The Philokalia (literally "love of the beautiful") is, after the Bible, the most influential source of spiritual tradition within the Orthodox Church. First published in Greek in 1782 by St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Macarios of Corinth, the Philokalia includes works by thirty-six influential Orthodox authors such as Maximus the Confessor, Peter of Madascus, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas. Surprisingly, this important collection of theological and spiritual writings has received little scholarly attention. With the growing interest in Orthodox theology, the need for a substantive resource for Philokalic studies has become increasingly evident. The purpose of the present volume is to remedy that lack by providing an ecumenical collection of scholarly essays on the Philokalia that will introduce readers to its background, motifs, authors, and relevance for contemporary life and thought.

The sixteen pieces of Officium Divinum are made up of four choral pieces with organ, two a cappella pieces and ten choral pieces with organ and instrumental accompaniment. They follow the journey of Daily Prayer from awakening at the break of the day to the eyelids closing at the end of the day. Margaret says: "Chants are so easy to perform and also lovely to sing and to work at. Through the repetitions, a chant starts in the head with all its thinking and begins the long journey into the heart. There one begins to be open to the beauty of prayer, and drawn into deeper levels of reflection and stillness. Singing chants is a wonderful way to share, as we come to pray together." The music has also been recorded by Convivium Singers, conducted by Eamonn Dougan, and is available as a CD.

This is a biography of Hensley Henson, one of the most controversial religious figures in England during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book examines Henson's education at Oxford University and describes the highlights of his career as pastor of Ilford and Barking Church, as canon of Westminster Abbey, and as bishop of Hereford and Durham. It explores his involvement in political issues and his controversial views on such issues as divorce, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, and the anti-Semitic policies of Nazi Germany.

Spanish America has produced numerous "folk saints" -- venerated figures regarded as miraculous but not officially recognized by the Catholic Church. Some of these have huge national cults with hundreds -- perhaps millions -- of devotees. In this book Frank Graziano provides the first overview in any language of these saints, offering in-depth studies of the beliefs, rituals, and devotions surrounding seven representative figures. These case studies are illuminated by comparisons to some hundred additional saints from contemporary Spanish America. Among the six primary cases are Difunta Correa, at whose shrines devotees offer bottles of water and used auto parts in commemoration of her tragic death in the Argentinean desert. Gaucho Gil is only one of many gaucho saints, whose characteristic narrative involves political injustice and Robin-Hood crimes on behalf of the exploited people. The widespread cult of the Mexican saint Nino Fidencio is based on faith healing performed by devotees who channel his powers. Nino Compadrito is an elegantly dressed skeleton of a child, whose miraculous powers are derived in part from an Andean belief in the power of the skull of one who has suffered a tragic death. Graziano draws upon site visits and extensive interviews with devotees, archival material, media reports, and documentaries to produce vivid portraits of these fascinating popular movements. In the process he sheds new light on the often fraught relationship between orthodox Catholicism and folk beliefs and on an important and little-studied facet of the dynamic culture of contemporary Spanish America.

The brightly coloured, detailed illustrations in this wonderful children's Bible bring every story to life. The Text has been rewritten in clear, engaging language especially for younger readers and forms a delightful introduction to the Bible.

This festive little kit includes everything you need to cross-stitch three wooden canvases to create unique, handcrafted Christmas ornaments to hang on your tree or give as gifts!
Materials: 3 round wooden stitching canvases (3-inch diameter), 3 pieces of ribbon for hanging, 5 skeins of embroidery floss, and 2 tapestry needles
Book included: Kit includes a 32-page, full-color mini book with cross-stitching instructions and 6 patterns
Unique patterns: The original patterns in this kit are perfectly sized to the wooden canvases, and there are 6 options so you can choose your 3 favorites to stitch
Perfect decoration or gift: The ornaments you create will be perfect on your own tree or as thoughtful gifts for everyone on your list

The promise of land and progeny to the patriarchs-Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-is a central, recurring feature of the Pentateuch. From the beginning of the story of Abraham to the last moment of Moses's life, this promise forms the guiding theological statement for each narrative. Yet literary and historical inquiries ascribe the promise texts to a variety of sources, layers, and redactions, raising questions about how the promise functioned in its original manifestations and how it can be used to understand the formation of the Pentateuch as a whole. Joel S. Baden reexamines the patriarchal promise in its historical and contemporaneous contexts, evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of both final-form and literary-historical approaches to the promise. He pays close attention to the methodologies employed in both documentary and non-documentary analyses and aims to bring source-critical analysis of the promise to bear on the understanding of the canonical text for contemporary readers. The Promise to the Patriarchs addresses the question of how the literary-historical perspective can illuminate and even deepen the theological meaning of the Pentateuch, particularly of the promise at the heart of this central biblical corpus.

In 'n samelewing waar fronte voorgehou word en ons soos almal wil wees om in te pas, is dit tyd om ontslae te raak van die behoefte om jou met ander te vergelyk en aan ander se eise te voldoen.

God het aan jou unieke talente gegee sodat jy sy doel vir jou lewe kan vervul. Miskien het jy nog nie jou unieke talente ontdek nie. Neem die eerste stap en vra God om dit wat jou spesiaal en uniek maak aan jou uit te wys. Elke mens verskil immers: vir sommiges het hy leierskapseienskappe gegee; vir ander die gawe om musiek te komponeer. Laat God dan toe om jou unieke talente te gebruik en jou van binne te omvorm om iets kragdadig te doen. Jy sal boonop rus vind in dié wete: God het jou lief net soos jy is.

Something Old, Something New: Contemporary Entanglements of Religion and Secularity offers a fresh perspective on debates surrounding a significant if underappreciated relationship between religious and secular interests. In entanglement, secularity competes with religion, but neither side achieves simple dominance by displacing the other. As secular ideas and practices entangle with their religious counterparts, they interact and alter each other in a contentious but oddly intimate relationship. In each chapter, Wayne Glausser focuses on a topic of contemporary relevance in which something old-e. g., the sacrament of extreme unction, Greek rhetorical tropes, scholastic theology-entangles with something new: psilocybin therapy for the dying, new atheism, cognitive science. As traditional religious knowledge and values come into conflict with their secular counterparts, the old ideas undergo stress and adaptation, but the influence works in both directions. Those with primary allegiance to secular interests find themselves entangled with aspects of religious thinking. Whether they do it intentionally or without knowing, entangled secularists engage with and sometimes borrow from older paradigms they believe they have surpassed. Glausser's approach offers a new perspective in the conversation between believers and secularists. Something Old, Something New is a book that theists, atheists, agnostics, and everyone still searching for the right label will find respectful but provocative.

Long-time activist, author and teacher of nonviolence, Father John Dear offers here the first ever commentary on the Synoptic Gospels from the perspective of active nonviolence, in the tradition of Gandhi and Dr. King. He walks through every line of the three synoptic Gospels pointing out Jesus’ practice and teachings of nonviolence each step of the way.

Dear’s Jesus is like Gandhi and Dr. King―nonviolent to the core, a disarming, healing presence toward those in need and a revolutionary disrupter of the unjust status quo and a political threat to the ruling authorities who succeed in killing him, only to push Jesus to the heights of nonviolence through his death and resurrection.

This original commentary brings a fresh new approach to the Gospels that will help all those who preach and engage in social ministries, and inspire everyone in this time of permanent warfare, gun violence, racism, poverty and climate change.

Music in the California missions was a pluralistic combination of voices and instruments, of liturgy and spectacle, of styles and functions-and even of cultures-in a new blend that was non-existent before the Franciscan friars made their way to California beginning in 1769. This book explores the exquisite sacred music that flourished on the West Coast of America when it was under Spanish and Mexican rule; it delves into the historical, cultural, biographical, and stylistic aspects of California mission music during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The book explores how mellifluous plainchant, reverent hymns, spunky folkloric ditties, "classical" music in the style of Haydn, and even Native American drumming were interwoven into a tapestry of resonant beauty. Aspects of music terminology, performance practice, notation, theory, sacred song, hymns, the sequence, the mass, and pageantry are addressed. Russell draws upon hundreds of primary documents in California, Mexico, Madrid, Barcelona, London, and Mallorca, and it is through the melding together of this information from geographically separated places that he brings the mystery of California's mission music into sharper focus. In addition to extensive musical analysis, the book also examines such things as cultural context, style, scribal attribution, instructions to musicians, government questionnaires, invoices, the liturgy, architectural space where performances took place, spectacle, musical instruments, instrument construction, shipping records, travelers' accounts, letters, diaries, passenger lists, baptismal and burial records, and other primary source material. Within this book one finds considerablebiographical information about Junipero Serra, Juan Bautista Sancho, Narciso Duran, Florencio Ibanez, Pedro Cabot, Martin de Cruzelaegui, Ignacio de Jerusalem, and Francisco Javier Garcia Fajer. Furthermore, it contains five far-reaching appendices: a Catalogue of Mission Sources; Photos of Missions and Mission Manuscripts (with over 150 color facsimiles); Translations of Primary Texts; Music Editions (that are performance-ready); and an extensive Bibliography.

This book offers the first comprehensive examination and analysis of the receipt, transmission, and interpretation of the Old Testament in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. In Orthodoxy, the Old Testament has commonly been equated with the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Jewish Bible attested by fourth- and fifth-century Christian manuscripts. As Eugen Pentiuc shows throughout this work, however, the Eastern Orthodox Church has never closed the door to other text-witnesses or suppressed interpreters' efforts to dig into the less familiar text of the Hebrew Bible for key terms or reading variants. The first part of the book examines the reception of the Old Testament by the early Eastern Orthodox Church, considering such matters as the nature of divine revelation, the paradox of the inclusion of the Jewish scriptures in the Christian Bible, and the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Pentiuc's investigation is not limited to the historic-literary sources but extends to the visual, imaginative, and symbolic aspects of the Church's living tradition. In the second part of the book he looks at the various ways Orthodox Christians have sought to assimilate the Old Testament in the spiritual, liturgical, and doctrinal fabric of their faith community. Special attention is given to liturgy (hymnody, lectionaries, and liturgical symbolism), iconography (frescoes, icons, illuminations), monastic rules and canons, conciliar resolutions, and patristic works in Greek, Syriac and Coptic. This wide-ranging and accessible work will serve not only to make Orthodox Christians aware of the importance of the Old Testament in their own tradition, but to introduce those who are not Orthodox both to the distinctive ways in which that community approaches scripture and to the modes of spiritual practice characteristic of Eastern Orthodoxy.

The uniqueness of this commentary is its detailed, first-time uncovering of evidence that there were two editions of Proverbs, the first in the time of Solomon and the second created by "the men of Hezekiah" in support of King Hezekiah's historic religious reforms. Up to this time the puzzling features of the book's design, purpose, and message are clarified in this light and the book's relevance for its time and ours greatly enhanced.

Naturalistic ethics is the reigning paradigm among contemporary ethicists; in God and Cosmos, Baggett and Walls argue that this approach is seriously flawed. This book canvasses a broad array of secular and naturalistic ethical theories in an effort to test their adequacy in accounting for moral duties, intrinsic human value, prospects for radical moral transformation, and the rationality of morality. In each case, the authors argue, although various secular accounts provide real insights and indeed share common ground with theistic ethics, the resources of classical theism and orthodox Christianity provide the better explanation of the moral realities under consideration. Among such realities is the fundamental insight behind the problem of evil, namely, that the world is not as it should be. Baggett and Walls argue that God and the world, taken together, exhibit superior explanatory scope and power for morality classically construed, without the need to water down the categories of morality, the import of human value, the prescriptive strength of moral obligations, or the deliverances of the logic, language, and phenomenology of moral experience. This book thus provides a cogent moral argument for God's existence, one that is abductive, teleological, and cumulative.

Called by Karl Barth the brilliant Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this book is finally being recognized as Bonhoeffers magnum opus and one of the most important works of Christian ethics of the last century. Presented here in a new translation and a striking new arrangement, it is based on intensive study of the original manuscripts and includes copious historical notes and commentary. Written in the midst of the conspiracy to overthrow the Hitler regime, it is nonetheless chiefly concerned with ethics for the postwar time of reconstruction and peace. Focused on Christ, the God who became human, and the vision of a world reconciled with God, the Ethics shuns abstraction, seeks the will of God in concrete historical reality, and calls the church to be a transforming community in the world with a new responsibility in public life.

God, God Almighty, God the Creator of the heavens and the earth, God the Beginning and the End, God the Source of all that is, God the Creator of man—the same God, in all His power and all His majesty, stops and listens when you pray. God has given humanity the ability to bring heaven to earth.

Whether you know it or not, you have the authority to change the world through prayer. When God said, “Let mankind rule over all the earth,” He was arranging the dominion of the world so that the partnership of mankind was essential for the accomplishment of His purposes. Through his unique perspective on this often-misunderstood subject, best-selling author Dr. Myles Munroe takes the mystery out of prayer, providing practical answers for difficult questions about communicating with God.

All that God is—and all that God has—may be received through prayer. Everything you need to fulfill your purpose on earth is available to you through prayer. The biblically based, time-tested principles in this book will ignite and transform the way you pray. Be prepared to enter into a new dimension of faith, a deeper revelation of God’s love, and a renewed understanding that your prayers can truly move the hand of God.

This expanded edition includes study questions for individual or small group use.

For Kahlil Gibran, re-telling the story of Jesus had been the ambition of a life time. He had known it from childhood, when as a poor boy in the Middle-East, he'd been taught by a priest reading the bible with him. Now, in his maturity - and a successful writer in the USA - he wanted tell the story as no one had told it before. With 'Jesus, the Son of Man', (1928) he did just that; set alongside Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, here is 'The Gospel according to Gibran.' Gibran's approach is to allow the reader to see Jesus through the eyes of a large and disparate group of people. Some of these characters will be familiar: amongst others, we hear from Peter; Mary his mother; Luke; Pontius Pilate, Thomas and Mary Magdalene. But many other characters are new, created by Gibran, including a Jerusalem cobbler, an old Greek shepherd - and the mother of Judas. 'My son was a good man and upright,' she tells us. 'He was tender and kind to me, and he loved his kin and his countrymen.' What connects these people is the fact that they all have an opinion about Jesus; though no two opinions are the same. 'The Galilean was a conjuror, and a deceiver,' says a young priest. But then a woman caught in adultery experienced him in a different way. 'When Jesus didn't judge me, I became a woman without a tainted memory, and I was free and my head was no longer bowed.' Not all the women like him, however. A widow in Cana, whose son is a follower, remains furious: 'That man is evil! For what good man would separate a son from his mother?' While a lawyer has mixed feelings: 'I admired him more as a man than as a leader. He preached something beyond my liking; perhaps beyond my reason.' A philosopher is in awe, however: 'His senses were continually made new; and the world to him was always a new world.' With each fresh voice, a different aspect of Jesus' character is explored; and a different reaction named. Gibran concludes by reminding us that all the characters and attitudes presented in the story live on in the world today, with nothing different now from then. The Logician is clear in his distrust: 'Behold a man disorderly, against all order; a mendicant opposed to all possessions; a drunkard who would only make merry with rogues and castaways.' But for Gibran himself, whose Lebanese roots placed him close to the original steps of the Galilean, Jesus is worth rather more; and is present still: 'But Master, Sky-heart, knight of our fairer dream, You do still tread this way. No bows nor spears shall stray your steps; You walk through all our arrows. You smile down upon us, And though you are the youngest of us all, You father us all. Poet, Singer, Great Heart! May our God bless your name.'