This collection of short stories is based on the imagination of Breathitt County native, Paula Clemons-Combs. It showcases the sadness, happiness, and intrigue that can be found in the Appalachian region in which she lives, Eastern Kentucky. From a grandfather's dismay at his granddaughter's life choices, and his "getting the best of her", to a little boy's understanding of what it means to ask for prayer during church, the reader will laugh, ponder, and perhaps come close to a tear or two as each story is read.
Monica Appleby and Helen Lewis reveal the largely untold story of women who stood up to the Church and joined Appalachians in their struggle for social justice. Their poignant story of how faith, compassion, and persistence overcame obstacles to progress in Appalachia is a fascinating example of how a collaborative and creative learning community fosters strong voices. Mountain Sisters is a prophetic first-person account of the history of American Catholicism, the war on poverty, and the influence of the turbulent 1960s on the cultural and religious communities of Appalachia. Founded in 1941, The Glenmary Sisters embraced a calling to serve rural Appalachian communities where few Catholics resided. The sisters, many of them seeking alternatives to the choices available to most women during this time, zealously pursued their duties but soon became frustrated with the rules and restrictions of the Church. Outmoded doctrine—even styles of dress—made it difficult for them to interact with the very people they hoped to help. In 1967, after many unsuccessful attempts to persuade the Church to ease its requirements, some seventy Sisters left the security of convent life. Over forty of these women formed a secular service group, FOCIS (Federation of Communities in Service). Mountain Sisters is their story.
Herzog has written an introduction for seminary and college students to the discussion about the historical Jesus. He reports on the findings of the Jesus Seminar and also traces other scholarly work in Jesus studies, but with an eye to the theological.
In this challenging and enlightening treatment, Brueggemann traces the lines from the radical vision of Moses to the solidification of royal power in Solomon to the prophetic critique of that power with a new vision of freedom in the prophets. Here he traces the broad sweep from Exodus to Kings to Jeremiah to Jesus. He highlights that the prophetic vision and not only embraces the pain of the people but creates an energy and amazement based on the new thing that God is doing. In this new edition, Brueggemann has completely revised the text, updated the notes, and added a new preface.
"An insightful, unflinching portrayal of the remarkable siblings who came closer to altering the course of American history than any other Indian leaders." —H.W. Brands, author of The Zealot and the Emancipator The first biography of the great Shawnee leader to make clear that his misunderstood younger brother, Tenskwatawa, was an equal partner in the last great pan-Indian alliance against the United States. Until the Americans killed Tecumseh in 1813, he and his brother Tenskwatawa were the co-architects of the broadest pan-Indian confederation in United States history. In previous accounts of Tecumseh's life, Tenskwatawa has been dismissed as a talentless charlatan and a drunk. But award-winning historian Peter Cozzens now shows us that while Tecumseh was a brilliant diplomat and war leader--admired by the same white Americans he opposed--it was Tenskwatawa, called the "Shawnee Prophet," who created a vital doctrine of religious and cultural revitalization that unified the disparate tribes of the Old Northwest. Detailed research of Native American society and customs provides a window into a world often erased from history books and reveals how both men came to power in different but no less important ways. Cozzens brings us to the forefront of the chaos and violence that characterized the young American Republic, when settlers spilled across the Appalachians to bloody effect in their haste to exploit lands won from the British in the War of Independence, disregarding their rightful Indian owners. Tecumseh and the Prophet presents the untold story of the Shawnee brothers who retaliated against this threat--the two most significant siblings in Native American history, who, Cozzens helps us understand, should be writ large in the annals of America.
A unique book about a unique life chronicles a persistent journey from an isolated Appalachian area mired in deep poverty. Illegal bootleggers and nasty mountain villains haunt the young man's family. A fundamentalist preacher condemns the young man to hell. As a four-year-old first-grader, he perseveres to academic excellence. Numerous episodes in his misspent youth ring outrageous with an abundance of original sin. The young man frantically struggles to find acceptance and eventually receives a surprise calling. Driven to find meaning in life, he battles against a social anxiety disorder and eventually speaks to audiences of thousands. He is the founder of a first-of-its kind publication for clergy and a clergy conference that renowned theologian Walter Brueggemann calls "a major piece of work that will stand when the history of the U.S. church is written. It must be providential that you were led from your start to that great work." Experience the epic travels from hillbilly obscurity to encounters with fame and the sacred. Paths cross with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, civil rights activists, U.S. senators, and world-famous musicians.
While conservative interpreters might believe that prophets were predictors and progressives believe the prophets to be simply social advocates, Walter Brueggemann argues that the prophets were emancipated imaginers of alternative. Emancipated from the dominant thinking of their societies, the prophets imagined an alternative reality and invited listeners to join them in their commitment to that new reality. In this collection of studies, popular biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann explores the Major Prophets, the Minor Prophets, and the prophets of the Persian Age. By highlighting the common themes of judgment and hope found in the prophets messages, Brueggemann invites readers to consider what those messages mean for us today. Questions for reflection conclude each chapter. From Judgment to Hope is suitable for individual or group study.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal "Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York Times From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
"Truth is Justice�s drunken sister./ She jaywalks, spits on the sidewalk,/ burns books in the courtyard,/ pulls tongues from the root." And the truth we get in Craig Paulenich�s OLD BROWN is no easy truth. Powerful and unwavering, Paulenich digs deep into nineteenth century history, using Captain John Brown as a touchstone to illuminate America�s uneasy relationship with race and its obsession with violence. Part poetry, part history, Paulenich�s portrait is an indictment of our contemporary times, his John Brown both prophet and terrorist, hero and cold-blooded killer, an everyman for our schizophrenic America. In stunningly imaginative poems that range from catalogs of the dead to lyric meditations on religion�s role in our complicity, Paulenich masterfully connects the dots from Harper�s Ferry to our modern terrorist state, pointing out along the way that "Slavery is the American Leviathan, and we, / Jonah�s all, rattle about inside its brass ribs." ~Peter Grandbois, author of Kissing the Lobster
A collection of essays that demonstrates that to be effective in the twenty-first century, mission must be prophetic as it encounters other cultures and religious traditions. "When we speak as mission as dialogue, then, we are about as far away from imagining mission as 'conquering the world for Christ' and missionaries as 'marines of the Catholic Church' as we probably can get. There has indeed been a radical shift, both in the world in which the church does mission and within the church's own consciousness of the goodness and even holiness of that world." These words from one of the essays in this superb collection clearly demonstrate the changing of mission today. In this volume, Fathers Bevans and Schroeder address a primary challenge faced by Christians missioners today: How can they bring the Christian tradition to interact respectfully and effectively with members of other cultures and traditions from around the globe and still be prophetic?
