Showing titles in Essays & Commentary

With its emphasis on relation over substance and possibility over predetermined endings, open and relational theology provides a way forward for both Muslims and Christians. This way, as “Open and Relational Theology and its Social and Political Implications: Muslim and Christian Perspectives” posits, aligns beautifully with important and ancient thinking from both traditions. Our world desperately needs “people of the book” to pursue cooperation over competition. Open and relational theology affords us that possibility. These essays were presented in their original forms at a ...

These true Christian testimonies and doctrines are each presented in short chapters. They are, in many cases, summations of biblical teaching without the unnecessary filler information. A wide range of subjects are covered, and you'll hear about some subjects that are not often addressed in churches.

La teología es un terreno demoníaco. Lo que Thomas Mann señaló sobre la música en su gran discurso en Washington de 1945 sobre "Alemania y los alemanes" no deja de aplicarse para hablar de cuestiones divinas y de cosas de este y otro mundo. También su observación en el mismo discurso de que la música es "el arte más remoto de la realidad y al mismo tiempo el más apasionado" se puede trasladar sin cambios relevantes a la naturaleza de muchas enseñanzas teológicas.

Mental Illness is real. Will the Church get real? This book is a collection of essays from various authors: men and women, pastors and congregants, counselors and nurses, parents and children. All have a unique view of how mental health conditions affect people, and how the church has responded to these circumstances. Whispers in the Pews tackles how the mentally ill have been, and still are, treated in the church at large by sharing stories. This is not fundamentally a teaching book, but a book of moments and lives, knitted together by the common theme of mental health.

A spiritual aspirant’s journey is sprinkled with many battles overcoming mind over matter through different sadhanas (spiritual practices). One such sadhana is going on a pilgrimage, which provides challenges for the body, mind, and intellect.

Defeated in her marriage and disheartened with the church, Angela Sue Garvey recalls growing up in the evangelical church during the purity culture of the '90s. Once married, she found herself sitting across from an evangelical pastor who advised her to be quiet and submissive to a husband who routinely destroyed her. She recounts her spiral into a decade-long spiritual crisis and the growing bitterness and cynicism she felt as she questioned her place in the church and with God.

* Attention readers! A NEW story (September 2014) was added to this timely book. "Into Thin Air" is a dramatic story, thought provoking, and goose-bumpy chilling! The 12 short stories within the covers of this book are poignant reminders that something ominous is just over the horizon - as in Jaws, the music sets the viewer on edge with its terrifying and suspenseful dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun as the shark approaches. A mystery hangs in the air. Something terrifying is about to happen, but what? These stories, written by Tim Cameron and Ed Gaulden go to the very cusp, the edge, the threshold...

Despite protests and warnings from friends and family, author Madeleine L’Engle, at the age of seventy-four, embarked on a rafting trip to Antarctica. Her journey through the startling beauty of the continent led her to write Penguins and Golden Calves, a captivating discussion of how opening oneself up to icons, or everyday “windows to God,” leads to the development of a rich and deeply spiritual faith.

Thoughtful reflections for active humanists from a freethinking former minister.

Walter Brueggemann points us toward energizing hope for an alternative life of social equity and thriving. In Brueggemann's work, hope is not understood as easy optimism but as an honest facing of the unjust structures that human beings have created and a call to lean into the deep symbols of Scripture that imagine the alternative way of God, restoring solidarity and relationship that have been eroded by the violence of empire.

With childlilke boldness and profound logic, Martin Zender exposes the spiritual bankruptcy of the religious institution. Zender's mastery of satire separates him from the pious; his Scriptural expertise launches him as the primary spokesman for those who desire God, but don't trust the establishments that boast His name.

Much has been written about the concept of Trinity or three parts over the centuries. From simply meaning God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to what we hear in many churches is disturbing. Debates about predestination and subordination seem to never end. Due to the great number of denominations, the definition of a Christian has suffered, watered down in a corrupt world. From the simplicity of the Bible has come a rash of new doctrines that boggles the mind. What used to be straightforward in the 1st century is now twisted and turned into many ways of thinking about the Bible.

Essays exploring the edges, and edginess, of faith and freethought. Former minister Chris Highland presents another collection of essays primarily drawn from his weekly columns in the Asheville Citizen-Times (North Carolina).

In much of the history of Christianity, Christian women have been disqualified from church leadership and relegated to ministerial silence. Few New Testament passages are often thrown to the forefront to justify this relegation. A Biblical Defense of Women in Christian Ministry and Leadership holds a different view. It contends that, according to the Scriptures, men and women are equally called to participate in Christian ministry and leadership whatever their nature. One of the central advocacies of the book is that patriarchal translations and interpretation of the Scriptures, not the ...

With this collection of essays on the life of faith, Fred Smith tells the truth in a way that does not blind but simply turns the prism a degree or two for seeing differently. He "tells it slant" as Emily Dickinson called it. Fred's themes range from finding significance to navigating life transitions to living a life of obedience. Fred writes that this book is not about my life but seeing the world for a time through my eyes. It is about the prism through which the light divides. A point of view.

Raised Congregationalist in New England, Mairs is a convert to Catholicism. She is also liberal, feminist, and outspokenly activist - and all that in an increasingly conservative church that scorns her brand of progressive iconoclasm. A Dynamic God explores through beautifully written personal essays the question of why and how Mairs became and remains a Catholic ("despite all odds"); what she finds to love in that tradition; and more broadly, as she writes, how she experiences the holy in her life and in the world.

Muy largo en verdad y muy estrecho, muy triste en verdad y muy doloroso y muy desolado en verdad el camino verdadero hacia la salvación verdadera de Dios. Y solamente aquel con fe verdadera de Dios puede caminar ese camino. Y aquel que en verdad va por ese camino, ¡aquel en verdad es siervo amado de Dios y primogénito de la desolación! ¡Gozoso y alegre aquel que también camina por ese grandioso camino porque aquel en verdad encontrará la salvación verdadera de Dios!

I was raised Catholic. You can all bless me now. Surviving a Catholic upbringing is a lot like surviving a repetitive hurricane. Just when you think you’ve got enough protection from the danger someone (Usually my Mother) throws a curve ball of Catholic guilt at you and you’re stuck trying to remember if it is a sin or not, whether it requires a confession, and the amount of shame you should feel. It’s like dodging the hurricane all over again. Depression runs a rough shot in the Catholic religion and trust me, I know why. Happiness is frowned upon.

Basado en textos escritos por el mismo Papa Francisco, este audiolibro habla de cuál es el pensamiento del Papa en torno a temas y problemas centrales de nuestro mundo actual, como la familia, el amor, la educación, el miedo, la fe o las guerras. Es clara y contundente su denuncia del amor al dinero, del uso del nombre de Dios para justificar injusticias, de la explotación del hombre por el hombre, que nos hace percibir un cambio en el mensaje y papel de la iglesia católica ante los problemas de la humanidad.

Conferenza tenuta a Stoccarda nel 1908 in cui Steiner riassume il solo apparente conflitto tra filosofia e antroposofia, e il falso conflitto tra scienza e misticismo.