Rowan Williams Books

For all who appreciate great poetry, one of the world's best-loved Christian writers and poets reflects on 100 of his favourite poems and why they have the power to change us.

The collection features three plays by Rowan Williams, showcasing his multifaceted talents as a poet and critic alongside his role as a religious leader. Each play delves into the intricate relationship between language and imagery, inviting readers to reflect on the deeper meanings and emotional landscapes that words can convey. Through these works, Williams offers a unique exploration of spirituality and the human experience.

There is an unresolved tension in Dostoevsky's novels - a tension between believing and not believing in the existence of God. This book enables us to consider the nature of God in the 21st Century through the lens of Dostoevsky's novels.

Presents an introduction to the Christian faith which explores the key themes of Christian belief and the reality of living them.

Short guide for both believers and non-believers

Rowan Williams addresses profound theological and societal questions from the late twentieth century, blending academic, spiritual, and political insights. Drawing from two decades of teaching and pastoral experience, this collection reflects his engagement with both historical theological traditions and contemporary issues in theology and philosophy. It serves as a significant contribution to understanding the interplay between faith and modern societal challenges.

The Eastern Christian tradition is filled with theological and spiritual riches. In Passions of the Soul, Rowan Williams opens up the great classics of Eastern Christian writing to show how it can help us to understand and cope with the ups and downs of modern life. With compelling and illuminating insight, he shows the cost of living in a culture that is theologically and philosophically undernourished, working with a diminished and trivialized picture of the human self. The Eastern tradition teaches us how to develop our self-knowledge and awareness, so that we can relate to the world without selfish illusions. Only then can we be ready for our eyes to be opened to God, and avoid destructive patterns of behaviour. Only in this way can we understand the kind of people we need to become.

The Wound of Knowledge is a penetrating psychological and intellectual analysis of Christian spirituality. schovat popis

Rowan Williams explores the essential meaning and purpose of St Mark's Gospel for complete beginners - as well as for those who've read the Gospel many times before and want to see it in a fresh light.

The Edge of Words is Rowan Williams' first book since standing down as Archbishop of Canterbury. Invited to give the prestigious 2014 Gifford Lectures, Dr Williams has produced a scholarly but eminently accessible account of the possibilities of speaking about God – taking as his point of departure the project of natural theology. Dr Williams enters into dialogue with thinkers as diverse as Augustine and Simone Weil and authors such as Joyce, Hardy, Burgess and Hoban in what is a compelling essay about the possibility of language about God.

The great work of Welsh literature, translated in full for the first time in more than 100 years by two of its country’s foremost poetsTennyson portrayed him, and wrote at least one poem under his name. Robert Graves was fascinated by what he saw as his work’s connection to a lost world of deeply buried folkloric memory. He is a shapeshifter; a seer; a chronicler of battles fought, by sword and with magic, between the ancient kingdoms of the British Isles; a bridge between old Welsh mythologies and the new Christian theology; a sixth-century Brythonic bard; and a legendary collective project spanning the centuries up to The Book of Taliesin’s compilation in fourteenth-century North Wales. He is, above all, no single “he.”The figure of Taliesin is a mystery. But of the variety and quality of the poems written under his sign, of their power as exemplars of the force of ecstatic poetic imagination, and of the fascinating window they offer us onto a strange and visionary world, there can be no question. In the first volume to gather all of the poems from The Book of Taliesin since 1915, Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams’s accessible translation makes these outrageous, arrogant, stumbling and joyful poems available to a new generation of readers.

The first complete collection of the works of the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Rowan Williams explores the essentials of Paul's thought for complete beginners - as well as for those who've read Paul's letters many times before and want to see them in a fresh light.

In many ways, we seem to be living in wintry times at present in the Western world. In this new book, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a noted scholar of Eastern Christianity, introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era, that suggest where we might look for fresh light and warmth. He shows how this rich and diverse world opens up new ways of thinking about spirit and body, prayer and action, worship and social transformation, which go beyond the polarisations we take for granted. Taking in the world of the great spiritual anthology, the Philokalia, and the explorations of Russian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, discussing the witness of figures like Maria Skobtsova, murdered in a German concentration camp for her defence of Jewish refugees, and the challenging theologies of modern Greek thinkers like John Zizioulas and Christos Yannaras, Rowan Williams opens the door to a 'climate and landscape of our humanity that can indeed be warmed and transfigured'. This is an original and illuminating vision of a Christian world still none too familiar to Western believers and even to students of theology, showing how the deep-rooted themes of Eastern Christian thought can prompt new perspectives on our contemporary crises of imagination and hope.

Rowan Williams explores the importance and influence of Benedict's Rule in the modern era.

The book highlights the dialogue and camaraderie among different Christian traditions, including Roman Catholic, Methodist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Anglican. It offers a significant theological exploration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, emphasizing its interactions and relationships with other Christian denominations. Through these conversations, the work fosters a deeper understanding of shared beliefs and differences within the broader Christian community.

How do we see and act justly in the world? In what ways can we ethically respond to social and economic crisis? How do we address the desperation that exists in the new forms of violence and atrocity? These are all questions at the heart of Justice and Love, a philosophical dialogue on how to imagine and act in a more just world by theologian Rowan Williams and philosopher Mary Zournazi.Looking at different religious and philosophical traditions, Williams and Zournazi argue for the re-invigoration and enriching of the language of justice and, by situating justice alongside other virtues, they extend our everyday vocabularies on what is just.Drawing on examples ranging from the Paris Attacks, the Syrian War, and the European Migrant Crisis to Brexit and the US Presidential elections, Williams and Zournazi reflect on justice as a a condition of being, a responsiveness to others, rather than a cold distribution of fact. By doing so, they explore the love and patience needed for social healing and the imagination required for new ways of relating and experiencing the world.

Be a fly on the wall as two friends - one the former Archbishop of Canterbury, the other 'one of America's leading voices on religion and culture' (BBC Radio) - discuss their shared passions and interests.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer gehörte zu den wenigen deutschsprachigen Theologen seiner Zeit, die schon früh Auslandserfahrungen sammelten und in der internationalen ökumenischen Bewegung mitarbeiteten. Gleichzeitig unterscheidet sich seine Zeit grundlegend von unserer, die durch nie gekannte globale Vernetzungsstrukturen - das internet und neue Kommunikationsmethoden, schnelle Trasportmöglichkeiten sowie unlösbares ökonomisches und politisches Verwobensein - geprägt ist. Der Band, der renommierte Bonhoeffer-Forschende aus der ganzen Welt versammelt, untersuht seine Theologie im Hinblick auf Fragen des christlichen Glaubensvollzugs, des christlichen Zeugnisses in einer pluralen Welt und des christichen Dienstes angesichts viefältiger politischer und gesellischaftlicher Herausforderungen unserer Zeit.

Křest, Bible, eucharistie, modlitba. Esej o křesťanské identitě z pera někdejšího arcibiskupa z Canterbury. Co znamená by´t křesťan? Co odlišuje křesťanství od jiny´ch vyznání? Co je společné křesťanům všech míst a všech dob? Rowan Williams neodpovídá vy´kladem věroučny´ch článků, ale toho, co křesťané dělají: křtí — čtou Bibli — slaví večeři Páně — modlí se. Knížka jeho citlivě napsany´ch úvah, čerpající z pokladu společné křesťanské tradice, je přehledná a srozumitelná, současně však čtenáře zve na hlubinu a nespokojuje se s laciny´mi odpověďmi.