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I'm So Glad You Told Me What I Didn't Wanna Hear
by Barbara JohnsonBarbara Johnson writes from her own personal experience and the letters she has received from hundreds of hurting women. She shares hope and wit to cheer parents in desperate circumstances.
I'm So Glad You Were Born: Celebrating Who You Are
by Ainsley EarhardtParents and children both have big dreams—about their life and the wonders the future holds. I&’m So Glad You Were Born celebrates those dreams as well as the wonder of everyday experiences like sweet and special snuggles and cuddles, fun times and learning times too!New York Times bestselling author and FOX News anchor Ainsley Earhardt has created a picture book that celebrates ALL the dreams come true--a parent's, a child&’s, and Creator God&’s! I'm So Glad You Were Born is full of love and hope and has a sweet, playful message inspired by Scripture that will leave your child without a doubt just how thankful you are that they are in your life and that they were created to be extraordinary.I&’m So Glad You Were Born:Will appeal to children as well as the adults who love themIs a perfect gift for childhood celebrations including birthdays, baby showers, graduation gifts, communion, confirmation, and dedication giftsIs a great way to celebration adoption day with a childIs written in sweet (and humorous) rhyme perfect for reading aloudFeatures beautiful and fun illustrations by artist Kim BarnesMakes a sweet Valentine&’s Day gift from parents or grandparents I&’m So Glad You Were Born is an inspiring and loving message to your child, sure to become a go-to favorite for reading aloud as well as during bedtime snuggles!
I'm So Sure
by Jenny JonesThink you're having a rough week? Bella's stepdad, a semi-pro wrestler, just signed the entire family up for a reality TV show. Bella's first thought: Kill. Me. Now.Living in Truman, Oklahoma wasn't 100% miserable for Bella. Sure, she misses Manhattan, couture clothes, and her dad. But she was making new friends at Truman High and almost enjoying her work at the school newspaper. Then the whole stepdad-wrestler-reality-show issue hit and her life is now being splashed across weekly tabloids and broadcast news.As if having a camera crew following her around isn't bad enough, Bella soon discovers a conspiracy against the Truman High prom queen candidates. And the closer she gets to the answer, the more danger she's in.As her relationship with Luke teeters between friendship and romance, Bella's ex-boyfriend Hunter reappears and vies for Bella's attention. Denying allegations of a love triangle, working to solve the prom queen mystery, and trying to keep her cool on national television finally motivate Bella to start talking--and listening--to God more.But what comes next has Bella once again screaming: I'M. SO. SURE.
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
by Austin Channing BrownFrom a powerful new voice on racial justice, an eye-opening account of growing up Black, Christian, and female in middle-class white America. <P><P>Austin Channing Brown's first encounter with a racialized America came at age 7, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. <P><P>Growing up in majority-white schools, organizations, and churches, Austin writes, "I had to learn what it means to love blackness," a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America's racial divide as a writer, speaker and expert who helps organizations practice genuine inclusion.In a time when nearly all institutions (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claim to value "diversity" in their mission statements, I'm Still Here is a powerful account of how and why our actions so often fall short of our words. <P><P>Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice, in stories that bear witness to the complexity of America's social fabric--from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations. <P><P>For readers who have engaged with America's legacy on race through the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Eric Dyson, I'm Still Here is an illuminating look at how white, middle-class, Evangelicalism has participated in an era of rising racial hostility, inviting the reader to confront apathy, recognize God's ongoing work in the world, and discover how blackness--if we let it--can save us all. <P><P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
I'm Still Here: A bestselling Reese's Book Club pick by 'a leading voice on racial justice' LAYLA SAAD, author of ME AND WHITE SUPREMACY
by Austin Channing BrownA REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICKA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'An example of how one woman can change the world by telling the truth about her life with unflinching, relentless courage' GLENNON DOYLEAustin Channing Brown's first encounter with racism in America came at age seven, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools and neighbourhoods, Austin 'had to learn what it means to love Blackness,' a journey that led to her becoming a writer, speaker and expert helping organisations practice genuine inclusion. In this bestselling memoir, she writes beautifully and powerfully about her journey to self-worth and how we can all contribute to racial justice. 'A leading new voice on racial justice' LAYLA F SAAD, author of ME AND WHITE SUPREMACY'Most people say, "that books has legs"; I measure the impact of a book by how often I throw it across the room. [Austin's book] has serious wings. It broke me open' BRENE BROWN'A deeply personal celebration of blackness that simultaneously sheds new light on racial injustice and inequality while offering hope for a better future' SHONDALAND
I'm Still Here: 'A leading new voice on racial justice' LAYLA SAAD, author of ME AND WHITE SUPREMACY
by Austin Channing Brown'A leading new voice on racial justice' LAYLA SAAD, author of ME AND WHITE SUPREMACYA REESE'S BOOK CLUB X HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK PICK * THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThis book is my story about growing up in a Black girl's body. It's about surviving in a world not made for me. Austin Channing Brown's first encounter with a racialized America came at age seven, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools and churches, Austin writes, 'I had to learn what it means to love Blackness,' a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America's racial divide as a writer, speaker and expert helping organisations practice genuine inclusion. In a time when nearly every institution (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claims to value diversity in its mission statement, Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice. Her stories bear witness to the complexity of America's social fabric and invite the reader to confront apathy, recognise God's ongoing work in the world and discover how Blackness-if we let it-can save us all.'An example of how one woman can change the world by telling the truth about her life with unflinching, relentless courage' GLENNON DOYLE, author of UNTAMED'Most people say, "that books has legs"; I measure the impact of a book by how often I throw it across the room. [Austin's book] has serious wings. It broke me open' BRENE BROWN
I’m Still Standing
by Jeanette BradleyThis is a book written to give hope and inspiration to those who don't have any. It was written to glorify God for his power to save, heal, and restore from the damage of abuse and trauma.
I'm Still With You: Communicate, Heal & Evolve with Your Loved One on the Other Side
by Sherrie DillardContinue Your Relationships with Loved Ones Who Have Passed to the Other SideOur family and friends are still with us even after they've transitioned to the afterlife. Psychic medium Sherrie Dillard shares amazing case studies that show how the power of love transcends the veil between this world and the next. You will also discover exercises and meditations for healing grief and continuing the soul journey you are on with those who have passed away.I'm Still With You also shares breathtaking insights into the soul review process that occurs on the other side and shows how that process uplifts and influences surviving loved ones. This comforting book provides suggestions to help you move through the grieving process and guides you on a transformative soul-to-soul journey with your cherished family and friends.
I’m Waiting, God - Women's Bible Study Guide with Leader Helps: Finding Blessing in God’s Delays (I’m Waiting, God)
by Barb RooseFind help and hope for times when it's hard to wait on God Do you ever feel like God is taking too long to answer your prayers? Have you ever taken matters into your own hands, only to discover that you’ve made the situation worse? Waiting on God challenges our faith when the bills are stacking up, our families are falling apart, or our dreams feel like they won't come true. We know that God hears our prayers, but it’s hard when the clock is ticking yet He hasn’t shown us the answer. In this four-week Bible study, Barb Roose invites us to explore the stories of women in the Bible who had to wait on God— women such as Hannah, Ruth, Tamar, and the unnamed woman who suffered for over a decade with a painful medical condition. If you’ve felt anxious, angry, discouraged or depressed because God isn’t giving you what you want, their stories will breathe fresh hope and practical next steps in your life. As a reforming control lover, Barb mixes in her personal stories of learning how to wait for God during long seasons of unanswered prayers, family difficulties, and challenging times in ministry. Together we will discover that there is goodness and blessing to be found in times of waiting, including a closer relationship with God than we’ve ever dared to dream. Other components for the Bible study, available separately, include a DVD. "Barb Roose tackles the topic of patience in a way that really hit home for me personally. I have a lot of “why, how, and when” questions for God. Combining in-depth Scripture study with practical tools and personal stories, this study is one of the best I’ve ever read! —Melissa Spoelstra, Bible teacher, speaker, and author of Romans: Good News That Changes Everything and numerous other Bible studies and books When waiting is hard and long, the last thing you need is someone disregarding your pain, with platitudes like “just push through.” In I’m Waiting, God, Barb walks with us in our waiting. Warm, tender, and a help for moving forward, Barb’s study has left me stronger, knowing I can wait so His glory is seen. —Lynn Cowell, author of Make Your Move and member of the Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker and writer team Barb Roose is a wonderful role model of walking out biblical truth while in life’s waiting room. This study is a must read for anyone wondering what to do while waiting and wanting to stay close to God in the meantime. —Pam Farrel, best-selling author of over forty books, including Discovering Hope in the Psalms: A Creative Bible Study Experience Bible Study Features: A shorter four-week study is ideal for in-between or busy times. Accessible and friendly format. Each week concludes with a devotional lesson featuring prayer journaling, helping women create “memorial stones” during a waiting season. DVD features dynamic, engaging teaching in four 20-minute segments. Participant Workbook includes group session guides, discussion questions, prayers, video viewer guides, and leader helps.
I'm Writing You from Tehran: A Granddaughter's Search for Her Family's Past and Their Country's Future
by Delphine MinouiA lucid, moving view into an often obscured part of our world, exploring notions of democracy, identity, and the resilience of the human spiritIn the wake of losing her beloved grandfather, Delphine Minoui decided to visit Iran for the first time since the revolution. It was 1998. She was twenty-two and a freshly minted journalist. She would stay for ten years.Quickly absorbed into the everyday life of the city, Minoui attends secret dance parties that are raided by the morality police and dines in the home of a young couple active in the Basij—the fearsome militia. She befriends veteran journalists battling government censorship, imprisoned student poets, and her own grandmother (a woman who is discovering the world of international affairs through her contraband satellite TV).And so it is all the more crushing when the political situation falters. Minoui joins street protests teeming with students hungry for change and is interrogated by the secret police; she sees a mirrored rise in the love of country—the yearning patriotism of the left, the militant nationalism of the right. Friends disappear; others may be tracking her movements. She finds love, loses her press credentials, marries, and is separated from her husband by erupting global conflict. Through it all, her love for Iran and its people deepens. In her family’s past she discovers a mission that will shape her entire future.Framed as a letter to her grandfather and filled with disarming characters in momentous times, I’m Writing You from Tehran is a remarkable blend of global history, family memoir, and the making of a reporter, told by someone both insider and outsider—a child of the diaspora who is a world-class political journalist.
Image: Three Inquiries in Technology and Imagination (TRIOS)
by Thomas A. Carlson Mark C. Taylor Mary-Jane RubensteinThe three essays in Image, written by leading philosophers of religion, explore the modern power of the visual at the intersection of the human and the technological. Modern life is steeped in images, image-making, and attempts to control the world through vision. Mastery of images has been advanced by technologies that expand and reshape vision and enable us to create, store, transmit, and display images. The three essays in Image, written by leading philosophers of religion Mark C. Taylor, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, and Thomas A. Carlson, explore the power of the visual at the intersection of the human and the technological. Building on Heidegger’s notion that modern humanity aims to master the world by picturing or representing the real, they investigate the contemporary culture of the image in its philosophical, religious, economic, political, imperial, and military dimensions, challenging the abstraction, anonymity, and dangerous disconnection of contemporary images. Taylor traces a history of capitalism, focusing on its lack of humility, particularly in the face of mortality, and he considers art as a possible way to reconnect us to the earth. Through a genealogy of iconic views from space, Rubenstein exposes the delusions of conquest associated with extraterrestrial travel. Starting with the pressing issues of surveillance capitalism and facial recognition technology, Carlson extends Heidegger’s analysis through a meditation on the telematic elimination of the individual brought about by totalizing technologies. Together, these essays call for a consideration of how we can act responsibly toward the past in a way that preserves the earth for future generations. Attending to the fragility of material things and to our own mortality, they propose new practices of imagination grounded in love and humility.
Image, Action, and Idea in Contemporary Jewish Art (Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination #5)
by Ben SchachterContemporary Jewish art is a growing field that includes traditional as well as new creative practices, yet criticism of it is almost exclusively reliant on the Second Commandment’s prohibition of graven images. Arguing that this disregards the corpus of Jewish thought and a century of criticism and interpretation, Ben Schachter advocates instead a new approach focused on action and process.Departing from the traditional interpretation of the Second Commandment, Schachter addresses abstraction, conceptual art, performance art, and other styles that do not rely on imagery for meaning. He examines Jewish art through the concept of melachot—work-like “creative activities” as defined by the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides. Showing the similarity between art and melachot in the active processes of contemporary Jewish artists such as Ruth Weisberg, Allan Wexler, Archie Rand, and Nechama Golan, he explores the relationship between these artists’ methods and Judaism’s demanding attention to procedure.A compellingly written challenge to traditionalism, Image, Action, and Idea in Contemporary Jewish Art makes a well-argued case for artistic production, interpretation, and criticism that revels in the dual foundation of Judaism and art history.
Image and Imagination
by C. S. LewisImage and Imagination presents some of C.S. Lewis's finest literary criticism and religious exposition. This selection gathers together forty book reviews--never before reprinted--as well as four major essays which have been unavailable for many decades, and a fifth essay, "Image and Imagination," published for the first time. The essays and reviews substantiate Lewis's reputation as an eloquent and authoritative critic across a wide range of literature, and as a keen judge of contemporary scholarship, while his reviews of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings will be of additional interest to scholars and students of fantasy.
Image and Imagination
by C. S. LewisImage and Imagination presents some of C.S. Lewis's finest literary criticism and religious exposition. This selection gathers together forty book reviews--never before reprinted--as well as four major essays which have been unavailable for many decades, and a fifth essay, "Image and Imagination," published for the first time. The essays and reviews substantiate Lewis's reputation as an eloquent and authoritative critic across a wide range of literature, and as a keen judge of contemporary scholarship, while his reviews of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings will be of additional interest to scholars and students of fantasy.
Image and Imagination
by C. S. LewisImage and Imagination presents some of C.S. Lewis's finest literary criticism and religious exposition. This selection gathers together forty book reviews--never before reprinted--as well as four major essays which have been unavailable for many decades, and a fifth essay, "Image and Imagination," published for the first time. The essays and reviews substantiate Lewis's reputation as an eloquent and authoritative critic across a wide range of literature, and as a keen judge of contemporary scholarship, while his reviews of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings will be of additional interest to scholars and students of fantasy.
Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (Columbia Classics in Religion #Vol. 11)
by Victor Turner Edith TurnerFirst published in 1978, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture is a classic work examining the theological doctrines, popular notions, and corresponding symbols and images promoting and sustaining Christian pilgrimage. The book examines two major aspects of pilgrimage practice: the significance of context, or the theological conditions giving rise to pilgrimage and the folk traditions enabling worshippers to absorb the meaning of the event; and the images and symbols embodying the experience of pilgrimage and transmitting its visions in varying ways. Retelling its own tales of "mere mortals" confronted by potent visions, such as the man Juan Diego who found redemption with the Lady of Guadalupe and the poor French shepherdess Bernadette whose encounter with the Lady at Lourdes inspired Christians across the globe, this text treats religious visions as both paradox and empowering phenomena, tying them explicitly to the times in which they occurred. Offering vivid vignettes of social history, it extends their importance beyond the realm of the religious to our own conceptions of reality.Extensively revised throughout, this edition includes a new introduction by the theologian Deborah Ross situating the book within the work of Victor and Edith Turner and among the movements of contemporary culture. She addresses the study's legacy within the discipline, especially its hermeneutical framework, which introduced a novel method of describing and interpreting pilgrimage. She also credits the Turners with cementing the link between mysticism, popular devotion, and Christian culture, as well as their recognition of the relationship between pilgrimage and the deep spiritual needs of human beings. She concludes with various critiques of the Turners' work and suggests future directions for research.
Image and Presence: A Christological Reflection on Iconoclasm and Iconophilia
by Natalie CarnesImages increasingly saturate our world, making present to us what is distant or obscure. Yet the power of images also arises from what they do not make present—from a type of absence they do not dispel. Joining a growing multidisciplinary conversation that rejects an understanding of images as lifeless objects, this book offers a theological meditation on the ways images convey presence into our world. Just as Christ negates himself in order to manifest the invisible God, images, Natalie Carnes contends, negate themselves to give more than they literally or materially are. Her Christological reflections bring iconoclasm and iconophilia into productive relation, suggesting that they need not oppose one another. Investigating such images as the biblical golden calf and paintings of the Virgin Mary, Carnes explores how to distinguish between iconoclasms that maintain fidelity to their theological intentions and those that lead to visual temptation. Offering ecumenical reflections on issues that have long divided Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions, Image and Presence provokes a fundamental reconsideration of images and of the global image crises of our time.
Image Bearers: Restoring our identity and living out our calling
by Rachel Atkinson Michael LloydRestoration is one of the basic building-blocks to Christian growth: it affects the way we relate to God, to ourselves, and to others. When we allow God to restore us, shape us and refine us into the people we were made to be, we can enjoy His presence more fully, live more freely, and reflect His image more closely.Drawing on the work of a close friend and counsellor, Ruth Miller, who died in 2013, Image Bearers has been inspired by Ruth's significant ministry of individual counselling and pastoral healing. Beginning with a theological framework for restoration, each chapter builds on the brokenness we experience in life - our anxieties, fear and failures - and equips us with spiritual practices to improve our prayer, evangelism and pastoral care, giving us a greater vision for God's restoration in our own lives. Image Bearers is written for anyone wishing to grow into greater Christian maturity. In this joint venture, Rachel Atkinson and Michael Lloyd encourage us to live lives that are theologically grounded and practically applied; restoration cannot simply be taught but must be experienced, lived and modelled.
Image Control: Breaking a Faulty Eyesight
by Talaya JessieWhat do you do when wisdom is calling you by your name? What do you do when purpose is yearning to be fulfilled in your spirit? What do you do when your mind can no longer grasp the anonymity of your destiny? Image Control takes you on a journey of discovering your perception. It helps you realize the factors in shaping your identity. The generation I am apart of is filled with so many creatives, but it seems as if we are afraid to pull out our maximum potential by the roots. It is almost as if we are waiting for people to see our value and validate why and what we were put on this earth to do. In a world where who you are and what you do matters the most, it is so easy to get consumed with the opinions of others. What if life was not necessarily about the things you accomplish? What if it was about how you accomplished those things? Was it with integrity or did you have to sacrifice a piece of yourself to be accepted? When you push past the boundaries and extremities of understanding your perception, you will then realize what was blocking your true self. You will begin to understand the why behind your actions. You will begin to understand the why to specific things your heart may desire. We all have dreams, misfortunes and pain. But what if we took back our treasure from the hands of others and the pit of our shortcomings? Will there be a possibility to sharpen our God given tools and gain understanding toward the use of those tools? Who would we actually become in the process? Will we continue to walk in facades? What if everyone in the world did the work to look deep within their soul? Would there be substance or lack? What if we took the blinders off? Would we only see the things that hurt us in life or the entirety of every situation we have had to encounter? The process of breaking a faulty eyesight is no easy one, but it leads you to an atmosphere that can no longer be controlled outside of you. The definitive question is will you do the work and be okay with looking a little funny while doing it?
Image, Identity and John Wesley: A Study in Portraiture (Routledge Methodist Studies Series)
by Peter S. ForsaithThe face of John Wesley (1703–91), the Methodist leader, became one of the most familiar images in the English-speaking and transatlantic worlds through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the dozen or so painted portraits made during his lifetime came numbers of posthumous portraits and moralising ‘scene paintings’, and hundreds of variations of prints. It was calculated that six million copies were produced of one print alone – an 1827 portrait by John Jackson R.A. as frontispiece for a hymn book. Illustrated by nearly one hundred images, many in colour, with a comprehensive appendix listing known Wesley images, this book offers a much-needed comprehensive and critical survey of one of the most influential religious and public figures of eighteenth-century Britain. Besides chapters on portraits from the life and after, scene paintings and prints, it explores aspects of Wesley’s (and Methodism’s) attitudes to art, and the personality cult which gathered around Wesley as Methodism expanded globally. It will be of interest to art historians as a treatment of an individual sitter and subject, as well as to scholars engaged in Wesley and Methodist studies. It is also significant for the field of material studies, given the spread and use of the image, on artefacts as well as on paper.
The Image of Bar Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature: False Messiah and National Hero (Hermeneutics: Studies in the History of Religions)
by Richard G. MarksBar Kokhba led the Jewish rebellion against Rome in 132–135 A.D., which resulted in massive destruction and dislocation of the Jewish populace of Judea. In early rabbinic literature, Bar Kokhba was remembered in two ways: as an imposter claiming to be the Messiah and as a glorious military leader whose successes led Rabbi Akiba, one of the great rabbinic authorities of Jewish tradition, to acclaim him the Messiah. These two earliest images formed the core of most later perceptions of Bar Kokhba, so that he became the prototypical false messiah and the paradigmatic rebel of Jewish history.The Image of Bar Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature is a history of the perceptions that later Jewish writers living in the fourth through seventeenth centuries formed of this legendary hero-villain whose actions, in their eyes, had caused enormous suffering and disappointed messianic hopes. Richard Marks examines each writer's account individually and in the context of its period, exploring particularly political and religious implications. He builds a history of images and looks at larger patterns, such as the desacralizing of traditional imagery. His findings raise timely political questions about Bar Kokhba's image among Jews today.
The Image of Christ in Modern Art
by Richard HarriesThe Image of Christ in Modern Art explores the challenges presented by the radical and rapid changes of artistic style in the 20th century to artists who wished to relate to traditional Christian imagery. In the 1930s David Jones said that he and his contemporaries were acutely conscious of ’the break’, by which he meant the fragmentation and loss of a once widely shared Christian narrative and set of images. In this highly illustrated book, Richard Harries looks at some of the artists associated with the birth of modernism such as Epstein and Rouault as well as those with a highly distinctive understanding of religion such as Chagall and Stanley Spencer. He discusses the revival of confidence associated with the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral after World War II and the commissioning of work by artists like Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland and John Piper before looking at the very testing last quarter of the 20th century. He shows how here, and even more in our own time, fresh and important visual interpretations of Christ have been created both by well known and less well known artists. In conclusion he suggests that the modern movement in art has turned out to be a friend, not a foe of Christian art.Through a wide and beautiful range of images and insightful text, Harries explores the continuing challenge, present from the beginning of Christian art, as to how that which is visual can in some way indicate the transcendent.
The Image of Christ in Russian Literature: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Pasternak (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)
by John GivensVladimir Nabokov complained about the number of Dostoevsky's characters "sinning their way to Jesus." In truth, Christ is an elusive figure not only in Dostoevsky's novels, but in Russian literature as a whole. The rise of the historical critical method of biblical criticism in the nineteenth century and the growth of secularism it stimulated made an earnest affirmation of Jesus in literature highly problematic. If they affirmed Jesus too directly, writers paradoxically risked diminishing him, either by deploying faith explanations that no longer persuade in an age of skepticism or by reducing Christ to a mere argument in an ideological dispute. The writers at the heart of this study understood that to reimage Christ for their age, they had to make him known through indirect, even negative ways, lest what they say about him be mistaken for cliché, doctrine, or naïve apologetics. The Christology of Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Boris Pasternak is thus apophatic because they deploy negative formulations (saying what God is not) in their writings about Jesus. Professions of atheism in Dostoevsky and Tolstoy's non-divine Jesus are but separate negative paths toward truer discernment of Christ. This first study in English of the image of Christ in Russian literature highlights the importance of apophaticism as a theological practice and a literary method in understanding the Russian Christ. It also emphasizes the importance of skepticism in Russian literary attitudes toward Jesus on the part of writers whose private crucibles of doubt produced some of the most provocative and enduring images of Christ in world literature. This important study will appeal to scholars and students of Orthodox Christianity and Russian literature, as well as educated general readers interested in religion and nineteenth-century Russian novels.
An Image of God: The Catholic Struggle with Eugenics
by Sharon M. LeonDuring the first half of the twentieth century, supporters of the eugenics movement offered an image of a racially transformed America by curtailing the reproduction of “unfit” members of society. Through institutionalization, compulsory sterilization, the restriction of immigration and marriages, and other methods, eugenicists promised to improve the population—a policy agenda that was embraced by many leading intellectuals and public figures. But Catholic activists and thinkers across the United States opposed many of these measures, asserting that “every man, even a lunatic, is an image of God, not a mere animal."In An Image of God, Sharon Leon examines the efforts of American Catholics to thwart eugenic policies, illuminating the ways in which Catholic thought transformed the public conversation about individual rights, the role of the state, and the intersections of race, community, and family. Through an examination of the broader questions raised in this debate, Leon casts new light on major issues that remain central in American political life today: the institution of marriage, the role of government, and the separation of church and state. This is essential reading in the history of religion, science, politics, and human rights.
The Image of God and the Psychology of Religion
by Richard L Dayringer David OlerWhat are the implications of a client&’s image of God?Improve your confidence-and your practice skills-by enhancing your knowledge of how individuals are likely to perceive God, and of how those perceptions impact the way they function as human beings. Theologians have long speculated and theorized about how humans imagine God to be. This book merges theology with science, presenting empirical research focused on perceptions of God in a variety of populations living in community and mental health settings. Each chapter concludes with references that comprise an essential reading list, and the book is generously enhanced with tables that make data easy to access and understand. "Liberating Images of God" discusses the constriction and impoverishment of God images due to the traditional restrictions of God images to those that are male and personified. This chapter examines the potential for the client and counselor&’s co-creation of images of God which embrace the feminine as well as the masculine, the nurturer as well as the warrior, and the natural world in all its dimensions as well as the human world, to liberate, enrich, sustain, and transform the client&’s relationships with God and with him/herself. "Attachment, Well-Being, and Religious Participation Among People with Severe Mental Disorders" examines the relationship between attachment states of mind and religious participation among people diagnosed with severe mental illness. "Concepts of God and Therapeutic Alliance Among People with Severe Mental Disorders" explores the transferential aspects of God representation among severely mentally ill adults. It highlights research on the relationship between a patient&’s image of God and that patient&’s working relationship with his/her case manager, and discusses the implications for clinical practice of those findings. "The Subjective Experience of God" presents a theory about the psychological basis for the experience of God that argues that this experience is essentially a form of projection and as such is an internal event that does not exist independent of an individual&’s psyche. This chapter draws a distinction between faith in a particular belief-namely, faith in the existence of a loving, omnipotent God-and an attitude of faith, which is the basis for experiences of transcendence. "Relationship of Gender Role Identity and Attitudes" presents the results of a study in which nearly 300 Catholic attendees at three university Catholic centers completed the Bern Sex Role Inventory, the Attitudes Toward Women Scale, and the Perceptions of God Checklist. This chapter looks at images of God as masculine or feminine, and at the connection for people between the way they perceive God and the way they relate towards men and women. "Reflections on a Study in a Mental Hospital," brings you groundbreaking new research on perceptions of God in an inpatient population. This chapter examines the positive effects (as opposed to the negative effects previously portrayed by the psychological community) of religious belief and practice for residential care patients in a psychiatric hospital.