The Notebook of a Colonial Clergyman


Book Description

This Commemorative Edition of The Notebook of a Colonial Clergyman marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania and celebrates the pioneer missionary spirit and work of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg arrived in the American colonies as 31-year-old Lutheran pastorin 1742, to take up missionary work among the German immigrants who were coming to the New World in search of a new life. His ministry spanned 45 tumultuous years - years of political revolution, years that saw both the birth of a new nation and the establishment of the Lutheran Church on American soil. With the inception of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1748, the Lutheran tradition took on an organizational structure that positioned the fledgling church to grow in the American context. The birth of the new nation and the growth of the new church are uniquely captured in this collection of Muhlenberg's journal entries. These excerpts from Muhlenberg's notebooks take you back to the colonial period with fascinating anecdotes and penetrating insights into the political, religious, and cultural realities of the time. Muhlenberg the man and Muhlenberg the missionary of the gospel of Christ come alive for later generations in these revealing journal entries.




Diary of a Country Clergyman 1848-1851


Book Description

A crusty yet diffident Scot, James Reid began his career as a sectarian evangelical missionary. The diary finds him thirty years later as a moderate, if conservative, Anglican clergyman. Through this remarkable document, village routines and intrigues, as well as Reid's circle of friends and his clerical colleagues, come vividly to life. His private reflections on the tensions and growing pains experienced by the colonial church at a formative stage in its evolution, and his reaction to events on the wider political scene, give us valuable insights into his life and the times. Reid was a man of considerable complexity and his foibles and vanities are apparent in his narrative. The glimpses of his home life shed much light on gender relations and the history of the family. The diary has been edited and annotated by M.E. Reisner, who provides the background to Reid's narrative. Her informative biographical sketches, collected in an appendix, shed further light on representative local figures and the community dynamics of his town. The Diary of a Country Clergyman will be of interest to the general reader and social historian alike.




The Diary of a Country Priest


Book Description

In this classic Catholic novel, Bernanos movingly recounts the life of a young French country priest who grows to understand his provincial parish while learning spiritual humility himself. Awarded the Grand Prix for Literature by the Academie Fran�aise, The Diary of a Country Priest was adapted into an acclaimed film by Robert Bresson. "A book of the utmost sensitiveness and compassion... it is a work of deep, subtle and singularly encompassing art." - New York Times Book Review




Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic


Book Description

Renowned theologian Reinhold Niebuhr began his career as pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, Michigan, where he served from 1915–1928. Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic is Niebuhr's account of the frustrations and joys he experienced during his years at Bethel. Addressed to young ministers, this book provides reflections and insights for those engaged in the challenging yet infinitely rewarding occupation of pastoral ministry. With a foreword from Jonathan Walton on Niebuhr's enduring insights into the challenges and relevance of pastoral ministry, this powerful book remains as useful today as it was last century.







For God and Country


Book Description

"I am not afraid . . . I was born to do this." -St. Joan of Arc She is not the typical saint. Born and baptized in Domremy in 1412, Joan of Arc was thirteen when the Archangel Michael appeared and exhorted her to safeguard her virginity. Two more heavenly voices later spoke to this daughter of God and revealed the divine Will for her to unify and liberate France from the English invaders. With God's grace in her soul and in her soldiers, the seventeen year old Joan valiantly led battlefield operations to defeat the siege of Orleans and see the king anointed and crowned at Reims. Captured as a prisoner of war, Joan of Arc was sold to the English in Rouen, brutally mistreated, then unjustly condemned by a corrupt church court as a heretic, apostate, and witch. While being burned at the stake, she forgave her enemies and invoked the help of God and his saints. The Catholic Church, with the authority of the pope in Rome, nullified her previous conviction and canonized Joan of Arc as a Saint of God in 1920. In these pages you will discover the true character and accomplishments of Saint Joan of Arc, and be led to meditate on her profound legacy of virtue. You will be inspired by her heroic love of God and Country and will understand how prayer and the Church's sacramental life of grace gave her strength to overcome all obstacles in achieving her mission. You will be amazed at the enduring impact of this soldier saint and virgin martyr on the rebirth of the nation of France and on the renewal of the Catholic Church, even six centuries after her birth. “Joan of Arc’s momentous appearance on the stage of medieval European and Church history is skillfully recounted by Father Michael Cerrone. A colorful and insightful narrative awaits and will reward the reader.” -Cardinal Edwin O’Brien Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem




Life Pictures from a Pastor's Notebook


Book Description

Featuring Christian biographies and the spiritual struggles of assorted individuals. Turnbull was a Scottish-born Baptist minister who settled first in Connecticut and then in Michigan.




The Paris Connection


Book Description

The Paletti Notebook is an amazing collection of art and letters from the geniuses of the Renaissance: da Vinci, Michelangelo, Borgia, Savonarola, Machiavelli. It could be worth incalculable millions of Euros. But what did Sandro Paletti really leave behind 500 years ago, and what else in that ancient collection, unearthed from an abbey in Florence in 2021, is so important that the governments of the United States, Great Britain, China and other major countries would go to such lengths to acquire it? Now, the race is on to capture the portfolio. With the life of a young girl and the fate of nations hanging in the balance, can Darren Priest get to it before his adversaries?




The Bressonians


Book Description

How should we understand film authorship in an era when the idea of the solitary and sovereign auteur has come under attack, with critics proclaiming the death of the author and the end of cinema? The Bressonians provides an answer in the form of a strikingly original study of Bresson and his influence on the work of filmmakers Jean Eustache and Maurice Pialat. Extending the discourse of authorship beyond the idea of a singular visionary, it explores how the imperatives of excellence function within cinema’s pluralistic community. Bresson’s example offered both an artistic legacy and a creative burden within which filmmakers reckoned in different, often arduous, and altogether compelling ways.




Darwinian Evolution


Book Description

In little more than a hundred years the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin has conquered the thinking world. No other body of ideas has enjoyed such unrivaled success. But precisely because of its scientific status, Darwinism has sometimes been invoked to sustain other ideas and beliefs with a much less solid foundation. Darwinian Evolution is a study of the historical background of Darwin's ideas, of their logical structure, and of their alleged and actual implications. Flew explores the Scottish Enlightenment, an important and often neglected aspect of Darwin's intellectual background. He compares Darwin with such figures as Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and Karl Marx, emphasizing not the similarities, but the differences between the natural and social sciences. Flew argues that social science must do what natural science does not: take account of individual choice. He examines the creationist controversy in Britain and the United States and discusses the possibility of a human sociobiology. In his new introduction, Flew updates his book by discussing relevant works that have appeared since it was published thirteen years ago. He discusses two different tendencies among both social scientists and those who develop or promote social policies according to various findings in the social sciences: (1) to assume there is no such thing as human nature; and (2) to take no account of the possibility that differences between sets of individuals may be genetically determined. Flew maintains that both these tendencies violate Darwin's theory. Darwinian Evolution is an intriguing study that should be read by sociologists, biologists, philosophers, and all those interested in the impact of Darwin and his work.