Review Duane Miller Two Stories of Everything (original) (raw)
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Two Stories of Everything Interview with Duane Miller
Miller rejects the approach of the "comparative religions" school because this Enlightenment discipline believed the topic of "religion" could be neatly compartmentalized and analyzed as an almost incident subset of "real life" as defined by secular humanists. So instead of analyzing Islam and Christianity in some topical fashion, he approaches the issue by narrating how the respective faith systems understand the origin of all things (creation), anthropology, Israel, Jesus, Muhammad, life in their respective communities, their respective missions, and their understanding of the end or eschatology. By the end of the book, the reader should understand that both Islam and Christianity, far from being easily compartmentalized abstractions, are, instead comprehensive-though differing-ways of life.
Reviews in Religion & Theology, 2008
In this follow-up to his previous effort with Joel Green, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000), Mark Baker assembles nineteen vignettes on the cross selected for their ability to assist ministry. Baker explains that while many readers were stimulated by the first book, he received numerous enquiries related to preaching and evangelism. 'This new volume', he declares, 'is my response to those questions' (p. 14). So, whereas his previous work with Green was an argument for the contextualization of atonement theology, this book is the actual exercise, an attempt to match the variety of biblical images for atonement with humanity's numerous needs. Each chapter begins with the editor's introduction of both the contributor and the contribution. Baker's introductory chapter makes it clear that this new work shares one of the key labors of the first book, namely, to supplant penal substitutionary atonement. Indeed, he spends a good bit of space countering the view, reinterpreting key Scriptural passages thought to support it, and answering critics who would disagree with his rejection of it. Adhering to this model has become something of a scandal itself.
Living among the Breakage: Contextual Theology-making and ex-Muslim Christians
Miller has provided us with frontline research in an emerging sector of World Christianity-the indigenous theology of Christians from a Muslim background. World Christianity, Muslim-Christian relations, conversion studies, or missiology-if any of these are your area of interest, this book is for you. If the mission of God in our world or, perhaps, 'frontier theology' is your concern, Living among the Breakage is for you. In these pages, Miller engages the theology of the globally emerging churches of Christians from a Muslim background (CMB) . . . What Miller has done here is compelling in its creative simplicity. " BRENT NEELY, co-editor (with Peter Riddell) of Islam and the Last Day; Christian Perspectives on Islamic Eschatology "Duane Miller's new work, Living among the Breakage, is a must-read for those interested in religious conversion. Miller moves beyond questions of why and how conversion takes place to engage the critical question of how converts and their communities become makers of theology. " ROBERT HUNT, Director of the Center for Evangelism and Missional Church Studies, Perkins School of eology "If there's one book about the world of Islam and ex-Muslims that is to be read, it is Living among the Breakage. It's a gold mine!" TONY WEEDOR, Desk Director, Africa, Advancing Native Missions
Journal of Islamic Faith and Practice
In his latest book, Martin Nguyen makes an important contribution to contemporary studies of Islamic theology. Building on current outlooks that emphasize the intellectual and cerebral life of the Muslim believer, he introduces readers to what a practical theology might look like when it goes beyond neoclassical portrayals to embrace the religious imagination. In doing so, he charts future territory for studies in Islamic theology, pointing them in a direction that moves away from expert-led dialogues to a layperson-centered perspective. He is clear in stating that this book is not an attempt to recast or to revive any specific historical discourse or discipline, but to reconceive of theology altogether in a way that attends mainly to "the fostering of faith" (2). Despite its modest length, Nyugen largely accomplishes this goal. While his treatment is not exhaustive, each chapter aims to reframe a fundamental concept that is essential to his account. He begins with the concept of language, where he explains the necessity for modern Muslim theology to strictly remain in the English "logosphere" to remain accessible to non-experts (21). Nguyen then goes on to critique modern conceptions of time that both interfere with a creative engagement with revelation and tradition and impair the fostering of religious thought. Our "postdomestic" culture obscures death and matters of the end times while internalizing a linear, quantifiable notion of time that focuses our attention on anything but the present moment, where the "fullness of God" resides (31). Modern time not only prevents us from fully engaging with God, but also distorts how we receive and think of revelation. This distortion is due in part to the prevalent essentialist accounts of tradition that portray "authentic tradition" as a phenomenon that took place inand remains inthe past. In other words, this non-imaginative view conceives of the religious tradition as an artifact in need of preservation, the way material artifacts are preserved in Western museums. Putting the tradition to use would violate its integrity as a genuine artifact; instead, it is something to be admired from afar. Against this tendency to fossilize tradition, Nyugen argues for a dynamic, living view of it. The multi-faceted and complex Islamic tradition is more like the Ka'bah in Makkah than an artifact gathering dust. It has undergone change and restoration, and yet it remains with us into the present. Similarly, a modern Muslim theology must acknowledge that human traditions are ongoing constructs that evolve from one generation to the next. Interacting with the tradition is required for the transformative experiences that a life of faith is meant to engender. Conceptualizing the tradition in this way calls for the religious
ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY – TWO HALVES OF ONE PEARL
A Word to the Reader Dear Reader! The name of the book " Islam and Christianity – two halves of one pearl " speaks its meaning itself. These two religions are really the two components of a single and incredibly beautiful pearl of human spirituality. To give you the visible and undoubted evidence of this I intend to use, in my argumentation, an untraditional approach unknown to most modern scientists. I am convinced that such an untraditional and informal approach will become duly popular with serious scientists. The universal and nonstandard view, devoid of common stereotypes, on the relations between the two world religions used in this book shows for the first time the merits of such an approach to the Islamic and Christian teachings and can prepare a future platform on which the inter-religion of the ROSE OF THE WORLD will blossom uniting the human race in friendship and understanding. This book shows in an untraditional and nonstandard way, using a maximally broad outlook and on the basis of serious scientific data and facts that these two religions are two real sisters. Therefore, representatives of Islam and Christianity have no reasons whatever for mutual enmity. It is shown in the book that the enmity between representatives of the two world religions is a great error brought to existence by the efforts of dark satanic forces. This book is extremely serious. Because it reveals the deep-seated roots of errors which were and remain ingrained in the minds of representatives of both Islam and Christianity. This book will probably be the first one in a series of books of their kind yet to be generated in humankind. I hope sincerely that the untraditional and universal view which this book offers in examining the two famous world religions will help readers to overcome errors of ages long past. The newly arrived millennium makes an imperative demand that we people take a new view of the old problems. In this transformation of times the misunderstanding of people of different religious faiths cannot hold water and should belong to the past just as the 20 th century has gone into the past.