SUNY Press Catalog - Spring 2009 - (Page 28) religious studies Manolopoulos Sketch #1 05/21/08 PMS 519C / PMS 5545C IF CrEATION IS A GIFT Mark Manolopoulos If Creation Is a Gift Brings an ecotheological perspective to postmodern gift theory. THE PErFECT rULE OF THE CHrISTIAN rELIGION a History of Sandemanianism in the Eighteenth Century John Howard Smith A history of the Sandemanians, a little-known but ultimately influential Christian sect in colonial America. Smith A HISTORY A HISTORY THE PERFECT RULE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION THE PERFECT RULE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION SANDEMANIANISM SANDEMANIANISM What if our world were considered a gift? Extending postmodern gift theory to Mark Manolopoulos ecological and ecotheological concerns, Mark Manolopoulos explores how “creation”— the what-is—can be seen as a gift. Creation, when viewed in a radically egalitarian way, is the matrix of all material things—human, otherwise-than-human, or humanly manufactured. Utilizing and critiquing the work of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, Manolopoulos argues that the gift is an irresolvable paradox marked by the contradictory elements of excess (gratuity, linearity) and exchange (gratitude, return). Philosophical and theological reflections on the gift become entangled in its paradoxical tension, but ultimately both aspects must be respected and reflected. When it comes to the creation-gift, we should vacillate between responses like lettingbe, enjoyment, utility, and return. Elegantly written and thought-provoking, If Creation Is a Gift both contributes to the ongoing debate on the gift and provides a fresh philosophical and theological consideration of the environmental crisis. Mark Manolopoulos is Honorary Research Associate with Monash University’s Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology. Some thought them dangerous, others credited them with recovering original Christianity. The Sandemanians, a sect with roots in the turmoil of eighteenth-century Scottish Presbyterianism, espoused a radical theology that influenced the development of American Christianity. Founder John Glas blended elements of fundamentalist New Testament Christianity with Enlightenment philosophy to create what he believed to be “the perfect rule of the Christian religion.” The history and legacy of the Sandemanians are given full attention in these pages, which reveal the origins of the sect in Scotland and follow its greatest proselyte, Robert Sandeman, across the Atlantic to New England. Author John Howard Smith shows how such a minor sectarian movement could create so much controversy at the time of the First Great Awakening and the American Revolution. The churches Sandeman established were eventually crushed by the Revolution, their adherents scattered, never to grow into a denomination. The Sandemanians are little known today, yet elements of their theology played a key role in the future of American Christianity. John Howard Smith is Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University-Commerce. JANUArY • 240 pp • 1 figure $70.00 jacketed hc 978-1-4384-2507-8 www.sunypress.edu A volume in the SUNY series in Theology and Continental Thought Douglas L. Donkel, editor MArCH • 196 pp $65.00 jacketed hc 978-0-7914-9393-9 directtext e dt e directtext dt 28 P IN THE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY John Howard Smith P http://www.sunypress.edu http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=61776 http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=61762
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