Stranger Gods

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A study of Salman Rushdie's seven published novels, with a special focus on his earliest, "Grimus", and his most provocative, "Midnight's Children", "Shame" and "The Satanic Verses". It shows how Rushdie employs cosmology, mythology and mysticism to structure otherworldly dramas.

Accessible, challenging, funny, and one of the best reads on how to love others in any situation. Love and hospitality can change the way you see the world and others. That's exactly what modern-day theologian, Richard Beck, experienced when he first led a Bible study at a local maximum security prison. Beck believed the promise of Matthew 25 that states when we visit the prisoner, we encounter Jesus. Sure enough, God met Beck in prison. With his signature combination of biblical reflection, theological reasoning, and psychological insight, Beck shows how God always meets us when we entertain the marginalized, the oppressed, and the refugee. Stories from Beck's own life illustrate this truth -- God comes to him in the poor, the crippled, the smelly. Psychological experiments show how we are predisposed to appreciate those who are similar to us and avoid those who are unlike us. The call of the gospel, however, is to override those impulses with compassion, to "widen the circle of our affection." In the end, Beck turns to the Little Way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux for guidance in doing even the smallest acts with kindness, and he lays out a path that any of us can follow.

In a groundbreaking historical work that focuses on the long, tense convergence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam with an uncompromising secular perspective, Susan Jacoby illuminates the social and economic forces that have shaped individual faith and the voluntary conversion impulse that has changed the course of Western history—for better and for worse. Covering the triumph of Christianity over paganism in late antiquity, the Spanish Inquisition, John Calvin’s dour theocracy, American plantations where African slaves had to accept their masters’ religion—along with individual converts including Augustine of Hippo, John Donne, Edith Stein, Muhammad Ali, George W. Bush and Mike Pence—Strange Gods makes a powerful case that nothing has been more important in struggle for reason than the right to believe in the God of one’s choice or to reject belief in God altogether.

From the social philosopher and New York Times–bestselling author of The Sane Society: An analysis of the Old Testament as a revolutionary humanist work. The Old Testament is one of the most carefully studied books in the world’s history. It is also one of the most misunderstood. This founding text of the world’s three largest religions is also, Erich Fromm argues, an impressive radical humanist text. He sees the stories of mankind’s transition from divided clans to united brotherhood as a tribute to the human power to overcome. Filled with hopeful symbolism, You Shall Be As Gods shows how the Old Testament and its tradition is an inspiring ode to human potential. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

2018 Creative Quarterly Professional Graphic Design Runner-Up Who is God? Many of us call God our Father, Lord, Savior, and Friend. But when we delve into the perplexing bits of Scripture, we discover a God who cannot be explained or predicted. Is it possible that we have missed the Bible’s consistent teaching that God is other, higher, stranger? Krish Kandiah offers us a fresh look at some of the difficult, awkward, and even troubling Bible passages, helping us discover that when God shows up unannounced and unrecognized, that’s precisely when big things happen. God Is Stranger challenges us to replace our sanitized concept of God with a more awe-inspiring, magnificent and majestic, true-to-the-Bible God. Allow yourself to be surprised by God as you find him in unexpected places doing the unexpected.

A collection of the myths of the Norsemen, containing stories of the gods Odin, Thor, Loki, Njord, Frey, and the others of the Aesir.

BOOK SUMMARY Plans of the Deathless Gods. The time: the seven years (1785-1792) before the breakup of European order instigated by the French Revolution. The scene: Prussia, South Africa, New Zealand. The characters: Curt Christoph von Allmen, who proposes the plan of a New Zealand sealing station as medium of commerce with China; his twin sister Maria, who composes an epic poem to commemorate its founding; their friend, philosopher Adam Sixtus l’Estrange, whose ruminations on the times issue in a surprising discovery. The plot: Curt Christoph, a philhellene, envisions New Zealand as the scene of a restored Apollonianism—which his sister’s epic playfully portrays, and Adam Sixtus’ philosophical discovery ironically supports.