Download or read book Purplynd written by Brian K. Woodson Sr. and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Purplynd is a love story wrapped in a mystery—an infant is left at a daycare on the edge of the capital city, and the struggle between utopian dreams and dystopian realities grow with the child, until one battle determines which is the most powerful. Here is how one reader describes it: Purplynd is so much more than a bunch of great words strung together by a master writer. It is a magic carpet ride to the edges of the imagination, the universe, and one’s moral fabric. It is a vehicle for an adventure of the mind and spirit. It’s not just a great read; it’s a fast ride. It took me to places beyond my imagination, showed me red places in my soul, and challenged what I had settled on as my integrity—all while on a beautiful purple voyage. It is a magical, wonderful, inspiring political and theological journey.

Download or read book All Set Free written by Matthew J. Distefano and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the ending to the human drama? Will all be reconciled to God in the end? Does God demand an altar, a corpse, and blood? Or, rather, is the Christian God set apart from all the other gods throughout history? All Set Free sets out to answer some of the more difficult questions Christians today are faced with. It will challenge the Augustinian understanding of hell and the Calvinist understanding of the atonement; replacing them with a more Christ-centered understanding of both doctrines. This book will also use the work of Rene Girard in order to reshape how many understand "what it means to be human." Then and only then should we ask: "Who is God?" Come explore what has become Matthew's theological pilgrimage to this point. Come discover the God of peace.

Download or read book Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man LP written by Steve Harvey and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steve Harvey, the host of the nationally syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show, can't count the number of impressive women he's met over the years, whether it's through the "Strawberry Letters" segment of his program or while on tour for his comedy shows. Yet when it comes to relationships, they can't figure out what makes men tick. Why? According to Steve it's because they're asking other women for advice when no one but another man can tell them how to find and keep a man. In Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, Steve lets women inside the mindset of a man and sheds light on concepts and questions such as: The Ninety Day Rule: Ford requires it of its employees. Should you require it of your man? The five questions every woman should ask a man to determine how serious he is. And much more . . . Sometimes funny, sometimes direct, but always truthful, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man is a book you must read if you want to understand how men think when it comes to relationships.

Download or read book Decolonizing Christianity written by Miguel A. De La Torre and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “How curiously different is this white God from the one preached by Jesus who understood faithfulness by how we treat the hungry and thirsty, the naked and alien, the incarcerated and infirm. This white God of empire may be appropriate for global conquerors who benefit from all that has been stolen and through the labor of all those defined as inferior; but such a deity can never be the God of the conquered.” Echoing James Cone’s 1970 assertion that white Christianity is a satanic heresy, Miguel De La Torre argues that whiteness has desecrated the message of Jesus. In a scathing indictment, he describes how white American Christians have aligned themselves with the oppressors who subjugate the “least of these”—those who have been systemically marginalized because of their race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status—and, in overwhelming numbers, elected and supported an antichrist as president who has brought the bigotry ingrained in American society out into the open. With this follow-up to his earlier Burying White Privilege, De La Torre prophetically outlines how we need to decolonize Christianity and reclaim its revolutionary, badass message. Timid white liberalism is not the answer for De La Torre—only another form of complicity. Working from the parable of the sheep and the goats in the Gospel of Matthew, he calls for unapologetic solidarity with the sheep and an unequivocal rejection of the false, idolatrous Christianity of whiteness.

Download or read book Thinking Fast and Slow written by Daniel Kahneman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major New York Times bestseller Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012 Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011 A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Kahneman's work with Amos Tversky is the subject of Michael Lewis's The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds In his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.

Download or read book How to Talk to Anyone written by Leil Lowndes and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2003-09-22 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "You'll not only break the ice, you'll melt it away with your new skills." -- Larry King "The lost art of verbal communication may be revitalized by Leil Lowndes." -- Harvey McKay, author of “How to Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive” What is that magic quality makes some people instantly loved and respected? Everyone wants to be their friend (or, if single, their lover!) In business, they rise swiftly to the top of the corporate ladder. What is their "Midas touch?" What it boils down to is a more skillful way of dealing with people. The author has spent her career teaching people how to communicate for success. In her book How to Talk to Anyone (Contemporary Books, October 2003) Lowndes offers 92 easy and effective sure-fire success techniques-- she takes the reader from first meeting all the way up to sophisticated techniques used by the big winners in life. In this information-packed book you’ll find: 9 ways to make a dynamite first impression 14 ways to master small talk, "big talk," and body language 14 ways to walk and talk like a VIP or celebrity 6 ways to sound like an insider in any crowd 7 ways to establish deep subliminal rapport with anyone 9 ways to feed someone's ego (and know when NOT to!) 11 ways to make your phone a powerful communications tool 15 ways to work a party like a politician works a room 7 ways to talk with tigers and not get eaten alive In her trademark entertaining and straight-shooting style, Leil gives the techniques catchy names so you'll remember them when you really need them, including: "Rubberneck the Room," "Be a Copyclass," "Come Hither Hands," “Bare Their Hot Button,” “The Great Scorecard in the Sky," and "Play the Tombstone Game,” for big success in your social life, romance, and business. How to Talk to Anyone, which is an update of her popular book, Talking the Winner's Way (see the 5-star reviews of the latter) is based on solid research about techniques that work! By the way, don't confuse How to Talk to Anyone with one of Leil's previous books, How to Talk to Anybody About Anything. This one is completely different!

Download or read book From the Blood of Abel written by Matthew J. Distefano and published by . This book was released on 2016-11-07 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While millions of believers around the world are finding their understanding of Christianity to be outdated and untenable, Matthew Distefano has managed to paint the Gospel in such a way that even an atheist could appreciate its beauty. Rather than a message of rapture, or rewards and reprisals, Distefano presents the good news of what God has done in history to stem the tide of our own violence and evil--inviting us into a whole new way of living and being in this world. By integrating RenE Girard's "mimetic theory" and Ernest Becker's "death anxiety," Distefano is able to diagnose the root causes of human violence and then offer the life-giving solution in the person of Jesus. Both the struggling evangelical and unbeliever alike can take refuge here, finding in this Gospel the thing their soul--and the disintegrating world around them--is thirsting for.

Download or read book A Journey with Two Mystics written by Matthew J. Distefano and published by Resource Publications (CA). This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having a careful ear and an open heart is vital to understanding the big ideas of the Universe. Two friends, Distefano and Machuga, put this on display here, vulnerably exploring some of humanity's most robust topics: what it means to be human, what it means to be saved, what it means to be lost, and what the meaning of life is. And while the authors agree on many things, including the ultimate fate of humanity, they do not necessarily agree on all the details of how we get there. But instead of ""agreeing to disagree,"" they model for their readers what conversations of this variety should look like--agreement with a little pushback, and even some poking fun at one another from time to time. So, as Distefano advises, ""take your time and enjoy these discussions."" They are transparent and hopeful, refreshingly liberating, and are imbued with complete awe toward the goodness of the Creator and her creation. ""Correspondence between friends is always illuminating. Here, Distefano and Machuga tackle issues close to the heart: what it means to be human, why religion does not work, and why a careful ear for listening to each other is essential to both friendship and knowledge. This is a truly fascinating read of two younger adults navigating their way into post-modernity."" --Michael Hardin, Executive Director, Preaching Peace; author of The Jesus Driven Life ""This book is about the collapse of a Christian worldview, the one that says the thing Jesus saves from is an eternal hell of torment. The anxieties and contradictions of this kind of theology are too awful to sustain, and A Journey With Two Mystics lays them all out with autobiographical clarity in a gentle epistolary exchange between two friends."" --Anthony W. Bartlett, author of Virtually Christian and Pascale's Wager ""Reading this book is like getting an accessible crash course in a range of interconnected ideas about the human predicament and the promise of salvation. But not the kind of course you'd get in a classroom. It's more like the voyeuristic pleasure of listening in on two friends, animated by philosophical and theological ideas, passionately sharing their thoughts by a bonfire. In fact, that's exactly how this book was born."" --Eric Reitan, Oklahoma State University ""In this book you are invited to listen in on a thrilling conversation between two pilgrims, one a follower of Rene Girard and the other a fan of Alan Watts. Perhaps you will overhear your own story. Perhaps you too will find your faith renewed."" --John E. Phelan, Jr., North Park Theological Seminary ""From Buddhism to Christianity to Rene Girard to Alan Watts to Gandalf--this book is full of profound wisdom. Distefano and Machuga are excellent guides to the truth found in these traditions."" --Adam Ericksen, Education Director, The Raven ReView; blogger, Teaching Nonviolent Atonement on Patheos ""Correspondence between friends is always illuminating. Here, Distefano and Machuga tackle issues close to the heart: what it means to be human, why religion does not work, and why a careful ear for listening to each other is essential to both friendship and knowledge. This is a truly fascinating read of two younger adults navigating their way into post-modernity."" --Michael Hardin, Executive Director, Preaching Peace, author of The Jesus Driven Life ""This book is about the collapse of a Christian worldview, the one that says the thing Jesus saves from is an eternal hell of torment. The anxieties and contradictions of this kind of theology are too awful to sustain, and A Journey With Two Mystics lays them all out with autobiographical clarity in a gentle epistolary exchange between two friends, Distefano and Machuga. Gentle but charged with consequence, one which might aptly be named Either Nike or Krisis!, Machuga finds relief from violent religion in a form of Buddhism where the point of life is the joyous peaceful now: there is no ulterior goal to human activity (e.g. heaven), so he quot

Download or read book The Palace of Illusions written by Chitra Divakaruni and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Palace of Illusions takes us back to a time that is half-history, half-myth, and wholly magical; narrated by Panchaali, the wife of the five Pandava brothers, we are - finally - given a woman's take on the timeless tale that is the Mahabharata Tracing Panchaali's life - from fiery birth and lonely childhood, where her beloved brother is her only true companion; through her complicated friendship with the enigmatic Krishna; to marriage, motherhood and Panchaali's secret attraction to the mysterious man who is her husbands' most dangerous enemy - The Palace of Illusions is a deeply human novel about a woman born into a man's world - a world of warriors, gods and the ever manipulating hands of fate. ‘A mythic tale brimming with warriors, magic and treachery’ Los Angeles Times ‘A radiant entree into an ancient mythology . . . Charming and remarkable’ Houston Chronicle ‘A woman’s look at crime and punishment, loyalty, promises, love and vengeance . . . With The Palace of Illusions, Divakaruni has proven that her storytelling talents put her right up there with the best’ Miami Herald

Download or read book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People written by Stephen R. Covey and published by Macmillan Reference USA. This book was released on 1997 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revolutionary guidebook to achieving peace of mind by seeking the roots of human behavior in character and by learning principles rather than just practices. Covey's method is a pathway to wisdom and power.

Download or read book A More Christlike God written by Bradley Jersak and published by Plain Truth Ministries. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether our notions of ‘god’ are personal projections or inherited traditions, author and theologian Brad Jersak proposes a radical reassessment, arguing for A More Christlike God: a More Beautiful Gospel. If Christ is “the image of the invisible God, the radiance of God’s glory and exact representation of God’s likeness,” what if we conceived of God as completely Christlike—the perfect Incarnation of self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love? What if God has always been and forever will be ‘cruciform’ (cross-shaped) in his character and actions? A More Christlike God suggests that such a God would be very good news indeed—a God who Jesus “unwrathed” from dead religion, a Love that is always toward us, and a Grace that pours into this suffering world through willing, human partners.

Download or read book The Inescapable Love of God written by Thomas Talbott and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will the love of God save us all? In this book Thomas Talbott seeks to expose the extent to which the Western theological tradition has managed to twist the New Testament message of love, forgiveness, and hope into a message of fear and guilt. According to the New Testament proclamation, he argues, God's love is both unconditional in its nature and unlimited in its scope; hence, no one need fear, for example, that God's love might suddenly turn into loveless hatred at the moment of one's physical death. For God's love remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. But neither should one ignore the New Testament theme of divine judgment, which Talbott thinks the Western theological tradition has misunderstood entirely. He argues in particular that certain patterns of fallacious reasoning, which crop up repeatedly in the works of various theologians and Bible scholars, have prevented many from appreciating St. Paul's explicit teaching that God is merciful to all in the end. This second edition of Talbott's classic work is fully revised, updated, and substantially expanded with new material. ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO FORMAT The Inescapable Love of God is also available as an unabridged audiobook wonderfully narrated by the actor George W. Sarris (running time: 11 hours and 2 minutes). The audiobook can be downloaded from christianaudio.com and Audible.

Download or read book Nomad written by Brandan Robertson and published by Augsburg Books. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The deeper I grow in my own faith as a Christian, the greater my desire to explore. My faith whets my appetite for discovering what God is doing in and through the world each and every day. This book is a chronicle of some of the most important lessons I have learned thus far. I write to encourage my fellow nomads who, like me, so often feel alone in their wanderings yet are a part of a much larger caravan of fellow wanderers seeking to discover for ourselves the meaning and mysteries of life." Part-autobiography, part-Christian spirituality, Nomad offers penetrating insight into the minds of the new generations of progressive evangelical followers of Jesus in the global Church. Themes include community, war, redemption, wonder, grace, sexuality, and the Eucharist.

Download or read book Three Theological Mistakes written by Ric Machuga and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-01-05 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: - Is the existence of God a matter of faith or knowledge? - Does God sometimes act miraculously or are there physical causes for everything? - Is morality absolute or relative? - Are humans truly free or does God's sovereignty determine everything? - When bad things happen, is God the cause or are they the fault of humans? Too frequently Christians answer these questions with a Yes to one side and a No to the other side. Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth answer Yes to both. Following their model, Machuga defends a "third way" which transcends the Enlightenment dichotomies of fideism vs. rationalism, supernaturalism vs. naturalism, relativism vs. absolutism, free will vs. predestination, and God's justice vs. his mercy. Machuga begins by showing how these false dichotomies grew out of the Enlightenment assumptions of mechanism, universal quantification, and mono-causation. He then corrects these demonstrably dubious assumptions by articulating a theory of dual-causation. The result is a thoroughly biblical understanding of God, miracles, and free will that can withstand the contemporary criticisms of both science and philosophy.

Download or read book Hell in a Nutshell written by Charles Watson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Is a doctrine of everlasting punishment in hell consistent with God's perfect love and perfect justice? And what implications does this traditional doctrine carry for the nature of divine grace and mercy? In Hell in a Nutshell Charles Watson Sr. argues that we should not allow a received doctrine, such as the doctrine of hell, to determine our understanding of God's justice, love, and mercy; instead, we should allow a biblically informed understanding of these divine attributes to shape our understanding of every received doctrine, including the doctrine of hell."

Download or read book Desire Found Me written by Andre Rabe and published by . This book was released on 2014-12-27 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the unconscious movements of desire - how they form us, connect us, shape our greatest ideas, mold our societies, influence human history and ultimately, how they are unveiled.

Download or read book The Nonviolent Atonement Second Edition written by J. Denny Weaver and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-26 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative study that cuts to the very heart of Christian thought, The Nonviolent Atonement challenges the traditional, Anselmian understanding of atonement along with the assumption that heavenly justice depends on Christ s passive, innocent submission to violent death at the hands of a cruel God. Instead J. Denny Weaver offers a thoroughly nonviolent paradigm for understanding atonement, grounded in the New Testament and sensitive to the concerns of pacifist, black, feminist, and womanist theology. While many scholars have engaged the subject of violence in atonement theology, Weaver s Nonviolent Atonement is the only book that offers a radically new theory rather than simply refurbishing existing theories. Key features of this revised and updated second edition include new material on Paul and Anselm, expanded discussion on the development of violence in theology, interaction with recent scholarship on atonement, and response to criticisms of Weaver s original work. Praise for the first edition: The best current single volume on reconstructing the theology of atonement. S. Mark Heim in Anglican Theological Review Weaver provides an important contribution to atonement theories by seriously inserting the contemporary concerns of pacifist, feminist, womanist, and black theologians into the centuries-old christological conversation. . . . A provocative but faithful proposal benefiting any student of christology. Religious Studies Review A noteworthy contribution to the literature on the atonement. Weaver provides a useful critique of the history of atonement motifs; he does a fine job of placing Anselm s theology in its historical context; he creatively fuses a singular biblical vision from the earthly narrative of the Gospels and the cosmic perspective of the Apocalypse; and he attempts to relate discussions of the atonement to Christian social ethics. Trinity Journal This is a superb succinct survey and analysis of classical and contemporary theories of the atonement, ideal for students and general readers. . . . A clearly written, passionately expressed introduction to current debates on the atonement. . . . Excellent resource. Reviews in Religion and Theology