Christ The Educator The Fathers Of The Church Volume 23

No description available

What emerges from these texts is a colorful portrayal of the many faces of ancient Christian women in their roles as teachers, prophets, martyrs, widows, deaconesses, ascetics, virgins, wives, and mothers.

This title brings together the views of renowned Christian thinkers throughout history. 14 contemporary experts in theology and disability studies guide readers through each era or group of thinkers, offering clear commentary and highlighting important themes.

The Heart of Holiness shows how our everyday experiences of human friendship teach us the most basic path to holiness of life and union with God. Fr. Lauenstein reviews what Scripture says about holiness, and what the greatest saints have practiced throughout the first two millennia of the Church's history. We learn how important our experiences of human friendship are to our experience of friendship with God, and that holiness is essentially a deep friendship with God. How do we understand "holiness"? How do we articulate the invitation to friendship that God offers us? What role do prayer, devotions, and liturgy have in our spiritual lives and growing in holiness? How do we understand the death of Christ and a loving God the Father? This book helps us to answer these important questions in our journey towards a deeper friendship with God. Understanding the heart of holiness underscores for us the necessity to set aside issues which cause conflicts with others, and how developing a loving friendship with God is directly connected with living in friendship with our brothers and sisters.

Worship and music have been intimately connected since biblical times. Yet music in worship has become a point of contention-a great chasm separating the young and the not-so-young, the conservative and the liberal, and, quite possibly, the members of the church you attend. Is there a solution to this ongoing battle? Are there really certain styles of music that are good and others that are bad? How are we to honor God with our diverse musical tastes and talents? Lilianne Doukhan takes on this sensitive issue with a remarkable combination of finesse and refreshing candor. Building upon the foundation of what music is and what it is not, she explores the experience and meaning of music, its history down through the centuries, the current challenges of music ministry, and the genuine role of music as a component of worship. Book jacket.

Christians wait for prayers to be answered, for an afterlife in heaven, for the Virgin Mary to appear, and for God to speak. They wait to be liberated from oppression, to be “saved” or born again, for Easter morning to dawn, for healing, for conversion, and for baptism. Waiting and the disappointment and hope that often accompany it are explained in terms that are, at first glance, remarkably invariant across Christian traditions: what will happen will happen “on God’s time.” A study of sources from across Christian traditions shows that there is considerable complexity beneath this surface claim. Understandings of free will and personal agency alongside shifts in institutional and theological commitments change the ways waiting is understood and valued. Waiting is often considered a positive state to be endured as long as God wills, and that fundamental understanding helps keep the promises at the heart of Christianity alive. Scholars have long overlooked the problem and promise of waiting despite (or perhaps because of) its prevalence. Indeed, there are relatively few mystics, few who have undergone “sudden” conversion, and few who have attained saintly status. Many, however, have waited, and that problem remains prominent—and its solutions remain influential—in Christian traditions today.