The Forgotten Faith

There's more to Eastern Christianity than ethnic food bazaars, enclaves of immigrants, and clergy with beards. The mystical theology, spiritual disciplines, and rich liturgical worship of the Orthodox Church provide sustenance for anyone seeking resources for growth in the Christian life. Ancient teachings and practices persist in Eastern Christianity that hold together much of what Catholics and Protestants have separated. Believers of all stripes increasingly resonate with Orthodoxy's healthy synthesis of prayer, doctrine, liturgy, asceticism, and call to holiness in all areas of life. This ancient faith speaks with refreshing clarity to contemporary Christians who want to learn from a living tradition that is too little known in Western culture. This volume presents profound insights that will enrich, challenge, and inspire readers of all backgrounds. It invites everyone to encounter a spiritual tradition that is ancient, contemporary, and fascinatingly different.

The writing of the present work has been a congenial task to Mr. Mead, and he has brought to bear lovingly and zealously upon the portraiture of the figure of Christ and of early Christianity, all the knowledge which a deep study of Oriental religions from their emotional side could furnish.The outset that there is very little of what is commonly regarded as the Theosophic method apparent in the work, which is the product of a scholarly though withal very devotional spirit. Mr. Mead's aim has been to enable the reader to obtain a glimpse of a world of which he has never heard at school, and of which no word is ever breathed from the pulpit; to take him away from the pictures which the rationalists and the apologists have presented, and to enable him to obtain an unimpeded view of that wonderful panorama of religious strife which the first two centuries of our era presented. He will here see a religious world of immense activity, a vast upheaval of thought and a strenuousness of religious endeavor to which the history of the Western world gives no parallel. Thousands of schools and communities on every hand, striving and contending, a vast freedom of thought, a mighty effort to live the religious life. Here he finds innumerable points of contact with other' religions; he moves in an atmosphere of freedom of which he has previously had no experience in Christian tradition. Who are all these people—not fishermen and slaves and the poor and destitute, though those are striving too—but these men of learning and ascetic life, saints and sages as much as many others to whom the name has been given with far less reason ?

Celtic spirituality is the "forgotten faith" of the West. It is essentially joyful and holistic and holds together the two human faculties of reason and intuition, taking joy in the beauty of the created world. The Celtic saints were intuitives whose feet were very firmly planted on the ground. It is their equilibrium as human beings that gives much of their appeal, and in this, as in the holiness their lives display, they are Christlike. This book by Anglican cleric Anthony Duncan examines the lives of the Celtic saints in the context of their time, along with the sacred places in the landscape that have become associated with them.

This title examines the work of 35 artists, including Jimmie Durham, David Hammons, José Bedia, Rebecca Belmore and James Lee Byars, who began using ritualistic practices during the 1970s and 1980s as a way of reinterpreting aspects of their cultural heritage.

You're probably missing some of the most interesting books of the Bible. In the Jewish tradition, the five books known as "The Five Scrolls" perform a central liturgical function as the texts associated with each of the major holidays. The Song of Songs is read during Passover, Ruth during Shavuot, Lamentations on Tisha B'av, Ecclesiastes during Sukkot, and Esther during the celebration of Purim. Together with the five books of the Torah, these texts orient Jewish life and provide the language of the faith. In the Christian tradition, by contrast, these books have largely been forgotten. Many churchgoers can't even find them in their pew Bibles. They are rarely preached, come up only occasionally in the lectionary, and are not the subject of Bible studies. Thus, their influence on the lives and theology of many Christians is entirely negligible. But they deserve much more attention. With scholarly wisdom and a quick wit, Williamson insists that these books speak urgently to the pressing issues of the contemporary world. Addressing themes of human sexuality, grief, immigration, suffering and protest, ethnic nationalism, and existential dread, he skillfully guides readers as they rediscover the relevance of the Five Scrolls for today.

Addresses the current exodus of Christians from evangelical churches and argues for a return to historical roots.

Bad Faith tells the story of one of history’s most despicable villains and con men—Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Nazi collaborator and “Commissioner for Jewish Affairs” in France’s Vichy government.Darquier set about to eliminate Jews in France with brutal efficiency, delivering 75,000 men, women, and children to the Nazis and confiscating Jewish property, which he used for his own gain. Carmen Callil’s riveting and sometimes darkly comic narrative reveals Darquier as a self-obsessed fantasist who found his metier in propagating hatred—a career he denied to his dying day—and traces the heartrending consequences for his daughter Anne of her poisoned family legacy. A brilliant meld of epic sweep and psychological insight, Bad Faith is a startling history of our times.