Zechariah’s oracle about Israel’s king entering Jerusalem on a donkey. Finally, he argues that John’s inclusion of Samaritans contrasts sharply with Matthew’s exclusion of Samaritans from the early church. Although John’s engagement with Matthew was by no means uncritical, Barker at last concludes that John intended his Gospel to be read alongside, not instead of, Matthew’s.

 Offering hospitallity: questioning Christian approaches to war /Caron E. Gentry.  Gentry reflects on the predominant strands of American political theology–Christian realism, pacifism, and the just war tradition–and argues that Christian political theologies on war remain, for the most part, inward-looking and resistant to criticism from opposing viewpoints. Her critique of Christian realism, pacifism, and the just war tradition through an engagement with feminism is unique, and her treatment of failed states as a concrete security issue is practical. By asking multiple audiences–theologians, feminists, postmodern scholars, and International Relations experts–to grant legitimacy and credibility to each other’s perspectives, she contributes to a reinvigorated dialogue.

 Pathways in theodicy: an introduction to the problem of evil /Mark S.M. Scott. The problem of evil perennially vexes theology, but many theologians have abandoned the project of theodicy, or the theological explanation of evil, as either fruitless or hopeless. Academic studies on theodicy, moreover, typically succumb to theological deficiency and abstraction, often devoid of any concrete connection to Christian life and practice.  Scott reinvigorates stalled debates in philosophy and theology through a detailed reassessment of the problem of evil and the task of theodicy and through a careful analysis of the major models and motifs in theodicy.

 Piety in pieces: how medieval readers customized their manuscripts /Kathryn M. Rudy. Rudy considers ways in which book owners adjusted the contents of their books from the simplest (add a marginal note, sew in a curtain) to the most complex (take the book apart, embellish the components with painted decoration, add more quires of parchment). By making sometimes extreme adjustments, book owners kept their books fashionable and emotionally relevant. This study explores the intersection of codicology and human desire.

 The Qurʼān: a new annotated translation /A.J. Droge. This new edition of the Qur’an is specifically designed to meet the needs of students of religion, and provides them with a one-volume resource comparable to what is available for the Jewish and Christian scriptures. The meticulously crafted translation affords readers not only a better sense of what the Qur’an says, but how it says it, in a rendition that strives to remain faithful to the way it was originally expressed.  The annotations offer a wealth of linguistic and historical detail to enhance the understanding and appreciation of the text. They also contain abundant references to parallel passages within the Qur’an, as well as comparatively among the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity.

 The social world of the sages: an introduction to Israelite and Jewish wisdom literature /Mark R. Sneed.  Sneed redefines the wisdom literature as a loosely cohering collection of books that educated scribal apprentices in moral instruction. Sneed discusses the data for scribal culture and pedagogy in the ancient Near East, suggesting that wisdom literature was meant to complement, not to compete with, other modes of literature in the Hebrew Bible. The result is a surprising new picture of the authors and traditions of the wisdom literature

 The triumph of faith: why the world is more religious than ever /Rodney Stark. Explodes the myth that people around the world are abandoning religion. Stark marshals an incredible amount of data – surveys of more than a million people in 163 nations – to paint the full picture that both scholars and popular commentators have missed. He explains why the astonishing growth of religion is happening, and what it means for our future.

 What works in conservation: 2017 /edited by William J. Sutherland, Lynn V. Dicks, Nancy Ockendon and Rebecca K. Smith. This book provides an assessment of the effectiveness of 763 conservation interventions based on summarized scientific evidence. Chapters cover the practical global conservation of amphibians, bat and birds, conservation of European farmland biodiversity and some aspects of enhancing natural pest control and enhancing soil fertility. It contains key results from the summarized evidence for each conservation intervention and an assessment of the effectiveness of each by international expert panels.