LITMIR.BIZ

How do we love people who we are afraid of?
The political climate of the US in recent years has revealed significant divisions in our nation and our neighborhoods, divisions often fueled by fear. For those who follow a call and commitment to love our neighbors, how do we love in the midst of this fear?
In this book, Cassie Trentaz looks that question in the eyes and asks her friends and neighbors in four communities currently facing pressure and often viewed with suspicion–immigrants, Muslim Americans, LGBTQ+ people, and young African American men–what feels like love to them and, alternatively, what does not. Trentaz brings their honest, heartfelt responses in their own words, helping us to know people we might not know and bringing us powerful stories of offerings of love that were received as love as well as stories of good intentions that missed their mark. She then offers us tools to help us act on what we hear. This book is both an invitation and a toolbox for listening. It takes love from a good idea to a concrete force that can speak to our fears, reach across divisions, and just might heal our world.

Подробнее

What does it mean to inhabit the land of Palestine and Israel justly? How should Christians understand the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Alain Epp Weaver examines answers to these questions, paying particular attention to the theologies of sumud, or steadfastness, advanced by Palestinian Christian theologians, while also presenting other Christian, Jewish, and Muslim responses. Contextualizing these theologies within Palestinian and Israeli Jewish histories, Epp Weaver introduces readers to the intertwined histories of Zionism (as a movement to establish a Jewish state and renew Jewish life in the biblical land of Israel) and Palestinian nationalism. He also situates Palestinian Christian theologies within broader Christian conversations about election, God's enduring covenant with the Jewish people, and Zionism. In the face of a politics of separation and dispossession, Epp Weaver contends, Palestinian Christian theologies testify to the possibility of a shared polity and geography for Palestinians and Israeli Jews not defined by walls, militarized fences, checkpoints, and roadblocks, but rather by mutuality and reconciliation.

Подробнее

When the Spirit enters the scene, people change. The fallen find redemption. The fearful find freedom. The broken find hope and healing for a new beginning.
But how do we trust a Spirit we struggle to know and understand?
Story of the Spirit breaks down barriers of confusion and controversy by exploring his partnerships with real people in the Old Testament. Through the eyes of leaders like Moses and Gideon and lesser known heroes like Jephthah and Bezalel, we discover a Spirit who
–champions second chances –emboldens the insecure –restores lost peace and purpose –transforms places of wounding into places of worship
It's time to turn the page in our perception of the Holy Spirit and awaken his powerful presence in our lives. He is more than a riddle to unravel or mystery to solve. He is a Person we were always meant to know. Knowing him inspires trust. Trusting him transforms the unfolding chapters of our own story with potential made possible only in relationship with the whole of who God is–Father, Son, and Spirit.

Подробнее

Contemplation is a spiritual process involving long, thoughtful, steady, serious, and attentive consideration or observation in order to achieve closer unity with God and to discover and understand God's will for the contemplative. Contemplation gives rise to activity, and activity, in turn, gives rise to more contemplation. The result of contemplation is often called discernment, seeing clearly what is at first not very clear or obvious, understanding what is not immediately obvious, resulting in accuracy of spiritual perception. Divine discernment is contemplation in action; it results in insight, inspiration, and an awareness of inner truth upon which one must act. While there are countless models of contemplation leading to action, the ninth-century BCE prophets Elijah and Elisha are the examples used in this book. Both are seers, messengers, and heralds of the LORD. They appear in activity when they are needed, and they disappear into solitude and silence when they are not.

Подробнее

The Philosophy of Literature: Four Studies puts forth the question of the extent to which philosophers must go to school with the poets. It begins with a new interpretation of the famous Platonic quarrel with the poetic wisdom of Homer. It brings this question forward through the humanism of thinkers of the Italian Renaissance and the German Idealism of Hegel. It then treats the relation of philosophy and literature in four ways by considering philosophy as literature, philosophy of literature, philosophy in literature, and philosophy and literature. In regard to the first of these, it discusses Jorge Luis Borges's The Immortal, to the second James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, to the third Carl Sandburg's epic prose poem The People, Yes, and to the fourth, Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools. This work demonstrates that in an area of thought often dominated by fashionable doctrines of literary interpretation, the great works of literature and philosophy remain as permanent residents of our thought and imagination.

Подробнее

How can sixty-eight words change the world? Seems impossible. An even greater mystery, these words come in the form of a prayer. Christopher Levan shows how early Christians used what we now call The Lord's Prayer as a building block for their movement. It was from these sixty-eight words that they created the backbone and determination to shape a religious movement that would dramatically alter human history. Walking step by step through The Prayer, Levan will show how Jesus of Nazareth adapted the economic and spiritual principles from his Jewish heritage and teaching, to direct his followers in a simple, yet very profound conversation with their Creator. In The Prayer, Jesus' disciples found words to build God's reign on earth: «the kingdom of God.» Obviously, these sixty-eight words are not just words. They have power. They enact what they express. And far from spent, these words still contain the ability to enliven and shape the current expressions of God's reign here and now.

Подробнее

Otherness and Ethics demonstrates how Levinas and Confucius (Kongzi) develop their ideas of otherness and ethics. Most of all, the meaning of inter-subjectivity is examined in order to employ this point as this book delves into the phenomenon of face in Levinas and the significance of ren (human-relatedness) in Confucius (Kongzi). In addition, this book searches their different notions of humanity and relatedness to have a creative discourse for developing the concept of ethics of otherness as it concentrates on the formulation of ethical narratives in Levinas and Confucius (Kongzi). Thus, this book can open a possibility of building of ethics of otherness through reviewing ethical foundations of Levinas and Confucius (Kongzi) and discussing the meaning of otherness.

Подробнее

To read and visualize the transfiguration of Christ is to enter its mystery and encounter its hope. Like the Gospel writers and the disciples who climbed the mountain with Jesus, we struggle to tell the story and explain its meaning. Yet this astounding event reveals God's ultimate purpose in sending his Son–the complete restoration of humanity and all creation–our transfiguration in Christ. The light and glory of that moment reveal a destiny that is infinite and eternal, made possible by the power of grace. Transfiguration is the trajectory and goal of our spiritual journey. Across time and space, Christians have reflected on the mystery and hope epitomized in the transfiguration, yet their voices have been heard primarily within their own cultural and ecclesiastical contexts. This study gathers many of those voices from the panorama of Scripture and church history and finds in them the common theme of radical transformation in Christ. The point of this theological conversation is spiritual transfiguration and hope for each of us as we reach toward the future Christ has shown us in himself.

Подробнее

Jesus the Everlasting Hope of Humankind: Biblical Theology Prompted by Visions and Dreams from the Holy Spirit begins with a vision that came to Don Eckhart of two persons: one a Spirit-filled Christian and the other in the lake of fire. The vision depicts Jesus saving the desperate one crying out for mercy. Eckhart enrolled in seminary where he studied the Bible and the history of Christian theology, especially eternal punishment, a topic seldom examined since Augustine in the fifth century. Uniquely unfolding in the book are visions and dreams prompting an insightful study of Scripture and a biblical theology developed as the hope of Christ-mediated salvation for all. The effects are far-reaching but not complicated. This coherent theology includes afterlife correction and purification for nonbelievers, as well as for believers who never fully devoted to Jesus Christ. This purification compares to Catherine of Genoa's vision in the early sixteenth century. The book demonstrates how God's desire that all be saved can be accomplished according to Scripture. God's sovereignty and human free will coalesce, as every tongue joyfully confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. The Good News may be even better than we thought!

Подробнее

Beginning with the desires of our hearts and ending with the priesthood of all believers, this series of meditations traces a path through some central concerns of the Reformation. Along this path, the authors, all faculty at Wycliffe College, engage with biblical passages which were important at that time and remain just as vital today in working out what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be the people of God. It seems appropriate, given the central place Scripture had for the reformers, that we should follow their lead in looking to the Bible in the context of the life of the church. While some church communities enthusiastically proclaim their Reformation roots, others look askance at particular reformers and seek to distance themselves from the whole of the Reformation. Yet the Reformation is not an era we in the West can simply ignore; it is bred in our bones, runs through our veins, and shapes our life together in myriad ways. These meditations are not simply historical explorations or an exercise in documenting past events. Rather, the authors grapple with questions which we continue to struggle with today–questions of faith and grace, sin and salvation, work and worship. These meditations will provoke discussion and broaden our theological understanding while guiding us into a deeper understanding of the faith.

Подробнее