Stories are the foundation for identity and the ground of understanding. Stories of Desire and Narratives of Faith addresses humankind's search for identity and meaning through the stories of science and religion. Both arose in the mists of history. Both are awe inspiring. Both beggar the imagination. Both have always competed for authority. Science gained preeminence in our postmodern, pluralistic, globalized world as evidenced based, while religion (for many reasons) lost credibility. Yet religion has not disappeared. Stories is a concise, engaging, inspiring accessible account of the history of science (geological and biological evolution perceived through increasingly sophisticated technology) and the history of nine text-based world religions of antiquity. Stories avoids insider language, democratizing both God talk and scientific jargon without patronizing either. There is no attempt to identify the best or truest religion, and Stories disavows dogmatic religious triumphalism. The authors do follow the tradition of giving an account of their Christian faith, the only religious story with which they have experience. They invite others to do the same, paying attention to their own stories as they grapple with modern science, do theology, and engage faith. Stories proposes how and in what manner these disciplines can meaningfully converse in today's world.

Stories are the foundation for identity and the ground of understanding. Stories of Desire and Narratives of Faith addresses humankind’s search for identity and meaning through the stories of science and religion. Both arose in the mists of history. Both are awe inspiring. Both beggar the imagination. Both have always competed for authority. Science gained preeminence in our postmodern, pluralistic, globalized world as evidenced based, while religion (for many reasons) lost credibility. Yet religion has not disappeared. Stories is a concise, engaging, inspiring accessible account of the history of science (geological and biological evolution perceived through increasingly sophisticated technology) and the history of nine text-based world religions of antiquity. Stories avoids insider language, democratizing both God talk and scientific jargon without patronizing either. There is no attempt to identify the best or truest religion, and Stories disavows dogmatic religious triumphalism. The authors do follow the tradition of giving an account of their Christian faith, the only religious story with which they have experience. They invite others to do the same, paying attention to their own stories as they grapple with modern science, do theology, and engage faith. Stories proposes how and in what manner these disciplines can meaningfully converse in today’s world.

A thoughtful literary treatise suggesting that the Gospel is not just like a story, but that narrative in general is like the Gospel.

Only the most naïve or tendentious among us would deny the extent and intensity of suffering in the world. Can one hold, consistently with the common view of suffering in the world, that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? This book argues that one can. Wandering in Darkness first presents the moral psychology and value theory within which one typical traditional theodicy, namely, that of Thomas Aquinas, is embedded. It explicates Aquinas's account of the good for human beings, including the nature of love and union among persons. Eleonore Stump also makes use of developments in neurobiology and developmental psychology to illuminate the nature of such union. Stump then turns to an examination of narratives. In a methodological section focused on epistemological issues, the book uses recent research involving autism spectrum disorder to argue that some philosophical problems are best considered in the context of narratives. Using the methodology argued for, the book gives detailed, innovative exegeses of the stories of Job, Samson, Abraham and Isaac, and Mary of Bethany. In the context of these stories and against the backdrop of Aquinas's other views, Stump presents Aquinas's own theodicy, and shows that Aquinas's theodicy gives a powerful explanation for God's allowing suffering. She concludes by arguing that this explanation constitutes a consistent and cogent defense for the problem of suffering.

As a more economical alternative to the standard hardbound edition, this softbound version of Egermeier's Bible Story Book brings you all the same text, artwork and study guides (minus the expanded map section).

Isn't desire sinful and selfish? The story of each person is a story of want—desires unmet, hopes dashed, passions pursued and ambitions fulfilled. Jen Pollock Michel guides us on a journey that reintroduces us to a God who purifies our longings and gives us the desires of our hearts.

Extra-Ordinary: The Touch That Marked Eternity is an adventurous narrative that will inspire and challenge both the mature leaders of the faith and everyday Christians alike. This book covers fifteen of the most important principles that can radically transform your life within Christianity today. Both disciple makers and disciples alike will be challenged deeply in their personal faith journeys, examined in the depths of their character, and face the daunting question of, aEURoeAm I a son or daughter of God or simply His grandchild?aEURThrough personal testimonies, failures, and successes, Daniel parallels his own life journey in the last sixteen years of ministry that he had to both learn and apply with fifteen incredible leaders of today that exemplify each of these discipleship/leadership principles. Each of these incredible leaders has added their own personal introductions to each chapter. Closing each chapter is an inspiring meditation, personal-application questions, and an optional further study. God gives power and promises, and this book will inspire you to understand what that means and how adding virtue to your faith truly lays the Christian foundation.Daniel, who left for Mexico on a journey straight out of high school in 2004 to, aEURoeprove that God doesnaEUR(tm)t exist,aEUR has turned into an entire life of radically serving the same God whom he first set out to prove against. His life story, both the successes and failures, have turned into an example of the extraordinary! Each chapter highlights an incredible man or woman of the faith that entered DanielaEUR(tm)s journey and shows how that transforming power of testimony and conviction continually molded and shifted his life to become what he never dreamt, imagined, or desired, leaving no doubtaEUR"God is real!

From epic to limerick, novel to anecdote, literary narratives engage and entertain us. From autobiography and biography to accounts of familial generations, narratives define communities. Myths and histories loom large in religious traditions as well. Recently, the importance of narrative to ethics and religion has become a pervasive theme in several scholarly disciplines. In the essays presented here, a distinguished roster of scholars addresses a range of issues associated with this theme, focusing especially on questions concerning narrative's contribution to knowledge.

Stephanie Day Powell illuminates the myriad forms of persuasion, inducement, discontent, and heartbreak experienced by readers of Ruth. Writing from a lesbian perspective, Powell draws upon biblical scholarship, contemporary film and literature, narrative studies, feminist and queer theories, trauma studies and psychoanalytic theory to trace the workings of desire that produced the book of Ruth and shaped its history of reception. Wrestling with the arguments for and against reading Ruth as a love story between women, Powell gleans new insights into the ancient world in which Ruth was written. Ruth is known as a tale of two courageous women, the Moabite Ruth and her Israelite mother-in-law Naomi. As widows with scarce means of financial or social support, Ruth and Naomi are forced to creatively subvert the economic and legal systems of their day in order to survive. Through exceptional acts of loyalty, they, along with their kinsman Boaz, re-establish the bonds of family and community, while preserving the line of Israel's great king David. Yet for many, the story of Ruth is deeply dissatisfying. Scholars increasingly recognize how Ruth's textual “gaps” and ambiguities render conventional interpretations of the book's meaning and purpose uncertain. Feminist and queer interpreters question the appropriation of a woman's story to uphold patriarchal institutions and heteronormative values. Such avenues of inquiry lend themselves to questions of narrative desire, that is, the study of how stories frame our desires and how our own complex longings affect the way we read.

The topic of sexuality intersects directly with the most contested historical, theological, and ethical questions of our day. In this edgy yet profound volume, noted scholars and theologians assay the Christian tradition's classic and contemporary understandings of sex, sexuality, and sexual identity. The project unfolds in three phases: contemporary assessments of the Christian tradition, new thinking about eros and being human religiously, and new perspectives on classic mysteries in light of eros and embodiment.