How do various concepts of God impact the moral life? Is God ultimately required for goodness? In this edited collection, an international panel of contemporary philosophers and theologians offer new avenues of exploration from a theist perspective for these important questions. The book features several approaches to address these questions. Common themes include philosophical and theological conceptions of God with reference to human morality, particular Trinitarian accounts of God and the resultant ethical implications, and how communities are shaped, promoted, and transformed by accounts of God. Bringing together philosophical and theological insights on the relationship between God and our moral lives, this book will be of keen interest to scholars of the philosophy of religion, particularly those looking at ethics, social justice and morality.

John Cassian (360-435 CE) started his monastic career in Bethlehem. He later traveled to the Egyptian desert, living there as a monk, meeting the venerated Desert Fathers, and learning from them for about fifteen years. Much later, he would go to the region of Gaul to help establish a monastery there by writing monastic manuals, the Institutes and the Conferences. These seminal writings represent the first known attempt to bring the idealized monastic traditions from Egypt, long understood to be the cradle of monasticism, to the West. In his Institutes, Cassian comments that “a monk ought by all means to flee from women and bishops” (Inst. 11.18). An odd comment from a monk, apparently casting bishops as adversaries rather than models for the Christian life. This book argues that Cassian, in both the Institutes and the Conferences, advocated for a separation between monastics and the institutional Church. In Cassian’s writings and the larger corpus of monastic writings from his era, monks never referred to early Church fathers such as Irenaeus or Tertullian as authorities; instead, they cited quotes and stories exclusively from earlier, venerated monks. In that sense, monastic discourse such as Cassian’s formed a closed discursive system, consciously excluding the hierarchical institutional Church. Furthermore, Cassian argues for a separate monastic authority based not on apostolic succession but on apostolic praxis, the notion that monastic practices such as prayer and asceticism can be traced back to the primitive church. This study of Cassian’s writings is supplemented with Michel Foucault’s analysis of the creation of subjects to examine Cassian’s formation of a specifically Egyptian form of monastic subjectivity for his audience, the monks of Gaul. Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power and pastoral power are also employed to demonstrate the effect Cassian’s rhetoric would have upon his direct audience, as well as many other monks throughout history.

What is the relationship between the social performance of companies and their financial performance? More colloquially, can a firm effectively attend to both people and profits as it conducts its business? This question has been investigated in no fewer than 95 empirical studies published since 1972. The authors have assembled a compendium of this research to give researchers and practitioners alike a broad overview of these 95 studies and a systematic database detailing the content of each one. This book provides a comprehensive portrait of this research literature. It begins with a broad orientation to the literature, exploring why the link between social and financial performance has been subject to continual inquiry and often heated debate. The authors then present an integrated overview of the 95 studies. Through the charts and tables, the authors illuminate the nature of the studies conducted; the data samples selected for investigation; the ways in which financial and social performance have been measured; and the overall tally of results.

This volume brings together established and rising scholars to revitalize political theology by examining conceptions of power that work beyond sovereign power. The hope is to reexamine the character of authority by attending to the multiple, various, but often under-appreciated ways that power is exercised in the contemporary world.

What is the relationship between the social performance of companies and their financial performance? More colloquially, can a firm effectively attend to both people and profits as it conducts its business? This question has been investigated in no fewer than 95 empirical studies published since 1972. The authors have assembled a compendium of this research to give researchers and practitioners alike a broad overview of these 95 studies and a systematic database detailing the content of each one.
This book provides a comprehensive portrait of this research literature. It begins with a broad orientation to the literature, exploring why the link between social and financial performance has been subject to continual inquiry and often heated debate. The authors then present an integrated overview of the 95 studies. Through the charts and tables, the authors illuminate the nature of the studies conducted; the data samples selected for investigation; the ways in which financial and social performance have been measured; and the overall tally of results.

John Cassian (360-435 CE) started his monastic career in Bethlehem. He later traveled to the Egyptian desert, living there as a monk, meeting the venerated Desert Fathers, and learning from them for about fifteen years. Much later, he would go to the region of Gaul to help establish a monastery there by writing monastic manuals, the Institutes and the Conferences. These seminal writings represent the first known attempt to bring the idealized monastic traditions from Egypt, long understood to be the cradle of monasticism, to the West. In his Institutes, Cassian comments that “a monk ought by all means to flee from women and bishops” (Inst. 11.18). An odd comment from a monk, apparently casting bishops as adversaries rather than models for the Christian life. This book argues that Cassian, in both the Institutes and the Conferences, advocated for a separation between monastics and the institutional Church. In Cassian’s writings and the larger corpus of monastic writings from his era, monks never referred to early Church fathers such as Irenaeus or Tertullian as authorities; instead, they cited quotes and stories exclusively from earlier, venerated monks. In that sense, monastic discourse such as Cassian’s formed a closed discursive system, consciously excluding the hierarchical institutional Church. Furthermore, Cassian argues for a separate monastic authority based not on apostolic succession but on apostolic praxis, the notion that monastic practices such as prayer and asceticism can be traced back to the primitive church. This study of Cassian’s writings is supplemented with Michel Foucault’s analysis of the creation of subjects to examine Cassian’s formation of a specifically Egyptian form of monastic subjectivity for his audience, the monks of Gaul. Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power and pastoral power are also employed to demonstrate the effect Cassian’s rhetoric would have upon his direct audience, as well as many other monks throughout history.

How do various concepts of God impact the moral life? Is God ultimately required for goodness? In this edited collection, an international panel of contemporary philosophers and theologians offer new avenues of exploration from a theist perspective for these important questions. The book features several approaches to address these questions. Common themes include philosophical and theological conceptions of God with reference to human morality, particular Trinitarian accounts of God and the resultant ethical implications, and how communities are shaped, promoted, and transformed by accounts of God. Bringing together philosophical and theological insights on the relationship between God and our moral lives, this book will be of keen interest to scholars of the philosophy of religion, particularly those looking at ethics, social justice and morality.

“We must be actively against instead of passively for sexual violence.” - "1,800 Miles"
Sexual violence is a cultural issue that will not go away just because we ignore it.  Three college friends understood this and decided to do something.  With few resources and little funding, they headed to Miami in the summer of 2008 and were ready to walk all the way to Boston in an effort to raise awareness about sexual violence. Carry their only possessions on their backs and never knowing where they would be sleeping at the end of each day, they slowly made their way up the East Coast. However, they did have their set backs as certain days included being chased by dogs and walking numerous miles through the rain.
Despite these adversities, the three walkers continued forward for three long, hot summer months. Along the way, they talked to the media, met survivors, and even spent the night with a Senator.  "1,800 Miles" recounts those stories both humorous and heartbreaking from the walk and is sure to be a story that inspires other social activists to start moving forward – one step at a time.
 

After suffering an ignoble end, one man endeavors to write the first true and humble memoir in order to save humanity from destruction and restore order to the universe. The only problem? He's dead. Frustrated by a brief and confusing life, Joshua Cochran (a nobody) investigates his existence in The Most Important Memoir Ever Written, Ever. As he writes from the clarity of death, he is unimpressed by the monotony of the afterlife, marked by endless buffets and ice-cream socials and countless dead souls but not much to do. In his memoir, moments of gritty reality-such as his life as a firefighter or off-kilter college professor, his experiences with women and the trumpet, travails over the implant placed in his neck by the government, a sexual problem with Ivory Soap, his eventual death... all meld into less-than-touching moments of self realization even as the author is accosted by fellow dead souls who oppose his tell-all memoir. Cochran tries to make sense of his paltry life even as a collection of dead artists and philosophers wage war against the shadowy Underground Coalition, a group of dead ne'er do wells, to determine the fate of humanity and the order of the universe.

Deep within a secret society controlling the world, twins with extraordinary powers and dark prophecies are born. A mole, from a once formidable rebellion, steals one of the children to hide far away. Unaware of his destiny to save the world, Abrom has a chance encounter which uncovers his "shadow" ability. A freak accident forces him back into the underbelly of the secret society. Tempted by new powers, Abrom is guided through an uncanny world of unlimited credit cards, hidden night clubs and shadow controlled sports, by a host of new characters. The divide between good and evil deepens and Abrom must choose a side. To save the world, Abrom Crow must find proof of mankind's origin while fending off constant attacks from shadow assassins. Death and love harden Abrom's path toward leading a revitalized rebellion against his evil twin brother and an army of shadows.