This new edition of Norman Davies's classic study of the history of Poland has been revised and fully updated with two new chapters to bring the story to the end of the twentieth century. The writing of Polish history, like Poland itself, has frequently fallen prey to interested parties. Professor Norman Davies adopts a sceptical stance towards all existing interpretations and attempts to bring a strong dose of common sense to his theme. He presents the most comprehensive survey in English of this frequently maligned and usually misunderstood country.

This work is a fresh, unusually lucid approach to Christian theology and interfaith dialogue fromÊIndia.ÊIts basic aim is to examine the Christian consciousness of God's work in history--redemption history within the entire Êhistory of the world.ÊIt uses Christian Faith by Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) as its main text, so as to view this theme in a reversed order from the way it is presented there. This approach, which centers on God's new creation in Christ, leads to an incisive understanding of Christianity's relation to other modes of faith.ÊThroughout, Dr. Kunnuthara compares the thought of another Indian Christian leader steeped in Hindu thought, Pandippedi Chenchiah (1886-1959), to enable renewed interfaith dialogue across a wide spectrum.

Analyzes Johannes von Hofmann's entire theological oeuvre.

In 1943 the bell attached to a rope on both floors of a plain box-like convent in Houston, Texas, rang at 5 a.m. The nine Sisters of Divine Providence stationed at the grade school arose, reciting aloud the traditional prayer that began “Live, Jesus, in my heart! My God, I give you my heart. Mercifully deign to receive it and grant that no creature shall possess it but Thou alone.” Continuing to pray aloud for five more minutes, the Sisters who shared small bedrooms began to dress. All had developed in their novitiate a rhythm for this process, which launched each day in a uniform way. Over 20 items of dress had to be donned in a certain order. Before Morning Prayer at 5:25 in the small chapel on the first floor, the Sisters also stripped their single beds, flipped the thin mattresses, and replaced the bed linens, trying not to invade a companion’s limited space. Usually it was still dark outside when they started to recite morning prayers unique to the Congregation. This was followed by chanting in Latin on one tone Matins, Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None from the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then the superior read aloud some points for reflection, and the Sisters meditated in silence for half an hour. This was the first time of the day they had some relatively unstructured time, and they sometimes experienced “distractions.” Perhaps they planned how to teach something better or recalled problematic students. At 6:30 one of the parish priests offered Mass, which was followed by breakfast. The Sisters ate in silence while one of them read passages from the Imitation of Christ. By 8 a.m. they were leading their pupils across the playground to the children’s daily Mass in the parish church. In sharp contrast, in 1990 Sister Mary Walter Gutowski, CDP, one of two Sisters living in a small apartment, was the administrator of Our Lady of Guadalupe clinic for low income Latinos and African Americans in Rosenberg, Texas. Sister Walter, who was credited with having delivered more than 3,000 babies under difficult rural circumstances, once remarked, “When someone knocks at my door in the middle of the night, I get dressed in two minutes flat because I never know what will be waiting for me outside.”1 What explains this dramatic change of style and ritual in the routines of Catholic Sisters living in mission houses? How did the Sisters move from cloisters to apartments? How did the rigid routines of the nine Sisters of 1943 transmute into the singular and unstructured life of Sister Mary Walter? What are the connections between the bell that rang at five in the morning and the one that sounded at any hour? This history examines the period of 1943 to 2000, an era during which the Sisters of Divine Providence redefined their perspective and practices within the context of a changing American Catholic church. It demonstrates that the Sisters were well situated to embrace the shifting demands of religious mission because their very heritage was grounded in ongoing transformations. Those transformations were played out on a highly charged stage of oppression concerning multi-racial relationships, one that further prepared the Sisters for the intense dynamics of modern church life. When the Sisters celebrated in 1966 the centennial of their arrival in Texas, they were staffing their own college, high schools, and numerous grammar schools in several states as well as hospitals, clinics, and neighborhood centers. They had incorporated a group of women from Mexico and encouraged the independence of a new Providence congregation in the U.S. Responding to Vatican encouragement, after the second Vatican Council they began experiments to update structures and customs so as minister more effectively. The most visible were in the areas of community living and governance and were accompanied by greater collegiality, subsidiarity, variety in prayer

Why does God exist? How have the three dominant monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—shaped and altered the conception of God? How have these religions influenced each other? In this stunningly intelligent book, Karen Armstrong, one of Britain's foremost commentators on religious affairs, traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. The epic story begins with the Jews' gradual transformation of pagan idol worship in Babylon into true monotheism—a concept previously unknown in the world. Christianity and Islam both rose on the foundation of this revolutionary idea, but these religions refashioned 'the One God' to suit the social and political needs of their followers. From classical philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, Karen Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one superbly readable volume, destined to take its place as a classic. Praise for History of God “An admirable and impressive work of synthesis that will give insight and satisfaction to thousands of lay readers.”—The Washington Post Book World “A brilliantly lucid, spendidly readable book. [Karen] Armstrong has a dazzling ability: she can take a long and complex subject and reduce it to the fundamentals, without oversimplifying.”—The Sunday Times (London) “Absorbing . . . A lode of learning.”—Time “The most fascinating and learned study of the biggest wild goose chase in history—the quest for God. Karen Armstrong is a genius.”—A.N. Wilson, author of Jesus: A Life

"Forster and Marston have delivered a stellar book that attempts to present an exegetical and Scriptural framework for the content presented in the book. Instead of beginning from a set of deductive theological assumptions and then attempting to support that system from Scripture, Forster and Marston examine Scripture and attempt to build their case directly from the text. The authors unabashedly admit that their views are very similar to those of Arminian and Weslyan traditions, but they state in the beginning of the book that they do not want to be labeled with these names, but want to construct a theology that is in line with the teachings of the first 300 years of Christianity. Anyone who reads their appendix will come to understand that the teachings presented in this book were the orthodox consensus of the early Church for the first 300 years, and that it was Augustine who introduced serious deviations into the mainstream orthodox Christianity of his time. Forster and Marston begin by describing the battle that is being waged between God and the spiritual forces that oppose Him. They examine the book of Job and see how this relates to the overall struggle. Then the authors examine the 9th chapter of Romans to see if this book is dealing with election and individual destinies, or God's actions within human history. The authors do an excellent job of arguing for their opinion that this chapter is speaking about God's involvement in human history and it deals with God's choosing of one nation or individual over another nation or individual to accomplish His purpose. Other sections of interest in this book are the sections on foreknowledge and predestination and the chapters on faith and works. The section on faith and works was particularly interesting because it relies on much of the teaching of the new perspective which has shed much light on how a 1st century Palestinian Jew would have approached Scriptural issues. The research, argumenation, and exegesis in this book are solid so every chapter is excellent, but the ones mentioned above were two of my favorites."--Amazon.com.