Download or read book An Atheist in the Choir Loft written by Robert Simpson and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is for anyone who has ever given serious thought to questioning the extraordinary claims of the Christian faith. For those who have harboured suspicions about the idea of a loving protector god; or the idea that an eternal paradise awaits us after death; or that there is a divine purpose to our lives this book will be a thought provoking read. The author was once a devout believer in the tenets of the Christian faith. He is now a contented atheist. An Atheist in the Choir Loft puts forward an honest account of what one firm believer discovered when he allowed himself to step back, separate his religious convictions from his identity, and objectively scrutinize the beliefs he had held for most of his life.
Download or read book An Atheist in the Choir Loft written by Robert Simpson and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is for anyone who has ever given serious thought to questioning the extraordinary claims of the Christian faith. For those who have harbored suspicions about the idea of a loving protector God; or the idea that an eternal paradise awaits us after death; or that there is a divine purpose to our lives – this book will be athought provoking read. The author was once a devout believer in the tenets of the Christian faith. He is now a contented atheist. An Atheist in the Choir Loft puts forward an honest account of what one firm believer discovered when he allowed himself to step back, separate his religious convictions from his identity, and objectively scrutinize the beliefs he had held for most of his life.
Download or read book A Skeptic s Guide to Arts in the Church written by Mark Coppenger and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-09-19 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evangelical discourse on the role of arts in the church can be radioactive, and the twenty-one contributors to this book walk right into the "hot zone" to pick up on twenty contentious questions. The volume is a series of written dialogues, each one keyed to a cranky question, one that a skeptic might raise (hence the title). Herein, the gainsayers are taken seriously and given their voice. They even find support in some of the contributors' comments. But apologists for greater use of arts and artists in the church have their say, and things can get edgy. Topics range from the biblically august (the Second Commandment; the regulative principle; Great Commission priorities) to the prudential (expense; "bohemian" influence; weaker brothers) to the programmatic (Christmas festivities; committee makeup). Some of the parties to the discussion are church staffers (pastors and ministers of music); some are professors; several are doctoral students; one is a college student; another, a gallery owner; yet another, a denominational ethicist; and there's a Canadian and a Korean in the mix. The collection of speakers and opinions is illuminating and bracing, and the fruit of their thinking makes for great reading and discussion.
Download or read book Eddy Eddy written by Kate De Goldi and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A series of earthquakes exposes the fault lines in a teenager’s unconventional life in a powerful crossover novel that explores raw emotion with wit and warmth. After the deadly 2011 earthquakes in Christ Church, New Zealand, Eddy Smallbone must navigate the ruins of his hometown along with the ruins of his personal life. A Catholic-school dropout itching to break free of the eccentric uncle who raised him and newly mourning the death of his dog, Eddy starts his own dog-walking and pet-sitting business. Through his work, he meets and cares for an extraordinary cast of characters, including a precocious seven-year-old girl and a nun and her unruly parrot. Meanwhile, Eddy’s former girlfriend, Boo, is back, and their relationship fraught, to say the least. And his best friend, Thomas Moore, who lives in a cabin behind his parents’ house, is suffering from a mysterious and devastating illness. Layered and resonant, intellectually rigorous, and as soothing as it is shocking, this sophisticated literary novel for mature teens plumbs the depths of trauma and healing. With its sensitive take on important issues—including grief and faith, unplanned pregnancy, and mental illness and self-harm—Eddy’s story will speak volumes to adult readers also.
Download or read book My Life With the Spirits written by Lon Milo DuQuette and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 1999-01-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rare glimpse into the fascinating, sometimes terrifying, sometimes hilarious world of a modern ceremonial magician. Hailed by critics as the most entertaining author and one of the most widely respected members of the magick community, Lon Milo DuQuette provides a beacon for aspiring magicians everywhere.
Download or read book Wake Up and Die Right written by Ben Foster and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-06-08 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How might it happen that a boy of five or six would be tortured by the question of the existence of God? How would this happen, even if that boy were raised to be an atheist by atheist parents? If the boy was never baptized and never taken to church? Was never told about any religion? This book records the spiritual autobiography of a boy who, raised in a household which discouraged belief in anything religious, nevertheless came at a young age to worry about the place of God in his life and family, and suffered from intense fears that he would be condemned to hell because he had not been baptized. Looking back, here is the way the author describes his early years: “I grew up in a household with no place for God or religion. My mother and father were atheists. They did not believe in any divinities, and certainly not in the divinity of Jesus. Perhaps like some of their intellectual friends, they dismissed the idea that Jesus of Nazareth ever existed. This was in America in the 1930’s and 40’s, a time when scientists and intellectuals challenged the claims of Christianity. For my parents the questions of who Jesus was and whether he had actually walked the earth were irrelevant. “Is there a God in heaven? Is creation a gift to us from God? Does God love and care for his children? These were not questions my parents would entertain. Such statements had been denounced as meaningless by the scientists and the rationalists, who insisted that all discussions of God are pointless.” The author recalls his childhood swept by the cold winds of atheism as especially painful because his mother, suffering from the loss of meaning of the atheist’s vision, sank into a deep depression and then into madness. She suffered a series of nervous breakdowns and spent most of the author’s early years in and out of mental hospitals. As a child the author felt “spiritually bankrupt.” He felt he “counted for little in my parents’ world. I counted for even less in the larger world. I looked out at the vast universe that the scientists described and saw it as a frightening place. Darkness and frozen space extended for millions of miles in all directions, and there was nothing out there to comfort us or give our lives meaning.” The author was born into the Great Depression and went off to grammar school during World War II, both events exerting a terrible impact on his family, contributing to his mother’s mental imbalance and his own feelings of insecurity. “I was four years old,” the author writes, “when World War II began. As the war grew more widespread and destructive, I watched with terror the newsreel reports of Nazi bombings. I listened horrified to the newscasts on the radio. Every week fresh issues of Time and Life magazines entered our house, and they brought new images of cities in flames or bombed to smoking rubble. There were close-up photos of the dead on the battlefield, of soldiers bleeding to death, of bodies on a beach. “I recall in particular a photo of a boy my age standing in the ruins of his apartment building somewhere in Europe. He looks lost, frightened, and utterly alone. He wonders if his mother, missing since the bombing, is alive in the ruins. Rubble and twisted metal are all that remain of the city street he had called his home. “Turning the pages of that Life magazine, a terrible fear and sorrow seized me. I identified with the boy. I feared what had happened to him would happen to me.” The author speaks of how, from a source he could not name, powerful religious emotions, primarily fear of a God of Wrath, took hold of him and “initiated me into a secretive life I kept hidden from my father. The fears were brought into focus when I casually used words that had a religious meaning I didn’t understand. The words were these: ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ “I had heard other kids utter these words when they wanted to impress one another with the truth of an assertion. They often said them when it seemed fairl
Download or read book Long Old Road written by Horace Cayton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the time that he ran away to sea at sixteen, until he graduated from the University of Washington, Horace R. Cayton was a messman on a freighter, an unknowing handyman in an Alaskan brothel, a juvenile delinquent and inmate of a reform school, a dock worker and steward on a passenger liner, and a deputy in the sheriff's office of King County, Washington. Born in Seattle, a city then uniquely free from racial tensions and prejudices, Cayton found the privileged, secure, middle-class position of his well-to-do parents ineffectual against the gradual spread of racism that was sweeping America. His disarmingly honest autobiography is the ever-absorbing record of an intelligent, sensitive, and proud man's attempts to find identity in a confusing and conflicting chaos of black and white, in a nation that, although dedicated to equality, somehow managed to deny this ideal by almost every action. Although his turbulent life was complicated by the color barrier--often resulting in reverses and frustrations that have rendered him close to a breakdown--this alone is not what makes Cayton's book such captivating reading. Wholly lacking in self-pity or special pleading, Horace Cayton has written a personal narrative of unfailing interest on any number of scores, a book that ranks with the best of American autobiographical writing. For it manages to remain highly critical without once resorting to bitterness; to be filled with hope, though not always hopeful; and brims with compassion and bemused and acute insights into a troubled society. It is a telling, almost poetic tribute to the resiliency of black culture.
Download or read book A Gift of Angels written by and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2010-09-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It rises suddenly out of the Sonoran Desert landscape, towering over the tallest tree or cactus, a commanding building with a sensuous dome, elliptical vaults, and sturdy bell towers. There is nothing else like it around, nor does it seem there should be. This incongruity of setting is what strikes first-time visitors to Mission San Xavier del Bac. This great church is of another place and another time, while its beauty is universal and timeless. Mission San Xavier del Bac is a two-century-old Spanish church in southern Arizona located just a few miles from downtown Tucson, a metropolis of more than half a million people in the American Southwest. A National Historic Landmark since 1963, the missionÕs graceful baroque art and architecture have drawn visitors from all over the world. Now Bernard FontanaÑthe leading expert on San XavierÑand award-winning photographer Edward McCain team up to bring us a comprehensive view of the mission as weÕve never seen it before. With 200 stunning full-color photographs and incisive text illuminating the religious, historical, and motivational context of these images, A Gift of Angels is a must-have for tourists, scholars, and other visitors to San Xavier. From its glorious architecture all the way down to the finest details of its art, Mission San Xavier del Bac is indeed a gift of angels.
Download or read book Blame it on the Bet written by L.E. Rico and published by Entangled: Bliss. This book was released on 2017-09-11 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to Mayhem, Minnesota, where the cats wear sweaters, the local priest dispenses dating advice, and you can find your fortune in the bottom of a pie tin... When her family's pub is threatened with foreclosure, Hennessy O'Halloran and her three sisters are determined to raise enough money to keep it out of the hands of the Los Angeles real-estate developer trying to raze it and replace it with a—no, thank you—multiplex theater. Bryan Truitt always gets what he wants. And what he wants is the sweet corner property on Mayhem's Main Street where O'Halloran's Pub sits. But his "quick business" turns into more than he bargains for when he meets the feisty Hennessy. Next thing he knows, he's betting her he can outlast Mayhem's punishing winter in time to make the pub his, or he'll gift it to her...for free. Hennessy knows better than to flirt with the enemy. But suddenly Bryan's not sure which he wants more...the property or the woman who owns it. Each book in the Whiskey Sisters series is STANDALONE: * Blame it on the Bet * Mischief and Mayhem * Mistletoe in Mayhem Boxed Set
Download or read book In the Stars the Glory of His Eyes written by K. Troy and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2022-10-01 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After twenty-five years of leading pilgrim groups to Catholic shrines across Europe, tour guide K. Troy has seen it all—long lines, strikes, broken-down buses, rebellious tourists, and countless experiences of God's immense providence. Crafted with wit and charm, In the Stars the Glory of His Eyes gives a first-hand account of Christ's hand at work in all the beautiful messiness of pilgrimage. The stories unfold in some of the most evocative Catholic settings: Vatican City, the Holy House of Nazareth in Loreto, the shrine of Saint Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo, the Carmel of Saint Thérèse in Lisieux, the Cathedral of Wawel in Krakow, the magnificent Abbey of Montecassino, and many other sacred places. Traveling alongside these Irish pilgrims—and helped by Troy's rich historical knowledge—the reader will see these famous shrines with new eyes. With humour and a sense of wonder, the book also gives fascinating details from the lives of such great saints as Mother Teresa, John Paul II, Thérèse of Lisieux, Padre Pio, Catherine of Siena, and many others. Troy shows that through pilgrimage, it is still possible to have a personal encounter, even a friendship, with these heroes of the Church.
Download or read book Report of the Annual Meeting of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association written by and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Obedience to the Call of Art written by Red Jordan Arobateau and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ongoing Journal discusses aspects of oil/acrylic fine arts painting and other topics encountered in his daily journey.
Download or read book The Heaven Promise written by Scot McKnight and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heaven. Eternity. The Afterlife. When you mention any of these concepts, people of all ages and from all walks of life are certain to have opinions. How can we know for sure what heaven will be like? According to New Testament scholar and popular author Scot McKnight, all we need to do is turn to Scripture to answer our questions. McKnight helps you examine God’s Word in order to discover what awaits you on the other side of the grave and find answers to the most frequently asked questions regarding heaven, including: 1. What about Near Death Experiences? 2. What about Rewards in Heaven? 3. Who Will Be in Heaven? 4. Is God Fair? 5. Will There Be Families in Heaven? 6. What about Children Who Die? 7. What about Cremation? 8. What about Purgatory? 9. Will There Be Pets in Heaven? 10. Why Believe in Heaven? Heaven isn’t the construction of a fairy tale or some mystical narrative. It’s very real; it’s very good; and it’s very much the fulfillment of God’s promise to you.
Download or read book Nightshade written by Annalena McAfee and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lean, taut novel about an artist—a painter—at the height of her career, about the art world, about love, fidelity, fame, betrayal, and the large choices and prices paid in the quest for art for art's sake. By the much-admired author of The Spoiler ("cutting wit and razor-sharp writing"—NYTBR; "a dark, sparkly gem of a book"—Christopher Buckley) and Hame ("I couldn't put it down"—Patrick McGrath). Eve Laing, celebrated artist, once the muse of legendary painter and "monstre sacré" Florian Kiš, is a photorealist painter of flowers at the peak of her career, with her work in international galleries and museums. Now Eve is embarking on her most ambitious work to date—seven enormous, elaborate panels of the world's deadliest plants. In psychic preparation, she has taken a wrecking ball to her opulent high-wire life, jettisoning her marriage for a beautiful young lover, a drifter half her age, who seems to share her single-minded artistic vision. As the novel opens out, Eve is on a late-night walk through London, setting out from her former family home in the well-heeled west of the city, back to her studio, a converted factory in the grittier east, where her recently completed masterpiece hangs and where a fatal reckoning may await. . . . Eve makes her way through the city and reflects on her life today and as it was years ago, and considers the large choices she has made and their repercussions. As she walks, she summons up her wild art college days in London; her New York years as a tyro artist; her vicious rivalry with her college roommate, now a celebrated figure on the international conceptual art scene whose full-blown success and recognition still infuriates and rankles Eve's sense of rightness with the world. And as she weighs what's been gained and what's been lost in pursuit of her art, a sense of dread settles over her, one she cannot shake, and as Nightshade moves to its dark, shocking end, it explores large questions--about ambition . . . artistic truth . . . betrayal . . . about bad people making good art . . . about the consequences of fame . . . and the devastating price of love.
Download or read book Annual Report written by National Lumber Manufacturers Association and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The New Music Review and Church Music Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Big Book of Church Jokes written by Barbour Publishing and published by Barbour Publishing. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who couldn't use a good laugh these days? Well, here are hundreds of clean, good-natured jokes centered on that very important place we visit each week: church! The Big Book of Church Jokes is a brand-new collection, topically arranged into 20 sections relating to pastors, deacons, people in the pews, Sunday school, buildings and grounds, missionaries, the spiritual gifts, old-time church, weddings, funerals, heaven, and more. Plus, you'll love the quality Christian cartoons included. The Big Book of Church Jokes is perfect for personal reading enjoyment, or for sermon or speech preparation. It's a big book for a reasonable price--only $9.97!
