The widening of political, racial, generational, and religious differences leads too often to an "us vs. them" mentality. The Sacred Overlap communicates a refreshing vision that embraces tension and shows us how to live in radical love and faithfulness between the extremes that isolate and divide people. The gospels display how Jesus was committed to crossing the either/or waters of the cultural and societal wars of his day. His miracles and parables often broke or ignored religious and political lines that seemed all important. He comforted the disturbed and disturbed the comfortable. Using Jesus' example, J. R. Briggs offers a fresh and relevant understanding of evangelism and discipleship in our present time of extreme polarization. Without sacrificing biblical integrity, The Sacred Overlap is a joyful exploration of the complexity of life in the peace of Christ. With careful discernment, Briggs: Shares creative ways to engage with God's mission of ministering to those who are intrigued by Jesus but turned off by church. Explores what it means to be joyful in the midst of heart-wrenching pain and earthly suffering. Models what it means to maintain a posture of convicted civility which emphasizes both grace and truth. The Sacred Overlap helps readers see how Christians are called to live with their feet firmly planted in two different worlds—in both heaven and earth—living naturally with both the sacred and the ordinary. Only then can a Christian be a faithful witness and disciple of Jesus.

Tired of quick fixes and fast faith? The Sacred Slow is an invitation to unhurried honesty before God. If yesterday’s word was simple, tomorrow’s word will be slow. Our culture is shifting from fast food to healthy food both physically and spiritually. Self-care, soul-care, life coaches, and spiritual retreats all show our dissatisfaction in quick fixes and fast faith. The Sacred Slow is an invitation to unhurried honesty before God. Formatted as 52 experiences, The Sacred Slow reminds readers on every page that God never wanted to use them—He always wanted to love them. The overflow of Dr. Alicia Britt Chole’s more than thirty years as a spiritual mentor to leaders and learners as well as her personal, practical, and penetrating tone will guide you to a richer, more life-giving relationship with God. Perfect for use as a devotional or in small groups, each chapter features: A short, unexpected reading Two options for application—a thought focus or a heart exercise Encouragement to develop growing, sustainable intimacy with God Whether you’re exhausted by emptiness or worn from weariness, you’ll discover healing and restoration in these pages. In this age of distraction, learn to slow down and reorient your life to learn, grow, and experience God as never before.

Money facilitates the rites and rituals we perform in everyday life. More than a mere medium of exchange or a measure of value, it is the primary means by which we manifest a faith unique to our secular age. But what happens when individual belief (credo, ‘I’ believe) and the systems into which it is bound (credit, ‘it’ believes) enter into crisis? Where did the sacredness of money come from, and does it have a future? Why do we talk about debt and repayment in overtly moral terms? How should a theological critique of capitalism proceed today? With the effects of the 2008 economic crises continuing to be felt across the world, this volume brings together some of the most important contemporary voices in philosophy, literature, theology, and critical and cultural theory together in one volume to assert the need to interrogate and broaden the terms of the theological critique of capitalism.

The Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy explores the rich devotional life of the Italian household between 1450 and 1600. Rejecting the enduring stereotype of the Renaissance as a secular age, this interdisciplinary study reveals the home to have been an important site of spiritual revitalization. Books, buildings, objects, spaces, images, and archival sources are scrutinized to cast new light on the many ways in which religion infused daily life within the household. Acts of devotion, from routine prayers to extraordinary religious experiences such as miracles and visions, frequently took place at home amid the joys and trials of domestic life — from childbirth and marriage to sickness and death. Breaking free from the usual focus on Venice, Florence, and Rome, The Sacred Home investigates practices of piety across the Italian peninsula, with particular attention paid to the city of Naples, the Marche, and the Venetian mainland. It also looks beyond the elite to consider artisanal and lower-status households, and reveals gender and age as factors that powerfully conditioned religious experience. Recovering a host of lost voices and compelling narratives at the intersection between the divine and the everyday, The Sacred Home offers unprecedented glimpses through the keyhole into the spiritual lives of Renaissance Italians.

Doing for the Old Testament what Kittel-Friedrich does for the New, this major, multivolume reference work discusses in depth all the key Hebrew and Aramaic words of the Old Testament. Stressing meaning, each word-study moves from narrow, everyday senses of words toward more significant theological concepts.

How can teachers meet the challenges of engaging and educating all students, from those who are gadget-toting and plugged-in to those who are language learners or economically distressed and everyone in between? How can you help students learn what they need to know when the world and all that's in it is changing rapidly? Standards and high-stakes testing haven't answered the call, but you can. "Transformational Teaching in the Information Age" explores the power of placing students at the center of teaching and learning. The shift from simply teaching content to focusing on and teaching individual learners allows teachers to inspire students to be independent, imaginative, and responsible learners for life. These teachers are transforming education, lives, and opportunities for their students. A transformational approach to teaching results in a high-quality education for today's learners. Citing theory, research, practice, and their own experiences in teaching K-18 students, Tom Rosebrough and Ralph Leverett build a convincing case for the primacy of student-teacher relationships in productive classrooms. Knowing students well is critical to teaching to their needs. Education cannot be just an effort to cover content, pass standardized tests, and achieve adequate yearly progress. To serve the next generation well, it must be about helping each student develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to live a uniquely satisfying life in the face of myriad changes. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.

Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, claimed to have translated ancient scriptures. He dictated an American Bible from metal plates reportedly buried by ancient Jews in a nearby hill, and produced an Egyptian "Book of Abraham" derived from funerary papyri he extracted from a collection of mummies he bought from a traveling showman. In addition, he rewrote sections of the King James Version as a "New Translation" of the Bible. Smith and his followers used the term translation to describe the genesis of these English scriptures, which remain canonical for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Whether one believes him or not, the discussion has focused on whether Smith's English texts represent literal translations of extant source documents. On closer inspection, though, Smith's translations are far more metaphysical than linguistic. In Joseph Smith's Translation, Samuel Morris Brown argues that these translations express the mystical power of language and scripture to interconnect people across barriers of space and time, especially in the developing Mormon temple liturgy. He shows that Smith was devoted to an ancient metaphysics--especially the principle of correspondence, the concept of "as above, so below"--that provided an infrastructure for bridging the human and the divine as well as for his textual interpretive projects. Joseph Smith's projects of metaphysical translation place Mormonism at the productive edge of the transitions associated with shifts toward "secular modernity." This transition into modern worldviews intensified, complexly, in nineteenth-century America. The evolving legacies of Reformation and Enlightenment were the sea in which early Mormons swam, says Brown. Smith's translations and the theology that supported them illuminate the power and vulnerability of the Mormon critique of American culture in transition. This complex critique continues to resonate and illuminate to the present day.

This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the political dimensions of civil religion in the United States. By employing an original social-psychological theory rooted in semiotics, it offers a qualitative and quantitative empirical examination of more than fifty years of political rhetoric. Further, it presents two in-depth case studies that examine how the cultural, totemic sign of ‘the Founding Fathers’ and the signs of America’s sacred texts (the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence) are used in attempts to link partisan policy positions with notions that the country collectively holds sacred. The book’s overarching thesis is that America’s civil religion serves as a discursive framework for the country’s politics of the sacred, mediating the demands of particularistic interests and social solidarity through the interaction of social belief and institutional politics like elections and the Supreme Court. The book penetrates America’s unique political religiosity to reveal and unravel the intricate ways in which politics, political institutions, religion and culture intertwine in the United States.

The result of a dialogue between poets and scholars on the meaning and making of the sacred, this book endeavours to determine how the sacred emerges in sacred script as well as in poetic discourse. It ranges through scholarship in areas as apparently disparate as postmodernism and Buddhism. The perspectives developed are various and without closure, locating the sacred in modes as diverse as patristic traditions, feminist retranslations of biblical texts, and oral and written versions of documents from the world’s religions. The essays cohere in their preoccupation with the crucial role language plays in the creation of the sacred, particularly in the relation that language bears to silence. In their interplay, language does not silence silence by, rather, calls the other as sacred into articulate existence.

You have a calling, but you also have a “sending.” A calling is a familiar idea. People search for their true calling, hoping to find what they were made to do, eager to fulfill their life’s purpose. Let God Send reminds us that regardless of our individual vocation, we are always sent people, propelled by God’s Spirit into the world to serve others. This sent-ness comes from the very nature of God who is always on the move in our world. Jesus was sent. The Holy Spirit is sent. Abraham and Moses were sent. The first disciples became sent-ones as well. The journeyers in the biblical narrative show us that when God sends, the path is never clear or direct. Being sent can be daunting, disconcerting, and disorienting. We can feel under-qualified, under-educated, or unprepared. But none of our hesitancy changes the reality that a life of following Jesus is a life of being sent out. Using strong biblical narratives and questions for reflection or group discussion, Matt Brough guides us into an examination of what holds us back from making a move, how to go in a humble and listening way, and ultimately what each disciple of Jesus is called to do in our going. Let God Send is a straightforward, plainspoken plea for people who follow Jesus to get moving.