Healing A Broken Nation

Our nation is in a state of moral decay where violence, racial conflict, and political polarization are the norm. We are in a quandary about where to go from here. This book empowers preachers, teachers, and facilitators to affect change in their areas of influence that can lead to widespread transformation. As you read, you’ll learn how to: • live in community with others; • acknowledge pain from the past; • embrace the idea of forgiveness; • settle and resolve differences with others. When preaching forgiveness, the lesson that is to be learned is that once we have faced the pain of the past, it must be accepted for what it is, processed, and then released. Holding onto that pain and bitterness only hinders us from being able to live in the now and to prepare for the future. Move beyond talk and step into a new future created together with the lessons in Healing a Broken Nation.

In these increasingly divisive times, how does God intend for us to live well together in the common life? Drawing from scripture as well as writings from a variety of other faith traditions and contemporary theologians, The World is About to Turn offers a practical guide for dialogue and mutual understanding for leaders of faith organizations, schools, and member of faith communities; everyone who hopes to make a positive difference in our corporate life together. Chapters include: The Failure of the American Religious Experiment; When Justice Rolls Down: Finding the Moral Courage to Do What is Right; Love One Another: Practicing Mercy and Compassion; Walking Humbly with God: Repentance and Reconciliation as a Path to a More Civil Society; Values Matter: Discovering Common Values in Many Faith Traditions; Embracing Differences: The Gift of Religious Pluralism; and Building Bridges of Hope: Ten Ways Forward with Multicultural and Inter Religious Dialogue. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter, as well as an appendix with liturgical worship resources, make this hopeful book perfect for small group study, class usage, and congregational leadership.

In the first comprehensive treatment of the role of churches in the processes that led to the American Civil War, C.C. Goen suggests that when Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches divided along lines of North and South in the antebellum controversy over slavery, they severed an important bond of national union. The forebodings of church leaders and other contemporary observers about the probability of disastrous political consequences were well-founded. The denominational schisms, as irreversible steps along the nation's tortuous course to violence, were both portent and catalyst to the imminent national tragedy. Caught in a quagmire of conflicting purposes, church leadership failed and Christian community broke down, presaging in a scenario of secession and conflict the impending crisis of the Union. As the churches chose sides over the supremely transcendent moral issue of slavery, so did the nation. Professor Goen, an eminent historian of American religion, does not seek in these pages the "causes" of the Civil War. Rather, he establishes evangelical Christianity as "a major bond of national unity" in antebellum America. His careful analysis and critical interpretation demonstrate that antebellum American churches -- committed to institutional growth, swayed by sectional interests, and silent about racial prejudice -- could neither contain nor redirect the awesome forces of national dissension. Their failure sealed the nation's fate. - Publisher.

“Too many survivors of Canada’s Indian residential schools live to forget. Theodore Fontaine writes to remember.” – Hana Gartner, CBC’s The Fifth Estate Bestselling Memoir, McNally Robinson Booksellers Approved curriculum resource for grade 9–12 students in British Columbia and Manitoba. Theodore Niizhotay Fontaine lost his family and freedom just after his seventh birthday, when his parents were forced to leave him at an Indian residential school by order of the Roman Catholic Church and the Government of Canada. Twelve years later, he left school frozen at the emotional age of seven. He was confused, angry and conflicted, on a path of self-destruction. At age 29, he emerged from this blackness. By age 32, he had graduated from the Civil Engineering Program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and begun a journey of self-exploration and healing. In this powerful and poignant memoir, Ted examines the impact of his psychological, emotional and sexual abuse, the loss of his language and culture, and, most important, the loss of his family and community. He goes beyond details of the abuses of Indigenous children to relate a unique understanding of why most residential school survivors have post-traumatic stress disorders and why succeeding generations of First Nations children suffer from this dark chapter in history. Told as remembrances described with insights that have evolved through his healing, his story resonates with his resolve to help himself and other residential school survivors and to share his enduring belief that one can pick up the shattered pieces and use them for good.

U.S. military conflicts abroad have left nine million Americans dependent on the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) for medical care. Their "wounds of war" are treated by the largest hospital system in the country—one that has come under fire from critics in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in the nation's media. In Wounds of War, Suzanne Gordon draws on five years of observational research to describe how the VHA does a better job than private sector institutions offering primary and geriatric care, mental health and home care services, and support for patients nearing the end of life. In the unusual culture of solidarity between patients and providers that the VHA has fostered, Gordon finds a working model for higher-quality health care and a much-needed alternative to the practice of for-profit medicine.

Do today's believers know how to be not simply good citizens but good Christian citizens? Are they ready to respond to contemporary public policy issues such as genocide, global AIDS, global warming, and human trafficking according to Scripture rather than any particular political agenda? A growing segment of them are, even if they aren't quite sure how to accomplish it. This book is for them. With American evangelicals having more political influence today than ever before, this book is especially important. The opening chapters establish the foundational biblical principles that are relevant to our lives as Christian citizens no matter the topic. Author Steve Monsma next highlights crucial global issues in which believers are called to live out their faith. Forgoing ready-made answers, Monsma encourages a reflective, thoroughly biblical response via a lively writing style. His book will equip all believers to make godly, humanitarian choices rather than purely political ones. A DVD featuring a 10 minute introduction to each chapter of this book is available from Crossway at www.crossway.org or from the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at www.calvin.edu/henry. It is ideal for use in classes and discussion groups.

For the Healing of the Nation offers a serious look at the social and political climate in the United States from a biblical perspective, emphasizing race and "otherness," economics and the environment, and institutional violence (war and capital punishment). An autobiographical thread traces the journey of a white male coming of age in the mid-twentieth-century Deep South as his evolving faith leads him to painful breaks with inherited values and standard views on controversial issues. Critical not only of both major political parties but also of centrist compromises between Right and Left, Russell Pregeant seeks a "forward" position, which he terms "ecocommunitarian," based on biblical values. His musings touch on both southern and American identities and on the nature of the biblical writings and the ways they should and should not be used in contemporary debates. Central to the entire work are discussions of how idolatrous commitments to a culture's prevalent ideologies obscure the essential demands of biblical faith.

Restoration of A Broken Country: A Prayer For My Country.This powerful and prevailing prophetic book Breathed by the Holy Spirit and Written by the Finger of God Almighty is restoring, healing and protecting to countries and continents. It is for every person who belongs to a country and for every citizen with a country of origin facing brokenness. In this book of nations, the Holy Spirit of a Sovereign God touches those areas of brokenness being experienced by a particular country, nations and nationalities and speaks living and active prophetic words of healing, protection, reform and restoration in terms of rising country prosperity, political peace, justice, unity, good health, global love and global peace, constructive global relations, world stability, world salvation, world health, removal of country bloodline troubles, genetic and autoimmune diseases and struggles. It touches the impact of bad legislation on nationalities and countries. This book of wisdom touches the "Immune system" and "mental health" of every country and brings powerful healing, cleansing and restoration. There is living and active Words of refurbishment and prevailing revival on economic, political, financial, global, social, physical, spiritual and emotional arenas and levels of a country and continent. This prophetic book of strength is essential for third world countries, Africa, developing and underdeveloped countries touched with brokenness and troubles. This is a prophetic book of salvation, happiness, stability, peace and breakthroughs for countries and people. Prayers to God Almighty in this book remove all brokenness from a country, a people and a continent marred with brokenness. Our helper, the Holy Spirit is the intercessor of your life, your family as well as your country and continent. Yeah. A utopian world is attainable because God Almighty answers our prayers. The key to salvation and peace for every country, continents and people is the wisdom and strength found on the healing power of the redeeming and sanctifying cross.John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."