Christian Love - Softcover

This collection provides direct access to some of the most distinctive and influential biblical and Christian statements on love. It situates these through succinct accounts of the circumstances in which they occur and the help of insights from a wide variety of scholars. The volume could be very useful as a text for classes not only on the subject of Christian love but as an overview of basic directions of Christian thought over the centuries. It is also accessible enough for more general reflection for Christians as individuals or in groups. Horizons

A survey of how Christians through the ages have understood love. Beginning with the Old Testament, Brady examines the key resources and thinkers of the tradition: Scripture, St. Augustine, mystics such as Bernard of Clarirvaux, Hadewich, and Julian of Norwich, the great literature of courtly love, Thomas Acquinas, Martin Luther, Soren Kierkegaard, and others. In addition, Brady devotes chapters to several 20th century figures whose lives embodied Christian love: Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Pope John Paul II, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Finally, Brady addresses the current debate over the meaning of love, analyzing contemporary writers such as Martin D'Arcy, Margaret Farley, and Don Browning. In a stirring concluding chapter Brady offers his own understanding of the substance of Christian love, suggesting that it is an affective affirmation of another, that it is both responsive and unitive, and that it is steadfast and enduring. Many books have been written about Christian love. But no book has gathered together this kind of primary source material and covered such a wide range of perspectives.