This study argues that the most illuminating meditation on vulnerability, masculinity, and ethics in the wake of the Reformation came from Spenser, a poet often associated with the brutalities of English rule in Ireland. The underside, or shadow, of violence in both the fantasies and the realities of Spenser's England was a corresponding contemplation of the nature of the precarious lives of subjects in post-Reformation England.

With honesty, sensitivity, and concern for biblical truth, Sproul addresses the afterlife and the role of suffering in human experience.

At the start of the gay rights movement in 1969, evangelicalism's leading voices cast a vision for gay people who turn to Jesus. It was C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer and John Stott who were among the most respected leaders within theologically orthodox Protestantism. We see with them a positive pastoral approach toward gay people, an approach that viewed homosexuality as a fallen condition experienced by some Christians who needed care more than cure. With the birth and rise of the ex-gay movement, the focus shifted from care to cure. As a result, there are an estimated 700,000 people alive today who underwent conversion therapy in the United States alone. Many of these patients were treated by faith-based, testimony-driven parachurch ministries centered on the ex-gay script. Despite the best of intentions, the movement ended with very troubling results. Yet the ex-gay movement died not because it had the wrong sex ethic. It died because it was founded on a practice that diminished the beauty of the gospel. Yet even after the closure of the ex-gay umbrella organization Exodus International in 2013, the ex-gay script continues to walk about as the undead among us, pressuring people like me to say, "I used to be gay, but I'm not gay anymore. Now I'm just same-sex attracted." For orthodox Christians, the way forward is a path back to where we were forty years ago. It is time again to focus with our Neo-Evangelical fathers on care--not cure--for our non-straight sisters and brothers who are living lives of costly obedience to Jesus. With warmth and humor as well as original research, Still Time to Care will chart the path forward for our churches and ministries in providing care. It will provide guidance for the gay person who hears the gospel and finds themselves smitten by the life-giving call of Jesus. Woven throughout the book will be Richard Lovelace’s 1978 call for a "double repentance" in which gay Christians repent of their homosexual sins and the church repents of its homophobia--putting on display for all the power of the gospel.

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • In this vulnerable, insightful memoir, the New York Times columnist tells the story of his five-year struggle with a disease that officially doesn’t exist, exploring the limits of modern medicine, the stories that we unexpectedly fall into, and the secrets that only suffering reveals. “A powerful memoir about our fragile hopes in the face of chronic illness.”—Kate Bowler, bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason In the summer of 2015, Ross Douthat was moving his family, with two young daughters and a pregnant wife, from Washington, D.C., to a sprawling farmhouse in a picturesque Connecticut town when he acquired a mysterious and devastating sickness. It left him sleepless, crippled, wracked with pain--a shell of himself. After months of seeing doctors and descending deeper into a physical inferno, he discovered that he had a disease which according to CDC definitions does not actually exist: the chronic form of Lyme disease, a hotly contested condition that devastates the lives of tens of thousands of people but has no official recognition--and no medically approved cure. From a rural dream house that now felt like a prison, Douthat's search for help takes him off the map of official medicine, into territory where cranks and conspiracies abound and patients are forced to take control of their own treatment and experiment on themselves. Slowly, against his instincts and assumptions, he realizes that many of the cranks and weirdos are right, that many supposed "hypochondriacs" are victims of an indifferent medical establishment, and that all kinds of unexpected experiences and revelations lurk beneath the surface of normal existence, in the places underneath. The Deep Places is a story about what happens when you are terribly sick and realize that even the doctors who are willing to treat you can only do so much. Along the way, Douthat describes his struggle back toward health with wit and candor, portraying sickness as the most terrible of gifts. It teaches you to appreciate the grace of ordinary life by taking that life away from you. It reveals the deep strangeness of the world, the possibility that the reasonable people might be wrong, and the necessity of figuring out things for yourself. And it proves, day by dreadful day, that you are stronger than you ever imagined, and that even in the depths there is always hope.

In Joseph Campana's debut collection, starring Audrey Hepburn, icons of public consumption speak in the language of private devotion. Encourage emulation. Inspire idolatry. Be a muse, be a nymph, be a sprite, bewitch me. Rise from obscurity. Set trends. Break habits. Make statements. Count blessings. Distribute kindnesses. Arouse devotion. Devote yourself to nobility. Ascend, ascend, ascend. -from "How to Be a Star"

Bireley explores the anti-Machavellian tradition of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe and the writers who cultivated it, including Giovanni Botero and Justus Lipsius. The tradition produced an international political literature that is immensely important for understanding the Counter-Reformation, Baroque culture, and early modern politics and diplomacy. Originally published in 1990. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

What does God wish to accomplish through suffering? Does He answer prayers for healing? Drawing on personal experience, the author addresses what a life-changing cancer diagnosis looks like and provides hard-wrought assistance to those walking its path and those supporting them. Broken Beauty explores God’s goal in refining His children and uncovers the rich provisions He bestows along the way. In the process we discover restorative beauty amidst this broken world—beauty that originates from finding the glorious treasure of all we are and are becoming in Christ. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

At the age of thirty-nine, Christian theologian Todd Billings was diagnosed with a rare form of incurable cancer. In the wake of that diagnosis, he began grappling with the hard theological questions we face in the midst of crisis: Why me? Why now? Where is God in all of this? This eloquently written book shares Billings's journey, struggle, and reflections on providence, lament, and life in Christ in light of his illness, moving beyond pat answers toward hope in God's promises. Theologically robust yet eminently practical, it engages the open questions, areas of mystery, and times of disorientation in the Christian life. Billings offers concrete examples through autobiography, cultural commentary, and stories from others, showing how our human stories of joy and grief can be incorporated into the larger biblical story of God's saving work in Christ.

“No revolution however drastic has ever involved a total repudiation of what came before it.” The religious reformations of the sixteenth century were the crucible of modern Western civilization, profoundly reshaping the identity of Europe’s emerging nation-states. In The Reformation, one of the preeminent historians of the period, Patrick Collinson, offers a concise yet thorough overview of the drastic ecumenical revolution of the late medieval and Renaissance eras. In looking at the sum effect of such disparate elements as the humanist philosophy of Desiderius Erasmus and the impact on civilization of movable-type printing and “vulgate” scriptures, or in defining the differences between the evangelical (Lutheran) and reformed (Calvinist) churches, Collinson makes clear how the battles for mens’ lives were often hatched in the battles for mens’ souls. Collinson also examines the interplay of spiritual and temporal matters in the spread of religious reform to all corners of Europe, and at how the Catholic Counter-Reformation used both coercion and institutional reform to retain its ecclesiastical control of Christendom. Powerful and remarkably well written, The Reformation is possibly the finest available introduction to this hugely important chapter in religious and political history.

The Reformation was the seismic event in European history over the past 1000 years, and one which tore the medieval world apart. Not just European religion, but thought, culture, society, state systems, personal relations - everything - was turned upside down. Just about everything which followed in European history can be traced back in some way to the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation which it provoked. The Reformation is where the modern world painfully and dramatically began, and MacCulloch's great history of it is recognised as the best modern account.