Category: Church History and Historical Theology

Challenging and changing the effects of racism and sexism because of faith takes the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America into the public square to to address difficult social, political, and economic problems. Yet the problems of racism and sexism are within the ELCA, too. Lutheran women of color serve as visionaries in the public square and in the church, cultivating the love of neighbor and God’s ongoing reformation of the church.

Having brought together an international collection of patristic scholars and ethicists at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, editors Leemans, Matz and Verstraeten present in this collection peer reviewed essays written and presented at the 2007 Expert Seminary on Reading Patristic Social Ethics.

This compendium is a collection of select patristic writings that address issues of social justice, issues of concern for both the ancient and modern world, including: slavery, abuse, health and usury, to name a few. Each chapter includes a written explanation of the importance of the issue during the time of the patristics, and explains how they worked with issues of social justice within their sermons and theologies. Further, each chapter includes an annotated bibliography of both primary and secondary source material on each topic. Finally, each chapter concludes with select translated passages on each topic.

Augustine‘s anti-Manichean writings indicate a growing appreciation for the history of Israel as a witness to the one God. In particular, his exegetical response in the massive Contra Faustum demonstrates how a more serious engagement with the history of Israel shaped his theology.