Free to Be Bound chronicles Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's experience as he crosses color lines that fragment the church.

"Many think slavery ended with the demise of the trans-Atlantic trade, but sadly, that's far from true. An estimated 36 million live without dignity or rights and although slavery is illegal in every country, it continues to persist in allas a crime against humanity. Lisa Kristine s indelible images seek to unify humanity and inform the viewer of the tangible humanness of individuals enslaved today. Lisa was invited to the Vatican as a witness to the signing of the Declaration to Eradicate Modern Day Slavery by 2020. When Pope Francis gathered twenty-five of the world's distinguished faith leaders the message was clear slavery is not a political issue it is a crime against humanity, against all people. Her journey sheds light on the need for a global shift from dependence on slave labor, to fair trade labor systems available and active in many parts of the world today. It is not simply a story about slavery, but liberation. In order to create change, we must first visualize what is required to free those enslaved today. [Bound to freedom] focuses on inspiring us to engage in the reality of slavery to make us aware of the depth of its reach and insist we begin to look for solutions across faiths, communities, and the world. The call is for a renewed commitment to cooperate and to empower those enslaved to be seen."--

Bound to Be Free uses Scripture to recalibrate our hearts so we can walk in the freedom Christ has provided from sin and from the encumbrances that weigh us down. There's nothing more heartbreaking than to see saints who are bound by performance, not realizing there is freedom through Christ. In the midst of performance, we try to please everyone, to do what we think makes God happy, to live a "good" life . . . and we don't realize that the walls are closing in around us. There are four walls in the trap of performance: our trajectory, our relationships, our affirmation, and our peers. Each of these speaks deeply to our souls as something we need in order to have a "good life"--but we enslave ourselves to something that will never be enough. Instead, God invites us into the trap of grace, which frees us. The life-giving walls of this trap are trust in God, reconciliation with God, affection from God, and partnership with our brothers and sisters in Christ. As we acknowledge how we are bound by performance, we can--with God's help--flee into the captivity of grace and rest in God's unfailing love.

A breakthough history of Los Angeles' black community in the half century before World War II.

Lovers of the printed book, arise! Thirty of today’s top writers are here to tell you you’re not alone. In Bound to Last,an amazing array of authors comes to the passionate defense of the printed book with spirited, never-before-published essays celebrating the hardcover or paperback they hold most dear—not necessarily because of its contents, but because of its significance as a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable object. Whether focusing on the circumstances behind how a particular book was acquired, or how it has become forever “bound up” with a specific person, time, or place, each piece collected here confirms—poignantly, delightfully, irrefutably—that every book tells a story far beyond the one found within its pages. In addition to a foreword by Ray Bradbury, Bound to Last features original contributions by:Chris Abani, Rabih Alameddine, Anthony Doerr, Louis Ferrante, Nick Flynn, Karen Joy Fowler, Julia Glass, Karen Green, David Hajdu, Terrence Holt, Jim Knipfel, Shahriar Mandanipour, Sarah Manguso, Sean Manning, Joyce Maynard, Philipp Meyer, Jonathan Miles, Sigrid Nunez, Ed Park, Victoria Patterson, Francine Prose, Michael Ruhlman, Elissa Schappell, Christine Schutt, Jim Shepard, Susan Straight, J. Courtney Sullivan, Anthony Swofford, Danielle Trussoni, and Xu Xiaobin

Freedom Bound is about the origins of modern America - a history of colonizing, work and civic identity from the beginnings of English presence on the mainland until the Civil War. It is a history of migrants and migrations, of colonizers and colonized, of households and servitude and slavery, and of the freedom all craved and some found. Above all it is a history of the law that framed the entire process. Freedom Bound tells how colonies were planted in occupied territories, how they were populated with migrants - free and unfree - to do the work of colonizing and how the newcomers secured possession. It tells of the new civic lives that seemed possible in new commonwealths and of the constraints that kept many from enjoying them. It follows the story long past the end of the eighteenth century until the American Civil War, when - just for a moment - it seemed that freedom might finally be unbound.

Bound for Freedom demonstrates that the book of Exodus presents a defining act of liberation not only in Judaism, but also in the Christian understanding of salvation history. That defining act, Larsson argues, takes place at Sinai with the giving of the Torah. Thus Exodus is not about unconditional freedom; rather, as the title of this book suggests, there is no freedom without boundaries. While doing justice to the historical setting of Exodus, Larsson stresses the history of theological interpretation, beginning with early Jewish interpretive traditions. The results illustrate both the vitality of those traditions and the spiritual and moral relevance of Exodus for today's reader.