Download or read book The Virtue of Sin written by Shannon SCHUREN and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely, gripping novel about a girl who must speak out, stand up, and break free--perfect for teen fans of The Handmaid's Tale and Matched by Ally Condie, and perfect for this moment. As a girl, Miriam is forced to quiet her tongue and hold back her thoughts. That is the way of things in her desert haven, far away from the outside world. But Miriam knows that within the compound's gates and under the eye of its leader, Daniel, she is safe, and that makes her life far better than any alternative. But when a Matrimony ceremony goes wrong and Miriam winds up with someone other than the boy she loves--the boy she'd thought she was destined to marry--she can no longer keep quiet. For the first time, Miriam begins to question not only the rules that have guided her throughout her entire life, but also who she is at her very core. Alongside unexpected allies, Miriam fights to learn the truth and live the life she knows she's meant to have. In this compelling debut novel, one girl learns that the greatest power she has is her own voice. Now available in paperback, this book includes a discussion guide--perfect for your next book club pick Praise for The Virtue of Sin: "Shannon Schuren weaves a complex tale of love, faith, and lies in her thought-provoking debut The Virtue of Sin. As important as it is entertaining, this is a must-read for anyone who knows that independent thought trumps fitting in. One of my favorite reads of the year." --Christina Dalcher, bestselling author of Vox "Schuren beautifully captures the breathlessness of both first love, and first rebellion, in this engrossing, timely book. Part page-turning drama, part romance, the novel is above all an exploration of the ways repression can damage the soul--and what it takes to rise above it." --Jennifer Donaldson, critically acclaimed author of Lies You Never Told Me "Compulsively readable." --BCCB "Well written." --SLJ

Download or read book Virtue Big as Sin Poems written by Frank Osen and published by Able Muse Press. This book was released on 2013-08-28 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtue, Big as Sin is impressively wide-ranging in theme and style. It illuminates everyday vignettes with solicitous spotlights such as the bereaved son sorting the contents of his father’s medicine cabinet, or the father whose son’s driver’s education recalls the time his own “unharnessed” Mustang went “bungeeing” around a bend; it celebrates the artist’s creative highs, or reflects on the misfortunate who is forever nearing the threshold of achievement, aware that life may prove a “most inept librettist” and should thus be paired with our “strongest song.” Osen’s dexterity with both formal and free verse is apparent. His wit and humor prevent the serious from becoming ponderous while his intelligent insight lends depth to the lighthearted. Reading and rereading this outstanding debut collection, it is easy to see why—from the first poem to the last—it is a worthy winner of the 2012 Able Muse Book Award. PRAISE FOR VIRTUE, BIG AS SIN: Frank Osen’s Virtue, Big as Sin offers one witty, elegant poem after another. The rhymes are especially clever, the meter sure, the stanzas well-shaped, but this poet’s sense of proportion is also reflected in wisdom (and what is wisdom but a sense of proportion?). An urbane maker of sparkling phrases like “that genuine Ur of the ersatz,” Osen can also write plainly, movingly, about a young girl’s funeral. And he reflects often on art itself, which he so rightly calls “the conjured awe.” —Mary Jo Salter (Judge, 2012 Able Muse Book Award) In his talent for tragedy and comedy, and for mixing them, Osen takes his place in a distinguished line of English-language poets that runs from Chaucer and Shakespeare down to our day. —Timothy Steele (from the afterword) Reading Virtue, Big as Sin has left me with the sense of satisfaction and enduring pleasure that really good poetry always produces, even when it also does the rest of what honest writing may do: confirm suspicions about ourselves we wish we could refute, bring to mind aspects of nature we’d rather forget, and deliver alarming news about the future, both public and private. Frank Osen does all of this and much more, all with grace and wit, in language that makes the messenger thoroughly “one of us.” —Rhina P. Espaillat Frank Osen’s poems revel in beauty and pleasure, in technical dexterity and high-gloss finish. Readers who care about such things will be abundantly rewarded. But the reveling is haunted by loss, awful possibilities of failure, a nothingness glimpsed beneath the carnival. One of Osen’s avowed tutelary spirits is Wallace Stevens, and his probing of his subjects can often seem like an extended, heart-wrenching commentary on Stevens’s line, “Death is the mother of Beauty.” The fragility of beauty, the omnipresence of death, and the intimate connections between them, are everywhere present in these marvelously heartening and effective poems. —Dick Davis

Download or read book The Seven Deadly Sins written by Nicola Barker and published by Union Books. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live with the idea of sin every day – from the greatest transgressions to the tiniest misdemeanours. But surely the concept was invented for an age where divine retribution and eternal punishment dominated the collective consciousness? In this lively collection of new writing, Nicola Barker, Dylan Evans, David Flusfeder, Todd McEwen, Martin Rowson, John Sutherland and Ali Smith go head to head with the capital vices to explore what we really mean when we talk about sin. The resulting mixture of erudite and playful essays and startling new fiction might not make you a better person, but it will certainly give you pause for thought when you’ re next laying the law down or – heaven forfend – about to do something beyond the pale yourself.

Download or read book Augustine on the Nature of Virtue and Sin written by Katherine Chambers and published by . This book was released on 2024-01-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Augustine of Hippo is a key figure in the history of Christianity and has had a profound impact on the course of western moral and political thought. Katherine Chambers here explores a neglected topic in Augustinian studies by offering a systematic account of the meaning that Augustine gave to the notions of virtue, vice and sin. Countering the view that he broke with classical eudaimonism, she demonstrates that Augustine's moral thought builds on the dominant approach to ethics in classical 'pagan' antiquity. A critical appraisal of this tradition reveals that Augustine remained faithful to the eudaimonist approach to ethics. Chambers also refutes the view that Augustine was a political pessimist or realist, showing that it is based upon a misunderstanding of Augustine's ideas about the virtue of justice. Providing a coherent account of key features in Augustine's ethics, her study invites a new and fresh evaluation of his influence on western moral and political thought.

Download or read book Dangerous Virtues written by John Koessler and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Has the World Confused Evil with Righteousness? When sin is disguised as virtue, the path to cultivating righteousness becomes impossible. Such is the challenge Christians face in the modern age. Not long ago, most people would agree that the seven deadly sins are in fact deadly. But ask them today, and you’ll hear a different answer. Today, “anger” is often considered an admirable emotion, “lust” the only expression of love, and “greed” the unassailable right to “get what’s yours.” The world can rebrand sin all it wants and declare the death of truth, but it has no power against the truth of the Scripture. What God calls sin is sin—no matter what the world says. And sin always has the same destination—death and destruction. Dangerous Virtues examines how to recognize these seven deadly sins as they are subtly disguised in today’s culture. Dr. John Koessler provides a theology of sin and why the Christian must develop a prayerful heart and discerning eye to identify where sin exists in a world where good is called evil and evil called good.

Download or read book Sin written by Gary A. Anderson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is sin? Is it simply wrongdoing? Why do its effects linger over time? In this sensitive, imaginative, and original work, Gary Anderson shows how changing conceptions of sin and forgiveness lay at the very heart of the biblical tradition. Spanning nearly two thousand years, the book brilliantly demonstrates how sin, once conceived of as a physical burden, becomes, over time, eclipsed by economic metaphors. Transformed from a weight that an individual carried, sin becomes a debt that must be repaid in order to be redeemed in God's eyes. Anderson shows how this ancient Jewish revolution in thought shaped the way the Christian church understood the death and resurrection of Jesus and eventually led to the development of various penitential disciplines, deeds of charity, and even papal indulgences. In so doing it reveals how these changing notions of sin provided a spur for the Protestant Reformation. Broad in scope while still exceptionally attentive to detail, this ambitious and profound book unveils one of the most seismic shifts that occurred in religious belief and practice, deepening our understanding of one of the most fundamental aspects of human experience.

Download or read book Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues written by Donald Capps and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2000-03-28 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using biblical narratives, the Beatitudes and Erick H. Erikson's life cycle theory, Donald Capps reveals ways to combat the deadly sins by nurturing saving virtues. With his work rooted deeply in the Bible, Capps attempts to show comparisons that link each traditional deadly sin with a particular stage of personality development, using biblical figures to provide dynamic examples of virtue and sin. Providing broad implications for practicing ministry, Capps book will intrigue all who wish to explore virtue and sin from a pastoral, biblical and psychological perspective.

Download or read book Addiction and Virtue written by Kent Dunnington and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this interdisciplinary work, Kent Dunnington brings the neglected resources of philosophical and theological analysis to bear on the problem of addiction. Drawing on the insights of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, he formulates a compelling alternative to the two dominant models of addiction--addiction as disease and addiction as choice.

Download or read book Back to Virtue written by Peter Kreeft and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2009-10-27 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We have reduced all virtues to one: being nice. And, we measure Jesus by our standard instead of measuring our standard by Him." For the Christian, explains author Peter Kreeft, being virtuous is not a means to the end of pleasure, comfort and happiness. Virtue, he reminds us, is a word that means "manly strength." But how do we know when we are being meek--or just cowardly? When is our anger righteous--and when is it a sin? What is the difference between being virtuous--and merely ethical? Back to Virtue clears up these and countless other questions that beset Christians today. Kreeft not only summarizes scriptural and theological wisdom on leading a holy life, he contrasts Christian virtue with other ethical systems. He applies traditional moral theology to present-day dilemmas such as abortion and nuclear armament. Kreeft restores to us what was once common knowledge: the Seven Deadly Sins have an antidote in the Beatitudes. By setting up a close contrast between the two sets of behaviors, Kreeft offers proven guidance in the often bewildering process of discerning right from wrong as we move into the questionable mores of the twenty-first century. He provides a road map of virtue, a map for our earthly pilgrimage synthesized from the accumulated wisdom of centuries of Christians, from Paul and the early Church Fathers through C.S. Lewis.

Download or read book Empire of Sin written by Gary Krist and published by Crown. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From bestselling author Gary Krist, a vibrant and immersive account of New Orleans’ other civil war, at a time when commercialized vice, jazz culture, and endemic crime defined the battlegrounds of the Crescent City Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans’ thirty-years war against itself, pitting the city’s elite “better half” against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides. Surrounding him are the stories of flamboyant prostitutes, crusading moral reformers, dissolute jazzmen, ruthless Mafiosi, venal politicians, and one extremely violent serial killer, all battling for primacy in a wild and wicked city unlike any other in the world.

Download or read book By Sin I Rise written by Cora Reilly and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fatal bond that was never meant to be. Marcella gave Maddox the impossible choice, and he chose her. Still, she wonders if Maddox is ready to commit to a relationship, or if he's scared of losing the uninhibited freedom his biker lifestyle offered him. All his life Maddox knew who his enemies were, but suddenly he's at a loss whom to trust. Will he ever find a place in Marcella's life and family, or will old companions give him a new home and purpose? Can enemies ever truly become lovers if the odds are against them?

Download or read book A Lust for Virtue written by Philip F. Riley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2001-06-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Midway through his reign, in the critical decade of the 1680s, the lusty image of Louis XIV paled and was replaced by that of a straitlaced monarch committed to locking up blasphemers, debtors, gamblers, and prostitutes in wretched, foul-smelling prisons that dispensed ample doses of Catholic-Reformation virtue. The author demonstrates how this attack on sin expressed the punitive social policy of the French Catholic Reformation and how Louis's actions clarified the legal and moral distinctions between crime and sin. As a hot-blooded young prince, Louis XIV paid little attention to virtue or to sin and, despite his cherished title of God's Most Christian King, violations of God's Sixth and Ninth Commandments never troubled him. Indeed, for the first two decades of his reign, he paraded a stream of royal mistresses before all of Europe and fathered sixteen illegitimate children. Yet, midway through his reign, in the critical decade of the 1680s, the lusty image of Louis XIV paled and was replaced by that of a straitlaced monarch committed to locking up blasphemers, debtors, gamblers, and prostitutes in wretched, foul-smelling prisons that dispensed ample doses of Catholic-Reformation virtue. Using police and prison archives, administrative correspondence, memoirs, and letters, Riley describes the formation of Louis's narrow conscience and his efforts to safeguard his subjects' souls by attacking sin and infusing his kingdom with virtue, especially in Paris and at Versailles. Throughout his attack on sin, women--so-called Soldiers of Satan--were the special targets of the police. By the seventeenth century, fornication and adultery had become exclusively female crimes; men guilty of these sins were rarely punished as severely. Although unsuccessful, Louis's attack on sin clarified the legal and moral distinctions between crime and sin as well as the futility of enforcing a religiously inspired social policy on an irreverent, secular-minded France.

Download or read book Virtuous A Study for Ladies of Every Age written by Nancy Wilson and published by Canon Press & Book Service. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nancy Wilson has been a pastor's wife for forty years, and in this book she walks through fourteen biblical virtues to help women of all ages actively pursue fruitfulness in the knowledge of Christ. This book highlights what the Bible has to say about a Christian woman's highest duty, what it looks like to be a leading woman in one's community, and what it means to pursue virtue when everyone else thinks it's no longer important. This encouraging little book includes application questions and assignments which should both challenge individuals and give groups much food for thought.

Download or read book Sacred Sins written by Nora Roberts and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2010-08-31 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts serves up a sizzling novel of explosive suspense and sensual romance as the search for a murderer ignites passion between a beautiful psychiatrist and the sexy, brooding detective determined to crack the case. In the unbearable heat of another sultry Washington, D.C., summer, a serial killer is on the loose. Dr. Tess Court, one of the capital’s most successful psychiatrists, wants nothing to do with the case—until the police convince her to lend a hand to the lead investigator, legendary ladies’ man Detective Ben Paris. Scarred by his family’s history, Ben has even less use for shrinks than Tess has for him—but the forces of animal magnetism and a shared desire to catch the demented criminal known as “The Priest” inexorably erode the walls they’ve built. They’re opposites in so many ways, yet that seems only to fan the flames of attraction for which danger has supplied the spark. To stop a killer who thinks he can absolve sins through murder, Ben will need every ounce of psychological insight Tess can offer him. And she’ll need the help of a lawman willing to stare fear in the face if she’s going to avoid becoming the madman’s next victim.

Download or read book Handling Sin written by Michael Malone and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 637 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the Ides of March, our hero, Raleigh Whittier Hayes (forgetful husband, baffled father, prosperous insurance agent, and leading citizen of Thermopylae, North Carolina), learns that his father has discharged himself from the hospital, taken all his money out of the bank and, with a young black female mental patient, vanished in a yellow Cadillac convertible. Left behind is a mysterious list of seven outrageous tasks that Raleigh must perform in order to rescue his father and his inheritance. And so Raleigh and fat Mingo Sheffield (his irrepressibly loyal friend) set off on an uproarious contemporary treasure hunt through a landscape of unforgettable characters, falling into adventures worthy of Tom Jones and Huck Finn. A moving parable of human love and redemption, Handling Sin is Michael Malone's comic masterpiece.

Download or read book Knowing Sin written by Mark Jones and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first rule of combat is: know your enemy. We don’t talk a lot about sin these days. But maybe we should. The Puritans sure did—because they understood sin’s deceptive power and wanted to root it out of their lives. Shouldn’t we want the same? Though many books have been written on the “doctrine of sin,” few are as practical and applicable as this one. In Knowing Sin, Mark Jones puts his expertise in the Puritans to work by distilling the vast wisdom of our Christian forebears into a single volume that summarizes their thought on this vital subject. The result isn’t a theological tome to sit on your shelf and gather dust, but a surprisingly relevant book to keep by your bedside and refer to again and again. You’ll come to understand topics like: Sin’s Origin Sin’s Grief Sin’s Thoughts Sin’s Temptations Sin’s Misery Sin’s Secrecy and of course . . . Sin’s Defeat! None of us is free from the struggle with sin. The question isn’t whether we’re sinful, it’s what we’re doing about it. Thanks be to God, there is a path to overcoming sin. And the first step on that path to victory is knowing what we’re up against. Start Knowing Sin today!

Download or read book The Quest for Holiness written by David Clifton Long and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What does it really mean to be a follower of Jesus? How is the ungodly nature within us to be transformed into the image of God? These are among the questions that have stirred serious believers since the early days of the church, leading to the template of seven sins and their counterparts: seven virtues. How is pride seen in our life, and how is this replaced by the virtue of humility? How does the follower of Jesus grow from anger to patience, from envy to brotherly love? These couplets contrast the nature of a life lived for the glory of self versus a life lived for the glory of God. The foundations of spiritual formation are examined in the first book The Quest for Holiness--From Shallow Belief to Mature Believer, anchoring God's plan for our transformation in his revelation that we are created in his image. Theology is meant to not only be understood but also to be lived out. Thus, this second book delves into the application of spiritual truths into the daily life of a disciple of Jesus, with the purpose that as followers of Jesus we will grow into greater love of God and love of our neighbor."--Publisher.