Return to Good and Evil


Book Description

While Flannery O'Connor is hailed as one of the most important writers of the twentieth-century American south, few appreciate O'Connor as a philosopher as well. In Return to Good and Evil, Henry T. Edmondson introduces us to a remarkable thinker who uses fiction to confront and provoke us with the most troubling moral questions of modern existence. 'Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul, ' O'Connor once said, in response to the nihilistic tendencies she saw in the world around her. Nihilism--Nietzche's idea that 'God is dead'--preoccupied O'Connor, and she used her fiction to draw a tableau of human civilization on the brink of a catastrophic moral, philosophical, and religious crisis. Again and again, O'Connor suggests that the only way back from this precipice is to recognize the human need for grace, redemption, and God. She argues brilliantly and persuasively through her novels and short stories that the Nietzschean challenge to the notions of good and evil is an ill-conceived effort that will result only in disaster. With rare access to O'Connor's correspondence, prose drafts, and other personal writings, Edmondson investigates O'Connor's deepest motivations through more than just her fiction and illuminates the philosophical and theological influences on her life and work. Edmondson argues that O'Connor's artistic brilliance and philosophical genius reveal the only possible response to the nihilistic despair of the modern world: a return to good and evil through humility and grace.




Return of the God Hypothesis


Book Description

The New York Times bestselling author of Darwin’s Doubt presents groundbreaking scientific evidence of the existence of God, based on breakthroughs in physics, cosmology, and biology. Beginning in the late 19th century, many intellectuals began to insist that scientific knowledge conflicts with traditional theistic belief—that science and belief in God are “at war.” Philosopher of science Stephen Meyer challenges this view by examining three scientific discoveries with decidedly theistic implications. Building on the case for the intelligent design of life that he developed in Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt, Meyer demonstrates how discoveries in cosmology and physics coupled with those in biology help to establish the identity of the designing intelligence behind life and the universe. Meyer argues that theism—with its affirmation of a transcendent, intelligent and active creator—best explains the evidence we have concerning biological and cosmological origins. Previously Meyer refrained from attempting to answer questions about “who” might have designed life. Now he provides an evidence-based answer to perhaps the ultimate mystery of the universe. In so doing, he reveals a stunning conclusion: the data support not just the existence of an intelligent designer of some kind—but the existence of a personal God.




The Return Of All That Is Good


Book Description

Mr. Banta Algthrop and his friend Phlewellen, two Oglanders, grew up in a universe different from ours on a planet named Oglantia. Oglanders are a people we know here on earth as Tardigrades or Water Bears - small creatures who live in dewdrops and have been found by scientist to be considerably resilient. When they venture outside their dewdrop environment, they reach heights of fourteen to twenty feet. Like our people, they struggled through the ages for spiritual growth. After they attained fulfillment, they traveled throughout the stars of their universe upon a great ship named Homeward Bound Always seeking ever greater knowledge, maturity, and wisdom. Suddenly, in a burst of great light, the Spirit of Creation pulled the Oglanders and their great ship into our universe. They traveled through the stars until they reached our small planet. Their purpose here was to maintain the earth and its primary inhabitants, the creatures who were the embryos of the Spirit. The Return Of All That Is Good tells a tale that begins with a small girl, Annabelle, who is running for her life from a great tiger with long fangs. Annabelle scampers up an ancient tree hoping to escape certain death. At the instant she feared she may be lost, the Spirit rises from a dewdrop and engulfs the three characters in a great tornadic, spiritual event that separates them from all the world so that Annabelle, the great beast of the forest, and the ancient tree were surrounded by an impenetrable wall of wind. Within the protection of the Spirit, the three characters instantly become friends who can clearly communicate with each other. Banta suddenly stands amid the confused group and is immediately recognized by the great beast and the ancient tree. Under the influence of the Spirit, they remembered previous times when Banta influenced their lives. The story continues with Banta returning Annabelle to her parents and altering the spirits within the beast and the ancient tree so that they would always be friends on an unconscious level. The purpose instilled within them was to protect Annabelle throughout her life, so she could fulfill the purpose of the Spirit. Banta wields spiritual power throughout the times of the earth. We are given glimpses of how Water Bears work among human beings with stories like Annabelle's, the Bensond family during the period that America is being settled, and the later story of the children who struggle on this world just prior to the return of the Great King. The story threads many events from around the world that occur just prior to the King's return. I have come to believe that during the end times, there is no great, powerful nation on the other side of the world that protects Israel from its enemies who use its country as a staging area for all the lust of war that engulfs them. So, I build a potential scenario for why that is. We are bombarded with evidence that alien ships and their occupants fly above us, walk among us, and even die on the surface of our planet. For me, there is a most obvious answer as to why. The book ties together the great powers of earth in a time prior to our King's return. The armies march from far distances to meet at a place prophesied long ago. They cannot help themselves but struggle with all their might to meet their goal of world dominance. But in the end, the Good King steps upon the earth and meets His good friends, the Water Bears who have served Him from the beginning.




The Return of Curiosity


Book Description

The Spy Museum, the Vacuum Cleaner Museum, the National Mustard Museum—not to mention the Art Institute, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Getty Center: museums have never been more robust, curating just about everything there is and assuming a new prominence in public life. The Return of Curiosity explores museums in the modern age, offering a fresh perspective on some of our most important cultural institutions and the vital function they serve as stewards of human and natural history. Reflecting on art galleries, science and history institutions, and collections all around the world, Nicholas Thomas argues that, in times marked by incredible insecurity and turbulence, museums help us sustain and enrich society. Moreover, they stimulate us to think in new ways about our world, compelling our curiosity and showing us the importance of understanding one another. Thomas looks at museums not simply as storehouses of old things but as the products of meaningful relationships between curators, the public, history, and culture. These relationships, he shows, don’t always go smoothly, but they do always offer new insights into the many ways we value—and try to preserve—the world we live in. The result is a refreshing and hopeful look at museums as a cultural force, one that, by gathering together paintings, tropical birds, antiques, or even our own bodies, offers an illuminating reflection of who we are.




The Return of Freddy LeGrand


Book Description

Freddy LeGrand is trying to get to Paris in his plane, but how will he do it with no gas?




The Return


Book Description

It's easy to go through days, weeks, even years on autopilot, moving from one activity to another, rarely taking the time to consider what it's all for anyway. Why did God make us? What does he want us to do with the time he has given us? And how can we find out? In her bestselling story-driven style, Christian rocker Lacey Sturm shares with readers the beautiful struggle of learning what one's unique gifts are and pursuing them wholeheartedly. She helps them see each day as a gift from God, find balance in their busy lives, and discover the joy of giving God's gifts back to him by using them to bring him glory. Young people especially will love this openhanded and openhearted take on what to do with their lives, as will those who feel like they've been coasting or heading down the wrong path.




Return of the Alpha


Book Description

Happily ever after ... at least I hope. When it's come to my friends and family, I've been willing to sacrifice just about anything to save them, but these last few months I've been sidelined from the fight-not anymore. The time has come, and Abaddon is finally coming to collect what he was promised-and he is not alone. Those who I once thought were my allies, and others who I worried would stab me in the back have now partnered up with the demon to take what I hold most dear to my heart. Some will be hurt, some will survive, and others will die in this battle to the finish. Will we get the happily ever after we desire? Or will it all come to an end here?




The Good News of the Return of the King


Book Description

Although many people today reject Christianity for intellectual reasons, greater numbers of people are rejecting Christianity because it does not engage their imagination. Christians must not only demonstrate that the Christian worldview is true, but that it is also good, beautiful, and relevant. The Good News of the Return of the King: The Gospel in Middle-earth is a book that endeavors to show the truth, goodness, and beauty of Jesus Christ, the gospel, and the biblical metanarrative by engaging the imagination through J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, as well as The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. In this book, I propose that J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a story about what Jesus' parables are about: the good news about the return of the king. As a work of imaginative fiction similar to Jesus' parables, The Lord of the Rings can bypass both intellectual and imaginative objections to the gospel and pull back the "veil of familiarity" that obscures the gospel for many.




Middle-earth and the Return of the Common Good


Book Description

Political philosophy is nothing other than looking at things political under the aspect of eternity. This book invites us to look philosophically at political things in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, demonstrating that Tolkien’s potent mythology can be brought into rich, fruitful dialogue with works of political philosophy and political theology as different as Plato’s Timaeus, Aquinas’ De Regno, Hobbes’s Leviathan, and Erik Peterson’s “Monotheism as a Political Problem.” It concludes that a political reading of Tolkien’s work is most luminous when conducted by the harmonious lights of fides et ratio as found in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. A broad study of Tolkien and the political is especially pertinent in that the legendarium operates on two levels. As a popular mythology it is, in the author’s own words “a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.” But the stories of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings contain deeper teachings that can only be drawn out when read philosophically. Written from the vantage of a mind that is deeply Christian, Tolkien’s stories grant us a revelatory gaze into the major political problems of modernity—from individualism to totalitarianism, sovereignty to surveillance, terror to technocracy. As an “outsider” in modernity, Tolkien invites us to question the modern in a manner that moves beyond reaction into a vivid and compelling vision of the common good.




The Return


Book Description

WINNER OF THE 2017 PULITZER PRIZE: from Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hisham Matar, a memoir of his journey home to his native Libya in search of answers to his father's disappearance. In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years. When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison. Now, the prisons are empty and little hope remains that Jaballa Matar will be found alive. Yet, as the author writes, hope is "persistent and cunning." Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for biography/autobiography, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, France's Prix du livre étranger, and a finalist for the Orwell Book Prize and the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award, The Return is a brilliant and affecting portrait of a country and a people on the cusp of immense change, and a disturbing and timeless depiction of the monstrous nature of absolute power.