Widely respected as one of today's wisest and most articulate Christian ethicists, Oliver O'Donovan here explores the nature of personal and political behavior as it is -- or should be -- informed by Christian love. This profound look at contemporary life focuses on how moral reflection upon common objects of love has an effect on organized community -- in grandest terms, political society itself. O'Donovan begins with some lighthearted puzzles about teaching ethics and ends with an intense critique of the role of publicity in late-modern liberal culture. Showing, as Augustine believed, that we know only as we love, O'Donovan takes readers on a journey of thought through a series of current and historical issues ranging from the iconoclastic controversy of the ninth century to the terrible events of September 11, 2001. Based on the 2001 Stob Lectures at Calvin College, this volume will help readers learn how to think "from truths of Christian faith to conclusions in Christian action."

Acclaimed historian and museum curator Richard Rabinowitz tells the story of his immigrant Jewish family through the everyday objects in their lives, from chairs and bottle openers to bottles of perfume. Vivid, absorbing, and powerfully honest, this is a story of one family and one community but also of emotional touchstones that anchor us all.

A bold new interpretation of Augustine’s virtue of hope and its place in political life When it comes to politics, Augustine of Hippo is renowned as one of history’s great pessimists, with his sights set firmly on the heavenly city rather than the public square. Many have enlisted him to chasten political hopes, highlighting the realities of evil and encouraging citizens instead to cast their hopes on heaven. A Commonwealth of Hope challenges prevailing interpretations of Augustinian pessimism, offering a new vision of his political thought that can also help today’s citizens sustain hope in the face of despair. Amid rising inequality, injustice, and political division, many citizens wonder what to hope for in politics and whether it is possible to forge common hopes in a deeply polarized society. Michael Lamb takes up this challenge, offering the first in-depth analysis of Augustine’s virtue of hope and its profound implications for political life. He draws on a wide range of Augustine’s writings—including neglected sermons, letters, and treatises—and integrates insights from political theory, religious studies, theology, and philosophy. Lamb shows how diverse citizens, both religious and secular, can unite around common hopes for the commonwealth. Recovering this understudied virtue and situating Augustine within his political, rhetorical, and religious contexts, A Commonwealth of Hope reveals how Augustine’s virtue of hope can help us resist the politics of presumption and despair and confront the challenges of our time.

Love Objects is the first anthology on the concept of 'love' to interrogate across a range of contexts its design and other material manifestations.

"In The Uncommon Life of Common Objects, Akiko Busch devotes a chapter each to twelve objects, looking at the reasons these items took the forms they did and discussing how everyday things acquire their significance through daily human experience."--Jacket.

A follow-up to her successful debut Charleston and set in the world’s most glamorous landscapes, this moving new love story from Margaret Bradham Thornton draws on a metaphor of entanglement theory to ask: when two people collide, are they forever attached no matter where they are? Helen Gibbs, a British journalist on assignment on the west coast of Mexico, meets Christopher Delavaux, an intriguing half-French, half-American lawyer-turned-financier who has come alone to surf. Living lives that never stop moving, from their first encounter in Bermeja to marriage in London and travels to such places as Saint-Tropez, Tangier, and Santa Clara, Helen and Christopher must decide how much they exist for themselves and how much they exist for each other. In an effort to build his firm, Christopher leads a life full of speed and ambition with little time for Helen and even less when he suspects his business partner of illegal activity. Helen, a reluctant voyeur to Christopher’s world of power and position, searches far and wide for reporting work that will “take a bite out of her soul”—refugees in Calais, a mountain climber in Chamonix, an orphaned circus performer in Cuba. A Theory of Love captures the ambivalence at the center of human experience: does one reside in the familiar comforts of solitude or dare to open one’s heart and risk having it broken? Set in some of the most picturesque places in the world, this novel questions what it means to love someone and leaves us wondering—can nothing save us but a fall?

God is at work in the lives of children. Most ministers are looking for inspiration but feel overwhelmed. Children's Ministry and the Spiritual Child offers practical tools with evidence-based research in an easy-to-read format, perfect for engaging and equipping passionate yet busy children's ministry leaders. Learn from the wisdom and research of some of the leading thinkers in the field of children's spirituality about best practices of ministry in both personal and community settings. - Section 1: Reviews ways to engage a child's innate spiritual capacity - Section 2: Considers the equipping role a family plays in a child's spiritual life - Section 3: Outlines intergenerational involvement in a child's faith formation - Section 4: Offers advice for care and compassion for children when trauma happens - Section 5: Brings everything together with hands-on ideas for putting the research to use

This book is about the objects people owned and how they used them. Twenty-three specially written essays investigate the type of things that might have been considered 'everyday objects' in the medieval and early modern periods, and how they help us to understand the daily lives of those individuals for whom few other types of evidence survive - for instance people of lower status and women of all status groups. Everyday Objects presents new research by specialists from a range of disciplines to assess what the study of material culture can contribute to our understanding of medieval and early modern societies. Extending and developing key debates in the study of the everyday, the chapters provide analysis of such things as ceramics, illustrated manuscripts, pins, handbells, carved chimneypieces, clothing, drinking vessels, bagpipes, paintings, shoes, religious icons and the built fabric of domestic houses and guild halls. These things are examined in relation to central themes of pre-modern history; for instance gender, identity, space, morality, skill, value, ritual, use, belief, public and private behaviour, continental influence, materiality, emotion, technical innovation, status, competition and social mobility. This book offers both a collection of new research by a diverse range of specialists and a source book of current methodological approaches for the study of pre-modern material culture. The multi-disciplinary analysis of these 'everyday objects' by archaeologists, art historians, literary scholars, historians, conservators and museum practitioners provides a snapshot of current methodological approaches within the humanities. Although analysis of material culture has become an increasingly important aspect of the study of the past, previous research in this area has often remained confined to subject-specific boundaries. This book will therefore be an invaluable resource for researchers and students interested in learning about important new work which demonstrates the potential of material culture study to cut across traditional historiographies and disciplinary boundaries and access the lived experience of individuals in the past.

Trained as a photographer, Terry Border left the commercial world for story-telling. His complex vignettes are made of the simplest, everyday items: a jar of spices, a cigarette stub, a flower, a snack food. These sly photos range from whimsical scenes to sexy scenarios, the sad truths to the hilarious happenings in everyday life. In the tradition of bestselling humorous photography books like Chicks with Baggage, Play with Your Food, and Hello Cupcake!, this volume will surprise you with every viewing. A sunflower missing a petal becomes the tortured artist Van Gogh; an egg arrives to visit his mom only to discover roast chicken on the table; when confronted by a jar of peanut butter, peanuts hold a wake; and hot dogs leave behind their own brand of little presents. Marshmallows, wine corks, bread, soap, rocks, and tea bags—no common household item is safe from the twisted (wire) mind behind these uncommon creations!