This book is devoted to the religiosity of the medieval Christian masses in Central and Eastern Europe and its relationship with the traditional cultures of that time. Addressing such topics as the common instruction of the three prayers and the Decalogue, "Christian" magic in everyday life, the Marian devotion, and various images of heaven and eternal damnation, the author never loses sight of his main topic: the complex and powerful interaction between medieval folklore and Christianity.

If you were to join us in either of our homes at the end of almost any evening, or if you were to attend one of our retreats, we would invite you to do with us the process described in these pages. This book is about asking ourselves two questions: For what am I most grateful? For what am I least grateful? These questions help us identify moments of consolation and desolation. We call this process the examen. "We have given retreats in over forty countries,and we find that regardless of culture or age group, this simple process is the most helpful way for people to hear the voice of God guiding them from within. For example, should people bring us many questions ranging from, 'Should I change my job?' to What can help me with my depression?' We usually suggest they spend the next month focusing each day on the examen questions. Such people often return a month later having discovered from their own experience of consolation and desolation exactly what they should do more of and less of in order to resolve their problem. "For centuries, prayerful people have found direction for their days and for their lives by identifying these moments. Since even small children can do this, we have tried here to present the examen in a format that families, friends and communities can share and that will be easily accessible to anyone. We hope the examen will enrich your lives and your relationships as much as it has ours."

The Bible is meant to be read in the church, by the church, as the church. Although the practice of reading Scripture has often become separated from its ecclesial context, theologian Derek Taylor argues that it rightly belongs to the disciplines of the community of faith. He finds a leading example of this approach in the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who regarded the reading of Scripture as an inherently communal exercise of discipleship. In conversation with other theologians, including John Webster, Robert Jenson, and Stanley Hauerwas, Taylor contends that Bonhoeffer's approach to Scripture can engender the practices and habits of a faithful hermeneutical community. Today, as in Bonhoeffer's time, the church is called to take up and read. Featuring new monographs with cutting-edge research, New Explorations in Theology provides a platform for constructive, creative work in the areas of systematic, historical, philosophical, biblical, and practical theology.

Mary Colwell makes a 500-mile solo pilgrimage along the Camino Frances, winding through forests, mountains, farmland, industrial sprawls and places of worship, weaving her experiences of the Camino with natural history, spirituality and modern environmentalism. Ancient pathways through the modern world are gathering places for contemplation and touch-points for unexpected kindness, intense spirituality, demon-slaying, strange goings-on and magical tales. Pilgrims pitch themselves against heat, cold, wet, dry, hunger, thirst, and sometimes pain as the nature around them offers succour, medicine and, at times, warnings. Pilgrimages are physical journeys through space as well as metaphysical journeys through time. The same tracks follow the same routes through a planet always in flux, providing still points in a turning world. Our ancestors trod them before us and left their fretful or hopeful dreams in monuments scattered across the landscape. These ornate cathedrals, standing stones, mysterious caves and secret hermitages speak of a hunger for pardon, immortality, beauty and a release from fear. Yet, undertaking a pilgrimage is acknowledging that while the world may change, humanity does not. Pilgrims have always walked in times of upheaval. In Gathering Places, author, nature campaigner and veteran solo walker Mary Colwell relates her pilgrimage along the Camino Frances in a time of global pandemic when the focus of political power in the western world was shifting. The 500 miles of pathways of the Camino wind through mountains, forests, farmland, plains, cities, villages and industrial sprawl, as well as places of worship. In a typical year, 100,000 people walk this route or part of it. Mary walked the entire path virtually alone, nature her only fellow traveller. In this delightful book, she weaves her experiences of the Camino with natural history, history, spiritual stories and modern environmentalism.

The NASB Pew and Worship Bible is perfect for any church pew or classroom and matches page-for-page with the NASB Preacher's Bible. While both Bibles retain their own distinct page layout and font size, they were skillfully designed so that the pages of these two different Bibles begin and end with the same word. This will allow pastors and congregations to literally be on the same page during sermons. Universally recognized as the gold standard among word-for-word translations, the beloved New American Standard Bible, 1995 Edition, is now easier to read with Zondervan's exclusive NASB Comfort Print (R) typeface. Features The full text of the New American Standard Bible, 1995 Edition Matches page-for-page with the NASB Preacher's Bible Premium, durable hardcover binding High-quality paper Double-column, verse-by-verse format Exclusive Zondervan NASB Comfort Print typeface 9-point print size

A must-read for anyone who has ever asked God, "Why me?" It's easy to trust God when things are going our way and the world makes sense. But when suffering strikes--especially seemingly senseless suffering--we are filled with doubt and stunned by events spiraling beyond our control. In the midst of suffering, we often question the very foundation of our faith--our belief in the God who says he loves us. Since our trust and obedience rest on God's character, the questions that life's tragedies force us to face are difficult, even frightening: Who is God? Can he really be trusted? What are his purposes in the face of suffering? If he can stop suffering, why doesn't he? Joni Eareckson Tada, a woman who has lived in a wheelchair for more than thirty years, and Steve Estes, a pastor and one of Joni's closest friends, explore the answers. When God Weeps is not so much a book about suffering as it is about God. It tackles tough questions about heaven and hell, horrors and hardships, and why God allows suffering in this life. Through a panoramic overview of what the Bible says about suffering, the authors make clear who God is, why he permits so much heartache and pain, and how it is we can trust him. With both a practical edge and heartfelt warmth, When God Weeps offers dependence on his love and mercy in spite of our doubts, fears, longings, and questions.

The doctor told Wanda that she had a fourth of an ovary and that child bearing was not an option. God had promised her that she would have children. Was God going to lie to her? God fulfills His promises. After years of waiting and trying, Wanda brought five children into this world and was a mother just as was promised. With the miracle came an unwanted price since we have come to believe that Heaven has a price on some of its most cherished of gifts. It wasn't that it was authored by a loving God, but the seeds of cancer were sown as the gift was made real for five times. This young family would watch their mother succumb to a dreadful disease, slowly leaching the life from her. Wanda had a challenge understanding why the children she had been promised wouldn't be hers to raise to adulthood. Christmas would come that year before she finally died in February and the gift she craved was just to understand God's will in granting the blessing and then seemingly ripping it away in a slow death. Miracles happen to create life and miracles happen to explain why life gets cut short.

A comprehensive analysis of the ritual dimensions of biblical mourning rites, this book also seeks to illuminate mourning's social dimensions through engagement with anthropological discussion of mourning, from Hertz and van Gennep to contemporaries such as Metcalf and Huntington and Bloch and Parry. The author identifies four types of biblical mourning, and argues that mourning the dead is paradigmatic. He investigates why mourning can occur among petitioners in a sanctuary setting even given mourning's death associations; why certain texts proscribe some mourning rites (laceration and shaving) but not others; and why the mixing of the rites of mourning and rejoicing, normally incompatible, occurs in the same ritual in several biblical texts.

Designed to be read in 15-20 minutes a day, this liturgical devotional guide will give readers focus and purpose in their daily quiet time while teaching them historical prayers, creeds, and catechisms that point them to Christ.

In Debating the Sacraments, Amy Nelson Burnett brings together the foundational disputes regarding the baptism and the Lord's Supper that laid the groundwork for the development of two Protestant traditions-Lutheran and Reformed-as well as of dissenting Anabaptist movements. Burnett places these disputes in the context of early print culture, tracing their development in a range of publications and their impact on the wider public. Burnett examines not only the writings of the major reformers, but also the reception of their ideas in the pamphlets of lesser known figures, as well as the role of translators, editors, and printers in exacerbating the conflict among both literate and illiterate audiences. Following the chronological unfolding of the debates, Burnett observes how specific arguments were formed in the crucible of written critique and pierces several myths that have governed our understanding of the sacramental controversies. She traces the influence of Erasmus on Luther's followers outside of Wittenberg and highlights the critical question of authority, particularly in interpreting the Bible. Erasmus and Luther disagreed not only about the relationship between the material world and spiritual reality but also on biblical hermeneutics and scriptural exegesis. Their disagreements underlay the public debates over baptism and the Lord's Supper that broke out in 1525 and divided the evangelical movement. Erasmus's position would be reflected not only in the views of Huldrych Zwingli and others who shared his orientation toward the sacraments but also in the developing theologies of the Anabaptist movement of the 1520s. The neglected period of 1525-1529 emerges as a crucial phase of the early Reformation, when evangelical theologies were still developing, and which paved the way for the codification of theological differences in church ordinances, catechisms, and confessions of subsequent decades.

In the Middle Ages, it was thought that praying at the right shrine could save you from just about anything, from madness and famine to false imprisonment and even shipwreck. Kingdoms, cities, and even individual trades had patron saints that would protect them from misfortune and bring them wealth and prosperity, and their feast days were celebrated with public holidays and pageants. With saints believed to have the ear of God, veneration of figures such as St Thomas Becket, St Cuthbert, and St Margaret brought tens of thousands of pilgrims from all walks of life to sites across the country. Saints, Shrines and Pilgrims takes the reader across Britain, providing a map of the most important religious shrines that pilgrims would travel vast distances to reach, as well as descriptions and images of the shrines themselves. Featuring over 100 stunning photographs and a gazetteer of places to visit, it explains the history of pilgrimage in Britain and the importance that it played in medieval life, and describes the impact of the unbridled assault made on pilgrimage by the Reformation.

This book sets a new agenda for mortuary archaeology. Applying explicit case studies based on a range of European sites (from Scandinavia to Britain, Southern France to the Black Sea), 'Mortuary Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages' fulfills the need for a volume that provides accessible material to students and engages with current debates in mortuary archaeology's methods and theories. The book builds upon Heinrich Harke's influential research on burial archaeology and early medieval migrations, focusing in particular on his ground-breaking work on the relationship between the theory and practice of burial archaeology. Using diverse archaeological and historical data, the essays explore how mortuary practices have served in the make-up and expression of medieval social identities. Themes explored include masculinity, kinship, ethnicity, migration, burial rites, genetics and the perception of landscape.

This beautiful book describes and interprets a series of paintings for each day of Advent. Artists often address subjects our culture seeks to avoid, and Jane Williams' brilliant and perceptive reflections will help you to read these paintings with a more discerning eye, and discover deeper levels of meaning than may at first appear.

Hallelujah Finally the book you've been waiting for "Sound, Lighting & Video: A Resource for Worship" is the only book that tackles the integration and use of light, sound and video for houses or worship. Connect with more people in ways you never thought possible. Written by the managing editor of "Worship Arts & Technology Magazine" you'll learn how to:

* Integrate sound, lighting and video together from the ground up for easy application * Connect with more people in ways you've never imagined * Re-examine and re-incorporate your current media systems * Be up and running like the pros with this beginner-friendly guide * Solve your greatest technical problems efficiently, without the information overload * Better communicate your message using media solutions

* Integrate sound, lighting and video together from the ground up for easy application * Connect with more people in ways you've never imagined * Re-examine and re-incorporate your current media systems * Be up and running like the pros with this beginner-friendly guide * Solve your greatest technical problems efficiently, without the information overload * Better communicate your message using media solutions

Liturgical Subjects examines the history of the self in the Byzantine Empire, challenging narratives of Christian subjectivity that focus only on classical antiquity and the Western Middle Ages. As Derek Krueger demonstrates, Orthodox Christian interior life was profoundly shaped by patterns of worship introduced and disseminated by Byzantine clergy. Hymns, prayers, and sermons transmitted complex emotional responses to biblical stories, particularly during Lent. Religious services and religious art taught congregants who they were in relation to God and each other. Focusing on Christian practice in Constantinople from the sixth to eleventh centuries, Krueger charts the impact of the liturgical calendar, the eucharistic rite, hymns for vigils and festivals, and scenes from the life of Christ on the making of Christian selves. Exploring the verse of great Byzantine liturgical poets, including Romanos the Melodist, Andrew of Crete, Theodore the Stoudite, and Symeon the New Theologian, he demonstrates how their compositions offered templates for Christian self-regard and self-criticism, defining the Christian "I." Cantors, choirs, and congregations sang in the first person singular expressing guilt and repentence, while prayers and sermons defined the collective identity of the Christian community as sinners in need of salvation. By examining the way models of selfhood were formed, performed, and transmitted in the Byzantine Empire, Liturgical Subjects adds a vital dimension to the history of the self in Western culture.

In Touching the Passion - Seeing Late Medieval Altarpieces through the Eyes of Faith, Donna Sadler explores the manner in which worshipers responded to the carved and polychromed retables adorning the altars of their parish churches. Framed by the symbolic death of Christ re-enacted during the Mass, the historical account of the Passion on the retable situated Christ's suffering and triumph over death in the present. The dramatic gestures, contemporary garb, and wealth of anecdotal detail on the altarpiece, invited the viewer's absorption in the narrative. As in the Imitatio Christi, the worshiper imaginatively projected himself into the story like a child before a dollhouse. The five senses, the sculptural medium, the small scale, and the rhetoric of memory foster this immersion.

Delves into the ancient debate regarding the nature and purpose of the seven sacraments What are the sacraments? For centuries, this question has elicited a lively discussion and among theologians, and a variety of answers that do anything but outline a unified belief concerning these fundamental ritual structures. In this extremely cohesive and well-crafted volume, a group of renowned scholars map the theologies of sacraments offered by key Christian figures from the Early Church through the twenty-first century. Together, they provide a guide to the variety of views about sacraments found throughout Christianity, showcasing the variety of approaches to understanding the sacraments across the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox faith traditions. Chapters explore the theologies of thinkers from Basil to Aquinas, Martin Luther to Gustavo Gutierrez. Rather than attempting to distill their voices into a single view, the book addresses many of the questions that theologians have tackled over the two thousand year history of Christianity. In doing so, it paves the way for developing theologies of sacraments for present and future contexts. The text places each theology of the sacraments into its proper sociohistorical context, illuminating how the church has used the sacraments to define itself and its congregations over time. The definitive resource on theologies of the sacraments, this volume is a must-read for students, theologians, and spiritually interested readers alike.

Tells the diverse story of four congregations in New York City as they navigated the social and political changes of the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. In the fifty years after the Constitution was signed in 1787, New York City grew from a port town of 30,000 to a metropolis of over half a million residents. This rapid development transformed a once tightknit community and its religious experience. Including four churches belonging in various forms to the Church of England, that in some form still thrive today. Rapid urban and social change connected these believers in unity in the late colonial era. As the city grew larger, more impersonal, and socially divided, churches reformed around race and class-based neighborhoods. In Four Steeples over the City Streets, Kyle T. Bulthuis examines the intertwining of these four famous institutions-Trinity Episcopal, John Street Methodist, Mother Zion African Methodist, and St. Philip's (African) Episcopal-to uncover the lived experience of these historical subjects, and just how religious experience and social change connected in the dynamic setting of early Republic New York. Drawing on a wide range of sources including congregational records and the unique histories of some of the churches leaders, Four Steeples over the City Streets reveals how these city churches responded to these transformations from colonial times to the mid-nineteenth century. Bulthuis also adds new dynamics to the stories of well-known New Yorkers such as John Jay, James Harper, and Sojourner Truth. More importantly, Four Steeples over the City Streets connects issues of race, class, and gender, urban studies, and religious experience, revealing how the city shaped these churches, and how their respective religious traditions shaped the way they reacted to the city. This book is a critical addition to the study and history of African American activism and life in the ever-changing metropolis of New York City.

How can the Body and Blood of Christ, without ever leaving heaven, come to be really present on eucharistic altars where the bread and wine still seem to be? Thirteenth and fourteenth century Christian Aristotelians thought the answer had to be "transubstantiation."
Acclaimed philosopher, Marilyn McCord Adams, investigates these later medieval theories of the Eucharist, concentrating on the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham, with some reference to Peter Lombard, Hugh of St. Victor, and Bonaventure. She examines how their efforts to formulate and integrate this theological datum provoked them to make significant revisions in Aristotelian philosophical theories regarding the metaphysical structure and location of bodies, differences between substance and accidents, causality and causal powers, and fundamental types of change. Setting these developments in the theological context that gave rise to the question draws attention to their understandings of the sacraments and their purpose, as well as to their understandings of the nature and destiny of human beings.
Adams concludes that their philosophical modifications were mostly not ad hoc, but systematic revisions that made room for transubstantiation while allowing Aristotle still to describe what normally and naturally happens. By contrast, their picture of the world as it will be (after the last judgment) seems less well integrated with their sacramental theology and their understandings of human nature.

Mexican statues and paintings of figures like the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Lord of Chalma are endowed with sacred presence and the power to perform miracles. Millions of devotees visit these miraculous images to request miracles for health, employment, children, and countless everyday matters. When requests are granted, devotees reciprocate with votive offerings. Collages, photographs, documents, texts, milagritos, hair and braids, clothing, retablos, and other representative objects cover walls at many shrines. Miraculous Images and Votive Offerings in Mexico studies such petitionary devotion-primarily through extensive fieldwork at several shrines in Guanajuato, Jalisco, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, and Zacatecas. Graziano is interested in retablos not only as extraordinary works of folk art but: as Mexican expressions of popular Catholicism comprising a complex of beliefs, rituals, and material culture; as archives of social history; and as indices of a belief system that includes miraculous intercession in everyday life. Previous studies focus almost exclusively on commissioned votive paintings, but Graziano also considers the creative ex votos made by the votants themselves. Among the many miraculous images treated in the book are the Cristo Negro de Otatitlan, Nino del Cacahuatito, Senor de Chalma, and the Virgen de Guadalupe. The book is written in two voices, one analytical to provide an understanding of miracles, miraculous images, and votive offerings, and the other narrative to bring the reader closer to lived experiences at the shrines. This book appears at a moment of transition, when retablos are disappearing from church walls and beginning to appear in museum exhibitions; when the artistic value of retablos is gaining prominence; when the commercial value of retablos is increasing, particularly among private collectors outside of Mexico; and when traditional retablo painters are being replaced by painters with a more commercial and less religious approach to their trade. Graziano's book thus both records a disappearing tradition and charts the way in which it is being transformed.