Pure Manhood

Young men deserve straight answers to tough questions about women, dating, sexuality, and authentic masculinity, including… What do girls want? How far is too far? What’s wrong with just thinking about it? What’s wrong with porn? You’re not hurting anyone. What if it’s just a swimsuit magazine? If she’s willing to do it, why is it wrong? What about safe sex? Shouldn’t I be free to do whatever I want? How do I stay pure Pure Manhood answers these questions and more, while offering practical strategies to help young men to grow in the virtue of chastity.

In this provocative and illuminating book, Marianna Torgovnick explores the psychology of our profound attraction to cultures we call "primitive". Whether located in Africa, the South Pacific, or the American Southwest, the primitive has become synonymous in the Western imagination with a range of emotions and experiences thought to be lost in modern life: reverence for the land and for nature; strong communal bonds; sexual plentitude; and, perhaps most intriguing, and ecstatic sense of connection to the universe and the life force. Torgovnick investigates the numerous ways we have turned toward the primitive out of spiritual hunger for such deeply human experiences - a hunger that could once be satisfied within the West's own mystical traditions but that often no longer can be. Brilliantly encompassing religion, art, psychology, literature, and other aspects of our culture, Primitive Passions offers new insight into our ideas of spirituality and gender, and, ultimately, into the hidden but vital parts of ourselves.

What emerges in this second book of the trilogy is that the very “ground” and content of experience is richer than what can be reduced to a particular account of it. As such, dialogue develops from the “natural” diversity of what is “of” faith and what is “of” reason. Neither faith nor reason, however, originates “from” experience; rather, both are “witnessed” in experience. In other words, taking up questions about the nature of man, whether philosophically, psychologically or in terms of social structures, manifests both a variety of points of departure and, at the same time, the manifold conversations that are possible in the “field of culture”.Focusing particularly on the work of St. John Paul II, the first essay examines the answer of reason and the answer of faith to the same question: What is man? Conversion, too, entails an “unexpected” relationship to natural truth, which, in its own way, is both adequate and inadequate to salvation. Communication, as it were, runs throughout these essays; however, in particular, there is a need to enrich our human understanding of the process of “coming to ourselves” with the insights of spiritual discernment. Axiomatically, however, it is possible to say that just as we come to exist through a relationship to others, so our healing and holiness are manifest through our relationship to others in the “Other”. Furthermore, while it is ultimately true that we exist as individually rooted in the social structure of our origin and the times in which we live, we need to critically participate in the dialogue which identifies our common “reality” and not live our lives covered in “psycho-social” labels of one kind or another.As a whole, then, there is an incomparable range and depth to “dialogue”. Indeed, given the many critical situations in the world, it is increasingly indispensable and essential that humanity choose the incredible wealth of dialogue in contrast to the possibility of a “polarised” and “conflictual” structure between people and peoples.

Volume 54 Sermons 3073-3124 Charles Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) is one of the church’s most famous preachers and Christianity’s foremost prolific writers. Called the “Prince of Preachers,” he was one of England's most notable ministers for most of the second half of the nineteenth century, and he still remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations today. His sermons have spread all over the world, and his many printed works have been cherished classics for decades. In his lifetime, Spurgeon preached to more than 10 million people, often up to ten times each week. He was the pastor of the congregation of the New Park Street Chapel (later the Metropolitan Tabernacle) in London for 38 years. He was an inexhaustible author of various kinds of works including sermons, commentaries, an autobiography, as well as books on prayer, devotionals, magazines, poetry, hymns and more. Spurgeon was known to produce powerful sermons of penetrating thought and divine inspiration, and his oratory and writing skills held his audiences spellbound. Many Christians have discovered Spurgeon's messages to be among the best in Christian literature. Edward Walford wrote in Old and New London: Volume 6 (1878) quoting an article from the Times regarding one of Spurgeon’s meetings at Surrey: “Fancy a congregation consisting of 10,000 souls, streaming into the hall, mounting the galleries, humming, buzzing, and swarming—a mighty hive of bees—eager to secure at first the best places, and, at last, any place at all. After waiting more than half an hour—for if you wish to have a seat you must be there at least that space of time in advance—Mr. Spurgeon ascended his tribune. To the hum, and rush, and trampling of men, succeeded a low, concentrated thrill and murmur of devotion, which seemed to run at once, like an electric current, through the breast of every one present, and by this magnetic chain the preacher held us fast bound for about two hours. It is not my purpose to give a summary of his discourse. It is enough to say of his voice, that its power and volume are sufficient to reach every one in that vast assembly; of his language, that it is neither high-flown nor homely; of his style, that it is at times familiar, at times declamatory, but always happy, and often eloquent; of his doctrine, that neither the 'Calvinist' nor the 'Baptist' appears in the forefront of the battle which is waged by Mr. Spurgeon with relentless animosity, and with Gospel weapons, against irreligion, cant, hypocrisy, pride, and those secret bosom-sins which so easily beset a man in daily life; and to sum up all in a word, it is enough to say of the man himself, that he impresses you with a perfect conviction of his sincerity.” More than a hundred years after his death, Charles Spurgeon’s legacy continues to effectively inspire the church around the world. For this reason, Delmarva Publications has chosen to publish the complete works of Charles Spurgeon.