Well written and highly accessible, this book interweaves a thorough review of developments in Christian community from the first century to the present with powerful new discoveries in scriptural, theological, and historical research that has uncovered deep communal strands in the foundational literature and notions of Christianity. The result is a profound call for the renewal of Christian community and churches as crucial models and inspirations for the new search for wholeness in America.

In this inspirational book, beloved broadcast journalist Jane Pauley helps people in the middle of their lives successfully navigate a“reinvention” phase and build a positive, powerful future. IN 2014, EVERY BABY BOOMER WILL HAVE REACHED THE MILESTONE AGE OF FIFTY. FOR MOST, IT’S NOT AN END BUT THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING NEW. This is the awakening of a generation to the opportunities that lie ahead. Research has shown that people in their fifties are more vital now than they were only ten years ago. They’re saying, “I’m game, I’m up for it, I want to do more.” Jane Pauley, one of America’s most beloved and trusted broadcast journalists, gives voice to the opportunities of her generation—and the next one too—offering humor and insight about the journey forward. Your Life Calling is a fresh look at ideas that have been simmering since boomers first entered midlife with a different perspective on the future than any generation before: that there was more to come—and perhaps the best of all. Jane is not an advice giver but a storyteller. Here she tells her own and introduces readers to the fascinating people she has featured on her award-winning Today show segment, Life Reimagined Today. You’ll meet Betsy McCarthy, who traded in her executive briefcase for knitting needles; Gid Pool, who launched a career as a stand-up comic; Richard Rittmaster, who joined the National Guard Chaplain Corps; Trudy Lundgren, who took her home on the road in an RV; Paulie Gee, who opened a successful pizzeria in Brooklyn; and many more. Their stories are delightful, compelling, and inspiring for anyone asking “What am I going to do with my supersized life?”

The most controversial ecumenical church event in decades, the first Re-Imagining Conference shook the foundations of mainline Protestantism. In this anthology of ninety-five articles, reflections, letters, poetry, and artwork, participants in the conference offer a candid, inside look at what actually occurred in Minneapolis, and at the aftershocks that followed. Amid the cacophonous rumors, hearsay, and ideological clashes that continue to stalk Re-Imagining, the clear voices in this remarkable volume reveal fresh ways of understanding faith, God, and community. They speak to the church today--and to the church of tomorrow.

As the Czech ambassador to the United States, H. E. Petr Gandalovic noted in his foreword to this bookMla Rechcgl has written a monumental workrepresenting a culmination of his life achievement as a historian of Czech America. The Encyclopedia of Bohemian and Czech-American Biography is a unique and unparalleled publication. The enormity of this undertaking is reflected in the fact that it covers a universe, starting a few decades after the discovery of the New World, through the escapades and significant contributions of Bohemian Jesuits and Moravian Brethren in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the mass migration of the Czechs after the revolutionary year of 1848 up to the early years of the twentieth century and the influx of refugees from Nazism and Communism. The encyclopedia has been planned as a representative, comprehensive, and authoritative reference tool, encompassing over 7,500 biographies. This prodigious and unparalleled encyclopedic vademecum, reflecting enduring contributions of notable Americans with Czech roots, is not only an invaluable tool for all researchers and students of Czech-American history, but also a cart blanche for the Czech Republic, which considers Czech Americans as their own and as a part of its magnificent cultural history.

The contribution to the development and culture of America by the immigrants from the territory of former Czechoslovakia, be they Czechs or Slovaks, or Bohemians, as they used to be called, has been enormous. Yet little has been written about the subject. This compendium is part of an effort to correct this glaring deficiency. In this compendium, the focus is on religion, law and jurisprudence, business and entrepreneurship and the notable people in the government, with the narration and assessment about the Czechoslovak American explorers, adventurers and pioneers who paved the way for the colonists and settlers who followed them. An important role among them played the social movement activists. some of whose ideas won the respect and ultimately acceptance by general population, to which subject an entire section has been devoted. Among other, you will find among them abolitionists, freethinkers. suffragists, civil & human rights activists, environmentalists and conservationists, climate change activists, philanthropists, inventors and even futurists or futurologists. Their innovative ideas, inevitably, led to the rise of the plethora of Czech and Slovak American leaders, encompassing, practically, every aspect of human endeavor. As stated in the Foreword, this reference will serve as a powerful research tool for many years to come for scholars and all Czechs and Slovaks on both sides of the Atlantic.

The dominant contemporary model for ecclesiology (theological views of the church itself) is the ecclesiology of communion. MacDougall argues that communion ecclesiologies are often marked by a problematic theological imagination of the future (eschatology). He argues further that, as a result, our ways of practising and being the church are not as robust as they might otherwise be. Re-imagining the church in the light of God's promised future, then, becomes a critical conceptual and practical task. MacDougall presents a detailed exploration of what communion ecclesiologies are and some of the problems they raise. He offers two case studies of such theologies by examining how distinguished theologians John Zizioulas and John Milbank understand the church and the future, how these combine in their work, and the conceptual and practical implications of their perspectives. He then offers an alternative theological view and demonstrates the effects that such a shift would have. In doing so, MacDougall offers a proposal for recovering the 'more' to communion and to ecclesiology to help us imagine a church that is not beyond the world (as in Zizioulas) or over against the world (as in Milbank), but in and for the world in love and service. This concept is worked out in conversation with systematic theologians such as Jürgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Johannes Baptist Metz, and by engaging with a theology of Christian practices currently being developed by practical theologians such as Dorothy C. Bass, Craig Dykstra, and those associated with their ongoing project. The potential for the church to become an agent of discipleship, love, and service can best be realised when the church anticipates God's promised perfection in the full communion between God and humanity, among human beings, within human persons, and between humanity and the rest of creation.

“Important both historically and theologically. Readers will not be able to see the New Testament in the same way again.” —Marcus Borg, author of The Heart of Christianity “A New New Testament does what some of us never dreamed possible: it opens the treasure chest of early Christian writings, restoring a carefully select few of them to their rightful place in the broad conversation about who Jesus was, what he did and taught, and what all of that has to do with us now.” —Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Leaving Church and An Altar in the World There are twenty-seven books in the traditional New Testament, but the earliest Christian communities were far more vibrant than that small number might lead you to think. In fact, many more scriptures were written and just as important as the New Testament in shaping early-Christian communities and beliefs. Over the past century, many of those texts that were lost have been found and translated, yet are still not known to much of the public; they are discussed mainly by scholars or within a context of the now outdated notion of gnostic gospels. In A New New Testament Hal Taussig is changing that. With the help of nineteen important spiritual leaders, he has added ten of the recently discovered texts to the traditional New Testament, leading many churches and spiritual seekers to use this new New Testament for their spiritual and intellectual growth. “Remarkable . . . Not meant to replace the traditional New Testament, this fascinating work will be, Taussig hopes, the first of several new New Testaments.” —Booklist