Power and the Spirit of God: Toward an Experience-Based Pneumatology

by Bernard Cooke

Overview

In this book the distinguished Roman Catholic theologian Bernard Cooke reassesses the long-standing Christian description of divine power. The word "power" evokes the spheres of economic, political, and social life. Cooke suggests, however, that the deepest questions about conflicting powers are theological and concern what Christians have traditionally referred to as "the Holy Spirit" and "salvation."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195174519
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/28/2004
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	9.58(w) x 6.46(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

Bernard Cooke is Loyola Professor of Theology Emeritus at the College of the Holy Cross and currently teaches at the Loyola University New Orleans Institute for Ministry. He has taught at numerous universities in the United States and Canada and has lectured widely in North America and abroad. He is the author of more than twenty books including, most recently, The Future of the Eucharist (1997).

Editorial Reviews

"Power and the Spirit of God is an important and challenging word in what should be an ongoing converstaion. Some of the book's imaginative content may very well be the work of the Spirit who is creative power." — PNEUMA: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies

"The intellectual acumen of C.'s theology of the Spirit does not mask the prayerful reflection pervading the text—a quality that places the work in line with previous generations of Christian theological scholarship. Rather than merely pointing a direction for Pneumatology, C. has, in my estimation, fully developed one by initially arguing for the equation of Spirit=power=truth (the dispelling of lies), and then executing a prophetic effort at such truth-telling throughout and confronting serious challenges with hope." —Theological Studies

"Cooke has provided us with a highly readable and original addition to the contemporary discussion of pneumatology. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in that discussion for years to come." —Anglican Theological Review

"Bernard Cooke has a reputation for writing elegant theology that combines deep learning and wisdom about western history and culture with keen pastoral and practical sensibilities. Here he develops a genuinely fresh experience-based approach to pneumatology, which ponders, with great care and insight, a wide range of manifestations of power-in nature and in history, personal, social, and institutional, political, economic, aesthetic, and religious. These are the arenas in everyday human experience where one must discern between destructive powers and the power of the Spirit of God. Each trajectory of his panorama tracks movements of growth and decline, struggles between forms and constellations of power, culminating in a meditation on the power of love fulfilled in the divine embrace. A fascinating study."—Bradford Hinze, Department of Theology, Marquette University

"This is an important book that integrates developments in the discipline of pneumatology with pressing social, political, cultural, and ecclesial matters. It is valuable both as a model of an experience-based pneumatology and as a contribution to the theology of power. It can stimulate reflection on a wide range of issues and suggests a variety of avenues for further theological reflection and development."—Spiritus

"At a time of scandalous misuse of power, Power and the Spirit of God offers an indispensable source of hope to any one who believes that oppression and domination must not have the last word. In a compelling and prophetic analysis of the use of power, Cooke proposes the Spirit of God as the divine loving embrace empowering all authentic human experience."—Gary Macy, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Diego

From the Publisher