Libby I found Killian drunk and sprawled out on my lawn like some lost prince. With the face of a god and the arrogance to match, the pest won’t leave. Sexy, charming, and just a little bit dirty, he’s slowly wearing me down, making me crave more. He could be mine if I dare to claim him. Problem is, the world thinks he’s theirs. How do you keep an idol when everyone is intent on taking him away? Killian As lead singer for the biggest rock band in the world, I lived a life of dreams. It all fell apart with one fateful decision. Now everything is in shambles. Until Liberty. She’s grouchy, a recluse —and kind of cute. Scratch that. When I get my hands on her, she is scorching hot and more addictive than all the fans who’ve screamed my name. The world is clamoring for me to get back on stage, but I’m not willing to leave her. I’ve got to find a way to coax the hermit from her shell and keep her with me. Because, with Libby, everything has changed. Everything.

In 1972, Will Campbell published an issue of the Committee of Southern Churchmen's journal, Katallagete, to shed light on the US prison system. None could anticipate how the system would expand exponentially in the next four decades. Today, the US operates the world's largest prison system, incarcerating nearly 1 in every 100 American adults. How did this expansion happen? What is the human toll of this retributive system? How might "ambassadors of reconciliation" respond to such a punitive institution? Replicating the firsthand nature of Will Campbell's original Katallagete collection, twenty new essays pull back the veil on today's prison-industrial complex. The plea throughout this collection is not for some better, more progressive institution to exact justice. Rather, the invitation is to hear from voices of experience how the system functions, listen to what the institution does to those locked in its cells, consider what an execution involves, and, most importantly, contemplate the scandalous call to be in reconciled community with those whom society discards and the system silences. Our story is that there are neither good nor bad people, neither felon nor free world. We are all one.

If prophets are called to unveil and expose the illegitimacy of those principalities masquerading as "the right" and purportedly using their powers for "the good," then Will D. Campbell is one of the foremost prophets in American religious history. Like Clarence Jordan and Dorothy Day, Campbell incarnates the radical iconoclastic vocation of standing in contraposition to society, naming and smashing the racial, economic, and political idols that seduce and delude. In this anthology Campbell diagnoses a problem afflicting much of the church today. Zealous to make a difference in the world by acquiring the power of legislation and enforcement, Christians employ society's political science rather than the scandalous politics of Jesus. Although well-intentioned, Christians are, Campbell laments, mistakenly "up to our steeples in politics." Campbell's prescription is for disciples simply to incarnate the reconciliation that Christ has achieved. Rather than crafting savvy strategies and public policies, "Do nothing," Campbell counsels. "Be reconciled!" Yet his encouragement to "do nothing" is no endorsement of passivity or apolitical withdrawal. Rather, Campbell calls for disciples to give their lives in irrepressible resistance against all principalities and powers that would impede or deny our reconciliation in Christ--an unrelenting prophetic challenge leveled especially at institutional churches, as well as Christian colleges and universities. In sermons, difficult-to-access journal articles, and archival manuscripts, Campbell then develops what reconciliation looks like. Being the church, for example, means identifying with, and advocating for, society's "least one"-including violent offenders, disenfranchised minorities, and even militant bigots. In fact, in Campbell's ordo the scorned sectarian and disinherited denizen is often closer to the peculiar Christian genius than are society's well-healed powerbrokers. Disciples seeking to discern their calling can hardly do better than taking direction from this "bootleg," pulpitless preacher.

Includes passages translated into English.

Performing on the hugely popular American Idol television show in 2007 almost ruined Phil Stacey’s life. Fame, and the temptations that came with it, led this part-time worship pastor to a dark place. Eventually Phil cut through the confusion, realizing that he was created not for entertaining people or for fame but for one thing—to worship God. In Made to Worship, Phil shares the exciting details of his quick rise to fame as well as the resulting emptiness it offered him. You’ll be encouraged as you read how Phil escaped the lure of an empty idol and instead experienced the fullness of God. And you’ll be amazed by how God ultimately used Phil’s notoriety to spread the gospel around the world. You can use your talents and skills to worship God and to share the gospel with others in a unique way that fits you and your family. Read about Phil’s encounter with fame—and how the notoriety from this world-renowned show surprisingly opened doors for Phil to spread the gospel and minister to others. Like Phil, you’ll learn that we only find true fulfillment when we find it in Jesus Christ.

Why were so many religious images and objects broken and damaged in the course of the Reformation? Margaret Aston's magisterial new book charts the conflicting imperatives of destruction and rebuilding throughout the English Reformation from the desecration of images, rails and screens to bells, organs and stained glass windows. She explores the motivations of those who smashed images of the crucifixion in stained glass windows and who pulled down crosses and defaced symbols of the Trinity. She shows that destruction was part of a methodology of religious revolution designed to change people as well as places and to forge in the long term new generations of new believers. Beyond blanked walls and whited windows were beliefs and minds impregnated by new modes of religious learning. Idol-breaking with its emphasis on the treacheries of images fundamentally transformed not only Anglican ways of worship but also of seeing, hearing and remembering.

Why do we find it so hard to change? Is it because modern-day idols trap us to commit treason against the gospel? Brad Bigney shows, using poignant testimonies, how to live joyfully and free.

Cynicism has become almost a cliché. It pervades the culture and defines the age--and threatens to derail faith. Andrew Byers identifies the primary factors in the church that inspire disillusionment rather than faith, but he goes beyond that to help struggling cynics channel their frustrations into the redemptive vocations found in the Bible: the prophet, the sage, the tragic poet. These all find their fulfillment in Jesus, and he in turn inspires cynics from the apostle Paul to you and me to embrace our saintly calling--hopeful realism.

This collection of essays and sermons by Rodney Kennedy and Kyle Childress is focused on honoring the memory of Will Campbell--the prophet from the South who made a vocation of destroying sacred cows. The essays and sermons attempt to be true to the spirit of Will Campbell's devotion to the gospel above all else. It should not be surprising that the essays and sermons are about the business of deconstructing more sacred cows while lifting up the truth claims of the gospel.