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Poverty is a big problem in Africa, particularly black Africa. Basic necessities such as food, water, and shelter remain out of reach of many. According to some statistics, nearly 50% of all Africans live below or on the edge of poverty, earning only around $1.25 per day. Access to health care, education and shelter remains a gigantic problem.

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Since the time of Jerome, scholars have tried to explain why John the Baptist asks Jesus if he is «the one who is to come» (Matt 11:2-6; Luke 7:18-23) after he had apparently identified him as «the lamb of God» (John 1:29-34). The puzzling question is part of one of the longest fragments of traditional material in the New Testament dealing with the Baptist and Jesus. The present study critically examines the Lukan version of this double tradition normally attributed to Q, which includes John's question as well as Jesus' testimony about the Baptist (7:24-28) and his reproach of the religious leaders (7:29-35). Martinez investigates the narrative elements of the passage and shows how Luke 7:18-35 is part of a literary pattern within a section whose main goal is to clarify the identity of Jesus. The study argues that the tradition in Matthew 11:2-19 and Luke 7:18-35 deserves to be interpreted differently in the Gospel of Luke and explains how Luke integrates John's apparent ignorance of Jesus as well as Jesus' indictment of the religious leaders into his literary scheme. Finally, Martinez shows how Luke puts this tradition about John and Jesus at the service of his theocentric and christological perspectives and offers an alternative explanation to the prevailing interpretation of John's question.

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Luther's theology of the cross is a direct critique of oppressive power relationships in his day. Luther's early thought challenges specific economic, political, social, ideological, and religious power dynamics; the cross confronts those who enjoy power, prestige, pomp, and profits at the expense of the poor. Ruge-Jones maps the power relationships that Luther's theology addressed and then turns to specific works that challenge established structures of his world. Luther's Latin texts undermine the ideological assumptions and presumptions that bolstered an opulent church and empire. Luther uses the cross of Christ to challenge what he called volatilem cogitatum, «knowledge that is prone to violence.» His German writings (directed to a broader, more popular audience) focus this critique of human pretensions into an attack on systems of wealth, status, and power that refuse to look with compassion upon poor Mary, or upon the many domestic servants of Germany. God has respected the ones whom the world disrespects and has thus entered the world to turn it upside down. Also in the German writings, the Lord's Supper calls the powerful to enter into solidarity with the poor–suffering people to whom Christ has given himself. Finally, in his popular pamphlets, visual images show with graphic specificity that throughout his life Christ sought out solidarity with the least. These images contrast brutally with images of a church that has sold its soul to wealth, political influence, military power, and status.

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This collection of essays considers topics in pastoral theology, pastoral care and counseling, pastoral leadership, and social work, and attends to challenges and opportunities pertaining to the support and care of persons in need. Of interest to ministers, chaplains, pastoral counselors, and social workers, these essays focus particularly on human experiences, needs, or concerns that relate to matters of mental health and religious faith or spirituality. Converging Horizons demonstrates approaches to integrative work that draws on multiple fields of theory and practice in service to the goal of providing a range of caregivers with ways to both conceptualize and engage their important work.

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In her waking life, Leianna is a 29-year-old single mother living in Philadelphia, but she is psychic, has had astonishing visions, and leads a dual, astral existence in which she is now reunited with Bael, her dark, mysterious lover from another life, 35,000 years ago. More than love is at stake, for Bael is nothing less than one of Lucifer's followers, a fallen angel. Behind the story of their love is the epic of the Fall from Grace, which takes a new turn as an alliance between Heaven and Hell seems a real possibility for the first time in untold millennia. Now Leianna, becoming Queen of Hell, will face an impossible task: if Hell itself is to be reformed, she must first redeem the soul of history's greatest monster – Adoph Hitler – and make him weep. Can she save the damned? Should she?

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Leigh Ann has been psychic since childhood, sharing with her mother her ability to see and hear things unknown to ordinary people. She is not afraid of spirits. But now, as she struggles with a failing marriage, she senses a dark, brooding presence far beyond the ordinary, a mysterious being who calls himself Bael and insists that Leigh Ann was once his lover. She is haunted by strange dreams, by the persistent voice of Bael, and by the gradually surfacing memories that she was indeed a maiden called Leianna, betrothed to Bael 35,000 years ago in the beautiful land of Eliom, until the two were separated the catastrophe known in later legend as the Fall from Grace. Now, across the millennia, Bael has come to claim her once again....

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Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897-1963) was an American Christian pastor, preacher, author, magazine editor, and spiritual mentor. For his work, he received two honorary doctorate degrees. His classic Christian work, The Pursuit of God, covers:<P> 1. Following Hard After God<BR> 2. The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing<BR> 3. Removing the Veil<BR> 4. Apprehending God<BR> 5. The Universal Presence<BR> 6. The Speaking Voice<BR> 7. The Gaze of the Soul<BR> 8. Restoring the Creator-Creature Relation<BR> 9. Meekness and Rest<BR> 10. The Sacrament of Living

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Ascend Ascend was written over the course of twenty days, coming in and out of trance states brought on by intermittent fasting and somatic rituals while secluded in the tower of a 100-year-old church. It is rooted in the jewish mystical tradition of merkabah literature, chronicling an ascent up the kabbalistic sefirot to witness the “chariot of god.” While traditional merkabah prose trends dry—focused on preparations for the journey while demurring to describe the experience itself—Ascend Ascend uses poetry to touch the ineffable. Equal parts Walt Whitman and Maggot Brain, this long poem documents the ecstatic destruction of the self.

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Surely the most deeply-rooted need of the human soul, its purest aspiration, is for the closest possible union with God. As one turns over the pages of this little work, written by Blessed Albert the Great towards the end of his life, when that great soul had ripened and matured, one feels that here indeed is the ideal of one’s hopes. Simply and clearly the great principles are laid down, the way is made plain which leads to the highest spiritual life. It seems as though, while one reads, the mists of earth vanish and the snowy summits appear of the mountains of God. We breathe only the pure atmosphere of prayer, peace, and love, and the one great fact of the universe, the Divine Presence, is felt and realized without effort. [Complete with Notes, Preface, and a New Introduction]

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