An interfaith collection of prayers, blessings, and poems offering comfort and hope to the healthcare workers that give so much. The COVID-19 pandemic has left few of us unaffected, but our healthcare workers have borne the brunt of its impact. Chaplains and clergy across all lines of faith have ministered to those caregivers through prayers and blessings. This curated collection of interfaith prayers, blessings, and poems was written by those who minister to healthcare workers. It's a beautiful resource that those who work on our medical front lines can carry with them or keep at their workstations for daily inspiration. It can also be used by chaplains and pastors who offer support to medical personnel. Many of the prayers were written to meet specific needs during the pandemic, yet they speak to the shared grief and hope we all have carried as we continue to navigate this extraordinary time. Contributors include The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Rev. Barbara Crafton, Catherine Meeks, Jennifer Grant, Rev. Ineda Pearl Adesanya, and Rev. Gayle Fisher-Stewart.

Beyond Time: Defending God's Transcendence responds to the recent turn in Christian theology towards the view that God is temporal. The book develops an interdisciplinary basis, drawing on resources from historical theology, relativity and quantum mechanics, and the modern philosophy of time, to demonstrate the continued viability of the view that God transcends created time. God's presence, knowledge, activity, and personhood, as well as the more general problem of fatalism, are commonly cited arguments against timelessness, yet these issues are demonstrably inconsequential or even resolved by a robust view of divine transcendence. Beyond Time engages readers with the fascinating question of time's nature, in order to vindicate the historically orthodox view that God lives beyond time.

From the earliest interactions of Christians with the Roman Empire to today's debates about the separation of church and state, the Christian churches have been in complex relationships with various economic and political systems for centuries. Renowned theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether analyzes the ways the Christian church has historically interacted with powerful systems such as patriarchy, racism, slavery, and environmentalism, while looking critically at how the church shapes these systems today. With a focus on the United States, Christianity and Social Systems provides an introductory analysis of the interactions between the churches and major systems that have shaped western Christian and post-Christian society. Ruether discusses ideologies, such as liberalism and socialism, and includes three country case studies-Nicaragua, South Africa, and North and South Korea-to further illustrate the profound influences Christianity and social systems have with each other. This book is neither an attack on the relationship between Christianity and these systems, nor an apology, but rather a nuanced examination of the interactions between them. By understanding how these interactions have shaped history, we can more fully understand how to make ethical decisions about the role of Christianity in some of today's most pressing social issues, from economic and class disparities to the environmental crisis.

Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty explores the religious freedom implications of defining marriage to include same-sex couples. It represents the only comprehensive, scholarly appraisal to date of the church-state conflicts virtually certain to arise from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. It explores two principal questions. First, exactly what kind of religious freedom conflicts are likely to emerge if society embraces same-sex marriage? A redefinition of marriage would impact a host of laws where marital status affects legal rights-in housing, employment, health-care, education, public accommodations, and property, in addition to family law. These laws, in turn, regulate a host of religious institutions-schools, hospitals, and social service providers, to name a few-that often embrace a different definition of marriage. As a result, church-state conflicts will follow. This volume anticipates where and how these manifold disputes will arise. Second, how might these conflicts be resolved? If the disputes spark litigation under the Free Speech, Free Exercise, or Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment, who will prevail and why? When, if ever, should claims of religious liberty prevail over claims of sexual liberty? Drawing on experience in analogous areas of law, the volume explores whether it is possible to avoid these constitutional conflicts by statutory accommodation, or by separating religious marriage from civil marriage.

Issues of New Testament Anti-Judaism brings a fresh analysis to the emerging conflicts between the earliest followers of Jesus of Nazareth and the leaders of the Jewish communities in Palestine and its environs. Roger S. Evans reveals that embedded in many of the confrontations between Jesus and Jewish leaders is Jesus' self-identification as the "Son of Man." It is this self-identification that further ignites the already simmering conflicts, and the final charge of blasphemy. In the book of Acts and in the canonical Epistles we hear the early Christians accusing the Jewish leaders and people of deicide, but it is also in these documents that the Christian authors continue to hope for and believe that the Jewish people are still part of God's people. Finally, Evans reminds readers that, according to the authors of the New Testament, it was always God's plan to send Jesus to die for the sins of his people and the world. This new analysis is intended to inspire both Christians and Jewish people of the twenty-first century to reevaluate how they respond to each other.

Rabbi Matityahu Glazerson has used his unique approach to uncover the exalted ideas that the words and letters of the holy language, Hebrew, convey. This approach is especially suited to the study of Haggadah, for the holiday of Passover does not only symbolize our redemption but is also symbolic of the holy language. Pharaoh's underlying motive was to break down the barriers that separated the Jew from the Egyptian, thus effecting our spiritual downfall through assimilation. The sages teach that one of the reasons why the Jews in Egypt deserved to be redeemed was that they continued to speak Hebrew. In this way they guaranteed their distinctiveness and their sanctity.

From the earliest interactions of Christians with the Roman Empire to today's debates about the separation of church and state, the Christian churches have been in complex relationships with various economic and political systems for centuries. Renowned theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether analyzes the ways the Christian church has historically interacted with powerful systems such as patriarchy, racism, slavery, and environmentalism, while looking critically at how the church shapes these systems today. With a focus on the United States, Christianity and Social Systems provides an introductory analysis of the interactions between the churches and major systems that have shaped western Christian and post-Christian society. Ruether discusses ideologies, such as liberalism and socialism, and includes three country case studies-Nicaragua, South Africa, and North and South Korea-to further illustrate the profound influences Christianity and social systems have with each other. This book is neither an attack on the relationship between Christianity and these systems, nor an apology, but rather a nuanced examination of the interactions between them. By understanding how these interactions have shaped history, we can more fully understand how to make ethical decisions about the role of Christianity in some of today's most pressing social issues, from economic and class disparities to the environmental crisis.

In this insightful work, Harry H. Singleton, III, analyzes the white religious establishment's use of Christian faith throughout American history to link divine will with black oppression. This exploitation establishes Christian faith as the single most persuasive tool in convincing whites of their superiority and blacks of their inferiority. Singleton calls for a reexamination of the major categories of Christian theology due to its misuse by many leading white clergy and theologians. He constructs a more liberating approach to Christian faith by freeing it from its convenient concerns with heaven more than the earth, with the church more than the world, and with the individual more than the community. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in both the historical and contemporary impact of Christian faith on the current racial situation in America. For the first chapter, please visit the following website: White Religion and Black Humanity - Chapter 1

Men, we will never get anywhere in life without discipline, and doubly so in spiritual matters. None of us is inherently righteous, so Paul's instructions regarding spiritual discipline in 1 Timothy 4:7-8 take on personal urgency: "Train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." That word "train" comes from the Greek word from which we derive gymnasium. So, I invite you into God's Gym--to some pain and great gain! Discipline of Purity Sensuality is the biggest obstacle to godliness among Christian men. The fall of King David should not only instruct us but scare the sensuality right out of us! Fill yourself with God's Word--memorize passages like 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, Job 31:1, Proverbs 6:27, Ephesians 5:3-7, and 2 Timothy 2:22. Find someone who will help you keep your soul faithful to God. A pure mind is impossible if you mindlessly watch TV and movies or visit pornographic web sites (1 Thessalonians 4:3-7). Develop the divine awareness that sustained Joseph: "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" (Genesis 39:9). Discipline of Relationships To be all God wants you to be, put some holy sweat into your relationships! If you're married, you need to live out Ephesians 5:25-31: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (v. 25). For those who are fathers, God provides a workout in one pungent sentence: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). Relationships are not optional (Hebrews 10:25); they enable us to develop into what God wants us to be and most effectively learn and live God's truth. Discipline of Mind The potential of possessing the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) introduces the scandal of today's church--Christians who do not think Christianly, leaving our minds undisciplined. The Apostle Paul understood this well: "...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (Philippians 4:8). Each ingredient is a matter of personal choice. You can never have a Christian mind without reading the Scriptures regularly because you cannot be influenced by that which you do not know. Discipline of Devotion Reading God's Word is essential, but meditation internalizes the Word and responds, "I desire to do your will, O my God" (Psalm 40:8). Beyond instructions like Ephesians 6:18-20, there are two great reasons to pray. The more we expose our lives to the white-hot sun of Christ's righteous life, the more his image will be burned into our character. The second reason is that prayer bends our wills to God's will. Many men never have an effective devotional life because they never plan for it; they never expose their lives to his pure light. Discipline of Integrity We can hardly overstate the importance of integrity to a generation of believers so much like the world in ethical conduct. But integrity's benefits--character, a clear conscience, deep intimacy with God--argue its importance. We must let God's Word draw our lines of conduct. Our speech and actions must be intentionally true (Proverbs 12:22; Ephesians 4:15), backed by the courage to keep our word and stand up for our convictions (Psalm 15:4). An old saying sums it up: "Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny."(1) Discipline of Tongue "If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless" (James 1:26). The true test of a man's spirituality is not his ability to speak, but rather his ability to bridle his tongue! Offered to God on the altar, the tongue has awesome power for good. There must be an ongoing prayerfulness and resolve to discipline ourselves: "Who keeps the tongue doth keep his soul."(2) Discipline of Work We meet God, the Creator, as a worker in Genesis 1:1-2:2. Since "God created man in his own image" (1:27), the way we work will reveal how much we allow the image of God to develop in us. There is no secular/sacred distinction; all honest work ought to be done to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). We must recover the biblical truth that our vocation is a divine calling and thus be liberated to do it for the glory of God. Discipline of Perseverance Hebrews 12:1-3 presents a picture of perseverance in four commands. Divest! "Lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely" (v. 1a). That includes besetting sin, and anything else that hinders. Run! "...with endurance the race that is set before us" (v. 1b). Each of us can finish our race (see also 2 Timothy 4:7). Focus! "Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith" (v. 2). There never was a millisecond that he did not trust the Father. Consider! Our life is to be spent considering how Jesus lived (v. 3). Discipline of Church You don't have to go to church to be a Christian; you don't have to go home to be married. But in both cases if you do not, you will have a very poor relationship! You will never attain your full spiritual manhood, nor will your family reach its spiritual maturity without commitment to the church. Find a good church, join it, and commit yourself to it wholeheartedly. Your participation should include financial support, but it should also include giving your time, talents, expertise, and creativity to the glory of God. Discipline of Giving How can we escape the power of materialism? By giving from a heart overflowing with God's grace, like the believers in Macedonia who "gave themselves first to the Lord" (2 Corinthians 8:5): this is where grace giving must begin. Giving disarms the power of money. Though giving should be regular, it should also be spontaneous and responsive to needs. And it should be joyous--"God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7). And Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). As we sweat out the disciplines of a godly man, remember, with Paul, what energizes us to live them out--"not I, but the grace of God that is with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10). The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Second Edition, (London: Oxford UP, 1959), p. 405. James S. Hewitt, ed., Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1988), p. 475.

Gracious Uncertainty: Faith in the Second Half of Life reflects on issues concerning everyone but which intensify as we grow older: loving more fully, dealing with loss, finding consolation, and having the courage to gaze (even while shaking inwardly) at the nearing reality of death. Jane Sigloh is a guide both witty and wise. She blends personal stories, Scriptural insights, and lessons drawn from years in ministry into insightful reflections on the beauty and challenges of aging. Gracious Uncertainty is an intimate, at times humorous, and often spirit-provoking guide through the unknowns of the later years.

Among the best-known and most esteemed people known from antiquity is the Babylonian king Hammurabi. His fame and reputation are due to the collection of laws written under his patronage. This book offers an innovative interpretation of the Laws of Hammurabi. Ancient scribes would demonstrate their legal flair by composing statutes on a set of traditional cases, articulating what they deemed just and fair. The scribe of the Laws of Hammurabi advanced beyond earlier scribes in composing statutes that manifest systematization and implicit legal principles, and inserted the Laws of Hammurabi into the form of a royal inscription, shrewdly reshaping the genre. This tradition of scribal improvisation on a set of traditional cases continued outside of Mesopotamia. It influenced biblical law and the law of the Hittite empire significantly. The Laws of Hammurabi was also witness to the start of another stream of intellectual tradition. It became the subject of formal commentaries, marking a profound cultural shift. Scribes related to it in ways that diverged from prior attitudes; it became an object of study and of commentary, a genre that names itself as dependent on another text. The famous Laws of Hammurabi is here given the extensive attention it continues to merit.

Daily Strength, a year-long devotional, walks Christian men through Scripture passages that speak to their most pressing issues. Each single-page daily reading features a short summary of a Bible passage with a thought-provoking message from one of more than forty contributors.

This collection of five essays and two book reviews draws on a half-year of work, from mid-2008 to early 2009. The collection begins with historical theological essays: one on the apologetics of Judaism, the other on its soteriology. Both were written in response to invitations to contribute to collections of historical theology. The second set of two essays deals with the canon of Rabbinic Judaism. This is The Jack Chester Memorial Lecture to the Tenth Anniversary Celebration of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the University of Miami. Two brief reviews complete the collection of six months of work.

In the Image of God: A Feminist Commentary on the Torah is a unique blend of traditional Judaism and radical feminism and is a groundbreaking commentary on the Bible, the central document of Jewish life. Using classical Jewish sources as well as supplementary material from history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, ancient religion, and feminist theory, Judith Antonelli has examined in detail every woman and every issue pertaining to women in the Torah, parshah by parshah. The Torah is divided into fifty-four portions; each portion, or parshah, is read in the synagogue on the Sabbath (combining a few to make a yearly cycle of readings). This book is modeled on that structure; hence there are fifty chapters, each of which corresponds to a parshah. One may, therefore, read this book from beginning to end or use it as a study guide for the parshah of the week. The reader will discover in these pages that the Torah is not the root of misogyny, sexism, or male supremacy. Rather, by looking at the Torah in the context in which it was given, the pagan world of the ancient Near East, it becomes clear that far from oppressing women, the Torah actually improved the status of women as it existed in the surrounding societies. Not only does this book refute the common feminist stereotype that Judaism is a "patriarchal religion" but it also refutes the sexism found in Judaism by exposing it as sociological rather than "divine law."

Do humans have a special capacity designed to foster experiences of God? What role do specific bodily actions or emotions play in the cultivation of a divine experience? Prayer as Divine Experience in 4 Ezra and John's Apocalypse: Emotion, Empathy, and Engagement with God explores these questions in a systematic study of the emotions in two apocalyptic texts. The book of 4 Ezra, an ancient Jewish apocalypse, and the book of Revelation, an ancient Christian Apocalypse written by John, are examined with a focus on the emotional language of the prayers and prayer preludes contained in this literature. Both texts were composed in the first-century of the Common Era, a time when most people exposed to literature heard the content as it was recited. The emotive language in these writings could potentially arouse similar emotions in the readers or hearers of these texts, allowing the person to have access to the divine experiences, which are described by the seer in 4 Ezra and are expressed by the angelic choir in John's Apocalypse. Prior to examining the prayers, Prayer as Divine Experience will describe the neurological processes that cause a person to mirror the emotions expressed by another individual, thereby prompting an imitation of the experience that is perceived.

In this 365-Day devotional, Joyce Meyer, #1 New York Times bestselling author, helps readers achieve a more confident, joyful life by growing closer in their relationship with God. Everyday life can be demanding; it's easy to become distracted by so many things that seem important. But in order to lead a fulfilling life, you have to make time daily for what's most important--your relationship with God. In Closer To God Each Day, Joyce Meyer, #1 New York Times bestselling author, outlines practicals ways to develop your intimacy with God. Joyce shares powerful Scripture and personal illustrations that will help you experience the peace that is gained through closeness with Him. You'll be inspired each day to make better decisions, live more effectively, and lead the joyful life God has planned for you.

The New York Times has described James Martin as maybe "the only Jesuit priest with a degree from the Wharton School," and in the wake of our current economic crisis, the story of his remarkable journey from corporate America to the Society of Jesus couldn't be more timely. From the halls of General Electric under Jack Welch to his entry into the priesthood, In Good Company tells this seeker's powerful story with humor and grace. The book's gems of wisdom will appeal to anyone seeking meaning in daily life. Fast-paced, compelling, and often humorous, his story offers a fresh, inside look at corporate America, the Jesuit vocation, and the human quest for a life well-lived. This Tenth Anniversary Edition features a new preface by the author.

Faith and Place takes knowledge of place as a basis for thinking about the relationship between religious belief and our embodied life.
Recent epistemology of religion has appealed to various secular analogues for religious belief - especially analogues drawn from sense perception and scientific theory construction. These approaches tend to overlook the close connection between religious belief and our moral, aesthetic and otherwise engaged relationship to the material world. By taking knowledge of place as a starting point for religious epistemology, Mark Wynn aims to throw into clearer focus the embodied, action-orienting, perception-structuring, and affect-infused character of religious understanding.
This innovative study understands the religious significance of a site in terms of i. its capacity to stand for some encompassing truth about human life; ii. its conservation of historical meanings, where these meanings make a practical claim upon those located at the place at later times; and iii. its directing of the believer's attention to a sacred meaning, through enacted appropriation of the site.
Wynn proposes that the notion of 'God' functions like the notion of a 'genius loci', where the relevant locus is the sum of material reality. He argues that knowledge of God consists in part in a storied and sensuous appreciation of the significance of particular places.

The destruction of the First Temple (586 B.C.E.), destruction of the Second Temple (70 C.E.), and the defeat of the Bar Kokhba (132-135 C.E.) are discussed in great detail in the covenantal theology of the Torah and Scripture. In this new work, Jacob Neusner uses extensive textual evidence to explore the importance of the second temple's destruction and the aforementioned events in the creation of Rabbinic Judaism. Neusner ultimately proposes that the destruction of the second temple merely reinforced the existing theological system, which posed the following choice: keep the Torah and prosper, or rebel against the Torah and suffer God's wrath. This detailed analysis is an important new exploration into the foundations of Rabbinic Judaism.

Clergy are pillars of local religious communities, and Roman Catholic priests are perhaps the quintessential examples of pastors functioning as political elites. The political science literature demonstrates that priests (indeed, clergy more generally) are well-positioned to influence the faithful, even if this influence is somewhat inconsistent. At their core, priests are opinion leaders and representatives of their church to both the faithful and their local communities. But exactly how Catholic priests determine the political acts and attitudes associated with their elite role remains a puzzle. We suggest it is the product of an interactive institutional, social, and psychological milieu, the complexity of which has not been fully assessed in the extant literature. Though some might prefer to think of priests as profiles in courage operating above the political fray, the institutional and personal realities of priest life often forces them to deal with the political realm. In doing so, priests are variably responsive to different principals, or reference groups, that represent specific dimensions of their professional context. Drawing on a series of randomized experiments on samples of Roman Catholic priests in the US and Ireland, we find that priests cognitively draw on varying professional and personal cues in responding to their employer's institutional preferences. Furthermore, how priests represent their church's political preferences to parishioners appears to be a matter of individual-level discretion.

Are you ready to enter the dance of becoming fully alive? Have you ever wondered, if we have the God of heaven and earth living inside us, why aren't we experiencing more in life? Why aren't we seeing more transformation in ourselves, or in others for that matter? What does it look like to have "Jesus in me" anyway, as an individual and also as a woman? These are the questions life coach and pastor Terri Sullivant was asking herself when God answered her in a profound, life-changing way. The Divine Invitation provides a pathway to find what your heart deeply longs for in every area of life. It's a metaphor showing the way for every woman to enter the dance of becoming fully alive. Learning this dance is about developing a relationship with Jesus, like two people dancing skillfully and gracefully. It's about becoming so entwined with the thoughts, words, emotions, and behaviors of Jesus that the two of you are one. You find that this deep connection transcends all of life, enabling you to live joyfully and freely, come what may.

Studies how the literary elements in the Qur'an function in conveying its religious message effectively. Analyses of language in the Qu'ran, its style, its structural composition, its aesthetic characteristics, its rhetorical devices, its imagery, and the impact of these elements and their significance. Also studies individual suras and Muslim appreciations of the literary aspects of the Qur'an.