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Author: Gary Scott Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199830703
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 356
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Book Description
Does heaven exist? If so, what is it like? And how does one get in? Throughout history, painters, poets, philosophers, pastors, and many ordinary people have pondered these questions. Perhaps no other topic captures the popular imagination quite like heaven. Gary Scott Smith examines how Americans from the Puritans to the present have imagined heaven. He argues that whether Americans have perceived heaven as reality or fantasy, as God's home or a human invention, as a source of inspiration and comfort or an opiate that distracts from earthly life, or as a place of worship or a perpetual playground has varied largely according to the spirit of the age. In the colonial era, conceptions of heaven focused primarily on the glory of God. For the Victorians, heaven was a warm, comfortable home where people would live forever with their family and friends. Today, heaven is often less distinctively Christian and more of a celestial entertainment center or a paradise where everyone can reach his full potential. Drawing on an astounding array of sources, including works of art, music, sociology, psychology, folklore, liturgy, sermons, poetry, fiction, jokes, and devotional books, Smith paints a sweeping, provocative portrait of what Americans-from Jonathan Edwards to Mitch Albom-have thought about heaven.
Author: Gary Scott Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199830703
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Get Book Here
Book Description
Does heaven exist? If so, what is it like? And how does one get in? Throughout history, painters, poets, philosophers, pastors, and many ordinary people have pondered these questions. Perhaps no other topic captures the popular imagination quite like heaven. Gary Scott Smith examines how Americans from the Puritans to the present have imagined heaven. He argues that whether Americans have perceived heaven as reality or fantasy, as God's home or a human invention, as a source of inspiration and comfort or an opiate that distracts from earthly life, or as a place of worship or a perpetual playground has varied largely according to the spirit of the age. In the colonial era, conceptions of heaven focused primarily on the glory of God. For the Victorians, heaven was a warm, comfortable home where people would live forever with their family and friends. Today, heaven is often less distinctively Christian and more of a celestial entertainment center or a paradise where everyone can reach his full potential. Drawing on an astounding array of sources, including works of art, music, sociology, psychology, folklore, liturgy, sermons, poetry, fiction, jokes, and devotional books, Smith paints a sweeping, provocative portrait of what Americans-from Jonathan Edwards to Mitch Albom-have thought about heaven.
Author: Maxine Chernoff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
Irena Bozinska, beset by difficulties with love, language, and change, is a mathematician who has recently emigrated from Poland to America. She works as an attendant for an aging jazz musician who longs for one last moment of musical glory in spite of his arthritic fingers. Jack Kaufman, cared for by a mysteriously sad young woman, is a Chicago gangster nearing the end of a colorful, violent life. Joined together by the simple circumstance of sharing the same apartment building, these four lonely people begin to form surprising, life-changing bonds with one another.
Author: Virginia Garrard-Burnett
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1461639670
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
Latin America has long been strongly identified with the Roman Catholic Church. Yet the face of religion is changing in the region, as is evidenced by new landmarks that now appear on the social and geographic landscape. To date, most books on major religions in Latin America are specific to one religion only, and do not offer a comparative analysis. On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Religion in Modern Latin America not only examines the region's religious mÈlange, but also gives equal coverage to other religious variations. The nine articles in this volume examine the variety of religious expression in Latin America, focusing upon Catholicism, popular Indian and African religious forms, and new elements such as Protestantism and Mormonism. Offering a comprehensive focus on one of the most prevalent social institutions in Latin American society, On Earth as It Is in Heaven is an excellent text for courses in Latin American history, religion, anthropology, sociology, and political science.
Author: Mark Kingwell
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300126129
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
A new perspective on a beloved cultural icon, its place in our history, and its meaning in the American imagination This elegantly written appreciation of the Empire State Building opens up the building's richness and importance as an icon of America. The book leads us through the facts surrounding the skyscraper's conception and construction, then enters into a provocative theoretical discussion of its function as an icon, its representation in pictures, literature, and film, and the implications of its iconic status as New York's most important architectural monument to ambition and optimism. The Empire State Building literally cannot be seen in its totality, from any perspective. And paradoxically, this building of unmistakable solidity has been made invisible by familiarity and reproduction through imagery. Mark Kingwell encourages us to look beneath the strong physical presence of the building, to become aware of its evolving layers of meaning, and to see how the building lives within a unique imaginative space in the landscape of the American consciousness. He offers new ways of understanding the Empire State Building in all its complexity and surprising insights into its special role as an American icon.
Author: Colin Jerolmack
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691220263
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
A riveting portrait of a rural Pennsylvania town at the center of the fracking controversy Shale gas extraction—commonly known as fracking—is often portrayed as an energy revolution that will transform the American economy and geopolitics. But in greater Williamsport, Pennsylvania, fracking is personal. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being of our communities and our planet—whether or not to extract shale gas and oil from the very land beneath our feet—is largely a private choice that millions of ordinary people make without the public's consent. The United States is the only country in the world where property rights commonly extend "up to heaven and down to hell," which means that landowners have the exclusive right to lease their subsurface mineral estates to petroleum companies. Colin Jerolmack spent eight months living with rural communities outside of Williamsport as they confronted the tension between property rights and the commonwealth. In this deeply intimate book, he reveals how the decision to lease brings financial rewards but can also cause irreparable harm to neighbors, to communal resources like air and water, and even to oneself. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell casts America’s ideas about freedom and property rights in a troubling new light, revealing how your personal choices can undermine your neighbors’ liberty, and how the exercise of individual rights can bring unintended environmental consequences for us all.
Author: Mitch Albom
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0748112634
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
THE INSPIRATIONAL CLASSIC FROM THE MASTER STORYTELLER WHOSE BOOKS HAVE TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF OVER 40 MILLION READERS 'Mitch Albom sees the magical in the ordinary' Cecilia Ahern _________ To his mind, Eddie has lived an uninspiring life. Now an old man, his job is to fix rides at a seaside amusement park. On his eighty-third birthday, Eddie's time on earth comes to an end. When a cart falls from the fairground, he rushes to save a little girl's life and tragically dies in the attempt. When Eddie awakens, he learns that the afterlife is not a destination, but a place where your existence is explained to you by five people - some of whom you knew, others who were ostensibly strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, five individuals revisit their connections to Eddie on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his 'meaningless' life and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: 'Why was I here?' __________ WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN 'Breathtakingly beautiful. A story that will stay with you forever' 'A beautiful and flawlessly choreographed book . . . No other book may ever compare' 'One of my favourite books . . . Wonderful, inspirational, and heart-warming! To me, it is a MUST READ! 'The book is beyond words . . . Well written, engaging, poignant' 'This really is a wonderful book. You should read it'
Author: Alter
Publisher: Penguin Books India
ISBN: 9780140285529
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
A Loving Tribute To A Unique Upbringing When Stephen Alter Is Asked The Simple Question Where Are You From, Originally? He Hesitates. Although He Is In Almost Every Way An American-Granted With A Trace Of British Accent-He Has An Unexpected Reply: My Real Home Was In India, A Hill Station Called Mussoorie, Seven And A Half Thousand Feet Up The Himalayas. That Was Where I Was Born And Raised, In A Section Known As Landour... It Is A Landscape, And A Time, That Haunts Him Still: I Miss The Place Itself; The Mountains, The View Of The High Himalayas Beyond Mussoorie, Stretching All The Way To Heaven. The Son And Grandson Of Presbytarian Missionaries Living In India For More Than Half A Century, Every Day Alter Straddled The Profound Boundary Between Utterly Different Peoples, Cultures, Languages And Religions. He And His Brothers Spoke A Pidgin Dialect Of Hindustani And English As Young Boys, Fished In The Rivers Song, Ganga And The Jumna, And Later Hunted For Barking Deer And Ghoral In The Steep Foothills Of The Mountains Always Looming Behind Them. They Studied American History But Knew More About India'S Recent Independence From England. In All The Way To Heaven, Alter Writes Affectionately Of His Family, His Indian Friends And His Memories Exotic And Mundane.
Author: Grant WACKER
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674044738
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 382
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Book Description
In this lively history of the rise of pentecostalism in the United States, Grant Wacker gives an in-depth account of the religious practices of pentecostal churches as well as an engaging picture of the way these beliefs played out in daily life. The core tenets of pentecostal belief--personal salvation, Holy Ghost baptism, divine healing, and anticipation of the Lord's imminent return--took root in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Wacker examines the various aspects of pentecostal culture, including rituals, speaking in tongues, the authority of the Bible, the central role of Jesus in everyday life, the gifts of prophecy and healing, ideas about personal appearance, women's roles, race relations, attitudes toward politics and the government. Tracking the daily lives of pentecostals, and paying close attention to the voices of individual men and women, Wacker is able to identify the reason for the movement's spectacular success: a demonstrated ability to balance idealistic and pragmatic impulses, to adapt distinct religious convictions in order to meet the expectations of modern life. More than twenty million American adults today consider themselves pentecostal. Given the movement's major place in American religious life, the history of its early years--so artfully told here--is of central importance.
Author: An Na
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1481442368
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
Originally published: Alpine, Texas: Front Street Press, 2001.
Author: Alison Collis Greene
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199371873
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
A study of the inability of the churches to deal with the crisis of the Great Depression and the shift from church-based aid to a federal welfare state.
