With stories and personal anecdotes, Smith not only presents the basic beliefs and essential teachings of Christianity, but argues why religious belief matters in today's secular world.Though there is a wide variety of contemporary interpretations of Christianity—some of them conflicting—Smith cuts through these to describe Christianity's "Great Tradition," the common faith of the first millennium of believers, which is the trunk of the tree from which Christianity's many branches, twigs, and leaves have grown. This is not the exclusivist Christianity of strict fundamentalists, nor the liberal, watered-down Christianity practiced by many contemporary churchgoers. In exposing biblical literalism as unworkable as well as enumerating the mistakes of modern secularists, Smith presents the very soul of a real and substantive faith, one still relevant and worth believing in.Smith rails against the hijacked Christianity of politicians who exploit it for their own needs. He decries the exercise of business that widens the gap between rich and poor, and fears education has lost its sense of direction. For Smith, the media has become a business that sensationalizes news rather than broadening our understanding, and art and music have become commercial and shocking rather than enlightening. Smith reserves his harshest condemnation, however, for secular modernity, which has stemmed from the misreading of science—the mistake of assuming that "absence of evidence" of a scientific nature is "evidence of absence." These mistakes have all but banished faith in transcendence and the Divine from mainstream culture and pushed it to the margins.Though the situation is grave, these modern misapprehensions can be corrected, says Smith, by reexamining the great tradition of Christianity's first millennium and reaping the lessons it holds for us today. This fresh examination of the Christian worldview, its history, and its major branches provides the deepest, most authentic vision of Christianity—one that is both tolerant and substantial, traditional and relevant.

    And it gives the reader a rare glimpse into Goldman as a woman, alone, searching for the intimacy of a love relationship to match her radiant social vision. Falk explores the clash between Goldman's public vision and private life, focusing on her intimate relationship with Ben Reitman, Chicago's celebrated social reformer, hobo king, and red-light district gynecologist. During this passionate and stormy relationship, Goldman lectured in public about free love and women's independence, while in private she struggled with intense jealousy and longed for the comfort of a secure relationship. Falk's account draws upon a serendipitous discovery of a cache of intimate letters between Goldman and Reitman. Falk then goes beyond Goldman's ten-year relationship with Reitman, following Goldman's inner passions through her years of exile and later life. Written with a literary sensitivity, Falk tells a riveting story, consistently placing Goldman in the context of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century radicalism.

    No album represented this rip-it-up-and-start-again movement better than the act's breakthrough 1982 LP, Rio. A cohesive album with a retro-futuristic sound-influences include danceable disco, tangy funk, swaggering glam, and Roxy Music's art-rock-the full-length sold millions and spawned smashes such as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and the title track.However, Rio wasn't a success everywhere at first; in fact, the LP had to be buffed-up with remixes and reissued before it found an audience in America. The album was further buoyed by colorful music videos, which established Duran Duran as leaders of an MTV-driven second British Invasion, and the group's cutting-edge visual aesthetic. Via extensive new interviews with band members and other figures who helped Rio succeed, this book explores how and why Rio became a landmark pop-rock album, and examines how the LP was both a musical inspiration-and a reflection of a musical, cultural, and technology zeitgeist.

    When sea raiders threaten the villages along the Margolan coast, young Jonmarc Vahanian risks everything to save his family. The Jonmarc Vahanian AdventuresSoldier. Fight slave. Smuggler. Warrior. Brigand lord. If you’ve met Jonmarc Vahanian in the Chronicles of the Necromancer and Fallen Kings Cycle books, you don’t really know him until you take his journey.

    When the storms of life blow-as they most certainly will-are you going to stand strong, bend, or break? Popular author Erwin Raphael McManus suggests that you discover how to rise above the normal reaction and learn to stand against the wind.Through thought-provoking chapters, McManus takes readers on a journey of transformation through the landscape of their character-from where they start out "Running Free," through "Rising Out of the Ashes," developing "Divine Imagination," and finally, reaching the "Greatness of Servanthood."Readers, ages 18-35, will appreciate this international consultant's expertise on culture, change, leadership, and creativity.

    

    . . .This volume, compiled by a noted minister and scholar, offers to the theological student, church worker, or, indeed, any serious reader struggling with the existential question, a tantalizing and illuminating introduction to perhaps the greatest mind of twentieth-century Protestant theology."—Booklist "Church testifies to the power Tillich provides him for his pastoral work, his intellectual formulation and his personal life. He projects, quite properly, that the 'essential' Tillich can do the same for others. . . ."—Christian Century"This book summarizes in Tillich's own words much of the best of his thought, still highly relevant today."—Library Journal "[Church] helps Tillich speak to an audience unfamiliar with the breadth and depth of his thought."—Religious Studies Review

    Designed to help readers recognize, ritualize, reflect on, and reorient themselves.

    His failed plan, a mere footnote in Jewish-American history, is the starting point for Ben Katchor's brilliantly imagined epic that unfolds on the streets of New York a few years later.A disgraced kosher slaughterer, an importer of religious articles and women's hosiery, a pilgrim peddling soil from the Holy Land, a latter-day Kabbalist, a man with plans to carbonate Lake Erie--these are just some of the characters who move through Katchor's universe, their lives interwoven in a common struggle to settle into the New World even as it erupts into a financial frenzy that could as easily leave them bankrupt as carry them into the future.

    Another man moves in front of the target.Atcho remains steady while in his mind’s eye he re-lives the events that had brought him to this point. Graduation with honors on a military parade field. Abandoned in battle. Seventeen years in the world’s worst dungeons. Separated from his motherless child. Coerced into espionage against the adopted country he loves.He has no way out.He creates one.The target clears. He sights on the birthmark once more. A persistent thought invades his concentration. How fast does World War III start after I take the shot? As he applies pressure to the cold, curved steel against his finger, another thought intrudes. What happens to my daughter if I don’t?Discover the suspense in this thriller that pits an unwilling spy against hidden masters who manipulate his sense of honor against his love of family and country. If you love spy thrillers, don't miss this one because, like Jason Bourne, Atcho stumbles when tripped. He bleeds when cut, but he never compromises or breaks. Get it now.

    

    Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance. We long for time with friends and family, we long for a moment to ourselves. Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, Wayne Muller, author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live?, shows us how to create a special time of rest, delight, and renewal--a refuge for our souls. We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a Sabbath afternoon, a Sabbath hour, a Sabbath walk. With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness.

    Loyalties are tested and families are divided as individuals battle to deliver themselves from hardship, prejudice and injustice.Based on a true story of Puritans and pirates, The Hummingbird and the Sea is a powerful tale of love, faith, hidden passions and the eternal search for freedom.

    I will come to you". The Holy Spirit is the Comforter that Jesus speaks of for the Church. He is the therapist that hurting souls must constantly interact with to maintain their healing. This book clearly depicts and graphically defines how to unlock the pharmaceutical powers of the Holy Spirit to the Church. If you have ever been hurting, needed someone to understand, guide, and direct you, this book will introduce the Holy Spirit to you in a fresh and life-changing way. Join T. D. Jakes as he teaches, in great detail, the powerful truths that are given to us who seek a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.There is an arsenal of weaponry that has been given to the believer in the Holy Spirit. There is no force that Satan has which can combat the anointing of the Holy Spirit when it is released correctly. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that will break every generational curse that has hindered you from maximizing your life, your relationships and your ministry. This book is a must for those of us who have decided to march into the enemy's camp and take back what he stole from us

    Here is the Creator who nearly destroys his chief creation; the bloodthirsty warrior and the protector of the downtrodden; the lawless law-giver; the scourge and the penitent. Profoundly learned, stylishly written, the resulting work illuminates God and man alike and returns us to the Bible with a sense of discovery and wonder.