Serene Jones

Inspired by Donald W. Shriver Jr.'s leadership of Union Theological Seminary (New York City), Christian Ethics in Conversation brings together essays by members of a stellar faculty--including Gary Dorrien, Larry Rasmussen, Phyllis Trible, and Cornel West--and interdisciplinary colleagues, such as Columbia University biologist Robert Pollack, Chancellor Emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary Ismar Schorsch, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale historian David W. Blight. The challenges they describe of embracing diversity while facing financial pressure and encouraging social change speak to seminaries, churches, denominations, and faithful individuals facing similar challenges today. The chapters model the kinds of interdisciplinary, interfaith, and inter-institutional conversations foundational to Shriver's approach to Christian public ethics. Shriver and Union Seminary addressed racial justice directly, and colleagues describe lessons learned from an activist-academic who was also a Southerner committed to reconciling and repairing the wounds of history. International conversation partners analyze the place of moral claims in successful social transformation, but those claims also had to be lived out in the seminary's institutional life. Gender justice, full inclusion, and liberation theologies became crucial to Union's identity, but not automatically. The changes required are described by a former dean, board member, worship leader, and several students. All the while, faculty and students of Union and its neighbors were engaged in ongoing debates about honest patriotism, friendship across division, and the dangers of uncritical nationalism, also captured by the book's contributors. With contributions from: M. Craig Barnes Serene Jones Dean K. Thompson Donald W. Shriver, Jr. Gary Dorrien Milton McCormick Gatch, Jr. Larry Rasmussen Cornel West: Janet R. Walton James A. Forbes, Jr. Phyllis Trible Robert Pollack Ismar Schorsch Hays Rockwell Thomas S. Johnson Lionel Shriver David Kwang-sun SUH Roger Sharpe Bill Crawford Robert W. Snyder Eric Mount Joseph V. Montville Helmut Reihlen and Erika Reihlen David Blight Ronald H. Stone Steve Phelps

"Theology is a place and a story. Theology is the place and story you think of when you ask yourself about the meaning of your life, of the world, and the possibility of God." So begins Serene Jones's epic work of raw truth, fierce love, and spiritual teaching as muscular as the fractured soul of this century demands. From her abiding Oklahoma roots to her historic leadership of a legendary New York seminary, her story illuminates the deep fault lines of this age--and points beyond them. With a voice that is at once frank and poetic, humble and prophetic, intimate and practical, Jones makes complex teachings around hatred, forgiveness, mercy, justice, death, sin, and grace understandable and immediately applicable for modern people. Excavating the wisdom of great theological voices--Soren Kierkegaard, Reinhold Niebuhr, John Calvin, James Baldwin, James Cone, Luce Irigaray, Saint Teresa of Avila--she brings them to life with an intimacy and vividness that illumines our lives and our culture now. At the same time, and with great beauty, Call It Grace reveals Serene Jones as a towering voice of a new, and urgently necessary, public theology for this century.

This substantive collection from noted scholar Serene Jones explores recent work in the field of trauma studies. Central to its overall theme is an investigation of how individual and collective violence affect ones capacity to remember, to act, and to love; how violence can challenge theological understandings of grace; and even how the traumatic experience of Jesus death is remembered. Jones focuses on the long-term effects of collective violence on abuse survivors, war veterans, and marginalized populations and the discrete ways in which grace and redemption may be exhibited in each context. At the heart of each essay are two deeply interrelated faith claims that are central to Joness understanding of Christian theology: (1) We live in a world profoundly broken by violence, and (2) God loves this world and desires that suffering be met by words of hope, love, and grace. This timely and relevant cutting-edge book is the first trauma study to directly take into account theological issues.

This long-awaited text charts clearly and comprehensively the enormously important area of feminist theory -- and brings it into fruitful conversation with Christian theology. Jones introduces the primary concerns that animate feminist theory through discussion of critical texts and through women's narratives. She shows how they pose uncomfortable questions, and leave no corner of the Christian tradition unchallenged. Jones unfolds feminist theory in three broad categories that analyze human identity and gender, oppression, and ethics. She then illustrates their potential for illuminating theological categories of experience, truth, text, and norm to revitalize three key traditional Christian doctrines: faith, sin, and church.