Living the Sermon on the Mount in Difficult Times
- Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2025
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Publisher's Description
Living the Sermon on the Mount in difficult times is part of what it means to follow Jesus, the Peaceful One. Jesus not only taught it, he lived it. This introduction, for all kinds of Christians, examines the revolutionary content of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in the context of the brutal Roman empire. Then it surveys stories of those who struggled to faithfully live this Scripture in the messiness of their own difficult times. What does this history look like from perspective of the cross? Violence served Roman, European and American empires well, but crucified their victims. This text seeks to feminize and decolonize the debate as to whether the Sermon on the Mount is relevant today, then ask how relevant the just war tradition and Christian realism are for addressing the big human security questions of the twenty-first century: climate change, poverty, mass migration, racism, populism, and nuclear weapons. Learning from the past, can we begin to develop a new, robust Christian realism, that takes seriously the Sermon on the Mount and finds in it a way of salvation for our own difficult, poly-crisis times? This book can be read individually and also as a group study.
Endorsements (3)
“This is an extremely valuable book. It is written with clarity and conviction and rooted in the author’s lifelong effort to live a life true to the radical demands of the Sermon on the Mount. Filled with fresh insights and hard-earned wisdom and in dialogue with key scholarship, Living the Sermon on the Mount in Difficult Times will help readers to think deeper and further about this familiar text. The carefully crafted questions are particularly impressive. Designed to help individuals and groups reflect on the Sermon’s radical implications, they will, I am sure, prove essential to many who want to understand and respond to the challenge it poses. It is rare to find a book that will clearly transform lives. This is one of them.”
“I really enjoyed reading this book. The Sermon on the Mount contains the very essence of Jesus’s teachings and closely reflects how he lived his own life. However, it has often been overlooked, regarded as essentially unrealistic and irrelevant to this world. In this fascinating and much-needed book, Andrew Bolton unpacks the true meaning of the Sermon and demonstrates its pertinence to the great challenges facing humanity today. I hope it will be widely read by individuals and studied within faith communities.”
“What an amazing book! It inspires me to continue to grow in my new journey as a Christian in a loving community. It has motivated me through wonderful examples of the past to never give up. It has deepened my understanding of what it actually means to be a light in the darkness and reminded me that ‘a thousand-mile journey begins with one step.’ A really great and encouraging read!”
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