ECPA BESTSELLER • An invitation to love like Jesus and step beyond distraction and division into the joy we long to experience—from the author of The Deeply Formed Life, winner of the Christianity Today Book Award “A stunning book with power to reshape our world . . . if we let it.”—Glenn Packiam, pastor and author of Blessed Broken Given We long for a good life, a beautiful life, a kind life. But clearly that’s not the world we live in. We carry the stress of our fractured world in our bodies and relationships. Families that once gathered around tables have converted those tables into walls. Hostility, rage, and offense is the language of our culture. How did we lose goodness, kindness, and beauty? And more important, how do we get them back into our lives? These are the two questions crying out in our streets, homes, churches, and from deep within our souls. Pastor and author Rich Villodas is convinced that only Jesus offers a way of being human that is both strong and tender enough to tear down the walls of hostility we experience daily. In Good and Beautiful and Kind, he reveals how… • These three essentials are stolen by sin, powers and principalities, and trauma. • We can get goodness, beauty, and kindness back through contemplative prayer, humility, and the cultivation of calm presence. • The traits of healthy conflict, forgiveness, and justice lead to wholeness, healing, and a new collective future—when rooted in the ancient way of Jesus. Filled with fresh energy, classic truth, and practical solutions, this is your road map for stepping beyond distraction and division to love like Jesus. Doing so will change the atmosphere within you…and around you!

"Among the foremost Catholic philosophers of his generation. He has utilized the fullness of the Catholic intellectual tradition to brilliantly take the measure of modern philosophical thought . . . This volume is an expression of Robert Wood's singular philosophical outlook." -Jude Dougherty, dean emeritus, school of philosophy, The Catholic University of America

It seems that the world is continually being bombarded with bad news. Terrorism, riots, civil unrest, war, one despairs: is there no good news? This book proclaims that there is good news: that there is great hope, joy, and beauty in God's creation. The author takes the reader on a tour of places and people where the beauty of creation, and the beauty of the works and lives of people reflect the presence of God. The Reverend Doctor Bundy finds beauty in places one might not expect: the natural world of science, heroic men and women, and the work of secular artists and authors, as well as religious art, and worship both ancient and modern. The tour ends with a discussion of beauty as a signifier of God's Ultimate Truth.

We have many histories of social theory—what different authors attempted to do as they responded to previous theories. But we know precious little about how they did this in structural terms—what scaffolding they adopted and adapted to make their claims. Yet today’s social thoughts largely employ structures passed down from previous generations, structures that were developed to solve problems that are no longer ours. In The True, the Good, and the Beautiful, John Levi Martin explores these structures, the resulting tensions, and their broader significance for sociological thought. By examining how thinkers mapped interpersonal to intrapersonal structures, he traces the development of the underlying architectonics of theory, focusing on one that was inherited from eighteenth-century philosophy and brought into social science in the nineteenth century. He shows that the structural tensions inherent in these theories paralleled those being worked out in practical terms by constitutional theorists as thinkers attempted to return to their most fundamental understandings of the nature of the human, the social, and the political to recraft their societies. A magisterial new interpretation of the foundations of sociological thought, The True, the Good, and the Beautiful is as ambitious a work of social theory as we have seen in generations.

What if we expanded our definition of missions? What if it were less about handouts and more about truly loving our neighbors? What if it were more about helping people thrive on earth and not just getting to heaven? What if we didn't have to choose between the physical and spiritual when meeting people's needs? What if it could really be about both? Living a life of faith—one that embraces the sacred value and messy humanity of others—is the next revolutionary chapter of "missions" as we know it. In Both, Noel presents a compelling vision for what modern missions can be: a robust and holistic expression of embodied faith "on earth as it is in heaven."

Fenollosa’s Legacy in Late Nineteenth Century Japan: An American Scholar’s Role in Resurrecting the Art of Japan makes a critical assessment of American art theorist Ernest F. Fenollosa’s work in Meiji Japan. Ernest F. Fenollosa was first hired as a Tokyo University professor of political philosophy in 1878 but became an art theorist and policymaker for Japan’s Education Ministry. His illustrious career as an art administrator began with the 1882 Bijutsu shinsetsu speech that cemented the reputation of his work. Working closely with Okakura Kakuzō (Tenshin), Fenollosa became the lightning rod in defining the course of modern painting as well as in establishing the first national art school. He is widely credited with resurrecting moribund traditional Japanese painting to health. The author shows this assessment of Fenollosa as the savior of Japanese traditional painting work may not have been deserved by examining the historical context in which he made the 1882 speech. The book offers the first English translation of Fenollosa’s 1882 Bijutsu shinsetsu speech that had been previously unavailable to the non-Japanese reading audience.

The moment you wake up, there are expectations waiting for you: family, friends, work, school, life! I remember this particular day. Feelings of doubt, inadequacy, and condemnation flooded my mind. It wasn’t even 8:00 a.m. I needed a divine interruption, and boy, did I get one. Good Morning, Beautiful was the lifeline I needed. As God began to speak to me, I began to write. His love and acceptance filled my entire space. The clouds of doubt, fear, and condemnation were dispelled by just three words: “Good morning, beautiful.” This devotional is filled with sentiments directly from the heart of God to you, His precious child.