A number of us have been raised in this nation and, to some existent, in the churches that this nation has fostered. Each church has its story to tell that we have traditionally come to accept in the stories handed down as we listened. Much of the knowledge that we have accepted concerning this nation of churches is, for the most part, presumptuous; meaning, we know some of what constitutes the truth, but a lot of what we have acquired to be reliable history of our church has been preempted by what is considered more acceptable version of what's considered to be true of the church. When this happens in the church, it also spills over in the knowledge of what formed our nation. The Bible is a precise biography of God's church and its history, giving each of us a view of God's church and those that desired to be a part of that church by faith and those that sought it on their own terms. The examples are many, as we read through these pages that spell out to us the sad ending of those that thought that their way was something that God should accept, seeming sufficient in the eyes of each beholder. In the reading of God's Word are examples of faithfulness along with what some considered faith but was lacking in one meaningful way, love to God as their creator while manifesting love to man. This was missing. Something that each of us in our fallen state easily loses sight of. This we do naturally, but what comes naturally to us is not the kingdom that Jesus came to establish when coming to this earth and His church. The short essays that are contained in these pages are to broaden our knowledge of Bible content, while it portrays the life story of those that struggled in one way or another to be, by faith, recipients of that Spirit that reflects the love that Jesus submitted to while selflessly going to the cross. Leaving us His example of what true love will do for those they love, in the name of Jesus.

The Bible warns of deceptions. Being deceived in one way or another is something we all have experienced. The Bible has been on this platform of communication between God and man for thousands of years. Like many forms or ways to communicate, there is always something or someone infiltrating that which has been established, making what was meant to be a blessing now turned into an actual curse. Communication has always been essential, something man has always tried to make improvements on, from runners to messaging with flags or smoke to--what we are more familiar with--electronic messaging. Electronic messaging has evolved from the simple tapped-out code across a single wire to what we have available today. Methods of communicating throughout history has evolved and has had its problems. There are many things that can go wrong when getting our point across, even when we think what is said is straightforward. In communication, words that we hear may come to us perfect in every way but, to our understanding, has gotten misconstrued partially or totally. The Bible has stood the test of time in this respect, so it should not surprise us to see it attacked for its righteous character. The Bible does not leave us in the dark on this subject (Matthew 13:13-15). Our heart naturally has an unhealthy fear of God's word. The Holy Spirit desires to transform this fear into a fear of respect. This takes place in an atmosphere of unselfish love. The cross Jesus has been nailed to proves that untainted communication and pure love does exist still waiting our acceptance.

Beyond Belief collects fifteen celebrated, broadly ranging essays in which Robert Bellah interprets the interplay of religion and society in concrete contexts from Japan to the Middle East to the United States. First published in 1970, Beyond Belief is a classic in the field of sociology of religion.

Captivating disgruntled voters, third parties have often complicated the American political scene. In the years before the Civil War, third-party politics took the form of the Know Nothings, who mistrusted established parties and gave voice to anti-government sentiment. Originating about 1850 as a nativist fraternal order, the Know Nothing movement soon spread throughout the industrial North. In Beyond Party, Mark Voss-Hubbard draws on local sources in three different states where the movement was especially strong to uncover its social roots and establish its relationship to actual public policy issues. Focusing on the 1852 ten hour movement in Essex County, Massachusetts, the pro-temperance and anti-Catholic agitation in and around Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and the movement to restrict immigrants' voting rights and overthrow "corrupt parties and politicians" in New London County, Connecticut, he shows that these places shared many of the social problems that occurred throughout the North—the consolidation of capitalist agriculture and industry, the arrival of Irish and German Catholic immigrants, and the changing fortunes of many established political leaders. Voss-Hubbard applies the insights of social history and social movement theory to politics in arguing that we need to understand Know Nothing rhetoric and activism as part of a wider tradition of American suspicion of "politics as usual"—even though, of course, this antipartyism served agendas that included those of self-interested figures seeking to accumulate power.

NEW ENGLAND BEYOND CRITICISM “Elisa New’s book is a remarkable achievement. It is very rare that a critic manages to ask what seem exactly the right questions, then to answer them in a lively, brilliant, evocative, and supremely intelligent prose.” Charles F. Altieri, University of California “Elisa New is a refreshing voice among critics and historians of literature. She has a keen sense of the nature of New England and its deep spiritual resources, reaching back to the Puritans, moving through the great nineteenth-century expressions of interior landscapes and visions. This is a book I welcome and celebrate.” Jay Parini, Middlebury College Literary criticism of the past thirty years has undercut what the canonizers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw as the fundamental role of early New England in the development of American literary culture. And yet, a determination in literary circles to topple perceived Ivy League elitism and Protestant cultural creationism overlooks the continuing value, beauty, and even practical utility of a canon still cherished by lay readers around the world. This Manifesto raises questions about how academic specialization and the academic study of New England have affected enthusiasm for reading. Using a range of interpretive practices, including those most often deployed by contemporary academic critics, Elisa New cuts across firmly established subfields, mixing literary exegesis with autobiographical reflection, close reading with cultural history, archival and antiquarian inquiry with experiments in style, and lays bare editorial orthodoxies, raising to question the whole hierarchy of values now governing the study of American and other literatures. Taking New England as a test case for a wider, more accessible set of critical practices, New England Beyond Criticism demands that the domain of literary study be opened further to the tastes of the general reader.

"For anyone who believes that there was no important labor movement before Roosevelt, or before Gompers, or before the Knights of Labor, this well-documented work should prove a shocker. And for those who look to the past for enlightenment to guide us through our troubled tomorrows, this book is a reservoir of historic information and insights." -- New Leader "Beyond Equality is a masterpiece. . . . A book of bold and brilliant originality, it is now shaping the perspective of a new generation of graduate students." -- David Brion Davis, author of The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture

What is the character of secularism in countries that were not pervaded by Christianity, such as China, India, and the nations of the Middle East? To what extent is the secular an imposition of colonial rule? How does secularism comport with local religious cultures in Africa, and how does it work with local forms of power and governance in Latin America? Has modern secularism evolved organically, or is it even necessary, and has it always meant progress? A vital extension of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, in which he exhaustively chronicled the emergence of secularism in Latin Christendom, this anthology applies Taylor's findings to secularism's global migration. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Rajeev Bhargava, Akeel Bilgrami, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Sudipta Kaviraj, Claudio Lomnitz, Alfred Stepan, Charles Taylor, and Peter van der Veer each explore the transformation of Western secularism beyond Europe, and the collection closes with Taylor's response to each essay. What began as a modern reaction to—as well as a stubborn extension of—Latin Christendom has become a complex export shaped by the world's religious and political systems. Brilliantly alternating between intellectual and methodological approaches, this volume fosters a greater engagement with the phenomenon across disciplines.