LITMIR.BIZ

The Book of Unknowing meditates on John's confrontation with the incandescent Jesus, a figure of our desire for immortality. Guiding us through the Gospel's coming to grips with Jesus, the poet David Sten Herrstrom prefers sparking the imagination to arguing a thesis, as he explores John's own obsessions, such as image (light), symbol (water), sign (water to wine), shapeliness (symmetry), loves (Peter, Mary's), and above all, words (the Word, the body of Jesus). The result is a heady, literary engagement not afraid of wit and paradox. For anyone who loves literature or whose business is interpretation–ministers and teachers–this book blossoms with fresh revelations about the many voices of Jesus living in the House of the Interpreter and interacting with another interpreter (Nicodemus), as well as about John the interpreter who continually pauses to explain Jesus' motives, metaphors, and the meaning of his death. This meditation on John's Gospel takes the goat's leaping approach to the craggy language of John and Jesus rather than the methodical rock climber's. And along the way, to help him find footholds on the how and why of John's strategies, the author calls on other poets, from William Blake to Emily Dickinson and Miguel de Unamuno. The result: a poet's rather than a preacher's, theologian's, or scholar's reading of John's book, one which crosses the borders of disciplines. Throughout The Book of Unknowing, David Herrstrom is unsettled and exhilarated by the peculiar orneriness and fragrance of John's book, by its strange particulars that grab him by the throat and call lives into question. As William Blake has said, «Exuberance is Beauty,» and this is an exuberant book.

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Having grown up in the shadow of the Bomb and having provided supportive care to post-Cold War generations of children and their parents (both in crisis), I have seen a lot of distrust and instability in people–individually and in communities. I have seen how the shadow of impending doom can rewrite a way that people live. This distrust and instability is not a personal issue. It is a sign and symptom of having lived in a time when the imagination can harbor not simply notions of tribal decay and destruction, but the decay and destruction of all tribes, in all places, and throughout all future time. We can wipe out everything that exists within the realm of our planet–in an instant. This changes who people are. This changes how people grow and develop. The current earth crisis is large. It looms overhead and in our homes. It is more visible and prevalent than the crisis of the Bomb. Everything we pick up and discard is a reminder that we have a problem. In many ways this crisis is more severe than the Bomb. In this crisis everyone has a button they can push to bring destruction. We have more madmen to worry about. Everyone. Everyone has an impact on global ecologic and climate issues. Here are poets' songs on the beauty of the earth, lest we forget.

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Is it possible to find the revelatory, to find faith in a tiny blue berry? This is but one of the questions explored in this collection of engaging essays aimed at the intrinsically human intersection of memory and belief. Threaded throughout with an ever-changing cast of meadowland characters, not the least of which is a rambling barren of wild blueberries, these writings offer an intimate chronicle of one man's quest to understand what it means to believe. Again and again the author's words bring the reader from a particular geographical place to a location at once familiar and foreign, universal and unique: the landscape of memory. Whether grappling with the implications of adoption, or grieving over a lost family recipe; recalling a surprise encounter with an equally surprised red fox, or reconsidering the meaning of migration, Blueberry Fool is about the sheer fragility and strength of belief, the idiosyncratic light of memory, and the simple year-round pleasures of a wild meadow.

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This book is a close examination of one of Shakespeare's most controversial characters: Prince Hal/Henry V. From his early tavern dalliances with Sir John Falstaff, to his assumption of the English throne, to his military successes and marriage, the analysis weighs his many disparate qualities, such as charm, aggression, wit, and faith, as well as his relationship to questions about power, religion, and morality that dominate Shakespeare's history plays. The study also links this complex figure to electoral issues and strategies of our own day.

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Your daughter asks if she can wear a tuxedo to the prom. How should you answer her? A thief breaks into your home at night. Can you protect your family to the point of killing the thief? A politician campaigning for your vote has no regard for Christ's gospel. Can you vote for him? Crime is rampant and mounting. How exactly does a society confront it? Do you know God's particular will for these situations? The general guidance offered from many pulpits and the specific guidance offered from many talk shows should not satisfy those committed to taking every thought captive to Christ (see 2 Cor 10:5). In moral dilemmas, God's general guidance or the «wisdom» of men will not do. We need God's voice, and we need it particularly. The Will of God: Moral and Political Guidance from Calvin's Commentaries on the Mosaic Law overcomes these drawbacks of authorized generalities or unauthorized specifics. It comprehensively yet succinctly expresses God's entire moral will by: ogiving specific, not general, ethical direction oclosely tying direction to God's commandments, avoiding the «ingenuities» of men olooking to the interpretations of a trusted theologian, John Calvin osummarizing Calvin's interpretations in bullet points for rapid learning In a word, The Will of God offers an ethical gourmet meal at a fast food pace. The book especially aims for the biblical reformation of politics. No other sector calls for moral reform like the political sector, and if there is any weak area in contemporary Christian teaching it is in political ethics. Christian teachers have simply baptized current non-Christian theories. The Will of God presents a biblical political theory that does not annul one of the least of God's commandments (see Matt 5:19).

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Healing the Racial Divide retrieves the insights of Dr. Arthur Falls (1901-2000) for composing a renewed theology of Catholic racial justice. Falls was a black Catholic medical doctor who dedicated his life to healing rifts created by white supremacy and racism. He integrated theology, the social sciences, and personal experience to compose a salve that was capable of not only integrating neighborhoods but also eradicating the segregation that existed in Chicago hospitals. Falls was able to reframe the basic truths of the Christian faith in a way that unleashed their prophetic power. He referred to those Catholics who promoted segregation in Chicago as believers in the «mythical body of Christ,» as opposed to the mystical body of Christ. The «mythical body of Christ» is a heretical doctrine that excludes African Americans and promotes the delusion that white people are the normative measure of the Catholic faith.

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"Of very few people can it be legitimately said that their work fundamentally reconfigured the landscape of two theological disciplines. But if there is anyone in recent memory who would be worthy of such an accolade, it is John Howard Yoder. The two disciplines are, of course, theological ethics and biblical studies–though Yoder would cringe at their separation, and his work was both explicitly and implicitly a prolonged exercise in maintaining their indissoluble union. For him, to hear the word rightly was to do the word publicly. . . . [Yoder] guides us toward a truly ecclesial yet missional reading of Scripture, with a profoundly Anabaptist yet ecumenical and catholic spirit, in historically astute and literarily sensitive ways that are nonetheless «straightforward» and pastoral. Or, as he would himself say, he guides us toward a reading of Scripture that proceeds from and focuses on Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster, Eum Sequamur; 'Our Lamb has conquered; let us follow him.'" –from the foreword by Michael J. Gorman

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Is faith a search for security? Is faith the reason for taking risks? The answer to these questions will ultimately determine the quality of our faith – whether it will be a faith that flourishes and grows or a faith that is stunted and limited.
Author Richard Kropf analyzes these faith choices with a unique approach. He combines the psycho-dynamics of Viktor Frankl, the faith analysis of Avery Dulles, and the faith stages researched by James Fowler to provide a provocative foundation for understanding our spiritual life. Kropf then takes us through each faith level and highlights the challenges and pitfalls along the way. He covers the broad range of topics from compulsive religious behavior, «fundamentalism,» and various «enthusiasms,» to adolescent and mid-life crises of faith and the risks of trying to achieve «sainthood.»
'Faith: Security and Risk' is ideal for pastors, spiritual directors, and professional counselors, and is particularly designed to complement spiritual workshops and retreats. Each chapter ends with a series of questions that provide excellent stimulus for small group discussion as well as personal reflection. This book has also proved most helpful for college professors as an excellent text for their students seeking to understand their own faith struggles.

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Did Jesus really rise from the dead? And does it really matter? In The Resurrection of History, David Bruce explores what historians, theologians, and New Testament scholars have said about the resurrection of Jesus from a historical point of view. Bruce argues that scholars don't have to dismiss the scriptural witness that «he is risen» as metaphor or wishful thinking. Bruce examines the development of the art of history writing and explores the theological possibilities now open to scholars in the twenty-first century. Using contemporary examples, Bruce helps his readers come to grips with the interrelationship of history and theology and think like theologically-informed historians. Respectful of varying points of view, Bruce defends the traditional, orthodox view of the resurrection and challenges his readers to consider the implications for Christian faith and witness if, in fact, the resurrection of Jesus was historical.

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How to live in rural Maine? How–in the 1980s, when descendants of Maine's settlers wonder about our coming out of the Rust Belt in search of work, in search of a life? They were not bitter about our coming here, where jobs were already scarce–they were incredulous. Why did we come? Sometimes I answered, «God.» God brought us, the formerly middle-class inept, to live among these most hardy and canny of make-do people. God brought us to experience life in Maine, where my spouse sometimes worked turning and trimming four thousand boards a night, waking to drive one hundred miles round-trip to finish our undergraduate educations with the aid of loans and grants. So I studied the place where we came to live. And I forgot where we came from. Rural Maine was ragged, rugged, hardscrabble, and wild–but full of the most visible, vital, natural creation. I've tried to express that aspect of Maine life in The Green and Blue House. And there is the metaphor, also.

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