Material Christianity
Material Christianity

Author: Colleen McDannell

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1995-01-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780300074994

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What can the religious objects used by nineteenth- and twentieth-century Americans tell us about American Christianity? What is the relationship between the beliefs of the faithful and the landscapes they build? This lavishly illustrated book investigates the history and meaning of Christian material culture in America over the last 150 years. Drawing on a rich array of historical sources and on in-depth interviews with Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons, Colleen McDannell examines the relationship between religion and mass consumption. She describes examples of nineteenth-century religious practice: Victorians burying their dead in cultivated cemetery parks; Protestants producing and displaying elaborate family Bibles; Catholics writing for special water from Lourdes reputed to have miraculous powers. And she looks at today's Christians: Mormons wearing sacred underclothing as a reminder of their religious promises, Catholics debating the design of tasteful churches, and Protestants manufacturing, marketing, and using a vast array of prints, clothing, figurines, jewelry, and toys that some label "Jesus junk" but that others see as a witness to their faith. McDannell claims that previous studies of American Christianity have overemphasized the written, cognitive, and ethical dimensions of religion, presenting faith as a disembodied system of beliefs. She shifts attention from the church and the theological seminary to the workplace, home, cemetery, and Sunday school, highlighting a different Christianity--one in which average Christians experience the divine, the nature of death, the power of healing, and the meaning of community through interacting with a created world of devotional images, environments, and objects.

God's Good Earth
God's Good Earth

Author: Anne Rowthorn

Publisher: Liturgical Press

Published: 2018-10-10

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0814644368

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God’s Good Earth offers Christians and their communities an engaging resource for prayer, reflection, and worship that reflects and nourishes their efforts to serve God and care for God’s creation. Compilers Anne and Jeffery Rowthorn have prepared 52 beautiful, ready-made prayer services, each around a specific theme, drawing from a rich variety of ecumenical resources: psalms and other responsive readings, Scripture, hymns, prayers, and reflections from the world's most engaging nature writers and interpreters of the social and cultural landscape. Each section can be used in full, or the user may select smaller sections; permission is granted to the purchaser to reproduce for use in public prayer. God's Good Earth forms hearts and minds to know that transformation is not only possible but essential if the Earth is to survive, healthy and whole. Those who enter into the book’s praise and prayer will have their faith in God the Creator strengthened, their gratitude for the wonders of God's creation deepened, and their commitment to act on behalf of God's good earth enhanced. The print edition is printed with high production standards on recycled, FSC-certified paper.

Let's Start with the Children
Let's Start with the Children

Author: Al Colella

Publisher: WestBow Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1449778917

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Make the journey from the slave trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the plight of African Americans in inner-city America in the South Bronx. Learn about the ravages and disadvantages of residence there and its lifelong impact upon an entire population. Recognize that this continuing situation has a sad and shameful historical path shaped by society’s blindness to humanity. This malaise of blindness exacted an unfair, immoral, and immeasurable human cost upon generations; a blindness which denied entry to the opportunities afforded others as a birthright. The aggregated cost in the South Bronx is staggering beyond belief. There is, however, a collateral cost to the reservoir of national resources caused by a failure to recognize—and, therefore, unrealized and unavailable—the creativity, talents, skills, and potential of inner-city residents. Hear those voices that have addressed the inequities of this situation; learn of individuals who believe in the humanity of every individual. Despite these voices, the deplorable inner-city situation continues and even worsens. Is anybody listening? There are listeners who have taken up the cause, albeit in the face of a lack of political, humanitarian, and spiritual wills. Learn about those listeners in a New England church community that made the trek to the South Bronx for a decade. One may perceive these two communities as radically different; experience the merger of two communities into a single family via the grace of a spiritual ministry. Think about how you can make a difference—somewhere, sometime, somehow—and discover the difference in your being. Proceeds from book sales will be directed to an educational fund specifically for the children of St. Ann’s community in the South Bronx.

A Nation and Not a Rabble
A Nation and Not a Rabble

Author: Diarmaid Ferriter

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2017-02-21

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 1468315412

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The renowned Irish historian delivers “an excellent scholarly reevaluation” of the 1916 Easter Rebellion and the turbulent decade that followed (Library Journal). On Easter Monday of 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood launched an armed uprising against British rule that would continue for six days. But Easter Rising was only the beginning of an ongoing revolutionary struggle. In A Nation and Not a Rabble, Diarmaid Ferriter presents a fresh look at Ireland from 1913-1923, drawing from newly available historical sources as well as the testimonies of the people who lived and fought through this extraordinary period. Ferriter highlights the gulf between rhetoric and reality in politics and violence, the role of women, the battle for material survival, the impact of key Irish unionist and republican leaders, as well as conflicts over health, land, religion, law and order, and welfare.

The Hunger Year
The Hunger Year

Author: Lee Conrad Kemsley

Publisher: Red Barn Books

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 9781935922216

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The Hunger Year is a gripping historical novel intended for older teen readers that is set in New England during the years following the War of 1812. The story follows the adventurous young Magen Creed, as she makes an epic journey to a farm in Vermont that belongs to her missing father's family. What she finds at Creed Farm is a dynamic and unconventional family and a love that will transform her foreverver. Concurrently, the relentless march of the worst famine of the nineteenth century has begun. The hunger that drives young Magen's indomitable spirit is both real and metaphorical. Some will survive "the end of days," others will not. But no one will ever forget what has come to be known as "the year without a summer," or "The Hunger Year."