When computers freeze, they are "rebooted" and soon working properly again. Similarly, legendary thinkers throughout history have argued that Christianity should start fresh by recapturing the humanitarian spirit of Jesus' original message. These include such disparate individuals as Thomas Jefferson, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, and the religious leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Surprisingly enough, even classic television shows and films meant to be entertaining--Lost, Battlestar Galactica, It's a Wonderful Life, Groundhog Day, Decalogue, and A Charlie Brown Christmas--are attempts to apply the basic principles of Christianity to modern times. This book offers new essays by scholars of literature, film, history, theology and philosophy examining how various thinkers and storytellers over time have conceived of a reinvented Christianity. In confronting this controversial idea, this book examines how unorthodox interpretations of the Bible can be some of the most valid, how visions of Jesus as a revolutionary may be the most historically sound, and how compassionate Christians such as Origen have wrestled with the eternal questions of the existence of evil, the gift of free will and the promise of universal salvation.

"A collection of essays by poet Julia Spicher Kasdorf focusing on aspects of Mennonite life. Essays examine issues of gender, cultural, and religious identity as they relate to the emergence and exercise of literary authority"--Provided by publisher.

The essays selected here for translation derive largely from Thomasius's work on Staatskirchenrecht, or the political jurisprudence of church law. These works, originating as disputations, theses, and pamphlets, were direct interventions in the unresolved issue of the political role of religion in Brandenburg-Prussia, a state in which a Calvinist dynasty ruled over a largely Lutheran population and nobility as well as a significant Catholic minority. In mandating limited religious toleration within the German states, the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia (1648) also provided the rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia with a way of keeping the powerful Lutheran church in check by guaranteeing a degree of religious freedom to non-Lutherans and thereby detaching the state from the most powerful territorial church. Thomasius's writings on church-state relations, many of them critical of the civil claims made by Lutheran theologians, are a direct response to this state of affairs. At the same time, owing to the depth of intellectual resources at his disposal, these works constitute a major contribution to the broader discussion of the relation between the religious and political spheres.

Excerpt from Essays on Religion and Literature The Essays now printed are only a portion of those which have been so delivered; others having been already published by their Authors in various forms. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

From the author of the magnificent, award-winning novels GILEAD, HOME and LILA comes this wonderful, heart-warming collection of essays about reading. 'Grace and intelligence ...[her work] defines universal truths about what it means to be human' Barack Obama Marilynne Robinson is not only a writer of sharp, subtly moving fiction, but also a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. In this luminous collection she returns to the themes which have preoccupied her bestselling novels: the place literature has in life, the role of faith in modern living, the contradictions inherent in human nature. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as one of our best-loved writers.

Excerpt from The Faith of a Quaker There arise also the insistent questions which beset all mystics, and which in Quakerism demanded a corporate, instead of an individual, answer. Was the light infallible? Was the claim to it an assumption of spiritual exaltation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Together With Further Papers Oj The Geography, Ethnology And Commercial Of Those Countires.