Provocative Grace

Provocative Grace PDF

Author: Robert Corin Morris

Publisher: Upper Room Books

Published: 2015-05-01

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 0835812936

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A restless search is on. Cover stories about the "real" Jesus are on the increase in news magazines, best sellers based on alternative Gospels, and documentaries. Whether you're a devout Christian, an inquiring seeker or a rank skeptic, this book is for you if you wish to explore the teaching of Jesus. Provocative Grace focuses on the words of Jesus, not as rules to live by but as challenges to precipitate growth into greater maturity. Morris asks us to enlarge our existing concepts and to stretch our beliefs about Jesus beyond the borders of formal Christianity and what we learned in Sunday school. "The Jesus of the Gospels, in all his modes of encountering people—as prophet, healer, wisdom teacher, mystic, social critic, and nonviolent revolutionary—is a disturber of our immaturities, one who challenges us to find and use our strengths," writes Morris. "Jesus was neither a rule maker or idealist but a provocateur. Rather than impossible ideals imposed upon us, his sayings are proddings to grow step-by-step, by trial-and-error learning, into the best possibilities of our nature." Listen to Jesus' words not with an attitude of uncritical acceptance or blind faith but rather with an openness to hear the message in a fresh way. Provocative Grace dares us to wrestle with Jesus' sayings and to experience a vivid revelation of God's love and grace. Each chapter helpfully arranges the book so that it may be an aid to personal reflection, journaling, or discussion.

The Grace of Destruction

The Grace of Destruction PDF

Author: Elena del R�o

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2017-11-30

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1501338218

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For Elena del R�o, extreme cinema is not only qualitatively different from the representations of violence we encounter in popular, mainstream cinema; it also constitutes a critique of the socio-moral system that produces (in every sense of the word) such violence. Drawing inspiration from Deleuze's ethics of immanence, Spinoza's ethology of passions and Nietzsche's typology of forces, The Grace of Destruction examines the affective extremities common in much of global, contemporary cinema from the affirmative perspective of vital forces and situations-extremities such as moral/religious oppression, biopolitical violence, the pain involved in gender relations, the event of death and planetary extinction. Her analysis diverges from the current literature on extreme cinema through its selection of films, which include key international examples, and through its foregrounding of relational, affective politics over representations of sexuality and graphic violence. Detailed formal and philosophical analyses of films like The White Ribbon, Dogville, Code Unknown, Battle in Heaven, Sonatine, Fireworks, Dolls, Takeshis', Inland Empire and Melancholia are meant to move us away from the moral appraisal of violence and destruction, and to compose an ethological philosophy of cinema based on Deleuze's idea that, ?when truth and judgment crumble, there remain bodies, which are... nothing but forces.?

Grit and Grace

Grit and Grace PDF

Author: Caryn Rivadeneira

Publisher: Sparkhouse Family

Published: 2017-07-28

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1506426913

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Experience the grit and grace of seventeen women of the Bible through creative first-person retellings of each person's story. This book connects preteen girls with the women of the Bible, showing them that they are created in the image of God to do mighty things in this world. Grit and Grace is for girls who long to know where they fit in God's kingdom, who want to know they are made for more than the frilly and frivolous, and that they can make a difference in the world around them. Through stories, reflection questions, and action ideas, the book helps readers become the gutsy, grace-filled girls God made them to be.

I & II Peter and Jude

I & II Peter and Jude PDF

Author: Lewis R. Donelson

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Published: 2010-07-15

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1611643899

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The letters of 1 and 2 Peter and of Jude come from a time in Christian history about which we know little; thus they represent rare voices from a crucial time in Christianity's development. And the picture of early Christianity suggested by these letters is a fascinating one.

Spenser's Famous Flight

Spenser's Famous Flight PDF

Author: Patrick Cheney

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 1993-12-15

Total Pages: 603

ISBN-13: 1487596472

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In Spenser's famous Flight, Patrick Cheney challenges the received wisdom about the shape and goal of Spenser's literary career. He contends that Spenser's idea of a literary career is not strictly the convential Virgilian pattern of pastoral to epic, but a Christian revision of that pattern in light of Petrarch and the Reformation. Cheney demonstrates that, far from changing his mind about his career as a result of disillusionment, Spenser embarks upon and completes a daring progress that secures his status as an Orphic poet. In October, Spenser calls his idea of a literary career the 'famous flight.' Both classical and Christian culture has authorized the myth of the winged poet as a primary myth of fame and glory. Cheney shows that throughout his poetry Spenser relies on an image of flight to accomplish his highest goal.

The Upper Room Disciplines 2020

The Upper Room Disciplines 2020 PDF

Author:

Publisher: Upper Room Books

Published: 2019-09-01

Total Pages: 868

ISBN-13: 0835818764

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Faithful readers of The Upper Room Disciplines know that the practice of reading and reflecting on scripture nourishes and transforms the spirit. This best-selling devotional guide offers daily, lectionary-based scripture readings and reflections. Each week of devotions focuses on a particular theme and engages readers with the lectionary texts for the upcoming Sunday. The 2020 edition of Disciplines features 53 writers who contributed to Weavings journal, another beloved publication of The Upper Room. Disciplines 2020 contains all-new material from these writers. Writers for 2020 include Kathleen Flood, Luther Smith, J. Barrie Shepherd, Wendy Wright, Roberta Bondi, Michael Downey, Rachel Hackenberg, Don Saliers, Jan Johnson, Kristen Vincent, Gerrit Dawson, Marilyn McEntyre, Mark Burrows, Deborah Smith Douglas, and others.

The Cookie Monster

The Cookie Monster PDF

Author: Lonnie P. Anderson

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2023-12-06

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13:

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Criminal behaviors take place everyday. It is up to us to heal from them. Naturally, physical assault can lead to much depression, anxiety, and durable fiascos. Eternal joy is a promise for all who come to Jesus Christ enlisting his assistance to fill all the holes dug in the wrong places. The Cookie Monster is a tale about beauty arising from destruction, probably the only notable work of this kind. Lonnie P. Anderson takes you on a journey through forgiveness and overcoming, never giving up on the faith, joy, and hope that are ours for the taking. Workmanship and steady philosophical hope takes place throughout an incandescent and provocative emblem of desire. Love is a reward for those who search for and find the companionship of the Lord Jesus. Belligerent denial of obstructive cantankerous situations miffs the truth of good opinion and disastrous deceit, where leaning on lies sends you down to the bottom. History depletes natures of soliloquy and pardonable, individual complications of remorse. Repercussions give grace to interludes of stress and overcoming, where faith complies with nature and becomes spiritually renewed. Antagonism resists our efforts to destroy evil, yet we can resist those most ignoble forces of destruction patterned after lost or suicidal redemption. Cookies were made for cookie monsters and cookie kings. Let this elaborate epic saga grace you in learning about the “baker”, our Father in Heaven and the cookie monster whose attributes refine and conclude with victory. Baskets of cookies roam our world today. See first hand what a cookie monster can do.

Serving With Grace

Serving With Grace PDF

Author: Erik Walker Wikstrom

Publisher: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

Published:

Total Pages: 106

ISBN-13: 1558965807

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Discover how to experience congregational work as an integrated element in a fully rounded spiritual life. Written for both those in the more typically recognized "leadership roles" such as board members and committee chairs as well as for those who lead while serving on a committee, teaching in religious education or helping to pull together the Holiday Fair. Makes a useful addition to a congregation's leadership development programs.