On the Way
Religious Experience and Common Life in the Gospels and Letters of Paul
About This Book
Overview
This quest for meaning and purpose often starts with personal encounter—the kind of transformative experience that results in a commitment to new ways of living. These new commitments yield communities: a common life with shared goals and practices. In turn, these communities can bring about more opportunities for personal encounter and transformative experience.
This pattern of personal encounter and communal commitment is evident even in the ancient texts and world of early Christians. In On the Way: Religious Experience and Common Life in the Gospels and Letters of Paul, Kevin McCruden explores this dynamic with rigor and religious sensitivity. By examining the historical critical, and theological significance of the four Gospels and the undisputed Pauline letters, McCruden makes space to explore the link between religious experience and communal life. This unique approach is aided by chapter summaries, review and reflection questions, and definitions throughout the book. Accessible, readable, and immediately relevant to the lives of students, On the Way offers a way into the New Testament studies that invites students to consider encounter, transformation, and community as it’s reflected in both Scripture and their lives.
Details
| Weight | .55 lbs |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 5.375 × 1 × 8.25 in |
| Print ISBN | 978-1-59982-793-3 |
| Format | Softcover |
| Item # | 7093 |
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Customer Reviews
Kevin McCruden’s introduction to the four Gospels and letters of Paul combines a thorough familiarity with serious scholarship and a sensitivity to the important questions that new readers bring to these ancient texts. Within a framework defined by religious experience and the common life and with a view to their impact on modern interpreters, McCruden offers a sensitive reading rich in insight. His work is a superb tool for introducing undergraduates to the critical study of the New Testament.
Professors of New Testament as well as leaders of Bible study groups often find themselves searching for outside sources in the biblical field that go beyond the strictly academic analysis of the New Testament texts to address the personal experience of the community members and how that holds coherence with our current reality.
It is precisely for this reason that Kevin McCruden’s On the Way distinguishes itself from other scholarly introductions to the Gospels and the letters of Paul. Without any mitigation of the scholarly knowledge necessary for the understanding of each document, and with his gift for gracefully communicating erudition in a smooth readable style, McCruden trains his special focus on those most pertinent texts that evince the convert’s personal life and his or her desire to commit to community, and then moves to discussions of contemporary heroes and issues of religio-socio-political recent history.
As a result, McCruden effectively connects the Gospels and letters of Paul to our own world, as vibrant conversation partners from across the millennia, where we find common ground in their evidence of personal transformation and a community commitment that becomes a passion and joy.
Kevin McCruden has convincingly traced the thread that runs through a significant portion of the canonical New Testament, the four Gospels, and the undisputed letters of Paul. Each of these books originated in the lived experience of the communal encounter of the Risen Christ, shared by its author and immediate audience. By identifying the power of the shared religious experience of the communities of the New Testament in all its diversity, McCruden has opened a horizon for contemporary readers to understand more deeply their own encounter with the same Christ. A wide audience that includes students, teachers, and pastors will benefit from his insightful, focused, and lucid reading of the Gospels and Paul.
In On the Way, McCruden consistently offers insightful interpretations of the relationship between the religious experience of God and living life in community as this relationship is reflected in the four Gospels and the letters of Paul. He writes in an enviably clear and delightful style. The reader not only learns a great deal but does so with pleasure. McCruden has a knack for clarifying without oversimplifying.
About the Author
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface for Teachers
Chapter 1 Religious Experience and the Common Life
Chapter 2 Encountering Mark: The Way of Messiahship and the Way of Discipleship
Chapter 3 Encountering Matthew: Jesus as Teacher of Living in the Kingdom of Heaven
Chapter 4 Encountering Luke: The Journey of Faith in Community
Chapter 5 Encountering John: The Mission of the Word of God in the Lives of the Children of God
Chapter 6 Encountering Paul: Reflections on Reconstructing the Historical Apostle
Chapter 7 Religious Experience and Common Life in the Letters of Paul: Participation in Christ and Ethical Transformation
Chapter 8 Common Life in Crisis: Paul’s Response in Letters to the Corinthians and Romans
Index
Professional Reviews
ON THE WAY: RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE AND COMMON LIFE IN THE GOSPELS AND LETTERS OF PAUL . By Kevin B. McCruden . Winona, MN: Anselm Academic , 2020 . Pp. 209. Paper, $19.95.
Modern introductions to the NT at times devolve into amateur histories of early Christianity. Such surveys tend to treat NT literature as mere fodder for historical reconstruction. They focus on the realities depicted in the text, as opposed to those presumed by the text’s existence. McCruden deftly avoids this foible by treating the NT documents as literary articulations of shared religious experience. His purview consists less of personages and events described in such texts and more on the communities behind them whose lived experience gave rise to the “articulations” which comprise the NT. For this reason, his surveys of various NT documents, which include the four canonical gospels and six of Paul’s uncontested letters, are self- consciously quite selective. Each chapter, however, contains enough scholarly signaling to orient readers to the vast land-scape of modern NT studies. Especially helpful in McCruden’s work are his uniform chapter conclusions, which feature a summary, questions for review and reflection, and a bibliography. Ultimately, with no chapter exceeding thirty pages and with its elegant yet accessible prose, McCruden’s work is an invaluable introduction to the NT for students and lay readers alike. While readers accustomed to the types of surveys mentioned above might shiver at McCruden’s methodology (i.e., using the experiences of the texts’ original “users” as an overriding interpretive lens), his treatment of the NT as an articulation of religious experience appears quite congenial to confessional use. In short, college and graduate school professors, Christian teachers and ministers, and lay readers interested in Christian history and spirituality would be hard pressed to find a NT introduction more appealing than McCruden’s.
Jonah Bissell Freeport, ME
Kevin B. McCruden, On the Way: Religious Experience and Common Life in the Gospels and Letters of Paul. Winona, MN: Anselm Academic (www.anselmacademic.org), 2020. Pages, 209. Paper, $19.95
Here is a valuable study that bridges the space between a historical-critical analysis of the gospels and Pauline writings and the quest for religious meaning and spirituality. McCruden, professor of religious studies at Gonzaga University, centers on the fundamental components of religious experience of the transcendent and the striving to form community. In Christian terms the experience of the transcendent—an experience that is transformative and leads to community—comes throughout the person and mission of Jesus Christ. This core belief is traced in an examination of the four gospels and Paul’s Key letters. The author’s goal is to present an introduction to these New Testament writings that will also meet the religious quest of contemporary students.