LITMIR.BIZ

How to Film Truth explores the history of documentary film as a search for truth by filmmakers, and a journey of discovery for subjects and audiences. This process, the act of documenting, exploring, and reflecting on our reality in all its created beauty, wonder, and mystery can itself be a devotional practice. The history can be seen as moving from actuality to ecstasy, from propaganda to empathy, and finally to confessional, emotional, personal, and communal healing.

Подробнее

God is clearly at work today. There is a cultural, political, and religious metaphorical tsunami gathering power under the surface of ordinary world events, and when it is fully released, it will turn the world as we now know it upside down. Thousands upon thousands of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and nominal Christians become followers of Jesus Christ every day and the effects are enormous. The premises of this book are: There is a God and the belief in God is a moral and not an intellectual question. God created mankind out of his goodness as his representatives on Earth. Since God is by nature good and generous, the essence of sin is to doubt this goodness and walk away from him. God nonetheless continues to seek man in order to bless him, and he has an encompassing plan to accomplish that purpose. He began this purpose through his covenant with Abraham and is fulfilling it through Jesus Christ. Contemporary evidence of this purpose can be seen clearly in what he is doing right before us: We see it in the nation of Israel, through the growth of the church, and the persecution of the church.

Подробнее

Preachers often think of prophetic preaching in the caricature of the prophet as the lonely outsider confronting the congregation, often angrily, with the congregation's complicity in social injustice and with a bracing call for repentance. The twenty-seven essays and sermons in this book offer a different perspective by viewing prophetic preaching specifically–and ministry, practical theology, and theological education more broadly–as pastoral care for the community in prophetic perspective. Such preaching does indeed bring a critical theological analysis of justice concerns to the center of the sermon, but in such a way as to invite the congregation to consider how the move toward justice is a pastoral move– that is, a move that seeks to build up community. Rather than contributing to the polarization so rampant in today's social world, the preacher seeks to help the congregation build bridges along which concern for justice can travel. The contributions honor the work of the late Dale Andrews, a scholar of preaching and practical theology at the Divinity School, Vanderbilt University, whose seminal work inspires the notions of prophetic care and building bridges to justice.

Подробнее

The purpose of this book is to reach out to people and offer them something from the often long and heavy experience of psychotherapy that they can use immediately in relation with their spiritual self and with others. I want the reader to be able to apply metaphors that clarify and define different ways of looking at their lives. Whether it is psychological or spiritual is up to the reader. I hope that you are able to understand your life from an entirely different perspective than what you are perhaps used to. You can decide. This is how I think most of the time.

Подробнее

PART 1: EXAMINING TEXTS 1. Social Drama in the Psalms of Individual Lament 2. Kingship in the Book of Psalms 3. Abusing the Bible: The Case of Deuteronomy 15 4. Do not Fear What They Fear: A Post-9/11 Reflection(Isaiah 8:11-15) 5. The Expropriated and the Expropriators in Nehemiah 5 6. How Do Extrabiblical Sociopolitical Data Illuminate Obscure Biblical Texts? The Case of Ecclesiastes 5:8-9 [Heb. 5:7-8] 7. On the Alleged Wisdom of Kings: An Application of Adorno's Immanent Criticism to Ecclesiastes
PART 2: ENGAGING PRACTICES 8. Framing Biblical Interpretation at New York Theological Seminary: A Student Self Inventory on Biblical Hermeneutics 9. Theological Education as a Theory-Praxis Loop: Situating the Book of Joshua in a Cultural, Social Ethical, and Theological Matrix 10. The Bible as Nurturer of Passive and Active Worldviews 11. Biblical Scholarship in Public Discourse 12. On Framing Elections: The Stories We Tell Ourselves 13. Values and Economic Structures

Подробнее

"God will never be mad at you!" Although the Bible assures us that God's essential nature is love, how seldom one hears such encouraging words in church. Maybe you are one of the many people who have dropped out of the church because of its prevalent portrayal of God as an unfriendly old man who is always angry with those who don't shape up and, worse yet, plans to punish those who don't believe and behave correctly with eternal conscious torment. If you've ever wondered whether the Bible supports such an irritated image of God, this book is for you. Looking closely at major beliefs and key passages of Scripture, author Morgan Roberts introduces us to a friendlier God, a God who is incapable of anything other than love, a God who will never give up on anyone–a God who even loves our enemies! Such a beautiful view of God is the result of the author's lifetime journey as a pastor and teacher, a journey that began when, as a teenager, he happened to find a copy of the New Testament and began reading about a God who is endlessly, foolishly, and incredibly merciful.

Подробнее

This book offers a sociological analysis as well as a theological discussion of China's internal migration since the marketization reform in 1978. It documents the social and political processes that encompass the experiences of internal migrants from the countryside to the city during China's integration into the global economy. Informed by sociological analysis and narratives of the urban poor, this volume reconstructs the political, economic, social and spiritual dimensions of this urban underclass in China who made up the economic backbone of the Asian superpower.

Подробнее

Bookstores and blogs display stories of people who go from bad days to good days, encouraging people to break out of their slump, pick themselves up, and make something awesome happen. Readers are supposed to get inspired and fix themselves. A Time to Question Everything, instead, offers space to bring personal demons, doubts, and disappointments to the table, daring people to believe that embracing the daily struggle of faith is indeed the good life.
Unlike any other world religion, the Christian faith celebrates grace, not self-improvement. The heart of A Time to Question Everything is this sincere question: can grace hold the weight of this messy life?

Подробнее

This book invites its readers to an exploration of some of the greatest theologians in Christian history through the lens of disability theology in order to understand how the Christian Church is intended to deal with the ever-evolving concept and reality that is the disabled human experience.
This books brings together an account of the history of disability civil rights, beginning in the early twentieth century and evolving to the present day. It takes a look at some of the foremost theologians in Christian history as seen through the lens of disability theology, in order to help the reader gain an understanding of a diverse, unique, and ever-evolving culture.
According to the CDC, as of 2015 approximately 53 million Americans live with some form of disability. This book attempts to offer a new way forward for the church to engage with this incredibly diverse, unique, and wonderful culture by offering first a brief introduction to the history of disability civil rights to allow the reader to understand and experience how many of the trends and forces that shape civil rights on a broad national level were present from the very beginning within the disabled community and the movement towards the ADA. Then, by exploring some of the greatest theologians in the history of the church, this book hopes to illuminate the ways in which the church has served those with disabilities well, and in many cases not so well, throughout its history. Finally, the book will close with a hopeful, optimistic, and yet practical way forward rooted in the concepts of hospitality, community, and mutuality that we call the Julian Way.

Подробнее

A motion picture chronicling the last adventures of bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), Public Enemies was met with much bafflement upon its 2009 release. Director Michael Mann's terse storytelling and unorthodox use of high-definition digital cameras challenged viewers' familiarity with Hollywood's historical gangland elegance while highlighting Public Enemies' own place in a medium–and culture–undergoing sweeping technological change. In Off the Map, Niles Schwartz immerses us in Mann's representation of Dillinger, a subject increasingly aware of his own role as a romanticized frontier folk hero, in flight from an enveloping bureaucratic system. The cultural issues of Dillinger's 1930s anticipate the 21st century watershed moment for the moving image, as our relationship with the pictures surrounding us increasingly affects our own sense of identity, historical truth, and means of relating to each other. Mann's follow-up, the hacker thriller Blackhat (2015), reflects a world where Public Enemies' abstract surveillance state has since colonized the firmament of our everyday lives. Yet in this virtual labyrinth of surplus images, cinema may inwardly illuminate a transformative path for us. Off the Map places Mann's late works in deep focus, exploring our present relationship to cinema on a backdrop that swings from the blockbuster spectacle of Avatar to the curious intimacy of Moonrise Kingdom, ultimately suggesting the mysterious space between the viewer and the screen may yet become a sanctuary of deep spiritual reflection.

Подробнее