Grace, Order, Openness and Diversity Reclaiming Liberal Theology

by Bradley, Ian

• ISBN13: 9780567268907
• ISBN10: 056726890X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-05-27
• Publisher: Bloomsbury T&T Clark

Summary

In this highly accessible, passionately argued and scholarly book, Ian Bradley presents fundamentalism, born a hundred years ago in the United States of America, as the great twentieth century heresy and aberration. He identifies and seeks to reclaim for the twenty first century a liberal theological tradition existing in Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the other major world faiths. This liberal heart is found in their scriptures and was often to the fore in their foundational stages but has more recently been overlaid with conservative reaction, fundamentalism and fear. He defines this liberal theology in terms of the four values of grace, order, openness and diversity which he suggests can be read by Christians as key attributes of the three persons of the Trinity and of God in Trinity as a whole. This book counters the growing influence of narrow, exclusive judgemental religious conservatism with a powerful reassertion of the liberal gospel of God's grace, goodness and generosity. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Ian Bradley is Reader in Practical Theology and Church History at the University of St Andrews, a minister in the Church of Scotland and a prolific author broadcaster.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	p. xi
Defining Liberal Theology and Charting its History	p. 1
The Present Predicament and the Challenge to the Liberal Frame of Mind	p. 27
Grace	p. 41
Order	p. 73
Openness	p. 101
Diversity	p. 125
Escaping from Fundamentalism and Living in God's Hope	p. 157
Bibliography	p. 175
Index	p. 179
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