On the back cover of one of his most groundbreaking solo albums, . . . Nothing like the Sun of 1987, Sting (Gordon Matthew Sumner, b. 1951 in Wallsend, UK) somberly stands close to a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The album was released a few months after his own mother, Audrey, died. The picture was taken on the island of Montserrat, where he was recording the album, apparently on the day of her death. “I said goodbye to my mother, as I had a recording date in Montserrat, and she died a week later.” When asked by the author if his mother was particularly connected to Mary, and if this was why he chose this image, he replied “No, but I did.” This evocative photograph and Sting’s quick answer encapsulate the two pillars of this book: a microhistory of a specific British Catholic parish in the 1950s–60s, and the impact that growing up there had on Sting’s artistic output. And beyond that, this book opens a window onto the influence of Catholic education and imagination on millions of less famous people who had similar upbringings.

Sting has successfully established himself as one of the most important singer-songwriters in Western popular music over the past twenty years. His affinity for collaborative work and disparate musical styles has pushed his music into an astonishing array of contexts, but no matter what the style or who the collaborator, Sting's voice always remains distinct, and this fact has earned him success amongst a correspondingly broad audience. The Words and Music of Sting subdivides Sting's life and works into rough periods of creative activity and offers a fantastic opportunity to view Sting's many stylistic changes within a coherent general framework. After analyzing Sting's musical output album by album and song by song, author Christopher Gable sums up Sting's accomplishments and places him on the continuum of influential singer-songwriters, showing how he differs and relates to other artists of the same period. Aside from his commercial success, Sting is also interesting for the use of recurring themes in his lyrics (such as family relationships, love, war, spirituality, and work) and for his use of jazz and world music to illustrate or work against the meaning of a song. Sting's life also sheds light on his music, as his working-class roots in Newcastle, England are never far removed from his international superstardom. Throughout his life, he has been musically open-minded and inquisitive, always seeking out new styles and often incorporating them into his compositions.

Are beliefs in God and in the soul merely relics of pre-scientific superstition? After all, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuriesthe so-called age of sciencewe know that science can be proven by its fruits: its helped us split the atom and put men on the moon. Religious faith, on the other hand, couldnt accomplish these feats. This conflict leaves modern-day Christians challenged by materialist atheists who claim that faith in God has been discredited by modern physics and psychology. The Divine Sting answers their challenge. Contrary to what most Christians think, belief in God and the soul need not remain matters of religious faith. In fact, it is the atheists themselves who ignore Einsteins shocking revelation about modern sciencethat the physical universe, including the human body and its brain, have never been observed. We have rather only observed mental effects whose source we can only guess at. Atheists naive claims about scientific observation are themselves nothing less than an article of anti-scientific faith. By integrating facts traditionally segregated into categories of philosophy versus theology versus modern science, The Divine Sting will assist you in discovering for yourself how to convert faith in God and belief in the soul into solid, impregnable, and justifiably certain science.

If Christianity offers believers hope, freedom, and victory over darkness, why are Christians depressed? This book explores this question using the author’s experiences with depression both as a non-believer and later as a Christian. Self-harm, suicidal behavior, and alcohol typified his non-Christian life until an encounter with Christ healed him from depression and delivered him from his self-destructive lifestyle. Unfortunately, the depression returned within a few years of becoming a Christian. He looked to the church for help but found none. This led him on a spiritual journey with God to find healing from depression. Join him as he unmasks the problem of depression in the church and explains how the church can lead sufferers to wholeness. He also shares his own struggles and describes how he found freedom from depression through Christ.