Download or read book God and Primordial People written by Paul Poulton and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-02-16 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern world is in a position to view the divine sculptor's work as no other generation has. Throughout previous generations many people believed that God created life, but preceding generations were not privy to the method and manner in which he worked--his modus operandi. We are now in that position, thanks to the fine work of archaeologists, geologists, paleontologists, and scientists, some of whom have faith in God: the Big Bang Theory itself was first proposed by a Christian priest, who was also a scientist. This explosion of verifiable information affects the way we view the Bible. God and Primordial People investigates and provides a cohesive picture of the Christian doctrine of the rise and fall of man and our salvation through Christ. The book moves through each relevant step in the chain from the first primordial human beings to the world we live in today.
Download or read book Gospel Discipleship Congregation Guide written by Michelle J. Morris and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each congregation has a unique mission field. Several tools for developing disciples and for engaging in discipleship are available to churches; however, the resources assume that the churches using them are similar to the church that created them. With Gospel Discipleship, individuals and churches learn how to engage in self-reflection, which then defines a path that fits their context. The discipleship path for each individual disciple is assessed and determined through the Gospel Discipleship Participant Guide while this Gospel Discipleship Congregation Guide guides the implemntation of the program and assesses the discipleship path for the congregation as a whole. Therefore, the program leader(s) needs the congregation guide while individual particpants need their own participant guide. With Gospel Discipleship, churches can identify a pathway for discipleship applied from one of the four Gospel storytellers: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each had a distinct approach to discipleship which can be applied to a given church's identity, vision, and mission. As disciples are encouraged by the church to step beyond the door and engage the needs of people, they can be sent forth confidently with an awareness of personal, unique gifts, and insights into the actual mission field where they participate with God in changing the world.
Download or read book Her First American written by Lore Segal and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed by the New York Times as coming “closer than anyone to writing The Great American Novel,” Lore Segal stuns with this passionate love story of a refugee from Hitler’s Europe and a witty, hard-drinking black intellectual For Ilka Weissnix, everything is new. Having recently arrived in the United States, she is determined to escape the immigrant communities of New York and boards a train headed west to discover “the real America.” She finds Carter Bayoux “sitting on a stool in a bar in the desert, across from the railroad.” Older, portly, experienced, and black, Carter is magnetic. To Ilka, he exemplifies the values and cultures of a changing America. In order to understand her new country and her new love, Ilka throws herself into Carter’s dizzying world, nurses him through his bouts of depression and his alcoholism, and becomes fascinated by stories of his amorous past. But Carter’s ghosts are ever present, and soon Ilka finds herself torn between saving him and saving her own future. With a foreword by Stanley Crouch, Her First American is the poignant story of an immigrant experience in a country of endless possibilities and of a rich and breathtaking love that is doomed from the start.
Download or read book Theogony written by Hesiod and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1999 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new, fully-annotated translation by a leading expert on Hesiodic poems combines accuracy with readability and includes an introduction and explanatory notes on these two works by one of the oldest known Greek poets. The Theogony contains a systematic genealogy and account of the struggles of the gods, and the Works and Days offers a compendium of moral and practical advice for a life of honest husbandry.
Download or read book The Holiness of God written by R.C. Sproul and published by NavPress. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central to God’s character is the quality of holiness. Yet, even so, most people are hard-pressed to define what God’s holiness precisely is. Many preachers today avoid the topic altogether because people today don’t quite know what to do with words like “awe” or “fear.” R. C. Sproul, in this classic work, puts the holiness of God in its proper and central place in the Christian life. He paints an awe-inspiring vision of God that encourages Christian to become holy just as God is holy. Once you encounter the holiness of God, your life will never be the same.
Download or read book Greek Gods Goddesses written by Britannica Educational Publishing and published by Britannica Educational Publishing. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Giving Western literature and art many of its most enduring themes and archetypes, Greek mythology and the gods and goddesses at its core are a fundamental part of the popular imagination. At the heart of Greek mythology are exciting stories of drama, action, and adventure featuring gods and goddesses, who, while physically superior to humans, share many of their weaknesses. Readers will be introduced to the many figures once believed to populate Mount Olympus as well as related concepts and facts about the Greek mythological tradition.
Download or read book When God Was a Bird written by Mark I. Wallace and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2019 NAUTILUS GOLD WINNER In a time of rapid climate change and species extinction, what role have the world’s religions played in ameliorating—or causing—the crisis we now face? Religion in general, and Christianity in particular, appears to bear a disproportionate burden for creating humankind’s exploitative attitudes toward nature through unearthly theologies that divorce human beings and their spiritual yearnings from their natural origins. In this regard, Christianity has become an otherworldly religion that views the natural world as “fallen,” as empty of signs of God’s presence. And yet, buried deep within the Christian tradition are startling portrayals of God as the beaked and feathered Holy Spirit – the “animal God,” as it were, of historic Christian witness. Through biblical readings, historical theology, continental philosophy, and personal stories of sacred nature, this book recovers the model of God in Christianity as a creaturely, avian being who signals the presence of spirit in everything, human and more-than-human alike. Mark Wallace’s recovery of the bird-God of the Bible signals a deep grounding of faith in the natural world. The moral implications of nature-based Christianity are profound. All life is deserving of humans’ care and protection insofar as the world is envisioned as alive with sacred animals, plants, and landscapes. From the perspective of Christian animism, the Earth is the holy place that God made and that humankind is enjoined to watch over and cherish in like manner. Saving the environment, then, is not a political issue on the left or the right of the ideological spectrum, but, rather, an innermost passion shared by all people of faith and good will in a world damaged by anthropogenic warming, massive species extinction, and the loss of arable land, potable water, and breathable air. To Wallace, this passion is inviolable and flows directly from the heart of Christian teaching that God is a carnal, fleshy reality who is promiscuously incarnated within all things, making the whole world a sacred embodiment of God’s presence, and worthy of our affectionate concern. This beautifully and accessibly written book shows that “Christian animism” is not a strange oxymoron, but Christianity’s natural habitat. Challenging traditional Christianity’s self-definition as an other-worldly religion, Wallace paves the way for a new Earth-loving spirituality grounded in the ancient image of an animal God.
Download or read book The Illusion of God s Presence written by John C. Wathey and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2016 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential feature of religious experience across many cultures is the intuitive feeling of God's presence. More than any rituals or doctrines, it is this experience that anchors religious faith, yet it has been largely ignored in the scientific literature on religion.Starting with a vivid narrative account of the life-threatening hike that triggered his own mystical experience, biologist John Wathey takes the reader on a scientific journey to find the sources of religious feeling and the illusion of God's presence. His book delves into the biological origins of this compelling feeling, attributing it to innate neural circuitry that evolved to promote the mother-child bond. Dr. Wathey argues that evolution has programmed the infant brain to expect the presence of a loving being who responds to the child's needs. As the infant grows into adulthood, this innate feeling is eventually transferred to the realm of religion, where it is reactivated through the symbols, imagery, and rituals of worship. The author interprets our various conceptions of God in biological terms as illusory supernormal stimuli that fill an emotional and cognitive vacuum left over from infancy. These insights shed new light on some of the most vexing puzzles of religion, like the popular belief in a god who is judgmental and punishing, yet also unconditionally loving; the extraordinary tenacity of faith; the greater religiosity of women relative to men; religious obsessions with sex; the mysterious compulsion to pray; the seemingly irrepressible feminine attributes of God, even in traditionally patriarchal religions; and the strange allure of cults. Finally, Dr. Wathey considers the hypothesis that religion evolved to foster reproductive success, arguing that, in an age of potentially ruinous overpopulation, magical thinking has become a luxury we can no longer afford, one that distracts us from urgent threats to our planet.Deeply researched yet elegantly written in a jargon-free and accessible style, this book presents a compelling interpretation of the evolutionary origins of spirituality and religion.
Download or read book Constructing Ethnic Identity in 1 Peter written by Janette H. Ok and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Janette H. Ok argues that 1 Peter characterizes Christian identity as an ethnic identity, as it holds the potential to engender a powerful sense of solidarity for readers who are experiencing social alienation as a result of their conversion. The epistle describes and delineates a communal identity based on Jewish traditions, and in response to the hostility its largely Gentile Anatolian addressees are experiencing as religious minorities in the Roman empire. In order to help construct a collective understanding of what it means to be a Christian in contrast to non-Christians, Ok argues that the author of the epistle employs “ethnic reasoning” or logic. Consequently, the writer of 1 Peter makes use of various literary and rhetorical strategies, including establishing a sense of shared history and ancestry, delineating boundaries, stereotyping and negatively characterizing “the other,” emphasizing distinct conduct or a common culture, and applying ethnic categories to his addressees. Ok further highlights how these strategies bear striking resemblances to what modern anthropologists and sociologists describe as the characteristics of ethnic groups. In depicting Christian identity as an ethnic identity akin to the unique religious-ethnic identity of the Jews, Ok concludes that 1 Peter seeks to foster internal cohesion among the community of believers who are struggling to forge a distinctive and durable group identity, resist external pressures to revert to a way of life unbefitting the people of God, and live as those born anew to a living hope.
Download or read book Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality written by Thomas Arentzen and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sex is a difficult issue for contemporary Christians, but the past decade has witnessed a newfound openness regarding the topic among Eastern Orthodox Christians. Both the theological trajectory and the historical circumstances of the Orthodox Church differ radically from those of other Christian denominations that have already developed robust and creative reflections on sexuality and sexual diversity. Within its unique history, theology, and tradition, Orthodox Christianity holds rich resources for engaging challenging questions of sexuality in new and responsive ways. What is at stake in questions of sexuality in the Orthodox tradition? What sources and theological convictions can uniquely shape Orthodox understandings of sexuality? This volume aims to create an agora for discussing sex, and not least the sexualities that are often thought of as untraditional in Orthodox contexts. Through fifteen distinct chapters, written by leading scholars and theologians, this book offers a developed treatment of sexuality in the Orthodox Christian world by approaching the subject from scriptural, patristic, theological, historical, and sociological perspectives. Chapters devoted to practical and pastoral insights, as well as reflections on specific cultural contexts, engage the human realities of sexual diversity and Christian life. From re-thinking scripture to developing theologies of sex, from eschatological views of eros to re-evaluations of the Orthodox responses to science, this book offers new thinking on pressing, present-day issues and initiates conversations about homosexuality and sexual diversity within Orthodox Christianity.
Download or read book Accidental Gods written by Anna Della Subin and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY ESQUIRE, THE IRISH TIMES AND THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT A provocative history of men who were worshipped as gods that illuminates the connection between power and religion and the role of divinity in a secular age Ever since 1492, when Christopher Columbus made landfall in the New World and was hailed as a heavenly being, the accidental god has haunted the modern age. From Haile Selassie, acclaimed as the Living God in Jamaica, to Britain’s Prince Philip, who became the unlikely center of a new religion on a South Pacific island, men made divine—always men—have appeared on every continent. And because these deifications always emerge at moments of turbulence—civil wars, imperial conquest, revolutions—they have much to teach us. In a revelatory history spanning five centuries, a cast of surprising deities helps to shed light on the thorny questions of how our modern concept of “religion” was invented; why religion and politics are perpetually entangled in our supposedly secular age; and how the power to call someone divine has been used and abused by both oppressors and the oppressed. From nationalist uprisings in India to Nigerien spirit possession cults, Anna Della Subin explores how deification has been a means of defiance for colonized peoples. Conversely, we see how Columbus, Cortés, and other white explorers amplified stories of their godhood to justify their dominion over native peoples, setting into motion the currents of racism and exclusion that have plagued the New World ever since they touched its shores. At once deeply learned and delightfully antic, Accidental Gods offers an unusual keyhole through which to observe the creation of our modern world. It is that rare thing: a lyrical, entertaining work of ideas, one that marks the debut of a remarkable literary career.
Download or read book The Old Testament and Process Theology written by Robert Karl Gnuse and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the insights of process theology, Gnuse explores the Old Testament beginning with the categories of classic Old Testament theology: revelation, suffering, creation, covenant, justice, law, and salvation.
Download or read book Ephesians Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament written by Frank Thielman and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Noted New Testament scholar Frank Thielman offers pastors, students, and teachers a substantive yet accessible commentary on Ephesians in this addition to the award-winning BECNT series. With extensive research and thoughtful chapter-by-chapter exegesis, Thielman leads readers through all aspects of the book of Ephesians--sociological, historical, and theological--to help them better understand its meaning and relevance. As with all BECNT volumes, this commentary features the author's detailed interaction with the Greek text and an acclaimed, user-friendly design. It admirably achieves the dual aims of the series--academic sophistication with pastoral sensitivity and accessibility.
Download or read book Catholic Dogmatic Theology a Synthesis written by Nicolas Op Jean-Herve and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2024-05 with total page 825 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every discipline, including theology, requires a synthetic overview of its acquisitions and open questions, a kind of "topography" to guide the new student and refresh the gaze of specialists. In his Synthèse dogmatique, Fr. Jean-Hervé Nicolas, OP (1910-2001) presents just such a map of Thomistic theology, focusing on the central topics of Dogmatic Theology: The One and Triune God, Christology, Mariology, Ecclesiology, the Sacraments, and the Last Things. Drawing on decades of research and teaching, Fr. Nicolas synthetically presents these topics from a faithfully Thomistic perspective. While broadly and genially engaging the theological literature of the 20th century, he nonetheless remains deeply indebted to the Thomistic school that would have formed him in his youth as a theologian. This provides the reader with an unparalleled theological vision, masterfully bringing forth, at once, what is new and what is classical. Catholic Theology: A Dogmatic Synthesis is being published in English as a multi-volume work. In this volume, Fr. Nicolas takes up the raison d'être for the mission of the Holy Spirit: the work of sanctification in and through the Church, the mystical body of Christ and sacrament of salvation. In the ecclesiology articulated in this volume, he presents a theology of the Church that is at once wholly Thomistic and also faithful to the great themes of the Second Vatican Council, drawing especially from the works of Journet, Congar, and Bouyer, in critical dialogue with other theologians of his day. He then presents a complete and detailed sacramental theology, both concerning the nature of the sacraments in general, as well as concerning each sacrament in particular, carefully striving to balance positive and scholastic theology. Serving as a professor for decades, including at the University of Fribourg, Fr. Nicolas was at once a profound scholar and a masterful pedagogue. Gathering the work of a lifetime into a single pedagogical narrative, Fr. Nicolas's Catholic Theology: A Dogmatic Synthesis provides a resource for students and scholars alike. In view of the hyper-specialization of theology today, this series of volumes provides readers with a synthetic and sapiential overview of the fundamentals of dogmatic theology from a robust and profound Thomistic perspective.
Download or read book Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians Volume 6 written by John D. Monaghan and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this Ethnology supplement, anthropologists who have carried out long-term fieldwork among indigenous people review the ethnographic literature in the various regions of Middle America and discuss the theoretical and methodological orientations that have framed the work of scholars over the last several decades. They examine how research agendas have developed in relationship to broader interests in the field and the ways in which the anthropology of the region has responded to the sociopolitical and economic policies of Mexico and Guatemala. Most importantly, they focus on the changing conditions of life of the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. This volume offers a comprehensive picture of both the indigenous populations and developments in the anthropology of the region over the last thirty years.
Download or read book Across the Spectrum written by Gregory A. Boyd and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This accessible yet comprehensive primer helps readers understand the breadth of viewpoints on major issues in evangelical theology, with chapters using the popular multiple-views format. This third edition of a well-received textbook (over 60,000 copies sold) has been updated and revised throughout. It examines positions taken by evangelical scholars on seventeen seminal issues. In addition, it offers end-of-chapter "For Further Reading" sections, an extensive glossary, and an appendix that addresses contrasting views on fifteen additional issues in contemporary evangelicalism.
Download or read book Faith as Remembering written by Paul O. Ingram and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memories seldom happen in straight lines with chronological precision, but occur most often in spirals. Paul Ingram's essays collected in Faith as Remembering were created from memories. These memories, often in unpredictable ways, pushed him to new insights about the nature of Christian faith--insights often not desired, always unexpected, and always toward new directions of theological reflection. Theologians all too often write with an unintentional, and sometimes intentional, universalism. Ingram does not intend to write this way. These essays reflect his memories and are the sources of the theological conclusions he draws as a historian of religions who now finds himself a practicing process theologian. As a process theologian, Ingram does not even argue that the conclusions drawn here will be ones he will affirm in the future. All human knowledge is incomplete, and there are always new surprises for anyone practicing the art of theological reflection. But Ingram's hope is that the essays gathered together in Faith as Remembering will inspire readers to engage their memories as the foundation for drawing their own unique conclusions.
