About this item
Highlights
- To the modern ear, the concept of cursing sounds otherworldly, mystical, abhorrent.
- About the Author: Trevor Laurence is Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence and Executive Director at the Cateclesia Institute.
- 416 Pages
- Religion + Beliefs, Biblical Studies
Description
About the Book
With scholars, students, and trained clergy in view, Cursing with God aims to generate a recovery of the imprecatory psalms in Christian worship and piety.Book Synopsis
To the modern ear, the concept of cursing sounds otherworldly, mystical, abhorrent. For some the idea may evoke images of terror--images not of God but of the devil. How then are Christians to understand the imprecatory psalms, which are violent and, for many, disturbing prayers for judgment that seem to contravene Christ's command to "love thy enemy"?
Drawing together redemptive-historical biblical theology and narrative ethics, Trevor Laurence's Cursing with God assesses the imprecatory psalms and the viability of their performance by the Christian church. Laurence argues that prayerful enactment of the imprecatory psalms is an obligatory exercise of the church's God-given calling as a royal priesthood in God's story. This study evaluates the imprecations within their intertextually constructed narrative world, presenting a biblical theological reading of their petitions as the faithful prayers of the royal-priestly son of God whose vocation is to guard God's temple-kingdom from the forces that would defile it and to subdue the earth as sacred space. Attention to the New Testament's polyvalent interaction with the imprecatory psalms discloses how the New Testament narrates God's work in Christ with reference to the figures and structures of the imprecations.
With the resultant biblical theological synthesis as a narrative framework for ethical reflection, Cursing with God culminates with a proposal for faithful Christian cursing that coheres with the church's royal-priestly vocation and inter-advent location in God's narrative and contends that imprecatory performance has the dynamic capacity to stimulate faith, hope, and love while galvanizing the church to work for a more just world. With scholars, students, and trained clergy in view, Cursing with God aims to generate a recovery of the imprecatory psalms in Christian worship and piety.
Review Quotes
...a refeshing read that combines both the significance of God's justice and the importance of the right motivations for offering such prayers to God...Reading it could transform how you pray in very difficult situations of violent persecution and oppression.
--Richard P. Belcher Jr., Reformed Theological Seminary "Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society"...The work will be a valuable dialogue partner for anyone concerned with the Christian adoption of the Psalms as prayer.
--SimonPO. Stocks "Journal for the Study of the Old Testament""I would nevertheless wholeheartedly recommend Cursing with God to anyone looking for academic or pastoral guidance regarding the imprecatory psalms. Moreover, I would more generally commend the book to any student interested in the practices of biblical theology and Christian ethical reflection."
--Richard M. Blaylock, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Western Seminary. "Reading Religion"About the Author
Trevor Laurence is Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence and Executive Director at the Cateclesia Institute. The Theopolis Institute awarded Laurence's doctoral dissertation, on which this book is based, the 2021 James B. Jordan Prize for outstanding work in biblical theology.