How can we live faithfully in a world that feels like it is coming apart at the seams? In All Things Hold Together, Stephen C. Shaffer offers an invitation to return to an older, more humble, and yet more confident Christian faith. In Christ, all things hold together. Apart from him, things fall apart. The multitude of fractures in our world result from the removal of our center in Christ. Worldview is not a weapon. It was meant to mend the fractures opened up by the modern world. The recovery of a theological center, of a Christian worldview, is intended as a way of sewing back together what the modern world is ripping apart. Worldview serves to give voice to a way before and beyond the fractures, a world we have abandoned in order to rule ourselves. All Things Hold Together works to recover this original purpose of Christian worldview and present it as a gift for faithfully navigating our contemporary culture.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in one of his last prison letters that he had "come to know and understand more and more the profound this-worldliness of Christianity." In Taking Hold of the Real, Barry Harvey engages in constructive conversation with Bonhoeffer, contending that the "shallow and banal this-worldliness" of modern society is ordered to a significant degree around the social technologies of religion, culture, and race. These mechanisms displace human beings from their traditional connections with particular locales, and relocate them in their "proper places" as determined by the nation-state and capitalist markets. Christians are called to participate in the profound this-worldliness that breaks into the world in the apocalyptic action of Jesus Christ, a form of life that requires discipline and an understanding of death and resurrection. The church is a sacrament of this new humanity, performing for all to hear the polyphony of life that was prefigured in the Old Testament and now is realized in Christ. Unable to find a faithful form of this-worldliness in wartime Germany, Bonhoeffer joined the conspiracy against Hitler, a decision aptly contrasted with a small French church that, prepared by its life together over many generations, saved thousands of Jewish lives.

A Financial Times Book of the Year From the author of The Three-Body Problem, a collection of award-winning short stories – a breath-taking selection of diamond-hard science fiction. In Hold Up the Sky, Cixin Liu takes us across time and space, from a rural mountain community where elementary students must use physics to prevent an alien invasion; to coal mines in northern China where new technology will either save lives of unleash a fire that will burn for centuries; to a time very much like our own, when superstring computers predict our every move; to 10,000 years in the future, when humanity is finally able to begin anew; to the very collapse of the universe itself. Written between 1999 and 2017 and never before published in English, these stories came into being during decades of major change in China and will take you across time and space through the eyes of one of science fiction's most visionary writers. Experience the limitless and pure joy of Cixin Liu's writing and imagination in this stunning collection. Praise for Cixin Liu: 'Cixin's trilogy is SF in the grand style, a galaxy-spanning, ideas-rich narrative of invasion and war' GUARDIAN 'Wildly imaginative, really interesting... The scope of it was immense' BARACK OBAMA, 44th President of the United States 'A unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, politics and history, conspiracy theory and cosmology' GEORGE R.R. MARTIN 'China's answer to Arthur C. Clarke' NEW YORKER

This collection of 365 Our Daily Bread devotions will strengthen men to hold fast to God amid the challenges and uncertainties of today's world. With the title taken from Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,” this hardcover giftbook is a follow-up to the men’s devotional Stand Strong. Each reading offers Scripture, a relevant modern-day example, and key faith-building insight in less than 5 minutes.

This book is an introduction to the poker game, emphasizing on the Texas Hold 'em Poker, the betting structure, poker variants, poker strategy and specific poker tournaments. The popularity of poker (mainly the no-limit Texas hold'em) reached an unprecedented peak in the 2000s. This "poker boom" is attributed to several factors: the invention of online poker, the television broadcast tournaments (with miniature cameras revealing the cards), the presentation of the online poker sites in television commercials, and victory in 2003 of Chris Moneymaker at the World Series of Poker. Not only the public can now follow the actions of the tournaments on television, turning this game in the sporting spectacle, but it can also be played directly from home. The spread of tournaments such as the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour created a strong following among television program providers by cable or satellite. Because of the hype, professional players have become celebrities, with many fans around the world participating in tournaments in the hope of being confronted with these celebrities. Poker is played in many variations but there are three large families. They differ firstly by the way of distribution of playing cards. Cards can be shared by all players or private for each player. They can also be closed (visible only by the owner of cards) or open (visible to all). There are also differences in the game base on stakes. The winning hands can be high, low or both (high/low). In some embodiments where poker is played high and low hands, certain conditions are imposed on low hands. For example, a player's hand can not contain card over eight (eight or better), or aces can count only as high card (deuce to seven). Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy. It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring or hard and impersonal. It is fickle and elusive, but ultimately it is fair, and right, and just. -- Lou Krieger

This concise, comprehensive guide, on Texas Hold'em Poker is packed with tips and information that players need to know. For beginners, it explains the rules of Texas Hold'em, basic strategy, and how to play in a cardroom. More advanced players, benefit from statistical charts, vignettes from actual poker games, and detailed information on how the social and psychological aspects of the game determine strategy. Readers also learn the unique view that an expert chess player brings to analyzing poker, as author Sam Braids compares and contrasts the two games. As a special bonus, the book includes an analysis of online poker, instructions on how to use a computer to play Internet poker, and explains the strategic adjustments necessary to succeed online.

Our nation's founding document, the Declaration of Independence, confidently declares, "These truths we hold to be self-evident" And yet, America today seems mired in a truth crisis. Postmodern relativism has cast doubt on the Enlightenment notion of shared, self-evident truths held by all; technologies have made the swift proliferation of untruths commonplace; political sensibilities have become so partisan as to tolerate public personalities who brazenly lie. Many Americans, Jews among them, are understandably concerned for the future of truth as we once knew it. With this book, These Truths We Hold: Judaism in an Age of Truthiness, the editors and HUC-JIR have demonstrated a commitment to full engagement in the contemporary moment as well as to our Jewish heritage as a repository of complex and deep truths. We have assembled an impressive list of contributors who address the subject of truth in Jewish tradition and in contemporary Jewish life from several important perspectives: biblical, talmudic, liturgical, scientific, philosophical, satirical, pluralistic, and poetic. The articles are meant to shore up faith and to serve as a bank of resources to orient readers to Judaism's rich, multi-faceted and morally edifying teachings about truth.

A young girl from the modern society had transmigrated to the body of the ancient Grand Preceptor's daughter. The moment she woke up, she found out that she was about to marry a prince she had never met. What a joke, I haven't even brushed my teeth or washed my face. I've just arrived, and you're telling me to get married all of a sudden? There wasn't even a door! I can't beat you, so won't I run?!

Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy is a revolutionary book. Top limit hold’em players have techniques that have never been fully explained… until now. Barry Tanenbaum has played winning middle limit hold’em for over twenty years, and has been a full time professional for six. One of America’s top poker coaches, he fully understands these techniques and, in this book, he explains them. Barry breaks advanced techniques into fundamental factors with clear instructions on how you can implement them to make much better decisions. Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy includes: An examination of the techniques used by top players to create confusion and score extra profit.An analysis of ‘card-independent’ strategies explains how to analyze all of the situational factors before you even consider your cards.A comprehensive coverage of blind play. In complex situations, many authors will simply tell you, it depends. As a professional player and coach, Barry tells you what it depends on, and what to do about it. This is not a book for beginners, but if you already play and want to understand advanced plays that win more money, this book will tell you how.