Despite frequent declarations of the sanctity of love and marriage, British Protestant culture nurtured the fear that human affection might easily slip into idolatry. Throughout the nineteenth-century, theological essays, sermons, hymns, and didactic fiction and poetry urged the faithful to maintain a constant watch over their hearts, lest they become engrossed by human love, guilty of worshipping the creature rather than the Creator. Strange Gods: Love and Idolatry in the Victorian Novel traces the concerns produced in Protestant culture by this broad interpretation of idolatry. In chapters focusing on Charles Kingsley and Charlotte Brontë, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, and Thomas Hardy, this volume shows that even supposedly secular novels obsessively reenact an ideological clash between Protestant faith and human love. Anxiety about adoring humans more than God frequently overshadows and sometimes derails the progress of romance in Victorian novels. By probing this anxiety and its narrative effects, Strange Gods uncovers how a central Protestant belief exerts its influence over stories about love and marriage.

Taking his lead from his subject, Gershom Scholem—the 20th century thinker who cracked open Jewish theology and history with a radical reading of Kabbalah—Prochnik combines biography and memoir to counter our contemporary political crisis with an original and urgent reimagining of the future of Israel. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Prochnik revisits the life and work of Gershom Scholem, whose once prominent reputation, as a Freud-like interpreter of the inner world of the Cosmos, has been in eclipse in the United States. He vividly conjures Scholem’s upbringing in Berlin, and compellingly brings to life Scholem’s transformative friendship with Walter Benjamin, the critic and philosopher. In doing so, he reveals how Scholem’s frustration with the bourgeois ideology of Germany during the First World War led him to discover Judaism, Kabbalah, and finally Zionism, as potent counter-forces to Europe’s suicidal nationalism. Prochnik’s own years in the Holy Land in the 1990s brings him to question the stereotypical intellectual and theological constructs of Jerusalem, and to rediscover the city as a physical place, rife with the unruliness and fecundity of nature. Prochnik ultimately suggests that a new form of ecological pluralism must now inherit the historically energizing role once played by Kabbalah and Zionism in Jewish thought.

Contrary to what we might imagine from its title, the Epistle to the Hebrews is immersed in Hellenistic thought. Its author demonstrates an acquaintance with Greco-Roman rhetoric, and often supports his arguments with the assumptions of Hellenistic philosophy. While he shares the apocalyptic worldview of other Jews in this period, he recasts it with the language of Middle Platonism.

Explore the mind and world of the brilliant neurosurgeon-turned-Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Stephen Strange Marvel Comics legends Stan Lee and Steve Ditko first introduced Doctor Stephen Strange to the world in 1963—and his spellbinding adventures have wowed comic book fans ever since. Over fifty years later, the brilliant neurosurgeon-turned-Sorcerer Supreme has finally travelled from the pages of comics to the big screen, introducing a new generation of fans to his mind-bending mysticism and self-sacrificing heroics. In Doctor Strange and Philosophy, Mark D. White takes readers on a tour through some of the most interesting and unusual philosophical questions which surround Stephen Strange and his place in the Marvel Universe. Essays from two-dozen Philosophers Supreme illuminate how essential philosophical concepts, including existentialism, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, relate to the world of Doctor Strange. Fans will find answers to all their Strange questions: How does Doctor Strange reconcile his beliefs in science and magic? What does his astral self say about the relationship between mind and body? Why is he always so alone? And what does he mean when he says we’re just “tiny momentary specks within an indifferent universe”—and why was he wrong? You won’t need the Eye of Agamotto to comprehend all that is wise within. Doctor Strange and Philosophy offers comic book fans and philosophers alike the chance to dive deeper into the world of one of Marvel’s most mystical superheroes.

In a world that has drifted far away from the truth towards falsehood, this book has come to serve as compass to redirect humanity on the path of truth and a blessed future.In a world where hate, racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia have joined forces to contend with the spirit of love, integration and inclusion, this book has come to shine as a light in darkness to bring understanding to the simple-minded.In a world where divisiveness has become a norm, this book has come to remind us that the middle wall of partition had been broken down by Jesus Christ who had made all people one in him.This book is a compendium of the heartbeat of God on the subject of aEUR~Stranger hood' that has been greatly undermined in the past and in the present but is key to human progress aEURoeBigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truthaEUR Edwin Hubbel Chapin

" The Blade of Anubis is the action-packed sequel to The Chronicles of Stranger, full of danger, mysteries, twists, magic, and battles. In this book, Stranger, now thirteen, truly begins his training as a magician and god. Delve into his mind as well as his adventures while Stranger begins to discover who he really is. The gods have offered him a spot at their god training c& it's a decision that might change his life forever. Will Stranger live to see the day or see his untimely demise? Meanwhile, the Great Serpent of Chaos himself has managed to seep just a wriggle of his essence from his otherworldly prison, spreading chaos and evil in his wake. Concurrently, monsters are being set loose all over the country, causing chaos to ravage the mortals of the earth. Yet Stranger takes more onto his already laden shoulders. Anubis has disappeared, and Stranger has taken it upon himself to find him. Without Anubis, the underworld is back up. The souls of the damned cannot be judged, and the world's foundations are weakening. A strange woman in white keeps appearing to Stranger. Who is she, and what does she want from him? Can Stranger prepare himself for what's to come and save the world? If he can't, more will be lost than just his life . . . "

Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, S.J. -- priest, internationally-acclaimed scholar, activist--was intensely involved in the ongoing studies of the Puerto Rican people, their culture, and their problems as migrants in the U.S. mainland.The Stranger Is Our Own contains Fitzpatrick's personal memoir, as well as a collection of articles, papers, lectures and talks that chronicle his "bittersweet journey" with Puerto Rican migrants. A consultant to religious, political, education and social leaders on the issues of migration, assimilation, inter-group relations and social justice, Father Fitzpatrick helped shape governmental and Church policies at both the local and national level. He continued his active involvement until his death in 1995 at the age of 82.

“An illuminating work of massive insight” on the complex ideas and events that initiated the historical shift between the 19th and 20th centuries (Alan Moore, author of V for Vendetta and Watchmen). “An always-provocative view of an era that many people would just as soon forget . . . an absorbing tour of the 20th century.” —Kirkus Reviews In Stranger Than We Can Imagine, John Higgs argues that before 1900, history seemed to make sense. We can understand innovations like electricity, agriculture, and democracy. The twentieth century, in contrast, gave us relativity, cubism, quantum mechanics, the id, existentialism, Stalin, psychedelics, chaos mathematics, climate change and postmodernism. In order to understand such a disorienting barrage of unfamiliar and knotty ideas, Higgs shows us, we need to shift the framework of our interpretation and view these concepts within the context of a new kind of historical narrative. Instead of looking at it as another step forward in a stable path, we need to look at the twentieth century as a chaotic seismic shift, upending all linear narratives. Higgs invites us along as he journeys across a century “about which we know too much” in order to grant us a new perspective on it. He brings a refreshingly non-academic, eclectic and infectiously energetic approach to his subjects as well as a unique ability to explain how complex ideas connect and intersect—whether he’s discussing Einstein’s theories of relativity, the Beat poets' interest in Eastern thought or the bright spots and pitfalls of the American Dream.

Robert Heinlein's Hugo Award-winning all-time masterpiece, the brilliant novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a science fiction classic. Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teaches them about grokking and water-sharing, he also inspires a transformation that will alter Earth’s inhabitants forever...