This copious collection of reminiscences, reports, letters, and documents allows readers to experience the vast and varied landscape of early California from the viewpoint of its inhabitants. What emerges is not the Spanish California depicted by casual visitors—a culture obsessed with finery, horses, and fandangos—but an ever-shifting world of aspiration and tragedy, pride and loss. Conflicts between missionaries and soldiers, Indians and settlers, friends and neighbors spill from these pages, bringing the ferment of daily life into sharp focus.

Where is God present in the world? What hope does the church offer to folks who are struggling with death and despair in their many forms, from broken relationships to lost jobs to the seeming lack of meaning in our late-modern context? Some answer these questions by pointing to churches that have had success in growing their worship services and ministries. But Andrew Root invites us to answer the questions from a different angle. Rather than place primary focus on creating a successful church, he asks the church to open its eyes to the suffering and hopelessness of the world, to identify with and embrace it, because it is precisely in the world’s suffering that God is found. Using Luther’s theology of the cross as a lens, Root shows how the church’s willingness to become weak for the world’s sake results in a refocusing of Christian living and ministry, which he examines through the categories of discipleship, authentic hope, community, justice, and resurrection. Thus, as with the other books in the Living Theology series, this book brings theology to bear on life in suggestive and provocative ways, encouraging readers to think theologically about their specific contexts.

"Shane Hipps reveals the subtle secrets of electronic culture and the hidden ways it is shaping the church. Looking beyond the details of what's happening in communities of faith, Hipps analyzes the broader impact of technology and media on the church."--BOOK JACKET.

Thirty biblical meditations for women that offer hope in times of suffering. Thirty biblical meditations for women that offer hope in times of suffering. Hurt is real. But so is hope. Kristen and Sarah have walked through, and are walking in, difficult times. So these thirty biblical reflections are full of realism about the hurts of life-yet overwhelmingly full of hope about the God who gives life. This book will gently encourage and greatly help any woman who is struggling with suffering-whether physical, emotional or psychological, and whether for a season or for longer. It is a book to buy for yourself, or to buy for a member of your church or friend. For anyone who is hurting, this book will give hope, not just for life beyond the suffering, but for life in the suffering. Each chapter contains a biblical reflection, with questions and prayers, and a space for journaling.

Hegel's "highway of despair," introduced in his Phenomenology of Spirit, is the tortured path traveled by "natural consciousness" on its way to freedom. Despair, the passionate residue of Hegelian critique, also indicates fugitive opportunities for freedom and preserves the principle of hope against all hope. Analyzing the works of an eclectic cast of thinkers, Robyn Marasco considers the dynamism of despair as a critical passion, reckoning with the forms of historical life forged along Hegel's highway. The Highway of Despair follows Theodor Adorno, Georges Bataille, and Frantz Fanon as they each read, resist, and reconfigure a strand of thought in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Confronting the twentieth-century collapse of a certain revolutionary dialectic, these thinkers struggle to revalue critical philosophy and recast Left Hegelianism within the contexts of genocidal racism, world war, and colonial domination. Each thinker also re-centers the role of passion in critique. Arguing against more recent trends in critical theory that promise an escape from despair, Marasco shows how passion frustrates the resolutions of reason and faith. Embracing the extremism of what Marx, in the spirit of Hegel, called the "ruthless critique of everything existing," she affirms the contemporary purchase of radical critical theory, resulting in a passionate approach to political thought.

Despite our professions of belief, our baptisms, and our membership in the church, many of us secretly wonder, Am I truly saved? We worry that our love for Jesus isn't fervent enough (or isn't as fervent as someone else's). We worry that our faith isn't strong enough. We struggle through the continuing presence of sin in our lives. All this steals the joy of our salvation and can lead us into a life characterized by legalism, perfectionism, and works righteousness--the very life Jesus freed us from at the cross! But Greg Gilbert has a message for the anxious believer--be assured. Assured that your salvation experience was real. Assured that your sins--past, present, and future--are forgiven. Assured that everyone stumbles. Assured that Jesus is not your judge but your advocate. With deep compassion, Gilbert comforts readers, encouraging them to release their guilt, shame, and anxiety to rejoice in and follow hard after the One who set them free.

The promises of Scripture are easy to affirm when life is good, but it takes gut-level faith and courage to cling to them in moments of deepest despair. Chris's compelling account of his battle with multiple myeloma offers empathy, encouragement and hope to cancer victims and their families, and his triumph is a picture of the ultimate victory believers have over death because of Christ.