Losing Heaven

As the birthplace of the Reformation, Germany has been the site of some of the most significant moments in the history of European Christianity. Today, however, its religious landscape is one that would scarcely be recognizable to earlier generations. This groundbreaking survey of German postwar religious life depicts a profoundly changed society: congregations shrink, private piety is on the wane, and public life has almost entirely shed its Christian character, yet there remains a booming market for syncretistic and individualistic forms of “popular religion.” Losing Heaven insightfully recounts these dramatic shifts and explains their consequences for German religious communities and the polity as a whole.

This text considers the prevalence of Lao-Zhuang Daoism and Huang-Lao Daoism in late pre-imperial and early imperial Chinese traditional thought. The author uses unique excavated documents and literature to explore the Huang-Lao tradition of Daoist philosophy, which exerted a great influence on China ancient philosophy and political theories, from the Pre-Qin period to the Wei-Jin periods. It explains the original and significance of Huang-Lao Daoism, its history and fundamental characteristics, notably discussing the two sides of Huang-Lao, namely the role and function of Lao Zi and the Yellow Emperor, and discusses why the two can constitute a complementary relationship. It also provides a key study of the Mawangdui silk texts, bamboo slips of the Heng Xian, Fan Wu Liu Xing, considering both the theory of human Xing and of Qi.

Believe Me, I'm Lying is a collection of poems about romance, heartache and every emotion in betwee

The Marrano phenomenon is a still unexplored element of Western culture: the presence of the borderline Jewish identity which avoids clear-cut cultural and religious attribution and – precisely as such – prefigures the advent of the typically modern "free-oscillating" subjectivity. Yet, the aim of the book is not a historical study of the Marranos (or conversos), who were forced to convert to Christianity, but were suspected of retaining their Judaism "undercover." The book rather applies the "Marrano metaphor" to explore the fruitful area of mixture and cross-over which allowed modern thinkers, writers and artists of the Jewish origin to enter the realm of universal communication – without, at the same time, making them relinquish their Jewishness which they subsequently developed as a "hidden tradition." The book poses and then attempts to prove the "Marrano hypothesis," according to which modern subjectivity derives, to paraphrase Cohen, "out of the sources of the hidden Judaism": modernity begins not with the Cartesian abstract ego, but with the rich self-reflexive self of Michel de Montaigne who wrestled with his own marranismo in a manner that soon became paradigmatic to other Jewish thinkers entering the scene of Western modernity, from Spinoza to Derrida. The essays in the volume offer thus a new view of a "Marrano modernity," which aims to radically transform our approach to the genesis of the modern subject and shed a new light on its secret religious life as surviving the process of secularization, although merely in the form of secret traces.

Help me help you. Our Lady of Unity is pleading to all Gods children to help her in helping us reached the most difficult and demanding journey to our heavenly homeland. A hundred years ago at Fatima, Portugal, she appeared to the three little children and brought the message of repentance, prayer, penance and fasting and the whole world paid serious attention when thousands saw the miracle of the spinning sun. The miraculous event drove millions back to the church. However, the new age had strayed adopting a new culture of life contrary to the Gospel leading so many to eternal death. She revealed to the community that tens of thousands of souls were lost every single day because of gross negligence in taking great care of their immortal soul with their refusal to believe and embrace the message of the Gospel. As the world closes in of its final phase of existence, our Lady with the assistance of her community are working fervently and devoutly for the conversion of Gods wayward children to the true church. She is calling all to be baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit so one can be integrated to the Body of her Son so salvation is possible. She repeatedly warns that no one can come to the heavenly Father except through her Son. Our Lady reminded us that through her we can be united with Jesus making us truly a real part of Him. But her greatest enemy had deceived billions including Christians by ignoring or marginalizing her intercessory powers to the Triune God. To ensure ones salvation it is truly wise to have both Jesus and Mary on our side.