LITMIR.BIZ

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?

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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.

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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.

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Love, seduction, betrayal, violence, riddles, and myth all find their place in the biblical story of Samson. Samson is the last of the judges, with 20 percent of the book devoted to him–more than any other judge. From the beginning, Samson is unlike any other judge, which the author suggests when narrating Samson's birth. Samson is destined, even before his birth, to deliver Israel. He doesn't lead his people into battle, he acts alone; his battles are personal vendettas. Samson fights with a lion, defeats the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, captures foxes, sets Philistine fields on fire, and carries the Gates of Gaza on his shoulders. So what stands behind these stories? Was Samson a mythological hero like Hercules and Gilgamesh? Like other men in the Hebrew Bible, Samson can't resist foreign women. Time after time, he follows Philistine women who eventually betray him. Samson is defeated not by physical strength, but by the powers of seduction, making this story a tragedy. Who were these women and how did they defeat Samson? Readers of this volume will rediscover Samson and better understand his achievements and failures. This study will afford a provocative and useful insight into the character of Samson.

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Thomas Merton is one of the most important spiritual voices of the last century. He has never been more relevant as new generations look to him for guidance in addressing some of life's biggest questions: how can we find God, how should we engage with other faiths, and how can we oppose violence and injustice? Looking carefully, one can find, tucked away in Merton's prodigious writings, his response to another timeless question: Why do we suffer? Why does an all-powerful and all loving God permit evil and suffering? By carefully examining all of Merton's work, we find that he repeatedly confronted this question throughout most of his adult life. Intriguingly, Merton's approach to this question changed dramatically a few years before he died in 1968. An examination of all aspects of his life yields evidence that Merton's immersion in Zen during this time contributed most to that change.

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Finding Our Voice is a series of meditations on how to express the deepest sense of who we are in a troubled world. What is the core of our being? How do we find the language to name that core? If the core of our faith is identifying and embodying the prophetic for our time, surviving that naming is as challenging as finding our voice. Often as not, the prophetic lands us in hot water. We feel alone and abandoned. Recognizing others in the same situation is crucial to our ability to hold fast. With others our voice grows more certain and finds a home, even in exile. Soon the community we left is replaced by a new community of fellow travelers. We are not alone.

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Democracy requires a commitment to dialogue and deliberation, as well as a commitment to seek peaceful solutions. Is democracy possible in states that earn significant portions of their revenue from the manufacture and sales of arms, that give weapons away in huge numbers, and that turn quickly to violence in the face of difficulties? The proliferation of weapons is nearly as great a tragedy of the commons as global warming, and the evidence indicates that civilians are increasingly being targeted in wars. How large is the problem of war today? Given that the members of the UN Security Council are among the chief manufacturers of weapons, are there any useful mechanisms in place for limiting wars or the supply of deadly weapons? Is it time, in view of the callousness with which non-combatants are killed, to re-examine our basic reasons for valuing human life? Cain's Crime re-introduces an ethical theory popular at the dawn of the twentieth century and examines the extent of violence in the contemporary world, from neo-colonial wars, civil wars, freedom movements, and ethnic conflicts to the oldest war of all, the systematic and continuing murder of women in cultures where they are valued less than men.

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Dave Matthews likes Jesus, but not dogmatic beliefs about him. He openly wonders about God's existence while singing of showing love to each other as life's highest ideal. His songs celebrate making the most of each day's pleasures because we aren't guaranteed tomorrow, but also caution against overindulgence. His music wrestles with deep questions about identity and mortality, while proposing that upholding others' worth is one of the most important roles we can fulfill. Wonder and Whiskey is an exploration of the lyrics of Dave Matthews Band as a multilayered call to be present in the moment, both for oneself and others, as well as how these ideas intersect with the highest aspirations of a lived Christian spirituality.

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What if heaven is more real, physical, exciting, and compelling than anything we have ever heard? And what difference would it make? Myk Habets takes readers on a journey of discovery into what God has in store for those who love him. Forget playing harps on fluffy clouds. The reality of what God has in store for us will change the way you live, work, and play.
Habets answers a series of questions about heaven that are asked by children and addresses things we all want to know but are often too afraid to ask. Written in easy-to-read language and incorporating insights from some of the best Christian novelists, Habets explains the meaning of a «Christian imagination» and how it can be put to work in creating a vision of the future that results in a life characterized by faith, hope, and assurance. This book appeals to all who want to know what the Bible says about life after death, and finds a way to make it understandable to others. It may even make you laugh out loud along the way.

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Are the Ten Commandments the standard for Christian living? There are many viewpoints on the place of the Mosaic Law today. Some affirm that while we are not saved through keeping the law, it remains our standard for living, a pattern to be followed. Others say we are free from the law. This brief examination of the law affirms all of God's revelation as Christian Scripture, but acknowledges covenantal differences in God's dealings with believers. The progress of salvation history, and our identification with Christ, has altered our relationship to the Mosaic Law. Using the Law «lawfully» requires us to recognize the way in which the New Testament, and chiefly the Apostle Paul, treats the law. Paul presents the believer as having died to the law, and serving now in the new way of the Spirit, a way that does not depend on the Mosaic law. The pattern for the New Testament believer remains Jesus himself. While keeping all of God's law, he went beyond its requirement to demonstrate a love for sinners that the law did not know.

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