Spiritual Friendship

Spiritual Friendship PDF Author: Wesley Hill
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1441227512
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
Christianity Today Book Award Winner Friendship is a relationship like no other. Unlike the relationships we are born into, we choose our friends. It is also tenuous--we can end a friendship at any time. But should friendship be so free and unconstrained? Although our culture tends to pay more attention to romantic love, marriage, family, and other forms of community, friendship is a genuine love in its own right. This eloquent book reminds us that Scripture and tradition have a high view of friendship. Single Christians, particularly those who are gay and celibate, may find it is a form of love to which they are especially called. Writing with deep empathy and with fidelity to historic Christian teaching, Wesley Hill retrieves a rich understanding of friendship as a spiritual vocation and explains how the church can foster friendship as a basic component of Christian discipleship. He helps us reimagine friendship as a robust form of love that is worthy of honor and attention in communities of faith. This book sets forth a positive calling for celibate gay Christians and suggests practical ways for all Christians to cultivate stronger friendships.

Spiritual Friendship

Spiritual Friendship PDF Author: Wesley Hill
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1441227512
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
Christianity Today Book Award Winner Friendship is a relationship like no other. Unlike the relationships we are born into, we choose our friends. It is also tenuous--we can end a friendship at any time. But should friendship be so free and unconstrained? Although our culture tends to pay more attention to romantic love, marriage, family, and other forms of community, friendship is a genuine love in its own right. This eloquent book reminds us that Scripture and tradition have a high view of friendship. Single Christians, particularly those who are gay and celibate, may find it is a form of love to which they are especially called. Writing with deep empathy and with fidelity to historic Christian teaching, Wesley Hill retrieves a rich understanding of friendship as a spiritual vocation and explains how the church can foster friendship as a basic component of Christian discipleship. He helps us reimagine friendship as a robust form of love that is worthy of honor and attention in communities of faith. This book sets forth a positive calling for celibate gay Christians and suggests practical ways for all Christians to cultivate stronger friendships.

Spiritual Friendship After Religion

Spiritual Friendship After Religion PDF Author: Joseph Stewart-Sicking
Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 0819232491
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
Hardly a day goes by without some poll or news story documenting the changing relationship between the general population and religion, often accompanied by predictions of doom. The rise of the "nones" and the "dones" leaves many adrift in a world with multiple complex challenges. Providers of "spiritual friendship"—pastors, spiritual directors, pastoral counselors, concerned Christians—will need to change their approach as those with whom they interact distance themselves from the church. How should we talk with the "nones" and the "dones" about their spiritual lives? How can we be with them in their struggles when they are suspicious of our motives? These are questions providers of spiritual friendship face every day. This book offers answers that can help them look at their work in new ways. Stewart-Sicking presents an innovative approach to spiritual friendship, addressing major challenges of modern life and significant challenges in the lives of individuals, as well as making accessible scholarship on the subject that is difficult for practitioners to access.

Creation and Covenant

Creation and Covenant PDF Author: Christopher Roberts
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0567027465
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Does sexual difference matter for marriage? Are there good theological reasons why the two main characters in a marriage should be a male and a female, or is marriage a more flexible covenant, which any two people can keep? Creation and Covenant analyzes latent but under-examined beliefs about sexual difference in the theology about marriage which has been dominant for centuries in the Christian west. The book opens by studying patristic theologies of marriage, which rested on mostly implicit and often incompatible beliefs about sexual difference. However, Roberts argues that Augustine developed a coherent theology of sexual difference, according it a shifting significance from creation to eschaton. Roberts traces how Augustine's theology influenced and was developed by subsequent theologians, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Luther, Barth, and John Paul II. Finally, Roberts engages today's debates about gay marriage. Before becoming an academic, Dr. Roberts was a journalist. On behalf of PBS television, he covered both the Lambeth Conference in England and the World Council of Churches in Zimbabwe. During those years, he was disappointed by both the liberal and conservative arguments on homosexuality. Left-wingers seemed more interested in privacy, autonomy, and experience than in theology, and right-wingers seemed to have lots of prohibitions but little good news. In the final chapters, this book tries to do better, inviting liberals to improve the standard of their arguments, and explaining what is beautiful and persuasive about the traditional case.

Becoming Gertrude

Becoming Gertrude PDF Author: Janice Peterson
Publisher: NavPress
ISBN: 1631468472
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Becoming Gertrude is one woman’s wisdom on the beauty of spiritual friendship and God’s unfolding grace over the course of a life lived for Him. Jan uses the term spiritual friendship to capture this idea of journeying with others through life, sharing experiences and wisdom and seeking God together. In Becoming Gertrude, Jan wants to be your spiritual friend, sharing what she’s learned and painting a picture of what you might uncover as you seek to develop these kinds of relationships in your own life. Join Jan in exploring the critical pieces of spiritual friendship: hospitality, encouragement, acceptance, serving, and caring. With seasoned wisdom and winsome stories, Jan uses personal experiences to walk you through what each of these things can mean in your life. You can have rich, rewarding, faith-filled friendships that emerge from the everyday rhythms of your days—and Becoming Gertrude will lead you on that journey.

Friendship Across Religions

Friendship Across Religions PDF Author: Alon Goshen-Gottstein
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532658915
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Friendship is an outcome of, as well as a condition for, advancing interfaith relations. However, for friendship to advance, there must be legitimation from within and a theory of how interreligious relations can be justified from the resources of different faith traditions. Friendship Across Religions explores these very issues, seeking to develop a robust theory of interreligious friendship from the resources of each of the participating traditions. It also features individual cases as models and precedents for such relations—in particular, the friendship of Gandhi and Charlie Andrews, his closest personal friend. Contributors: Balwant Singh Dhillon, Timothy J. Gianotti, Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Maria Reis Habito, Ruben L. F. Habito, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, Stephen Butler Murray, Eleanor Nesbitt, Anantanand Rambachan, Meir Sendor, Johann M. Vento, and Miroslav Volf

Spiritual Friendship

Spiritual Friendship PDF Author: Saint Aelred (of Rievaulx)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Friendship
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description


Walking Together

Walking Together PDF Author: Mary DeTurris Poust
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
ISBN: 1594713340
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
In Walking Together: Discovering the Catholic Tradition of Spiritual Friendship, author, journalist, and speaker Mary DeTurris Poust examines rich and nurturing examples of spiritual friendship from well-known saints, writers, and spiritual Catholic leaders who serve as exemplars for cultivating meaningful Catholic friendship in a world of Twitter and Facebook. Addressing a growing modern hunger for deep soul friendships, popular Catholic New York columnist and Our Sunday Visitor blogger Mary DeTurris Poust looks honestly but hopefully at today's culture, where people feel increasingly isolated despite the advent of myriad gadgets designed to keep them “connected.” In ten practical chapters, Poust explores issues such as commitment and acceptance, the virtues that make for a lasting friendship, the importance of listening, open communication, and praying together. Readers will find here the guidance and encouragement to take the next step in developing spiritual friendships in their lives, one of the basic necessities of spiritual life. Poust profiles inspiring spiritual friendships from the past such as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare, and St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal. She also examines famous contemporary friendships, like those between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien or Thomas Merton and famous Zen master D. T. Suzuki. Each chapter concludes with “Food for Thought” reflection questions and a prayerful meditation.

Christianity After Religion

Christianity After Religion PDF Author: Diana Butler Bass
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062098284
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Diana Butler Bass, one of contemporary Christianity’s leading trend-spotters, exposes how the failings of the church today are giving rise to a new “spiritual but not religious” movement. Using evidence from the latest national polls and from her own cutting-edge research, Bass, the visionary author of A People’s History of Christianity, continues the conversation began in books like Brian D. McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity and Harvey Cox’s The Future of Faith, examining the connections—and the divisions—between theology, practice, and community that Christians experience today. Bass’s clearly worded, powerful, and probing Christianity After Religion is required reading for anyone invested in the future of Christianity.

In the House of Friends

In the House of Friends PDF Author: Kenneth J. Garrett
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725266024
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
There is a place that promises acceptance, spiritual growth, and friendship, but instead delivers criticism, abuse, and exploitation. A place that declares marriages will be strengthened, treasured, and protected, but instead weakens, diminishes, and marginalizes them. A place that claims to obey the word of God, but in practice weaponizes the word against those who disagree or doubt. A place where the good news of a tenderhearted, loving Savior is blurred by leaders who are controlling, traumatizing, and self-serving. A place that calls loudly to the storm-tossed at sea, only to lure them to the rocks where they flounder and fall apart. A place that appeared to be a house of friendship but was a place of betrayal. That place might be a Christian church. It might be a cult. It is probably both. In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in the Christian Church is written for survivors of abusive churches, their families and friends, and all who want to understand spiritual abuse and help the abused. Dr. Garrett is a long-term pastor of a diverse, urban congregation and combines personal experience, sound academic research, and pastoral theology to address a poorly understood, rarely admitted problem today—spiritual abuse in Christian churches.

Saintly Moms

Saintly Moms PDF Author: Kelly Ann Guest
Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor
ISBN: 1681924153
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
The lives of the saints are a great source of inspiration and reassurance for us. The holy women in Saintly Moms can help us better to understand motherhood as a vocation, just like any other calling from God, and a path to holiness. Whether you’re a new mom, a grandmother, or somewhere in between, this book will encourage all mothers in their vocation as they identify themselves in the lives of these saints, who also experienced the joys and challenges of being a mom. Their stories will also be inspiring to young women exploring the vocation of motherhood and anyone with an interest in saints who were mothers. Each chapter profiles a different holy mother, reflects on a lesson learned in her life, and ends with a prayer through her intercession. While we grow in admiration and devotion to them, these Saintly Moms can help us see the saintly possibilities each one of us possesses. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kelly Ann Guest is a youth minister, contributing blogger at CatholicMom.com, and contributing author for The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion. Previously, she was a Dominican Sister of St. Cecilia in Nashville, an education coordinator for a Catholic Charities' program for pregnant teens, a middle school teacher, and a director of religious education. Her most challenging and rewarding calling, though, is as a wife and the mother of ten children.