The author argues that identity politics eliminates Ethiopians' in-between spaces and identities and defines in-between spaces as political, social, religious, and geographical spaces that enable Ethiopians to co-exist with equity, solidarity, and justice. The elimination of in-between spaces and in-between identities creates either-or class, religious, ethnic, and gender categories. Therefore, the author proposes an in-between theology that invites Ethiopians to a new hybrid way of being to resist fragmented and hegemonic identities. The author claims that postcolonial discourse and praxis of in-between pastoral care disrupts and interrogates hegemonic definitions of culture, home, subjectivity, and identity. On the other hand, in-between pastoral care uses embodiment, belonging, subjectivity, and hybridity as features of care and praxis to create intercultural and intersubjective identities that can co-construct and co-create in-between spaces. In the in-between spaces, Ethiopians can relate with the Other with intercultural competencies to live their difference, similarity, hybridity, and complexity.

The author presents a theoretical-practical training manual with effective tools for everyone, especially counselors to improve their spiritual growth. The Speed Method, integrating Lonergan’s theory with the practice of counseling, becomes a concrete opportunity in view of a new spiritual springtime for the Church and human care.

A Womanist Holistic Soteriology: Stitching Fabrics with Fine Threads is a construction of womanist holistic soteriology that is inclusive of many voices and perspectives and promotes communal responsibility. A soteriology that considers notions of personhood, theology, spirituality, and praxeology is holistic, inclusive, and grace-filled. This soteriological study begins with a historical overview of the development of notions of salvation beginning in ancient Egyptian thought and the concept of Ma'at--balance, wholeness, and moral ethics. Lahronda Welch Little conducts an exploration of the word "salvation" in different West African languages and reveals more expansive narratives around salvation that do not subjugate human beings, but rather encourage agency and celebrate the beingness of God's creation. Grounded in womanist and Black feminist discourse and methodology, this rendition of womanist holistic soteriology holds notions of grace, agency, and spirituality by stitching together interviews with theologians, scholars, and practitioners, utilizing the philosophical concepts of binary complementarity and holism, and sharing what womanist holistic soteriology as praxis looks like in a communal setting.

Ethno-national identity is an outcome of ideological interpellation, self-writing and narratives. Politics as the enactment of identity has led Ethiopian politics to a dead-end. A theological turn can open the ontological possibility of a new political subject and a reinvention of politics that transcends the impasse.

Theology, Music, and Modernity addresses the question: how can the study of music contribute to a theological reading of modernity? It has grown out of the conviction that music has often been ignored in narrations of modernity's theological struggles. Featuring contributions from an international team of distinguished theologians, musicologists, and music theorists, the volume shows how music--and discourse about music--has remarkable powers to bring to light the theological currents that have shaped modern culture. It focuses on the concept of freedom, concentrating on the years 1740-1850, a period when freedom--especially religious and political freedom-became a burning matter of concern in virtually every stratum of Western society. The collection is divided into four sections, each section focusing on a key phenomenon of this period--the rise of the concept of 'revolutionary' freedom; the move of music from church to concert hall; the cry for eschatological justice in the work of black hymn-writer and church leader Richard Allen; and the often fierce tensions between music and language. There is a particular concern to draw on a distinctively 'Scriptural imagination' (especially the theme of New Creation) in order to elicit the key issues at stake, and to suggest constructive ways forward for a contemporary Christian theological engagement with the legacies of modernity today.

This innovative collection of original essays focuses on the ways in which geography, gender, race, and religion influenced the reception of Darwinism in the English-speaking world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The contributions to this volume collectively illustrate the importance of local social, physical, and religious arrangements, while revealing that neither distance from Darwin's home at Down nor size of community greatly influenced how various regions responded to Darwinism. Essays spanning the world from Great Britain and North America to Australia and New Zealand explore the various meanings for Darwinism in these widely separated locales, while other chapters focus on the difference it made in the debates over evolution.

African American Catholics, though small in number and historically the targets of racial intolerance, are now the backbone of the church. The vast majority of African American Catholics do not perceive racial marginalization and intolerance in the church. African American Catholics are among the strongest religious identifiers in the church, while whites show a more fragile Catholic identity. The Catholic church may have finally overcome its racist past for the vast majority of African American Catholics, but serious concerns remain for white Catholics. Based on data from a national religion survey, this book explores religious attitudes from an African American Catholic perspective.