Saints under Construction is a mentoring book but might be better described as a discipleship book. God designed the older, more experienced saints to instruct the younger ones in order to cover new ground and avoid old mistakes and previous pitfalls. One purpose of mentoring or discipling is to challenge the thought process of those that are following us (or in the case of a book, reading our words). We all think and we all act out those thoughts minute by minute as we walk through our day. But do our thoughts really line up with Scripture? Saturated with Biblical references, this book lays a multifaceted foundation to build a strong faith and life for Christ and help expand, renew and refine our thought process. From how to properly read and understand the Scripture, to wondering if Paul wore a toga, you will encounter many thought-provoking ideas and challenging concepts. As you read Saints under Construction, you will be drawn closer to Christ. The Christian life is a journey full of pleasure and pain, but God is our Father and the Master Craftsman and He does not make junk or mistakes. We are His handiwork, and God is not finished with us yet. We are a work in progress and He will complete it!

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned! Diamond Jones finally thinks she has met her knight in shining armor and her "Mr. Right." She is convinced when she and the handsome Andre Ploushette become "an item" that all the lying and games men play are a thing of the past. However, as their relationship progresses, Diamond learns that her "Mr. Right" not only has some hidden dark secrets but a life that will make her truly see that there is a thin line between love and hate.

This book explores the way in which church architecture from the earliest centuries of Christianity has been shaped by holy bones - the physical remains or 'relics' of those whom the Church venerated as saints. The Church's holy dead continued to exercise an influence on the living from beyond the grave, and their earthly remains provided a focus for prayer. The memoriae, house-churches and crypts of early Christian Rome; the elaborately decorated monuments containing the bodies of the bishops of Merovingian Gaul; the revival of ring crypts in the Carshingian empire; the crypts, 'tomb-shrines', and later high shrines of medieval England, all demonstrate how the presence of a holy body within a church influenced its very architecture. This is the first complete modern study of this hitherto somewhat neglected aspect of medieval church architecture in western Europe.

Insightful Biblical truths interwoven with humorous and challenging events collected from the mission field... An exciting sequel to last year's The Chorba Trail.

Churchwards 2 cylinder Saint Class 4-6-0s were arguably one of the most important locomotive developments of the twentieth century. The seventy-seven members of the class were so successful that most of the other railway companies in this country used the same 2 cylinder 4-6-0 formula in the design of their own mixed traffic locomotives. Over the years the Saints saw a number of modifications, with many of the class passing into BR ownership. The last member of the class, no. 2920 Saint Martin, was withdrawn from service in 1953 and was sadly not preserved. However, the Great Western Society are now constructing a replica Saint at Didcot Railway Centre. Numbered 2999 it will be named Lady of Legend.In this book author Laurence Waters charts the remarkable history of the class from the construction of the prototype Saint at Swindon in 1902, right through to the final withdrawals in 1953. Using many previously unpublished black and white photographs, accompanied by informative captions, each member of the class is illustrated. This book should appeal to those interested in the history of Great Western Locomotive development as well as modellers of the Great Western and Western Region.

"Sainthood" has been, and remains, a contested category in China, given the commitment of China's modern leadership to secularization, modernization, and revolution, and the discomfort of China's elite with matters concerning religion. However, sainted religious leaders have succeeded in rebuilding old institutions and creating new ones despite the Chinese government's censure. This book offers a new perspective on the history of religion in modern and contemporary China by focusing on the profiles of these religious leaders from the early 20th century through the present. Edited by noted authorities in the field of Chinese religion, Making Saints in Modern China offers biographies of prominent Daoists and Buddhists, as well as of the charismatic leaders of redemptive societies and state managers of religious associations in the People's Republic. The focus of the volume is largely on figures in China proper, although some attention is accorded to those in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other areas of the Chinese diaspora. Each chapter offers a biography of a religious leader and a detailed discussion of the way in which he or she became a "saint." The biographies illustrate how these leaders deployed and sometimes retooled traditional themes in hagiography and charismatic communication to attract followers and compete in the religious marketplace. Negotiation with often hostile authorities was also an important aspect of religious leadership, and many of the saints' stories reveal unexpected reserves of creativity and determination. The volume's contributors, from the United States, Canada, France, Italy, China, and Taiwan, provide cutting-edge scholarship. Taken together, these essays make the case that vital religious leadership and practice has existed and continues to exist in China despite the state's commitment to wholesale secularization.

This book focuses on the comparatively unknown cults of new saints in late-mediaeval Venice. These new saints were near-contemporary citizens who were venerated by their compatriots without official sanction from the papacy. In doing so, the book uncovers a sub-culture of religious expression that has been overlooked in previous scholarship. The study highlights a myriad of hagiographical materials, both visual and textual, created to honour these new saints by members of four different Venetian communities: The Republican government; the monastic orders, mostly Benedictine; the mendicant orders; and local parishes. By scrutinising the hagiographic portraits described in painted vita panels, written vitae, passiones, votive images, sermons and sepulchre monuments, as well as archival and historical resources, the book identifies a specifically Venetian typology of sanctity tied to the idiosyncrasies of the city’s site and history. By focusing explicitly on local typological traits, the book produces an intimate and complex portrait of Venetian society and offers a framework for exploring the lived religious experience of late-mediaeval societies beyond the lagoon. As a result, it will be of keen interest to scholars of Venice, lived religion, hagiography, mediaeval history and visual culture.

The book is the first detailed study on the Nusayri-Alawi community of Cilicia available in a Western language. The Alawis are an Arabic speaking religious minority of ca. 300,000 people living in the Turkish provinces of Adana and Mersin. The book contains chapters devoted to the history of Alawi settlement, the community's identity and social structures, and prejudices they have to face from the majority population. Also covered are religious practices like feasts and beliefs like metempsychosis. The heart of the book is an analysis of the numerous Alawi sanctuaries. Long-term field research enabled the authors to document a vital, highly mobile practice of saint veneration performed at continuously changing sacred places. Besides a catalogue of nearly 200 shrines and several detailed case-studies there are chapters on the age and origins of the sacred places, the rites performed there, and the structure of the pilgrims. A major aim of the study is to present the local Alawi saint veneration in a broader Islamic context by describing the "sacred landscape", analyzing current changes and tendencies, and discussing the paramount role of women in the practice of saint veneration and in the perceived sacredness of the holy places.

For centuries Sufism—Islamic mysticism—held a major place in Islamic spirituality, intellectual life, and popular religion. While many scholars have commented on Sufism's decline, few have delved deeply into present-day Egyptian Sufism or considered it as a system in its own right. Drawing on her detailed fieldwork and a variety of little known literary sources, Valerie J. Hoffman presents Sufism as it exists in Egypt today, in the vivid experiences of its adherents. With an array of conclusions that overturn widely held beliefs about modern Sufis, Hoffman argues that the apparent assimilation of Egyptian Sufism masks a thriving movement hidden from the Western world. From her experiences as a quasi disciple of a Sufi master, she offers new insights into the movement's evolution, the vital role of women in Sufism, and Sufi perspectives on gender and sexuality.

Legends, tales, and mysteries featuring saints captivated the French at the end of the nineteenth century. As Jean Lorrain pointed out in an 1891 article for the popular weekly Le Courrier Francais, the seemingly simple language of the saints' lives, their noble battles between good and evil and the atmosphere of religious mysticism appealed to many, especially those involved in the visual and performing arts. Ironically The Third Republic (1870-1940), a regime that claimed to reinforce and institute the secular ideas of the French Revolution, was witness to this great popular interest in the saints and religious imagery. The eight essays in this work explore the popularity of the saints from the 1850s to the 1920s. The essays evaluate the role they played in literature, art, music, science, history and politics, examine portrayals of the saints' lives in both low and high culture (from children's literature, shadow plays and the popular press to literature, opera and theological studies), and reveal the prevalence of the saints in fin-de-siecle France.