Book: The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation

Just published: Adam Kotsko, "The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation" (Continuum, October 2010):

www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=157985

Publisher's description: "Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of new perspectives on 'atonement theory,' the traditional name for reflections on the meaning of Christ's work. These new theologies view Christ as a political figure and mobilize social theory to understand the contemporary context and Christ's meaning for that context. Politics of Redemption demonstrates that pre-modern theologians also understood Christ's role in a fundamentally social way. The argument proceeds by analysing the most important and original contributors to the tradition of atonement theory (Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Anselm, and Abelard). The investigation reveals that they all work within a shared social-relational logic based on the solidarity of all human beings and the irreducible relatedness of humanity and the rest of creation. Having brought this social-relational logic to the surface, the work concludes by sketching out a fresh atonement theory as a way of showing that our understanding of Christ's work and of its relevance for our life together is enriched by foregrounding the question of how creation, and particularly the human social sphere, is structured."

Endorsement: "An indispensable contribution to the thorny theory of atonement. Hip to the feminist critique, inflected by the postmodern return to political theology, and steeped in the depths and potentialities of the doctrinal tradition, Kotsko's relational ontology for the doctrine of redemption offers a lucid and erudite resource for a wide spectrum of Christian theology." (Catherine Keller, Drew University)

Adam Kotsko is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College.

Book: Through Us, With Us, In Us: Relational Theologies in the Twenty-First Century

Just published: "Through Us, With Us, In Us: Relational Theologies in the Twenty-First Century", edited by Elaine Bellchambers and Lisa Isherwood (SCM Press, April 2010):

www.scm-canterburypress.co.uk/bookdetails.asp?ISBN=9780334043669

Publisher's description: "Relational theologies, such as feminist theology, ecotheology and liberation theologies of various kinds, turn our traditional starting point for theology on its head. They ask what it is that we experience and where it is that we intuit God manifests and creates in and through our relation and lack of relation with ourselves, others and the cosmos. This book aims to explore the concept of the emerging divine within human and non-human relationality. It is relationship and the relationality that enable knowledge of the divine to emerge. The editors and contributors make the concept of relational theology more widely understood and stimulating theological debate in this area [sic]. The collection is an excellent teaching resource for courses in liberation theology, feminist theology, ecotheology and Christian doctrine at upper undergraduate and MA level. The book offers new and original contributions by well-known authors such as Carter Heyward, Catherine Keller, Mary Grey, Ursula King, Beverley Clack, Diarmuid O'Murchu and Mary Condren."

Elaine Bellchambers is Senior Lecturer in Primary Education at the University of Winchester.

Lisa Isherwood is Professor of Feminist Liberation Theologies at the University of Winchester.