Empfehlungen basierend auf "Light from Heaven"

C. S. Lewis was a prolific letter writer, and his personal correspondence reveals much of his private life, reflections, friendships, and the progress of his thought. This second of a three-volume collection contains the letters Lewis wrote after his conversion to Christianity, as he began a lifetime of serious writing. Lewis corresponded with many of the twentieth century's major literary figures, including J. R. R. Tolkien and Dorothy Sayers. Here we encounter a surge of letters in response to a new audience of laypeople who wrote to him after the great success of his BBC radio broadcasts during World War II -- talks that would ultimately become his masterwork, Mere Christianity.Volume II begins with C. S. Lewis writing his first major work of literary history, The Allegory of Love, which established him as a scholar with imaginative power. These letters trace his creative journey and recount his new circle of friends, "The Inklings," who meet regularly to share their writing. Tolkien reads aloud chapters of his unfinished The Lord of the Rings, while Lewis shares portions of his first novel, Out of the Silent Planet. Lewis's weekly letters to his brother, Warnie, away serving in the army during World War II, lead him to begin writing his first spiritual work, The Problem of Pain.After the serialization of The Screwtape Letters, the director of religious broadcasting at the BBC approached Lewis and the "Mere Christianity" talks were born. With his new broadcasting career, Lewis was inundated with letters from all over the world. His faithful, thoughtful responses to numerous questions reveal the clarity and wisdom of his theological and intellectual beliefs.Volume II includes Lewis's correspondence with great writers such as Owen Barfield, Arthur C. Clarke, Sheldon Vanauken, and Dom Bede Griffiths. The letters address many of Lewis's interests -- theology, literary criticism, poetry, fantasy, and children's stories -- as well as reveal his relation ships with close friends and family. But what is apparent throughout this volume is how this quiet bachelor professor in England touched the lives of many through an amazing discipline of personal correspondence. Walter Hooper's insightful notes and compre hensive biographical appendix of the correspon dents make this an irreplaceable reference for those curious about the life and work of one of the most creative minds of the modern era.

An intimate letter by one of the 20th Century's greatest spiritual thinkers delves into her struggles with faith and the Church.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER"A remarkable book. Weigel's biography is likely to remain the standard one-volume reference on John Paul II for many years to come." — Pittsburg Post-Gazette?“Fascinating. . . sheds light on the history of the twentieth century for everyone.” —New York Times Book ReviewThe definitive biography of Pope John Paul II that explores how influential he was on the world stage and in some of the most historic events of the twentieth century that can still be felt todayWitness to Hope is the authoritative biography of one of the singular figures—some might argue the singular figure—of our time. With unprecedented cooperation from John Paul II and the people who knew and worked with him throughout his life, George Weigel offers a groundbreaking portrait of the Pope as a man, a thinker, and a leader whose religious convictions defined a new approach to world politics—and changed the course of history. As even his critics concede, John Paul II occupied a unique place on the world stage and put down intellectual markers that no one could ignore or avoid as humanity entered a new millennium fraught with possibility and danger.The Pope was a man of prodigious energy who played a crucial, yet insufficiently explored, role in some of the most momentous events of our time, including the collapse of European communism, the quest for peace in the Middle East, and the democratic transformation of Latin America. With an updated preface, this edition of Witness to Hope explains how this “man from a far country” did all of that, and much more—and what both his accomplishments and the unfinished business of his pontificate mean for the future of the Church and the world.

Elegant, passionate, and filled with the love of God's creation, Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath has been hailed as a classic of Jewish spirituality ever since its original publication-and has been read by thousands of people seeking meaning in modern life. In this brief yet profound meditation on the meaning of the Seventh Day, Heschel introduced the idea of an "architecture of holiness" that appears not in space but in time Judaism, he argues, is a religion of time: it finds meaning not in space and the material things that fill it but in time and the eternity that imbues it, so that "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals."

“Mine is a personal story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion, told by a very unlikely convert.”–Sara MilesRaised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and a writer. Then early one winter morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. “I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian,” she writes, “or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut.” But she ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed.The mysterious sacrament of communion has sustained Miles ever since, in a faith she’d scorned, in work she’d never imagined. In this astonishing story, she tells how the seeds of her conversion were sown, and what her life has been like since she took that bread.A lesbian left-wing journalist who covered revolutions around the world, Miles was not the woman her friends expected to see suddenly praising Jesus. She was certainly not the kind of person the government had in mind to run a “faith-based charity.” Religion for her was not about angels or good behavior or piety; it was about real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church’s altar to be given away. The first food pantry she established provided hundreds of poor, elderly, sick, deranged, and marginalized people with lifesaving food and a sense of belonging. Within a few years, the loaves had multiplied, and she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen more pantries.Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters–church ladies, child abusers, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and thieves–all blown into Miles’s life by the relentless force of her newfound calling. She recounts stories about trudging through the rain in housing projects, wiping the runny nose of a psychotic man, storing a battered woman’s .375 Magnum in a cookie tin. She writes about the economy of hunger and the ugly politics of food; the meaning of prayer and the physicality of faith. Here, in this achingly beautiful, passionate book, is the living communion of Christ.“The most amazing book.” – Anne Lamott

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was only thirty-nine when he was executed by the Nazis in 1945, yet his influence on Christian life has been enormous. His passionate, theology-based opposition to Nazism made him a leader, along with Karl Barth, in Germany's Confessing Church. Bonhoeffer is embraced by both liberal and conservative Christians, and the integrity of his faith and life have led believers everywhere to recognize him as the one theologian of his time to lead future generations of Christians into the new millennium. His writings are a treasure of spiritual wisdom, social con-science, pastoral care, and theological insights that are an inspiration to us all, no matter what challenges we face.A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer showcases his writings, letters, and sermons in a daily devotional format, encouraging and deepening readers' reflections and meditations. With a foreword by Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics, A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer will take readers on a 365-day journey of understanding with this deeply spiritual man.

The Basis for the HBO Documentary. A National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.   Scientology presents itself as a scientific approach to spiritual enlightenment, but its practices have long been shrouded in mystery. Now Lawrence Wright—armed with his investigative talents, years of archival research, and more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—uncovers the inner workings of the church. We meet founder L. Ron Hubbard, the highly imaginative but mentally troubled science-fiction writer, and his tough, driven successor, David Miscavige. We go inside their specialized cosmology and language. We learn about the church’s legal attacks on the IRS, its vindictive treatment of critics, and its phenomenal wealth. We see the church court celebrities such as Tom Cruise while consigning its clergy to hard labor under billion-year contracts. Through it all, Wright asks what fundamentally comprises a religion, and if Scientology in fact merits this Constitutionally-protected label. Brilliantly researched, compellingly written, Going Clear pulls back the curtain on one of the most secretive organizations at work today. A New York Times Notable Book A Best Book of the Year: The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, New York magazine,Slate, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly, People, The Week, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews A GoodReads Reader's Choice

From the oppression and terror of the killing fields in Cambodia, this is the story of how one man's conversion led to a rebirth of faith that brought hope to a nation. Commissioned by Communists to spy on a Christian evangelistic crusade, Barnabas Mam instead discovered Jesus and came to faith in Him. After spending four years in prison camps at the hands of the Khmer Rouge Barnabas emerged as one of only 200 surviving Christians in all of Cambodia. God raised him up to became the foremost evangelist and church planter in a land broken by genocide. An inspiring story on a personal, church, and national level, this is more than a narrative--it's a blueprint for success for church growth of the most powerful kind.

Mississippi, 1963. Essie Lee Lane is a small-town girl from a humble background who doesn't take "stuff" from nobody. Yet even she isn't ready for the Reverend Theophilus Simmons, one of the South's most fiery, respected young preachers during an era of vast social change. Down-to-earth, caring, and oh-so-fine, he's everything Essie never thought she'd find in a man, and he realizes she is everything a pastor needs in a wife-a First Lady to share the joys and challenges of his ministry. But Essie and Theophilus soon discover that dealing with the contentious members of Theophilus's church will be no honeymoon. With their parishioners in turmoil and their denomination facing a major scandal, Essie and Theophilus must put their faith and love to the ultimate test as they struggle to lead their congregation to God's sweetest rewards.

Kierkegaard, a poet of ideals and practitioner of the indirect method, also had a direct and polemical side. He revealed this in several writings throughout his career, culminating in The Moment, his attack against the established ecclesiastical order. Kierkegaard was moved to criticize the church by his differences with Bishop Mynster, Primate of the Church of Denmark. Although Mynster saw in Kierkegaard a complement to himself and his outlook, Kierkegaard challenged Mynster to acknowledge the emptying and estheticizing of Christianity that had occurred in modern Christendom. For three years Kierkegaard was silent, waiting. When Mynster died, he was memorialized as an authentic truth-witness in the holy chain of truth-witnesses that stretches through the ages from the days of the apostles. This struck Kierkegaard as blasphemous and inspired him to write a series of articles in Fædrelandet, which he followed with ten numbers of the pamphlet The Moment. This volume includes the articles from Fædrelandet, all numbers of The Moment, and several other late pieces of Kierkegaard's writing.-- "Library Journal"