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15 of the Best Books and Articles on: Suffering in Christian Theology

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Creative Suffering of God » Read Now
by Paul S. Fiddes. 284 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

The theme that God suffers with his world has become a familiar one in recent years, overturning centuries of belief in an impassible deity. This book both surveys recent thought about the suffering of God and proposes future directions for this important area of Christian theology. Fiddes discusses...
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The theme that God suffers with his world has become a familiar one in recent years, overturning centuries of belief in an impassible deity. This book both surveys recent thought about the suffering of God and proposes future directions for this important area of Christian theology. Fiddes discusses four trends of current thought--the "theology of the cross" in modern German theology as represented in the works of Barth, Moltmann, and Jungel; American process theology; "the death of God" theology; and the rejection of the idea of divine passibility by modern followers of classical theism--while reflecting on the main theme of his study. The book affirms that God freely chooses to limit himself, to suffer change, to journey through time, and even to experience death while remaining the living God.
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2.

Suffering: A Test of Theological Method » Read Now
by Arthur C. McGill. 130 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

How can an omnipotent God allow suffering and violence to pervade the world? The author approaches this disturbing question by examining the concept of power. At opposing ends of a spectrum lie two powers--demonic power that is violent, destructive, and dominative, and the power of God that is...
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How can an omnipotent God allow suffering and violence to pervade the world? The author approaches this disturbing question by examining the concept of power. At opposing ends of a spectrum lie two powers--demonic power that is violent, destructive, and dominative, and the power of God that is creative, totally open, self-giving, and expansive. Through consideration of power, McGill provides reflections on the nature of God's inner life in the Trinity and concludes that "service" characterizes God's relationship to the world, not "domination."
Combining the scholarship and clarity that characterizes the greatest theological writing of our times, "Suffering" addresses the need for renewed faith in the almighty powerfulness of God's self communication and self-giving until the time "when the pretenses of demonic power are swept away."
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3.

Does God Suffer, in First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life » Read Now
by Thomas G. Weinandy. 7 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...and, therefore, suffering as we suffer...considerations in theology, philosophy, and...immune from human suffering until the last...years of Christian theology? According...
4.

The Cruel God: Job's Search for the Meaning of Suffering » Read Now
by Margaret Brackenbury Crook. 224 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...Search for the Meaning of Suffering MARGARET BRACKENBURY...three-year Certificate in Theology from Manchester College...is deeply moved by human suffering, particularly...
5.

The Rhetoric of Suffering: Reading the Book of Job in the Eighteenth Century » Read Now
by Jonathan Hoeber Lamb. 329 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

The Rhetoric of Suffering provides a fresh approach to such topics as the rise of the novel, sociability of sentiment, and the communitarian emphasis in eighteenth-century literature. Lamb draws on the Book of Job as a touchstone for the contradictions and polemics found in various...
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The Rhetoric of Suffering provides a fresh approach to such topics as the rise of the novel, sociability of sentiment, and the communitarian emphasis in eighteenth-century literature. Lamb draws on the Book of Job as a touchstone for the contradictions and polemics found in various eighteenth-century works--poetry, philosophy, political oratory, accounts of exploration, commentaries on criminal law--which try to account for the relations between human suffering and systems of secular and divine justice. Deliberately downplaying questions of chronology or discursive coherence, genre, or topic, he offers considerations of Richardson and Fielding, Hawkesworth and the South Pacific, Goldsmith and Godwin, Hume and Bolingbroke, Blackstone and Bentham, Burke and Longinus, and Blackmore and Wright of Derby.
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6.

Impassible Suffering? Divine Passion and Fifth-Century Christology, in Theological Studies » Read Now
by John J. O'Keefe. 22 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...problem of divine suffering figured prominently...development of Nicene theology; the anti-Nicene...implications of Nicene theology. Nestorius...close to human suffering...
7.

Victims and Values: A History and a Theory of Suffering (Chap. 3 "Christianity, Suffering's Worth") » Read Now
by Joseph A. Amato. 238 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Entire Library

This book conducts a timely inquiry into contemporary conscience and politics. It examines fundamental ambiguities, dichotomies, and contradictions that we experience about the worth of our own suffering and the suffering of others. In particular, it analyzes how victims make a powerful claim upon...
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This book conducts a timely inquiry into contemporary conscience and politics. It examines fundamental ambiguities, dichotomies, and contradictions that we experience about the worth of our own suffering and the suffering of others. In particular, it analyzes how victims make a powerful claim upon contemporary conscience and public debate. Amato focuses his work on empathy and reason, hoping that each person will be able to take some of the suffering of others and still remain able to relate to his to own suffering instead of giving in to resignation or despair.
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8.

The Grief of God: Images of the Suffering Jesus in Late Medieval England » Read Now
by Ellen M. Ross. 200 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

Graphic portrayals of the suffering Jesus Christ pervade late medieval English art, literature, drama, and theology. These images have been interpreted as signs of a new emphasis on the humanity of Jesus. To others they indicate a fascination with a terrifying God of vengeance and a morbid obsession...
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Graphic portrayals of the suffering Jesus Christ pervade late medieval English art, literature, drama, and theology. These images have been interpreted as signs of a new emphasis on the humanity of Jesus. To others they indicate a fascination with a terrifying God of vengeance and a morbid obsession with death. In The Grief of God, however, Ellen Ross offers a different understanding of the purpose of this imagery and its meaning to the people of the time. Analyzing a wide range of textual and pictorial evidence, the author finds that the bleeding flesh of the wounded Savior manifests divine presence; in the intensified corporeality of the suffering Jesus whose flesh not only condemns, but also nurtures, heals, and feeds, believers meet a trinitarian God of mercy. Ross explores the rhetoric of transformation common to English medieval artistic, literary, and devotional sources. The extravagant depictions of pain and anguish, the author shows, constitute an urgent appeal to respond to Jesus' expression of love. She also explains how the inscribing of Christ's pain on the bodies of believers at times erased the boundaries between human and divine so that holy persons, and in particular, holy women, participated in the transformative power of Christ. In analyzing the dialects of mercy and justice; the construction of sacred space and time; sacraments and ritual celebration, social action, and divine judgment; and the dynamics of women's public religious authority, this study of religion and culture explores the meaning of the late medieval Christian affirmation that God bled and wept and suffered on the cross to draw persons to Godself. This interdisciplinary study of sermon literature, manuscript illuminations and church wall paintings, drama, hagiographic narratives, and spiritual treaties illuminates the religious sensibilities, practices, and beliefs that constellate around the late medieval fascination with the bleeding body of the suffering Jesus Christ.
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9.

The New Essence of Christianity (includes "The Problem of Suffering" in Chap. 1) » Read Now
by William Hamilton. 159 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...the problem of suffering has become a...not that the theology dominated by...the problem of suffering is that it can...presence of God. If theology cannot reshape...or...
10.

The Christology of the New Testament (Chap. 3 "Jesus the Suffering Servant of God") » Read Now
by Oscar Cullmann, Shirley C. Guthrie, Charles A. M. Hall. 346 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
11.

Warranted Christian Belief (Chap. 14 "Suffering and Evil") » Read Now
by Alvin Plantinga. 508 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library

This is the third volume in Alvin Plantinga's trilogy on the notion of warrant, which he defines as that which distinguishes knowledge from true belief. In this volume, Plantinga examines warrant's role in theistic belief, tackling the questions of whether it is rational, reasonable, justifiable...
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This is the third volume in Alvin Plantinga's trilogy on the notion of warrant, which he defines as that which distinguishes knowledge from true belief. In this volume, Plantinga examines warrant's role in theistic belief, tackling the questions of whether it is rational, reasonable, justifiable, and warranted to accept Christian belief and whether there is something epistemically unacceptable in doing so. He contends that Christian beliefs are warranted to the extent that they are formed by properly functioning cognitive faculties, thus, insofar as they are warranted, Christian beliefs are knowledge if they are true.
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12.

Suffering in the Theology of Edward Schillebeeckx, in Theological Studies » Read Now
by Kathleen Mcmanus. 16 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library

...SUFFERING IN THE THEOLOGY OF EDWARD SCHILLEBEECKX...substance of Schillebeeckxs implicit theology of suffering. It has different manifestations...teaching theology and...
13.

Christianity in Jewish Terms (Chap. 9 "Suffering") » Read Now
by Tikva Frymer-Kensky, David Novak, Peter Ochs. 444 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

This text explains to American Jews the core religious beliefs of Christianity and assesses the threats and promises of the Jewish-Christian encounter from a Jewish perspective.
14.

Feminist Ethics and the Catholic Moral Tradition (Chap. 7 "Wading through Many Sorrows: Toward a Theology of Suffering in Womanist Perspective") » Read Now
by Charles E. Curran, Margaret A. Farley, Richard A. S. J. Mccormick. 616 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library

...Sorrows: Toward a Theology of Suffering in Womanist Perspective...The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective...Perspectives on Evil and Suffering Maryknoll...
15.

When Bad Things Happen to Other People (Chap. Three "The Meaning of Suffering" and Chap. Five "Celebrating Suffering") » Read Now
by John Portmann. 242 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Entire Library

Although many of us deny it, it is not uncommon to feel pleasure over the suffering of others, particularly when we feel that suffering has been deserved. The German word for this concept-Schadenfreude-has become universal in its expression of this feeling. Drawing on the teachings of history's most...
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Although many of us deny it, it is not uncommon to feel pleasure over the suffering of others, particularly when we feel that suffering has been deserved. The German word for this concept-Schadenfreude-has become universal in its expression of this feeling. Drawing on the teachings of history's most prominent philosophers, John Portmann explores the concept of Schadenfreude in this rigorous, comprehensive, and absorbing study.
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