LITMIR.BIZ

Gospel in an age devoid of miracles, King: A Mystery is set in the year of Obama's first election, a year of catastrophic floods. Tom King, twin brother of religious leader Joshua King, tells the story of night watchman Arnie Mikesh's investigation of the death and life of Joshua, whose car wreck he discovers on a country road. Joshua King, whose ministry is dedicated to the Spirit he addresses as «Mother,» provokes scorn and occasional violence from Christians, politicians, law enforcement, and powerful agricultural interests. Divisions among King's followers about whether he is the reincarnation of the Messiah trouble his ministry. Mikesh's investigation leads him from a labor organizer to cult members and a car body repairman, from rural Iowa where King has established his ministry to the state capital where King clashes with authorities. The unravelling and ultimate solution of the mystery of King's death awakens Mikesh to a new sense of himself and brings him close to Mary Towers, the woman who haunted King's life.

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Your God is too small–way too small! What if God is not a human-like personal being but the God Beyond God of the Christian mystical traditions? What if God is the ultimate reality beyond all beings, including beyond all divine beings, indeed beyond all Being? It's a mind-bending idea. Speaking of God as a human-like personal being is much easier but people who care about the deepest mystical understandings of God within our traditions need to make the effort to speak about the God Beyond God, despite the difficulties. This book makes the attempt to speak of the God Beyond God in the language of the sermon, using metaphor and potent imagery tuned to the existential intensities of human life. The God Beyond God is closer to us than our jugular veins, vividly present in every moment of our lives. These sermons are practical and moving, and they also resonate with the most rigorous theological understandings of ultimate reality. Their deconstruction of our convenient fantasies about a divine being make these sermons emotionally intense and perhaps not suitable for beginners in the journey of faith. But veteran believers can breathe deeply in the air of these meditations, relaxing into the bliss of engaging ultimate reality without delusions, without deflections, and without controlling the object of our worship.

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The philosopher, theologian, and biblical scholar Austin Farrer (1904-1968) highlighted in his various writings the central role that images play in the interpretation of biblical writings, the construction of theological arguments, and the descriptions of the Christian spiritual life. Theologians down through the centuries have sought to revitalize the central biblical images as they addressed the pressing theological, moral, and spiritual questions of their day. A Revitalization of Images offers students the opportunity to participate in this ongoing creative engagement with ten dominant biblical images that continue to shape the church's beliefs and practices, as well as each Christian's own spiritual journey. Sound theology is rooted in Scripture, conversant with past thinkers, and engaged in the present life of the church. This dynamic directly informs Revitalization. In each chapter we begin with a biblical image that has figured prominently in the Christian theological tradition. Next we examine two prominent voices from the Christian tradition who have drawn upon the image when crafting a compelling vision of the Christian life. We then turn our attention to a contemporary thinker who has incorporated or critiqued the image in his or her own theological work. This discussion is set within the current spectrum of theological positions including orthodox, liberal, postliberal, and postmodern perspectives.

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We are experiencing God always. The experience of God, however, transcends our capacity to comprehend it. We will never fully grasp what God is, but this does not mean we should stop trying. Our ideas about God set the tone for our spiritual development. The further we are willing to journey into the mystery of God, the more we will be transformed by it. The bigger the ideas, the bigger the God, and the more our lives will reflect God. When I set out to write Where is God? it was my intention to entertain the biggest ideas possible. I wanted to understand the God of all things–the God of religion and science, the God of music and beauty, the God of life and death, the God of love. This is a book of ideas, big ideas.

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In a time of political turmoil, how should we pray? What is the role of prayer in resisting politics that are based on hatred and division? This book claims prayer as a way to choose hope over fear. Beginning soon after the Inauguration in 2017, Shannon Craigo-Snell offered brief, daily prayers lifting up people and groups who were actively working for the common good. These prayers, collected here, provide a historical record of the rhetorical and political outrages of the first year of the Trump Administration, as well as the actions of those who resisted. They remember the small victories, averted disasters, and ongoing struggles of people of good will. They affirm not only the practical value of political involvement, but also the spiritual value of such engagement in solidarity with those most vulnerable to destructive policies. In addition to these daily prayers, this book offers an introduction and invitation to prayer. Intercessory prayer, in particular, can bridge divides between religious traditions and cultural differences, creating a space in which diverse communities can hope together for a better world.

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Recinos discovered a love for poetry living on the streets after being abandoned by immigrant Latino parents. At age sixteen, a White Presbyterian minister made him a part of his family and guided him back to school. Recinos finished high school, attended undergraduate school in Ohio and later graduate school in New York, where he befriended the Nuyorican poet the late Miguel Pinero who encouraged him to write and read poetry at the Nuyorican poets cafe. After Eden registers life at the edges of American society in ways that are both personal and universal in human experience. In this collection, poems address issues of police brutality, gun violence, immigrants' rights, the blighted urban landscape, death, hunger, religious violence, drug addiction, pluralism, spirituality, family life, political corruption, cultural cruelty, struggles for justice, and the pulse of everyday life in overlooked places. The metaphor in the title is reflected in poems that record the sounds of kindness and cruelty, sorrows and joys, greed and generosity, inequality and powerlessness, good and evil, death and life in the context of struggles to live meaningfully awake–consciously–in society.

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Jesus invited his disciples to be with him in Gethsemane as he struggled with his own hour of death. These Lenten devotions are intended to help us do just that: to be with Jesus in his hour(s) facing dying–not just as observers, but as fellow mortals, with all of our own fears and anxieties.
The daily exposure and interaction with texts of Scripture related to Jesus' own dying will bring the reader into close interaction with Jesus and biblical sources of promise and hope. Through these devotionals, you and Jesus will be together in that place that you most intimately and equally share: dying. But it will be an encounter of hope, not despair; joy, not grief; vision, not disillusion.
Lent is a time to know Jesus better. And perhaps to know ourselves better in the process. This disciplined pilgrimage begins with Jesus' life and takes us through his death and the stunning implications of that death for each of us. This is a profoundly human story of the human Jesus, living and dying to help us live our lives in fuller knowledge of who we are and who he is.

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"What do I do now?" Whether you're a lay minister, pastor, or missionary, this is probably a question you've often asked yourself. Along with the joy of helping people in Christian ministry comes the complexity of all the issues and situations that arise. This book offers biblical perspectives and insights into twenty of the most common, and puzzling, questions that occur in Christian ministry today. Questions like . . . how can I help people with problems? How can I be a great small-group leader? Can we actually hurt people by trying to minister to them? How do I answer the tough questions non-Christians–and Christians–ask? Why doesn't God seem to help us more in our ministries? What does success in ministry look like? The discussions of these and other questions will hopefully encourage us to view every situation we face as an opportunity to help people connect with God.

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Take a Moment to Listen:
Come gentle child, come rest in my heart–for I am here deep within your own. If you can still yourself just for a moment, you can hear me whisper your name. You can hear me whisper the depth of my eternal love for you, in this moment and always. Let me quiet your frightened mind, and hold your unsettled heart–for I will give you peace, the very moment you ask. Let me fill your heart with my love, and wrap my arms around you in absolute tenderness and grace. In that moment you will know with certainty that I am forever with you. Love, God
This book is an invitation to God's loving presence. It is an invitation to deepen your relationship with God. It includes a quote from a spiritual leader, commentary, a Bible quote, and a guided meditation. It also includes a moment to fully imagine God speaking directly to your own heart. This gives you an invitation to learn to turn to his love and presence throughout the day and into the evening. As you open your heart you will learn again and again that God is there with you. You are never alone.

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How is the Christian mandate to love your neighbor as yourself to be applied in business, economics, and politics? In what way does God want people to act within their jobs, their businesses, and their business transactions; treat tenants, other businesses, subordinates, and their employees; market their products and services and set prices; monitor the quality and safety of their products and services, and so on?
Christian Economics promotes justice, fairness, balance, cooperation, and mutual respect within business, economics, and politics, and is based on three principles: good is to be done and promoted and evil is to be avoided; love your neighbor as yourself; and treat each and every human being with absolute dignity. Every business strategy, every business policy, and every business transaction needs to be based on these three principles.

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