How and why did the early church grow in the first four hundred years despite disincentives, harassment, and occasional persecution? In this unique historical study, veteran scholar Alan Kreider delivers the fruit of a lifetime of study as he tells the amazing story of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Challenging traditional understandings, Kreider contends the church grew because the virtue of patience was of central importance in the life and witness of the early Christians. They wrote about patience, not evangelism, and reflected on prayer, catechesis, and worship, yet the church grew--not by specific strategies but by patient ferment.

Most books written on Gilbert and Sullivan have focused on the authors rather than on their work. Examining all 14 operas in detail, this book offers a fresh look at the works themselves.

This original and provocative 2001 study discusses the work of a number of authors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to argue that mainstream society was enabled to accept the non-normative sexuality of the Aesthetic Movement chiefly through parody and self-parody. Highlighting Victorian popular culture, Aestheticism and Sexual Parody adds an important dimension to the theorisations of parody as a combative strategy by which sexually marginalized groups undermine the status quo. From W. S. Gilbert's drama and Vernon Lee and Christopher Isherwood's prose to George du Maurier's cartoons and Max Beerbohm's caricatures, Dennis Denisoff explores the parodies' interactions with the personae and texts of canonical authors such as Alfred Tennyson, Walter Pater, Algernon Swinburne, and Oscar Wilde. In doing so, he considers the impact that these interactions had on modern ideas of gender, sexuality, taste and politics.

Michael Griesgraber's parody series started auspiciously--by mistake.When his copy of a Vermeer painting was placed on display at his local Starbucks it was accidentally sold, so he replaced it with another, this time adding in his favorite Starbucks breakfast. But when that sold just as quickly, Griesgraber realized he'd stumbled onto something big.Encouraged by the painting's positive reception, Griesgraber continued the joke, producing dozens of parodies that sold out within days. By then he'd picked up momentum, incorporating not just Starbucks imagery but outside objects, ideas, and even other paintings to make his statements.At times wry, often witty, and always insightful, The Art of Parody is a highly engaging look at an artist's process of honoring past paintings while twisting the results in surprising, sometimes shocking ways. You'll never look at a Starbucks the same way again!

An examination of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, and how parody was used in the culture wars of late-nineteenth-century England.

This wise and beautiful book draws on the experience of unchosen waiting – in sickness, in old age, and in the struggles and frustrations of everyday life – to explore the challenges of waiting and the skills it demands. A lifeline for anyone who finds themselves in a time of waiting, chosen or unchosen, or accompanying others through such times, it shows how the paradoxical gifts of patience point to the God who kindly waits for us. A book of grace, depth and beauty, destined to become a modern spiritual classic.