Upholding Mystery


Book Description

Is it possible that a body of Christian poetry is now being produced whose literary merit is equal to its religious conviction? David Impastato's splendid anthology, Upholding Mystery, answers that question with a resounding and surprising "yes".".




Creating Change


Book Description

Music, dance, drama, visual art, writing - what role do the arts play in our spiritual life? Some people believe the arts are essential to their spiritual practice because they bring moments of insight and transformation to their journey. Creating Change explores the many ways the arts cultivate spiritual depth and transformation. Stories from artists and congregations reveal how the arts breathe new life into prayer, worship, theological reflection, and the work of justice. It looks at how the arts allow us to express our spirituality with an individuality and depth that truly celebrates our connection to God.




Bead by Bead


Book Description

A creative way to pray – across faith traditions – made new for all who seek a more intimate experience with God. Lushly illustrated. Divided into three parts, the first part of Bead by Bead takes a historical look at prayer beads across centuries and cultures. Part Two showcases opportunities for heart/mind/body ways to “pray the beads without the beads,” including activities that are whimsical, ordinary, and spirited, to inspire readers to create their own. The book concludes with an invitation to contemplate one’s own life as a rosary. Readers are encouraged to draw their own set of prayer beads and, with discernment and prayer, label each bead. They then can keep and literally hold their life in their hands in prayer, gratitude, and awe.




The Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts


Book Description

This volume offers 37 original essays from leading scholars on the crucial topics, issues, methods, and resources for studying and teaching religion and the arts.




Interpreting Italians


Book Description

“The primary goal of this volume is to help prepare foreign visitors for what awaits them, and to offer a deeper insight into a culture and way of life that has held so many millions in its thrall.” Interpreting Italians is a socio-cultural travel guide designed for people whose interest in Italy goes beyond the readymade impression or the hackneyed cliché. It is a serious effort to understand what the ‘Italian temperament’ actually is, how it came to be, and the impact it has had both on Italians themselves and on the outsiders who attempt to live intimately and knowledgeably among them. To this end, it offers a thoughtful interpretation of those aspects of Italian culture and history – furbiziaand bella figura, the piazza and the casa, the role of the mother, the extravagance of the Baroque and the personal as well as architectural significance of the façade – that have at once reflected and compounded Italians’ attitudes to foreigners and to each other by examining their approaches to love and sex, religion and politics, food and the family, language and bureaucracy, regionalism and immigration, sport and the Mafia. The book consists of eighteen concise but well-documented essays and five appendices that, in addition to an extensive reading list, provide practical suggestions to visitors relating to the preparation of menus and the selection of walking tours and excursions to sites often overlooked by the casual tourist.Interpreting Italians will be a useful aid to anyone truly curious about discovering what makes Italians tick.




Grace and Glory in One Another's Faces


Book Description

Ann Loades is one of the most significant figures in contemporary theology, becoming the first female President of the Society for the Study of Theology and one of only two people ever to be awarded a CBE for services to theology. Grace and Glory in One Another’s Faces is a collection of her best sermons given in cathedrals, college chapels, parish churches and ecumenical contexts around the UK and abroad. Many engage the lectionary readings for Sundays in the Christian year, exploring the seasons as well as the texts set before the church. Others make accessible the legacy of figures from different eras: Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, Martin Luther and John Wycliffe through to influential twentieth-century Christians. There is a leaning to influential women in Christian history, thus introducing readers not only to engagements with scripture but reformers of Christian worship, of social practice, and of patterns and possibilities for Christian discipleship. Also included are two essays that illumine Ann’s sacramental understanding of worship and preaching.




Oblique Prayers: Poetry


Book Description

Over the years, Denise Levertov's poetry has moved ever more deeply into the realm of meditation, while yet speaking with the familiar voice of "the poet in the world." Oblique Prayers is arranged in four thematic sections that, taken together, work toward a mature philosophy in equal harmony with public activism and private reflection. A personal mood links the poems of “Decipherings.” In “Prisoners," the poet addresses the continuing horrors of our dark time: genocide, imperialism, impending nuclear holocaust––human degradation in brutal political guise. Levertov is an accomplished translator. With "Fourteen Poems by Jean Joubert," she introduces English-speaking readers to a contemporary French poet whose work is remarkably akin to her own. "Of God and of the Gods," the final section of the book, is informed by a transcendent lyricism that can equate in a breath "a day of spring, a needle's eye."




The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature


Book Description

The written word is one of the defining elements of Christian experience. As vigorous in the 1st century as it is in the 21st, Christian literature has had a significant function in history, and teachers and students need to be reminded of this powerful literary legacy. Covering 2,000 years, The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature is the first encyclopedia devoted to Christian writers and books. In addition to an overview of the Christian literature, this two-volume set also includes 40 essays on the principal genres of Christian literature and more than 400 bio-bibliographical essays describing the principal writers and their works. These essays examine the evolution of Christian thought as reflected in the literature of every age. The companion volume also features bibliographies, an index, a timeline of Christian Literature, and a list of the greatest Christian authors. The encyclopedia will appeal not only to scholars and Christian evangelicals, but students and teachers in seminaries and theological schools, as well as to the growing body of Christian readers and bibliophiles.




The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1956, volume 1


Book Description

According to the available records, Brother Witness Lee ministered in Taiwan during the first half of 1956. In July he was in the Philippines. In August he traveled to Hong Kong, and he ministered there until early October before returning to the Philippines, where he remained until the end of January 1957. The contents of the ministry of Brother Witness Lee in 1956 are divided into three volumes. The first two volumes consist of his speaking in Taipei, Taiwan, in the first half of the year. The third volume is composed of his speaking in Taipei, his speaking in Hong Kong from August 15 to the first part of October, and his speaking in the Philippines until the end of January 1957. The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1956, volume 1, contains messages given by Brother Witness Lee in February through May 1956. Historical information concerning Brother Lee's travels and the content of his ministry in 1956 can be found in the general preface that appears at the beginning of this volume. The contents of this volume are divided into two sections, as follows: 1. Twenty-one messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, in February. These messages were previously published in a book entitled The Church as the Body of Christ and are included in this volume under the same title. 2. Thirty-nine messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, in March through May. These messages are included in this volume under the title Revelations in the Books of Poetry: Seeing the Experiences of God's Holy People.




Truth and Politics


Book Description

One of the perennial questions in political theology is how the concept of truth is defined and how such is grounded theologically. The answer to this determines, to a great degree, theological engagement with and appropriations of political systems and theological accounts of political and social order. Truth and Politics tackles this crucial question through an analysis and comparison of the thought of two of the most important contemporary Catholic and Protestant theologians, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) and John Milbank.