R. Andrew Chesnut offers a fascinating portrayal of Santa Muerte, a skeleton saint whose cult has attracted millions of devotees over the past decade. Although condemned by mainstream churches, this folk saint's supernatural powers appeal to millions of Latin Americans and immigrants in the U.S. Devotees believe the Bony Lady (as she is affectionately called) to be the fastest and most effective miracle worker, and as such, her statuettes and paraphernalia now outsell those of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Saint Jude, two other giants of Mexican religiosity. In particular, Chesnut shows Santa Muerte has become the patron saint of drug traffickers, playing an important role as protector of peddlers of crystal meth and marijuana; DEA agents and Mexican police often find her altars in the safe houses of drug smugglers. Yet Saint Death plays other important roles: she is a supernatural healer, love doctor, money-maker, lawyer, and angel of death. She has become without doubt one of the most popular and powerful saints on both the Mexican and American religious landscapes.

Christian churches and groups within Anglo-American contexts have increasingly used popular music as a way to connect with young people. This book investigates the relationships between evangelical Christianity and popular music, focusing particularly on electronic dance music in the last twenty years. Author Stella Lau illustrates how electronic dance music is legitimized in evangelical activities by Christians discourses, and how the discourses challenge the divide between the secular and the sacred in the Western culture.

Unlike other existing books on the relationships between music cultures and religion, which predominantly discuss the cultural implications of such phenomenon, Popular Music in Evangelical Youth Culture examines the notion of spirituality in contemporary popular electronic dance music. Lau s emphasis on the sonic qualities of electronic dance music opens the door for future research about the relationships between aural properties of electronic dance music and religious discourses. With three case studies conducted in the cultural hubs of electronic dance music Bristol, Ibiza and New York the monograph can also be used as a guidebook for ethnographic research in popular music.

2013 Christian Resources Together Devotional Book of the Year Do you sometimes find yourself searching for a way to approach God or wondering how to get out of a devotional slump? Do you long for spiritual guides you can trust? This guide to prayer is rooted in centuries of Christian tradition. In each chapter you'll meet a figure from church history, such as St. Benedict, Martin Luther, John Calvin, St. Ignatius, Teresa of ?vila and Andrew Murray. You'll learn how each of these spiritual giants uniquely connected to God through prayer. Each chapter provides an opportunity to practice a different method for prayer, including the divine office, the Lord's Prayer, the Jesus Prayer, healing prayer and meditation on the Psalms. In the process your own prayer practice will be refreshed and renewed. Journey into church history and enliven each day of your prayer life. A complimentary companion volume is included in the e-book edition of Kneeling with Giants. The Reader has a full chapter of primary source material corresponding to each of the ten chapters of Kneeling with Giants, with selections chosen to clearly introduce each approach to prayer in its original context. It includes the best modern translations of non-English works, hard to find works, including three Puritan texts and four complete "hours" of the pre-Vatican II Benedictine daily office so that readers can experience the cycle of Benedictine prayer with ease.

Stormie Omartian se boeke het al baie mense se lewens aangeraak en hulle gehelp om die krag van gebed te ervaar. Die hartroerende en kragtige gebede in Kragtige gebed deur God se Woord – Gebedeboek is saamgestel uit haar boek Kragtige gebed deur God se Woord.

Lesers sal deur hierdie boek God se stem en leiding ervaar van Genesis deur die Ou Testament tot by Jesus se lewe saam met die dissipels in die Nuwe Testament. Elke gebed van Stormie bring vir die lesers beskerming, persoonlike leiding en krag uit die Skrif en gee vir hulle bemoediging om elke dag vir God te leef. Hierdie handige boekie in sakpas-formaat is ideaal om mee te reis, in ’n handsak of tas te sit of om langs die bed te hou om soggens en saans daaruit te lees.

Kragtige gebed deur God se Woord – Gebedeboek is ’n wonderlike geskenk vir elke gelowige.

Commemorating 75 years of Christian Aid, this is a prayer book like no other. Full of defiance and determination, it is an invitation to join Christian Aid and followers of Jesus around the world in a united chorus of Rage and Hope. Bringing together voices from different contexts and cultures around the world, this is a collection of prayers of lament for the injustices of the world, and prayers of hope for the world we want to see. Featuring contributions from Rowan Williams, Amanda Khozi Mukwashi, Rhidian Brook, Robert Beckford, John Bell, Rachel Treweek, Walter Brueggemann and many more, Rage and Hope offers defiant, inspiring Christian prayers for a better world. The world is broken, full of injustice and inequality, but despite everything, we hope. Rage and Hope is a prayer book to enable us as the people of God cry out in lament. With prayers for the poor, the sick, broken and the oppressed, you will find words for raging at the darkness and struggles in the world. And with prayers for healing and renewal, you will find words to kindle hope as we look towards a kingdom in which all things will be made new.

In this delightful sleigh ride through Christmas history, Paul Kerensa answers the festive questions you never thought to ask... Did Cromwell help shape the mince pie? Was St Nicholas the first to use an automatic door? Which classic Christmas crooners were inspired by a Hollywood heatwave? And did King Herod really have a wife called Doris? Whether you mull on wine or enjoy the biggest turkey, the biggest tree or the biggest credit card bill, unwrap your story through our twelve dates of Christmas past. From Roman revelry to singing Bing, via Santa, Scrooge and a snoozing saviour, this timeless tale is perfect trivia fodder for the Christmas dinner table.

'We hope with the help of this book you might discover or rediscover that you are made in the image of a God who loves you unconditionally, and that learning to trust this loving God is the way to true freedom.' From the introduction. Two of the spiritual directors involved in counselling work at Greenbelt explore matters such as stages of spiritual growth and finding a faith community. They then offer the stories of a number of people who have found helpful ways of praying in particular circumstances, in sections headed 'God in our passions', 'God in our pain', and 'God in the midst of life'.

Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives critically surveys and scrutinizes the terrain of liturgical theology through postcolonial optics. In doing so, it breaks new ground by bringing together for the first time liturgical studies and postcolonial criticism. This book provides an important enrichment - and long overdue corrective - to literature on the liturgical ordo, which has not yet learned to engage postcolonial perspectives. The volume also offers useful resources to those familiar with the more established field of postcolonial biblical/theological criticism by expanding the burgeoning academic debate about postcolonialism into the environment of worship. It therefore seeks to be a resource that will bring postcolonial perspectives to a wider audience: the church, much of which has been bypassed by the academic trajectory postcolonial criticism in theology has so far taken. Because of its inter-disciplinary nature, this book advances significant innovative material. The particular ways that material from each discipline is juxtaposed is itself highly original, and the challenges of appropriating postcolonial theological perspectives in Christian worship and liturgical practice will be met by the provision of strategies and resources to face this task. This important work of theology is, therefore, crafted to praxis in assemblies of the church as well as suitable for study in universities and seminary classrooms.

Christian Worship: Postcolonial Perspectives critically surveys and scrutinizes the terrain of liturgical theology through postcolonial optics. In doing so, it breaks new ground by bringing together for the first time liturgical studies and postcolonial criticism. This book provides an important enrichment - and long overdue corrective - to literature on the liturgical ordo, which has not yet learned to engage postcolonial perspectives. The volume also offers useful resources to those familiar with the more established field of postcolonial biblical/theological criticism by expanding the burgeoning academic debate about postcolonialism into the environment of worship. It therefore seeks to be a resource that will bring postcolonial perspectives to a wider audience: the church, much of which has been bypassed by the academic trajectory postcolonial criticism in theology has so far taken. Because of its inter-disciplinary nature, this book advances significant innovative material. The particular ways that material from each discipline is juxtaposed is itself highly original, and the challenges of appropriating postcolonial theological perspectives in Christian worship and liturgical practice will be met by the provision of strategies and resources to face this task. This important work of theology is, therefore, crafted to praxis in assemblies of the church as well as suitable for study in universities and seminary classrooms.

The Altar Call is a thorough examination of the public invitation practice within Christian evangelism. In addition to giving a comprehensive historical background that spans three continents, The Altar Call also poses the following question: If John Wesley, George Whitefield , and Jonathan Edwards are regarded as the great figures of modern evangelicalism, why did none of these important leaders practice the invitation system that became so important in so many later evangelical groups? This important study will be of interest to both religious scholars and lay people, who are curious about the antecedents, development, and current use of the altar call.

All of us are confronted by death at various times in our lives. Some bereavements are particularly devastating - it may be we are very close to the one who has died, or death has come suddenly, unnaturally or even violently. This anthology of quotations is divided into two sections. The first contains material on the Bible's teaching on life after death; the concept of the soul; the need to face the truth of our own mortality; living to the full; untimely death; suicide; death as the result of disaster and of war. The second focuses on solace in grief; the comfort of Christ; our hope of life in heaven; being reunited with those we love, and the great communion of saints. Each chapter has its own introduction and ends with a selection of prayers.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A wide-ranging collection of resources for Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Transfiguration, Harvest, Holocaust Memorial Day, Mothering Sunday, and other special days, and on areas of concern, like refugees and peacemaking. Worship rooted in city and country, in work and in schools, in peacemaking and the eradication of poverty, in churches and the Iona Community resident group ... So - as always with the Iona Community - worship which is contextual, prophetic, with a strong justice and peace edge.

The Virgin Mary continues to attract devotees to her images and shrines. In Moved by Mary, anthropologists, geographers and historians explore how people and groups around the world identify and join with Mary in their struggle against social injustice, and how others mobilize Mary to impose ideas and rules and legitimize acts of violence and suppression. Far from an outdated practice of little relevance to the modern world, Marian pilgrimage expresses the deep and urgent concerns of a wide range of people. With examples of Marian pilgrimages from all over the world, Moved by Mary explores the ways in which men and women of different ages and religious, political, social-economic and ethnic backgrounds empower themselves to deal with modern-day issues with MaryAs help. The ethnographic cases reveal the cultural and devotional variation of Marian pilgrimage, but also global similarities. Collectively, the contributors to Moved by Mary show how in many places religion dramatically suffuses everyday life.

Infuse your days with meaning. You are part of a larger Story. And the One who began the Story is at work today, in your life, in the midst of your meetings and bills and family activities that make the days rush by and blur together. In these pages Bobby Gross opens to you--and opens you to--the liturgical year, helping you inhabit God's Story every day. Remembering God's work, Christ's death and resurrection, and the Spirit's coming will change you, drawing you into deeper intimacy with God and pointing your attention to the work of the Father, Son and Spirit right now, in and around you. You'll be reminded daily that your life is bigger than just you, that you are part of God's huge plan that started before time and will continue into eternity. Whether you're familiar or unfamiliar with following the liturgical year, this book makes it easy to do, offering here the significance and history of each season, ideas for living out God's Story in your own life, and devotions that follow the church calendar for each day of the year. "The power that overshadowed Mary and raised Jesus from the dead also guarantees the final redemption of all things in him; that same power is at work in us now," Gross writes. "Keeping liturgical time, making it sacred, opens us further to this power as, year after year, we rehearse the Story of God-remembering with gratitude, anticipating with hope--and over time live more deeply the Story of our lives."

Passover and Easter constitute for Jews and Christians respectively the most important festivals of the year. Although sharing a common root, the feasts have developed in quite distinct ways in the two traditions, in part independently of one another and in part in reaction against the other. Following the pattern set in earlier volumes in this series, these two volumes bring together a group of distinguished Jewish and Christian scholars to explore the history of the two celebrations, paying particular attention to similarities and connections between them as well as to differences and contrasts. They not only present a convenient summary of current historical thought but also open up new perspectives on the evolution of these annual observances. Volume 6 focuses on the contexts in which they occur--the periods of preparation for the feasts in the respective calendars and their connection to Shavuot/Pentecost--as well as to their traditional expression in art and music. Volume 5, also in the series, focuses especially on the origins and early development of the feasts and on the way that established practices have changed in recent years. At the same time, the essays raise some fundamental questions about the future. Have modern human beings so lost the sense of sacred time in their lives, for instance, that these great feasts can never again be what they once were for former generations of believers? And what about recent attempts by some Christians to enter into their heritage by celebrating a Jewish Seder as part of their annual Holy Week and Easter services? Specialists and general readers alike will find much to interest and challenge them within these two additions to what has become a highly regarded series in the world of liturgical scholarship.

In the same style as the bestselling "Little Angels Christmas Prayers" this is a loveable, giftable collection of prayers and blessings that 3-5s will love. The soft and sweet angel styling is delightfully heavenly! Perfect for a Baptism, First Communion, Easter or Birthday gift for a young child. Dubravka Kolanovic's soft pastel illustrations beautifully convey the simple text.

Since the 1950s, millions of American Christians have traveled to the Holy Land to visit places in Israel and the Palestinian territories associated with Jesus's life and death. Why do these pilgrims choose to journey halfway around the world? How do they react to what they encounter, and how do they understand the trip upon return? This book places the answers to these questions into the context of broad historical trends, analyzing how the growth of mass-market evangelical and Catholic pilgrimage relates to changes in American Christian theology and culture over the last sixty years, including shifts in Jewish-Christian relations, the growth of small group spirituality, and the development of a Christian leisure industry.Drawing on five years of research with pilgrims before, during and after their trips, Walking Where Jesus Walked offers a lived religion approach that explores the trip's hybrid nature for pilgrims themselves: both ordinary--tied to their everyday role as the family's ritual specialists, and extraordinary--since they leave home in a dramatic way, often for the first time. Their experiences illuminate key tensions in contemporary US Christianity between material evidence and transcendent divinity, commoditization and religious authority, domestic relationships and global experience.Hillary Kaell crafts the first in-depth study of the cultural and religious significance of American Holy Land pilgrimage after 1948. The result sheds light on how Christian pilgrims, especially women, make sense of their experience in Israel-Palestine, offering an important complement to top-down approaches in studies of Christian Zionism and foreign policy.