This book is a story of beginnings, of the past, present, and future of one woman and one man. Shaylee and Davon's lives would intersect over repeatedly, being 15 years apart. Never truly apart as they both vowed to make the world a better place.Shaylee and Davon would give life through Hope and Love to a lost and dying world, moving them even closer to the truth as God's strength is made perfect in weakness!Shaylee and Davon would come together at the edge of time, as evil angelic beings would place dangerous illusions before them trying to stop what God has ordained.Real or fictional, the mystery is yours to decide!As you, enter two worlds; one seen and one not seen; a world taking truth into a world of fiction and fantasy and a world turning fiction and fantasy into a world of reality.What a mystery that unfolds the faith of two souls made one in the darkest of seasons of human experience. Two people on two separate paths taking four decades to end two journeys as God merged them into on journey, one single path paved with prayers, tears, blood, and death of the Saints before them. Cloaked in a mysterious world of Angels and Demons, two worlds one seen and the other never seen by most except for the special ones, the ones with the power to face all that is evil and yet not fall as so many others have. They are the ones that storybooks are written after. A people with no time for wealth, power, and fame; who has time for such stories when a battle is raging in two worlds, one seen and the other not seen.Through decades, battles of unseen epic destruction would be birth between universes playing out in the spirit world between Lucifer and God, as angelic beings would battle over God's creation, Humankind.You will never be the same in the journey through Purgatory - --A place of purging, -A place of pruning, -And a place of displaying the fruits of the spirit.Along this journey, Shaylee, an apostle of Hope and Davon, an Apostle of Love, would be exploited through the evil darkness of demons, the supernatural, and cults alike. "Could the earth we live on, be a place between heaven and hell, could it be your purgatory as Jesus prays for you?Demons, evil men, evil women, and immoral leaders, would offer up Hope and Love as sacrifices for sin's victory through abductions, drugs, homelessness, prisons, murders, seduction, wealth, power, and fame in a never-ending war to destroy Hope and Love leaving Humankind in despair.In all the sufferings, temptations, trials, and tribulations, Shaylee and Davon seemed to be at their end, consumed with no hope yet goodness would always prevail in the end.

Two French Protestant refugees in eighteenth-century Amsterdam gave the world an extraordinary work that intrigued and outraged readers across Europe. In this captivating account, Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt take us to the vibrant Dutch Republic and its flourishing book trade to explore the work that sowed the radical idea that religions could be considered on equal terms. Famed engraver Bernard Picart and author and publisher Jean Frederic Bernard produced The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of the World, which appeared in the first of seven folio volumes in 1723. They put religion in comparative perspective, offering images and analysis of Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the peoples of the Orient and the Americas, Protestants, deists, freemasons, and assorted sects. Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church, the work was a resounding success. For the next century it was copied or adapted, but without the context of its original radicalism and its debt to clandestine literature, English deists, and the philosophy of Spinoza. Ceremonies and Customs prepared the ground for religious toleration amid seemingly unending religious conflict, and demonstrated the impact of the global on Western consciousness. In this beautifully illustrated book, Hunt, Jacob, and Mijnhardt cast new light on the profound insight found in one book as it shaped the development of a modern, secular understanding of religion.

Introduces young readers to Catholic beliefs as expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Recent years have seen much controversy regarding a unified Christian doctrine of hell: Do we go to heaven or hell when we die? Or do we cease to exist? Are believers and unbelievers ultimately saved by grace in the end? By focusing on recent theological arguments, Four Views on Hell: Second Edition highlights why the church still needs to wrestle with the doctrine of hell. In the fair-minded and engaging Counterpoints format, four leading scholars introduce us to the current views on eternal judgment, with particular attention given to the new voices that have entered the debate. Contributors and views include: Denny Burk – representing a principle of Eternal Conscious Torment John Stackhouse – representing a principle of Annihilationism (Conditional Immortality) Robin Parry – representing a principle of Universalism (Ultimate Reconciliation) Jerry Walls – representing a principle of Purgatory Preston Sprinkle concludes the discussion by evaluating each view, noting significant points of exchange between the essayists. The interactive nature of the volume allows the reader to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of each view and come to an informed conclusion. BONUS CONTENT: Includes entire first edition of Four Views on Hell to help readers grasp the history of the discussion and how it has developed over the last twenty years.

Millions of Christians have struggled with how to reconcile God's love and God's judgment: Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell? Is this acceptable to God? How is this "good news"? Troubling questions—so troubling that many have lost their faith because of them. Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud. But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them? What if it is God who wants us to face these questions? Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined. Love wins.

In Dante’s Prayerful Pilgrimage Alessandro Vettori provides a comprehensive analysis of prayer in Dante’s Commedia and considers the prayerful phenomenon a poetic/metaphorical pilgrimage of the soul toward the vision of the Trinity, while also reflecting Dante’s own exilic experience.