Charles R. Ringma

A Divine Society

Theology

“Dave Andrews is one of Australia's most innovative community workers. His vision for social change, however, comes out of a well-articulated theological vision. Dave clearly demonstrates that Jesus' vision of the in-breaking reign of God rooted in Trinitarian theology can be the inspirational centre for contemporary community work. This challenging piece of integrated writing can be 'a guide to all who seek to bring the shalom of God to all the places of pain and injustice in our world.'”

A Frontline Worker’s Manifesto

“The self-congratulation about the neo-liberal societies we have created—with its mantras of progress and the common good—lies shattered in these pages. And not only are we blind to the human flotsam that we have spawned, but we are equally blind to the ineffectiveness of our ‘helping’ strategies. Daniel drags the reader into the world of the abandoned and offers us a wisdom and humanity from below that could well become a ‘bible’ for everyone who seeks to serve the marginalized and dispossessed.”

A Glimpse of the Kingdom in Academia

Discipleship & Christian Education

Foreword

“[This] is not simply a how-to book. It is a book that will move you into a more profound way of reading and entering the gospel story. It is a book marked by a theology of the Kingdom or reign of God and a holistic vision of God's redemptive and healing purposes for our world. It is a book also shaped by the newer liberation and feminist theologies. Moreover, it is a book marked by profound spirituality. . . . It is my hope that this book will be a precursor of what is to come, that it will point the way for others to take the shape of their life in Christ into the public sphere.”

Against the Tide, Towards the Kingdom

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Faith's Knowledge

Theology

“Having developed an epistemological framework that rejects relativism and overcomes the modern faith-rationality split, Australia's up-and-coming philosophical theologian, Paul Tyson, with careful argumentation and passionate applicatory discourse, shows public truth in education [and] health and global security is not only possible within a Christian worldview, but it builds a more humane society than the utilitarianism that currently blights our social landscape. This book is for thinkers who wish to change the world.”

Fullness Received and Returned

Theology

“This profoundly scholarly treatment of Jonathan Edwards' Trinitarian theology underscores the theological prowess of Seng-Kong Tan. This discussion of the human participation in the divine life of God is a timely topic in understanding the nature of God’s action towards humanity and a way of recovery in moving beyond human self-realization and the utilitarianism that so marks our being in world.”

Garden of the Soul

Christian Living

“Mark Mah's winsome invitation to hurried, harassed, and preoccupied Christians of late modernity needs to be heard and embraced if we are going to enhance our friendship with God, deepen the inner wells of life, negotiate the contours and difficulties of life's journey, and live as signposts of the shalom of God.”

If You Are the Son of God

Theology

“In his usual incisive way, Ellul wants us to get much closer to the human Jesus as a way of understanding God's radical identification with the woundedness of the human condition and our call to follow the suffering, tempted, tired, abandoned Christ into the world.”

In the Twinkling of an Eye

Christian Living

“In a world of slogans, tweets, and unreflective talk, a breath of fresh air is a story. And this is particularly so, when the story is told with honesty, simplicity, and humor. Paul Cummings’ recounting of his encounter with some non-mainstream Christians demonstrates that there is no predictable way to finding God and living the Christian life. God works in mysterious ways. This is the message of the book. And as such, it can be placed in the hands of all who are seeking but don't quite know where they are going. Like Paul, they may well find the great treasure!”

Living a Sheltered Life

Christian Living

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Making Space for the Spirit

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“In the midst of our busy, demanding, and pragmatic world, a new wind is blowing. This wind of the Spirit is hauntingly invitational. It invites us to come away, to be still, to be contemplative, to be inwardly revitalized. Jennifer Graves winsomely tells the story of two such places on Bowen Island--Rivendell and the Hermitages. In this story may you hear the invitation of the Spirit.”

Money Matters

Work, Money & Leadership

“Positing that the ancient beginnings of money were in the temple rather than with the trader, and proposing the sacred use and not just the secular use of money, the authors have crafted a colorful mosaic of personal, historical, philosophical, and theological perspectives regarding this important dimension of life. In communities of faith that seek to live a world-formative rather than a world-denying Christianity, this book dealing with an important but often neglected topic should be discussed in every church small group.”

Not Religion but Love

Christian Living

Foreword

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship provides a powerful challenge to follow Christ in our world. Dave Andrews' Not Religion but Love shows us how we can follow Christ in ways that serve the community.”

Plunging into the Kingdom Way

Church Leadership & Ministry

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Practicing the Presence of Jesus

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“Many Christians in the West no longer have a deep connection with the biblical story. They simply don't read it, except for the occasional Psalm and the story of Christmas. This book may revive their interest in re-engaging God's grand and invitational narrative. For as the author has so clearly demonstrated in this winsome and personal storytelling of psychological depth and spiritual insight, scripture is the profound story in which we can find ourselves with all of our life's issues. And where we can hear the invitation to become a renewed and enlarged self in the grace of Christ and the generative work of the Spirit.”

Reflected Love

Counseling, Grief & Mental Health

“With the paucity of formation in the contemporary church, many Christians are looking to spiritual direction or companioning as a way to deepen their journey of faith. In this winsome presentation of the art of companioning, the author moves us below the surface of the 'how to' to the dynamics of encounter between two pilgrims (the companion and pilgrim) in seeking the way of Jesus. Existentially profound, pastorally sensitive, psychologically insightful, this way of companioning is shaped by the heartbeat of the Gospel narratives and the creation of a safe place where the wisdom of God can well up from the heart cries of despair and wounding. No one who reads this book can remain the same.”

Returning to Reality

Philosophy

“Paul Tyson is an academic with a passion. He wants us to think hard and long about overcoming dualistic thinking and not to buy into the sacred-secular divide. He thus advocates a personal faith with public implications and longs to see us enter ways of knowing that combine transcendent truth and a passion for justice.”

Stories of Transformation and Hope

Fiction

“In this beautifully written book, Irene Alexander has made the ancient Scriptures live for those seeking to hear a wisdom that comes from deep wells. Here the gospel narratives, in a contemporary voice, vibrate with a new relevance, and it's as if Jesus is once again amongst us with a message that calls us to forgiveness, healing, transformation, and joy.”

The Gift of the Other

Philosophy

“In a world of a wrongly supposed benign globalization on the one hand, and various forms of militant reactionary movements on the other, millions of people are on the move looking for a new homeland. But everywhere the politics of fear and exclusion seem to predominate. In a thoughtful, yet critical engagement with the philosophies of Levinas and Derrida, Andrew Shepherd argues that the fundamental human reality need not be an inevitable violence between the self and the other leading to a proliferation of 'gated' communities. Instead, a redeemed relationality expressed in 'communion' and radical hospitality is a normative possibility. This is so, because in the embrace of the radical Other, the Messiah, all social, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences have been absorbed and transcended to make way for the 'community of the Beloved.' This passionate book makes philosophical and theological discourse prophetic. May we all come under its spell!”

The Kingdom of God in Working Clothes

Work, Money & Leadership

“If the alarmingly challenged church in the Western world would imbibe the wisdom of this book, with its deeply biblical and engagingly practical articulation of the kingdom or reign of God, a renewed church could be birthed. This could well be Paul Stevens’s most foundational and challenging book. It may well become a manifesto for a new Reformation.”