Seeking the Straight and Narrow

Seeking the Straight and Narrow
Author: Lynne Gerber
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2012-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226288137

Losing weight and changing your sexual orientation are both notoriously difficult to do successfully. Yet many faithful evangelical Christians believe that thinness and heterosexuality are godly ideals—and that God will provide reliable paths toward them for those who fall short. Seeking the Straight and Narrow is a fascinating account of the world of evangelical efforts to alter our strongest bodily desires. Drawing on fieldwork at First Place, a popular Christian weight-loss program, and Exodus International, a network of ex-gay ministries, Lynne Gerber explores why some Christians feel that being fat or gay offends God, what exactly they do to lose weight or go straight, and how they make sense of the program’s results—or, frequently, their lack. Gerber notes the differences and striking parallels between the two programs, and, more broadly, she traces the ways that other social institutions have attempted to contain the excesses associated with fatness and homosexuality. Challenging narratives that place evangelicals in constant opposition to dominant American values, Gerber shows that these programs reflect the often overlooked connection between American cultural obsessions and Christian ones.

Not in Narrow Seas

Not in Narrow Seas
Author: Brian Easton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2020-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9781776563043

Not in Narrow Seas is a major contribution to the history of Aotearoa New Zealand. It covers everything from the traditional gift-based Maori economy to the Ardern government¿s attempt to deal with the economic challenges of global warming, and is the first economic history to underline the central role of the environment, beginning with the geological formation of these islands. Economist Brian Easton throws new light on some cherished national myths. He argues that Britain¿s entry into the EEC was not the major turning point that many assume; of much more lasting importance was the permanent collapse of wool prices in 1966. He asks how far it is true that New Zealand is an egalitarian country where `Jack¿s as good as his master¿. He offers the most extensive investigation yet of the Rogernomics revolution of the 1980s and early 1990s, and shows that governments of left and right are still grappling with its legacy. Easton deals with the major economic trends since the war ¿ the movement of Maori into the cities, of women into paid work, and of Pasifika people to Aotearoa. He analyses the rise of the modern Maori economy and the increased political power of business, and includes vivid pen portraits of the important yet largely unremembered people who shaped our economy. This is also a profoundly political history, which focuses not only on governments but the share of votes won by the parties: it is our first MMP history. Dr Easton, a well-known commentator and author of numerous books, here offers his greatest work, the fruit of a lifetime of reflection and research.

The Narrow Door

The Narrow Door
Author: Paul Lisicky
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2016-01-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1555979211

In The Narrow Door, Paul Lisicky creates a compelling collage of scenes and images drawn from two long-term relationships, one with a woman novelist and the other with his ex-husband, a poet. The contours of these relationships shift constantly. Denise and Paul, stretched by the demands of their writing lives, drift apart, and Paul's romance begins to falter. And the world around them is frail: environmental catastrophes like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, and local disturbances make an unsettling backdrop to the pressing concerns of Denise's cancer diagnosis and Paul's impending breakup. Lisicky's compassionate heart and resilience seem all the stronger in the face of such searing losses. His survival--hard-won, unsentimental, authentic--proves that in turning toward loss, we embrace life.

Why I Didn't Rebel

Why I Didn't Rebel
Author: Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2017-10-03
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0718090179

In this unique combination of personal history, interviews, and social science, a young millennial shares surprising reasons that youthful rebellion isn’t inevitable and points the way for raising healthy, grounded children who love God. Teen rebellion is seen as a cultural norm, but Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach begs to differ. In Why I Didn’t Rebel--based on a viral blog post that has been read by more than 750,000 people--Lindenbach shows how rebellion is neither unavoidable nor completely understood. Based on interviews with her peers and combining the latest research in psychology and social science with stories from her own life, she gives parents a new paradigm for raising kids who don’t go off the rails. Rather than provide step-by-step instructions on how to construct the perfect family, Lindenbach tells her own story and the stories of others as examples of what went right, inviting readers to think differently about parenting. Addressing hot-button issues such as courtship, the purity movement, and spanking--and revealing how some widely-held beliefs in the Christian community may not actually help children--Why I Didn’t Rebel provides an utterly unique, eye-opening vision for raising kids who follow God rather than the world.

Washed and Waiting

Washed and Waiting
Author: Wesley Hill
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2010-11-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1458723941

Yet many who sit next to us in the pew at church fit that description, says author Wesley Hill. As a celibate gay Christian, Hill gives us a glimpse of what it looks like to wrestle firsthand with God's ''No'' to same-sex relationships. What does it mean for gay Christians to live faithful to God while struggling with the challenge of their homosexuality? What is God's will for believers who experience same-sex desires? Those who choose celibacy are often left to deal with loneliness and the hunger for relationships. How can gay Christians experience God's favor and blessing in the midst of a struggle that for many brings a crippling sense of shame and guilt? Weaving together reflections from his own life and the lives of other Christians, such as Henri Nouwen and Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hill offers a fresh perspective on these questions. He advocates neither unqualified ''healing'' for those who struggle, nor their accommodation to temptation, but rather faithfulness in the midst of brokenness. ''I hope this book may encourage other homosexual Christians to take the risky step of opening up their lives to others in the body of Christ,'' Hill writes. ''In so doing, they may find, as I have, by grace, that being known is spiritually healthier than remaining behind closed doors, that the light is better than the darkness.

A Time to Choose

A Time to Choose
Author: Neal A. Maxwell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 93
Release: 1972
Genre: Christian life
ISBN: 9780877474821

Pursuing Sexual Wholeness

Pursuing Sexual Wholeness
Author: Andrew Comiskey
Publisher: Charisma Media
Total Pages: 211
Release: 1989
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0884192598

Real help for Christians who struggle with homosexuality and for those who minister to them. "This book is a product of author Andrew Comiskey's Living Waters program...Pursuing Sexual Wholeness and its companion guidebook present Comiskey's teaching to the church at large."

Eat with Joy

Eat with Joy
Author: Rachel Marie Stone
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2013-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781459660182

Seeking an antidote to widespread anxiety over food ethics, cultural obesity and more, Rachel Stone calls us to reclaim the joy of eating with gratitude. As we learn to see our daily bread as a gift from above, we find our highest religious and cultural ideals (from the sacramental life to sustainable living) taking shape on a common tabletop....

Queer Christianities

Queer Christianities
Author: Kathleen T. Talvacchia
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2015
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1479896020

Queerness and Christianity, often depicted as mutually exclusive, both challenge received notions of the good and the natural. Nowhere is this challenge more visible than in the identities, faiths, and communities that queer Christians have long been creating. As Christians they have staked a claim for a Christianity that is true to their self-understandings. How do queer-identified persons understand their religious lives? And in what ways do the lived experiences of queer Christians respond to traditions and reshape them in contemporary practice? Queer Christianities integrates the perspectives of queer theory, religious studies, and Christian theology into a lively conversation—both transgressive and traditional—about the fundamental questions surrounding the lives of queer Christians. The volume contributes to the emerging scholarly discussion on queer religious experiences as lived both within communities of Christian confession, as well as outside of these established communities. Organized around traditional Christian states of life—celibacy, matrimony, and what is here provocatively conceptualized as promiscuity—this work reflects the ways in which queer Christians continually reconstruct and multiply the forms these states of life take. Queer Christianities challenges received ideas about sexuality and religion, yet remains true to Christian self-understandings that are open to further enquiry and to further queerness.