Makes the novel argument that erotic life is the real sphere of human freedom.

In Bearing Witness, Courtney S. Campbell draws on his experience as a teacher, scholar, and a bioethics consultant to propose an innovative interpretation of the significance of religious values and traditions for bioethics and health care. The book offers a distinctive exposition of a covenantal ethic of gift–response–responsibility–transformation that informs a quest for meaning in the profound choices that patients, families, and professionals face in creating, sustaining, and ending life. Campbell’s account of “bearing witness” offers new understandings of formative ethical concepts, situates medicine as a calling and vocation rooted in concepts of healing, affirms professional commitments of presence for suffering and dying persons, and presents a prophetic critique of medical-assisted death. This book offers compelling critiques of secular models of medical professionalism and of individualistic assumptions that distort the physician-patient relationship. This innovative interpretation bears witness to the relevance of religious perspectives on an array of bioethical issues from new reproductive technologies to genetics to debates over end-of-life ethics and bears witness against the oddities of a market-oriented and consumerist vision of health care that is especially salient for an era of health-care reform.

How might a church infused with missional theology change the way it approaches Christian practices? Interacting both with the missional theology of George Hunsberger and Darrell Guder and with the theology of Christian practices laid out by Craig Dykstra and Dorothy Bass, Benjamin T. Conner argues that allowing these two disciplines to inform one another can enhance the nature of the church s witness, its congregational discipleship, and its theological education. Framing his work with real-world narratives and applications inspired by his work as a minister to adolescents with special needs, Conner shows how a practical missional mindset can redefine and reinvigorate the spirit and purpose of a congregation.

The term ‘witness’ has become synonymous with evangelism, but true witnessing is usually found in dissenting: it refuses to bow to idols, or to take the easy road, or deny Christ and all he died for. This collection is rooted in that belief that having the mind of Christ means we will do things differently. It offers practical resources for pastoral care that celebrates people on the margins of the church, and provides liturgies for those who suffer racism or injustice, who experience tragedy and loss, who raise their voices in protest or lament, and more. These texts do not carry the stamp of approval of any church body, but will bring the light of the gospel where it is needed. Arranged in six sections, it includes contributions from well-known and new voices covering the themes of: • Witness in Ordinary Time • Communion • Birth and Baptism • United in Love • Suffering Presence • Death and Resurrection

This bestselling "lyrical, moving book: part essay, part memoir, part surprising cultural study" is an examination of why we cry, how we cry, and what it means to cry from a woman on the cusp of motherhood confronting her own depression (The New York Times Book Review). Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen–tear–shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear–collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence. Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy.

With a Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu Yael Farber's trilogy of plays bears powerful testimony to the personal truths of those who lived through the brutal Apartheid regime in South Africa. Woman in Waiting tells of Thembi Mtshali's separation from her mother as a child, only to continue this legacy of waiting when forced to leave her own baby to mind other people's children in the white suburbs. Amajuba is a moving tapestry of different personal perspectives on growing up under Apartheid. He Left Quietly is the harrowing experience of Duma Kumalo, one of the wrongly accused Sharpeville Six, on South Africa's Death Row; preparations made for his death and ultimate reprieve.