John Swinton

Benjamin S. Wall

A Practical Theology of Jean Vanier

Welcome As a Way of Life

Disability, Timefullness, and Gentle Discipleship

Becoming Friends of Time

Richard Payne

Living Well and Dying Faithfully explores how Christian practices love, prayer, lament, compassion, and so on can contribute to the process of dying well. Working on the premise that one dies the way one lives, the book is unique in its constructive dialogue between theology and medicine as offering two complementary modes of care.

Christian Practices for End-of-Life Care

Living Well and Dying Faithfully

Cover -- Half Title Page, Title Page, Copyright, Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Time, Disability, and the Fragile Brain -- Part I: Time and Disability -- 1. Thinking about Time: The Tyranny of the Clock -- 2. Time and Progress: Disability and the Wrong Kind of Time -- Part II: Learning to Live in God's Time -- 3. Time and Christ: A Brief Theology of Time -- 4. Becoming Friends of Time: Love Has a Speed -- Part III: From Inclusion to Discipleship -- 5. Time and Discipleship: Inclusion, Discipleship, and Profound Intellectual Disability

Can we defend God's love, goodness, and power in a world scarred by violence and suffering? Do we need to? Traditional attempts to explain the problem of evil have mostly seen it as a philosophical and theological task. In this book John Swinton reminds readers that the experience of evil and suffering precedes pontification on its origin. Raging with Compassion seeks to inspire fresh Christian responses and modes of practice in our broken, fallen world.

Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil

Raging with Compassion

Drawing from theological reflection on the lives of 30 Christians with severe mental health challenges, (depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia), leading disability theologian John Swinton contends that mental health problems require theological understanding and not just medical intervention. In fact, he argues, it is not necessary to care effectively for Christians experiencing severe mental illness to grasp the theological dimensions of such experiences. Therapy and pharmacology may be helpful, but on their own they are deeply inadequate. By listening carefully to the lived experiences of people with severe mental health problems, FInding Jesus in the Storm will open up new understandings and perspectives that challenge current assumptions and draws out fresh perspectives for care, healing, recovery and community. It is a book about people instead of symptoms, description instead of diagnosis, and lifegiving hope for everyone in the midst of the storm.

The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges

Finding Jesus in the Storm

Stephen Judd

Kara Martin

We all can think of organisations that were established by Christians that are no longer recognisably Christian. In Keeping Faith, the authors outline the key components of organisational faithfulness - that is, what is needed for Christian organisations to stay true to the way of Jesus. They argue that the old reliance on statements of faith, or a set of Christian values, is insufficient. What is needed is a robust organisational theology that inhabits the enterprise's structures, management, business policies, practices and relationships and is tailored to the purpose of the organisation.In this important book, you will find? a checklist to determine if your organisation is losing its faithfulness? an outline of some key components of organisational theology? examples, both positive and negative, of theological application in organisations? discussion questions for organisational reflection.With combined global experience in practical theology, running businesses and charities, and integrating faith and work, Judd, Swinton and Martin have created an important and essential book for every Christian organisation.

How Christian Organisations Can Stay True to the Way of Jesus

Keeping Faith

Ewan Kelly

Gathering together thoughts and visions of experienced practitioners, academics, educators and strategic leaders from around the world, this edited volume sheds light on the nature of chaplaincy and its role and significance within ever-changing contemporary healthcare systems. A wide range of issues central to spiritual care delivery are covered, including reflections on what it feels like to be cared for by a chaplain through illness; the nature of chaplaincy as a profession; and how chaplains can engage with healthcare institutions in ways that have integrity yet are also deeply spiritual. The focus throughout is that chaplaincy should not only be guidance for people in distress, as a form of crisis intervention, but is rather about helping to promote wellbeing and enhance people's quality of life. Where specialisms tend to fragment systems and individuals, this book seeks to show that true health and wellbeing can only be found through a holistic approach, and shows how chaplaincy can bring this to the table. This book is for anyone who recognises the centrality of spirituality for wellbeing, and wishes to see what that might look like in practice.

Fostering Spiritual Wellbeing in Emerging Paradigms of Care

Chaplaincy and the Soul of Health and Social Care

Brian Brock

For two millennia Christians have thought about what human impairment is and how faith communities and society should respond to people with perceived impairments. But never has one volume collected the most significant Christian writings on disability. This book fills that gap. Brian Brock and John Swinton's Disability in the Christian Tradition brings together for the first time key writings by thinkers from all periods of Christian history - including Augustine, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Luther, Calvin, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, Barth, Hauerwas, and more. Fourteen contemporary experts in theology and disability studies guide readers through each era or group of thinkers, offering clear commentary and highlighting important themes.

A Reader

Disability in the Christian Tradition

In Becoming Friends of Time, John Swinton crafts a theology of time that draws us toward a perspective wherein time is a gift and a calling. Time is not a commodity nor is time to be mastered. Time is a gift of God to humans, but is also a gift given back to God by humans. Swinton wrestles with critical questions that emerge from theological reflection on time and disability: rethinking doctrine for those who can never grasp Jesus with their intellects; reimagining discipleship and vocation for those who have forgotten who Jesus is; reconsidering salvation for those who, due to neurological damage, can be one person at one time and then be someone else in an instant. In the end, Swinton invites the reader to spend time with the experiences of people with profound neurological disability, people who can change our perceptions of time, enable us to grasp the fruitful rhythms of God’s time, and help us learn to live in ways that are unimaginable within the boundaries of the time of the clock.

John Swinton's place of formation walking alongside people living with intellectual disabilities, mental health challenges, and dementia has gifted him the opportunity to ask questions that emerge from those who see the world differently. It shaped him as a theologian and raised questions of the nature of faithfulness, discipleship, and community.

Walking with Jesus in Strange Places

A unique text which focuses on the theory and practice of the church, as it engages with the complex issues that are emerging in response to new genetic technology.

Why Science Needs the Church

Theology, Disability and the New Genetics

This book brings together for the first time the views of renowned Christian leaders throughout history - including Augustine, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Luther, Calvin, Hegel, Kierkegaard, van den Bergh, Bonhoeffer, Barth, Vanier, and Hauerwas. Fourteen experts in theology and disability studies guide readers through each era or group of thinkers, offering clear commentary and highlighting important themes. --from publisher description.

This book has focused on the dialectic between state construction and the political process in Pakistan in the first decade of its independence. Using Dependency Paradigm as the evaluation tool, it examines the international political and economic factors, which in alliance with the domestic and regional factors shaped the structure of the Pakistani state according to the interests of the players of the neo-colonial world in the Cold War era. The first decade of Pakistan's history (1947-1958) produced developments of great significance for the construction of the post-colonial state that needs to be examined in the context of Cold War era. It was during this period that democratic institutions were destroyed and authoritarianism was consolidated, which generated underdevelopment, and Pakistan took the shape of a 'client' state of the United States. These developments concluded in the first direct military rule in 1958, and since then the military intervention in political domain has become a permanent feature of Pakistan's life at the cost of evolution of civil society and participatory institutions. An analytical study of the formative years of Pakistan in the context of 'dependency paradigm' may provide new insights for understanding the broader issues of military intervention in politics and the authoritarian nature of the state and its links with underdevelopment in the Third World, particularly in South Asia.

Time is central to all that humans do. Time structures days, provides goals, shapes dreams--and limits lives. Time appears to be tangible, real, and progressive, but, in the end, time proves illusory. Though mercurial, time can be deadly for those with disabilities. To participate fully in human society has come to mean yielding to the criterion of the clock. The absence of thinking rapidly, living punctually, and biographical narration leaves persons with disabilities vulnerable. A worldview driven by the demands the clock makes on the lives of those with dementia or profound neurological and intellectual disabilities seems pointless. And yet, Jesus comes to the world to transform time. Jesus calls us to slow down, take time, and learn to recognize the strangeness of living within God's time. He calls us to be gentle, patient, kind; to walk slowly and timefully with those whom society desires to leave behind. In Becoming Friends of Time, John Swinton crafts a theology of time that draws us toward a perspective wherein time is a gift and a calling. Time is not a commodity nor is time to be mastered. Time is a gift of God to humans, but is also a gift given back to God by humans. Swinton wrestles with critical questions that emerge from theological reflection on time and disability: rethinking doctrine for those who can never grasp Jesus with their intellects; reimagining discipleship and vocation for those who have forgotten who Jesus is; reconsidering salvation for those who, due to neurological damage, can be one person at one time and then be someone else in an instant. In the end, Swinton invites the reader to spend time with the experiences of people with profound neurological disability, people who can change our perceptions of time, enable us to grasp the fruitful rhythms of God's time, and help us learn to live in ways that are unimaginable within the boundaries of the time of the clock. --Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law, Duke Divinity School

Current Views and Notes of Forty Days in France and England

John Swinton's Travels

In "Raging with Compassion", Michael Ramsey prize-winning author John Swinton argues for a practical theodicy, one embodied in the life and practices of the Christian community. This practicality does not seek to provide an explanation for the existence of evil, but rather presents ways in which evil and suffering can be resisted and transformed. This, he insists, will enable Christians to live faithfully with unanswered questions as they await God's redemption of the whole creation. Swinton explores essential practices of redemption - lament, forgiveness, thoughtfulness, hospitality, and friendship - drawing out their implications for the faithful resistance of evil. Enhanced by case studies from current events and by Swinton's own experience as a pastor and mental health nurse, "Raging with Compassion" seeks to inspire fresh Christian responses and modes of practice in our broken, fallen world.

A Dissertation Upon the Phoenician Numeral Characters Antiently Used at Sidon

“No other mainstream theologian has so consistently and trenchantly taken a stand with and for people with developmental disabilities.”—John Swinton Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas’ Theology of Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology examines the influential writings of one of the most important contemporary theologians. Over the past thirty years, Time magazine Theologian of the Year (2001) Dr. Stanley Hauerwas has consistently presented a theological position which values the deep theological significance of people with developmental disabilities, as well as their importance to the life and the faithfulness of the church. Ten key Hauerwas essays on disability are brought together in a single volume—essays which reflect and illustrate his thinking on the theology of disability, along with responses to each essay from multidisciplinary authoritative sources including Jean Vanier, Michael Bérubé, John O'Brien and Ray S. Anderson. Dr. Hauerwas has always been a fearless voice in the field of theology. Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas’ Theology of Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology presents his work on the true meaning of disability and provides critical multidisciplinary discussions about his challenging ideas and their validity. In his essays, Hauerwas discusses his views on issues such as the social construction of developmental disabilities, the experience of profound developmental disabilities in relation to liberal society, and the community as the “hermeneutic of the gospel.” Included is a new essay by Dr. Hauerwas responding to the contributors to the book. Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas’ Theology of Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology explores Hauerwas’ thoughts on: the political nature of disability in liberal society the creation of a society where there is more love the dimensions of what is “normal” the key role of those treated as outsiders in building community the theological understanding of parenting which places responsibility for the individual child firmly within the Christian community using the model of the church as a social ethic developmental disability being equated with suffering the concept of the person in the theology of disability the developmentally disabled and the criteria for “humanhood” the importance of family in the process of caring for people with developmental disabilities Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas’ Theology of Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology is a fascinating exploration of contemporary theological reflection on disability and is essential reading for students and teachers of practical theology, pastoral counselors, clergy, chaplains, and social and health care students.

Disabling Society, Enabling Theology

Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas' Theology of Disability

A person's sense of spirituality informs his or her awareness of self and of the society around them, and is intrinsic to their mental well-being. In this balanced and thoughtful book John Swinton explores the connections between mental health or illness and spirituality and draws on these to provide practical guidance for people working in the mental health field. He analyses a range of models of mental health care provision that will enable carers to increase their awareness of aspects of spirituality in their caring strategies. Using a critical evidence-based and interdisciplinary approach to contemporary mental health practice, Swinton explores the therapeutic significance of spirituality from the perspectives of both carers and service-users, looking at mental health problems such as psychotic disorder and depression, Alzheimer's disease and bipolar disorder. He also provides a critical review of existing literature in the field to place spirituality in contemporary theory and practice.

John Swinton

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