When God Isn't Green

When God Isn't Green
Author: Jay Wexler
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2016-03-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0807001937

In this lively, round-the-world trip, law professor and humorist Jay Wexler explores the intersection of religion and the environment. Did you know that • In Hong Kong and Singapore, Taoists burn paper money to appease “hungry ghosts,” filling the air with smoke and dangerous toxins? • In Mumbai, Hindus carry twenty-foot-tall plaster of Paris idols of the elephant god Ganesh into the sea and leave them on the ocean floor to symbolize the impermanence of life, further polluting the scarce water resources of western India? • In Taiwan, Buddhists practicing “mercy release” capture millions of small animals and release them into inappropriate habitats, killing many of the animals and destroying ecosystems? • In Central America, palm frond sales to US customers for Palm Sunday celebrations have helped decimate the rain forests of Guatemala and southern Mexico? • In New York, Miami, and other large US cities, Santeria followers sprinkle mercury in their apartments to fend off witches, poisoning those homes for years to come? • In Israel, on Lag B’omer, a holiday commemorating a famous rabbi, Jews make so many bonfires that the smoke can be seen from space, and trips to the emergency room for asthma and other pulmonary conditions spike? Law professor and humorist Jay Wexler travels the globe in order to understand the complexity of these problems and learn how society can best address them. He feasts on whale blubber in northern Alaska, bumps along in the back of a battered jeep in Guatemala, clambers down the crowded beaches of Mumbai, and learns how to pluck a dead eagle in Colorado, all to answer the question “Can religious practice and environmental protection coexist?”

Surprised by God

Surprised by God
Author: Chris E. W. Green
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2018-06-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532635664

This book explores the deep and abiding human need for contemplation, for coming to terms with and standing in awe of the nature and character of the God revealed in the Scriptures. When so much is wrong in the world, when our lives are troubled by so many threats, both real and imagined, we must learn to look to God and to see all things, including ourselves, in the light of who he is. A life of faithful contemplation begins to free us from the bad desires, false expectations, and corrupting illusions that bind us against our will and keep us from the fullness promised in the gospel.

What Is God Like?

What Is God Like?
Author: Rachel Held Evans
Publisher: Convergent Books
Total Pages: 42
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0593193318

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The late, beloved Rachel Held Evans answers many children's first question about God in this gorgeous picture book, fully realized by her friend Matthew Paul Turner, the bestselling author of When God Made You. Children who are introduced to God, through attending church or having loved ones who speak about God, often have a lot of questions, including this ever-popular one: What is God like? The late Rachel Held Evans loved the Bible and loved showing God’s love through the words and pictures found in that ancient text. Through these pictures from the Bible, children see that God is like a shepherd, God is like a star, God is like a gardener, God is like the wind, and more. God is a comforter and support. And whenever a child is unsure, What Is God Like? encourages young hearts to “think about what makes you feel safe, what makes you feel loved, and what makes you feel brave. That's what God is like.”

When God is Gone Everything is Holy

When God is Gone Everything is Holy
Author: Chet Raymo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

In what he describes as a "late-life credo," renowned science writer Chet Raymo narrates his half-century journey from the traditional Catholicism of his youth to his present perspective as a "Catholic agnostic." As a scientist, Raymo holds to the skepticism that accepts only verifiable answers, but as a "religious naturalist," he never ceases his pursuit of "the beautiful and terrible mystery that soaks creation." Raymo assembles a stunning array of scientists, philosophers, mystics, and poets who help him discover "glimmers of the Absolute in every particular." Whether exploring the connection of the human body to the stars or the meaning of prayer of the heart, these challenging reflections will cause believers and agnostics alike to pause and pay attention.

Sanctifying Interpretation

Sanctifying Interpretation
Author: Chris E W Green
Publisher:
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-07-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9781935931997

In this experimental and critically constructive monograph, Pentecostal theologian Chris Green offers an alternative to the standard Evangelical models of Scripture and scriptural hermeneutics. Instead of beginning with the usual epistemological questions about how the biblical texts can be understood as God's Word, Green's work begins with soteriological concerns: how does God use the Scripture in readying the church to fulfill her calling? And how are we to read the Scripture so that we are drawn along by the Spirit into Christlikeness? In three major parts, Green explores the profound and dynamic interrelatedness of vocation, holiness, and the interpretation of Scripture. Through close readings of biblical texts and searching engagement with the church's spiritual and theological traditions, he develops a model for reading Scripture that makes room for God to use the always difficult and sometimes overwhelming work of making faithful sense of the Scriptures to form the people of God for sanctifying participation in the divine mission for the sake of the world.This Second Edition adds more than 50 pages of new material, which includes expanded discussions in several areas. Also new are examples of biblical interpretation that illustrate and explain the author's key ideas.

Little Green Apples

Little Green Apples
Author: O. C. Smith
Publisher: James Shaw
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2003
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780875167855

If you've ever bitten into a green apple only to be startled by the tart flavor that surprisingly wakes you up and makes your eyes water, you already get a sense of the impact O.C. Smith had on his friends, his church, and the world. He was truly a soul of deep spiritual conviction whose God-given talent and warm, inviting personality produced a life that few can match and a message few will ever forget. As you turn each page of this book, prepare yourself to experience a powerful dose of O.C.'s joy, love, wisdom and happiness. Like the eye-opening taste of a crisp green apple, O.C. will wake you up to a new understanding of life that will lift your spirit. We've been told that one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch, but once you read Little Green Apples: God Really Did Make Them! you'll quickly see how one "good" apple can change the world. Book jacket.

God Is Not Great

God Is Not Great
Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2008-11-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1551991764

Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

God Has a Name

God Has a Name
Author: John Mark Comer
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2024-10-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1400249570

What you believe about God sets the foundation of the person you will become. In God Has a Name, pastor and New York Times bestselling author John Mark Comer invites you to rethink many of the prevalent myths and misconceptions about God and weigh them against what God actually tells us about himself. After all, what you believe about God will ultimately shape the type of person you become. We all live at the mercy of our ideas, and nowhere is this more true than our ideas about God. The problem is many of our ideas about God are wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong enough to form our souls in detrimental and disheartening ways. God Has a Name is a simple yet profound guide to understanding God in a new light--focusing on what God says about himself in the Bible. This one shift has the potential to radically alter how you relate to God, not as a doctrine, but as a relational being who responds to you in an elastic, back-and-forth way. John Mark Comer takes you line by line through Exodus 34:6-8--Yahweh's self-revelation on Mount Sinai, one of the most quoted passages in the Bible. Along the way, Comer addresses some of the most profound questions he came across as he studied these noted lines in Exodus, including: Why do we feel this gap between us and God? Could it be that a lot of what we think about God is wrong? Not all wrong, but wrong enough to mess up how we relate to him? What if our "God" is really a projection of our own identity, ideas, and desires? What if the real God is different, but far better than we could ever imagine? No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, God Has a Name invites you to step into a fresh and biblically rooted vision of who God is that has the potential to alter your life with God and shape who you become.

Let It Go

Let It Go
Author: T.D. Jakes
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2013-01-29
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1416547339

Shares uplifting advice about the virtues of forgiveness, offering strategic and biblically based advice on how to achieve peace and personal fulfillment by letting go of past wrongs.