"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." -John 6:63 Learn to speak the words of the Lord in a way that makes others listen with Apostle Marilyn Lott McIntosh's comprehensive new book Transforming Saints into Soldiers. With clarity and a thorough understanding of Christ's love, McIntosh teaches the ministry of evangelism in a way that will touch your heart and your mind. Learn the true foundation of man's heart, the ways in which we are all saints given the same task, the eternal nature of both Jesus Christ and the church, and much, much more through twenty-one chapters of heartfelt lessons. While Transforming Saints into Soldiers is certainly a must-read for church pastors and leaders, those who are struggling with their faith will also find guidance within its pages. In fact, McIntosh recalls her own crooked path that eventually led to the Lord, complete with abuse, disease, and years on the street as a young homeless woman.

A comprehensive study of the process by which certain martyrs of the early church were transformed into military heroes.

Transforming Saints explores the transformation and function of the images of holy women within wider religious, social, and political contexts of Old Spain and New Spain from the Spanish conquest to Mexican independence. The chapters here examine the rise of the cults of the lactating Madonna, St. Anne, St. Librada, St. Mary Magdalene, and the Suffering Virgin. Concerned with holy figures presented as feminine archetypes—images that came under Inquisition scrutiny—as well as with cults suspected of concealing Indigenous influences, Charlene Villaseñor Black argues that these images would come to reflect the empowerment and agency of women in viceregal Mexico. Her close analysis of the imagery additionally demonstrates artists' innovative responses to Inquisition censorship and the new artistic demands occasioned by conversion. The concerns that motivated the twenty-first century protests against Chicana artists Yolanda López in 2001 and Alma López in 2003 have a long history in the Hispanic world, in the form of anxieties about the humanization of sacred female bodies and fears of Indigenous influences infiltrating Catholicism. In this context Black also examines a number of important artists in depth, including El Greco, Murillo, Jusepe de Ribera, Pedro de Mena, Baltasar de Echave Ibía, Juan Correa, Cristóbal de Villalpando, and Miguel Cabrera.

Our history is filled with the stories of ordinary men and women who were raised up by God for the people and needs of their times—people through whom God did extraordinary things as they followed Jesus in the midst of his Church. In saints Who Transformed Their World, Sherry Weddell presents stories of laypeople who said "yes" to God and shared the spiritual gifts given to them by God. Be inspired by the stories of lay saints: women and men whom God has powerfully used as channels of his beauty, mercy, wisdom, healing, and provision. In these short stories, you will discover people you can relate to. Their inspirational ways of living their faith can help you to recognize your spiritual gifts and help you live every day as an intentional disciple. When each one of us faithfully answers God’s unique call in our lives, the fruit that you and I bear will be the answer to someone else’s prayer. — Sherry Weddell

"The rulers of the Byzantine Empire and its commonwealth were protected both by their own soldiers and by a heavenly army: the military saints. The transformation of Saints George, Demetrios, Theodore and others into the patrons of imperial armies was one of the defining developments of religious life under the Macedonian emperors. This book provides a comprehensive study of military sainthood and its roots in late antiquity. The emergence of the cults is situated within a broader social context, in which mortal soldiers were equated with martyrs and martyrs of the early Church recruited to protect them on the battlefield. Dr White then traces the fate of these saints in early Rus, drawing on unpublished manuscripts and other under-utilised sources to discuss their veneration within the princely clan and their influence on the first native saints of Rus, Boris and Gleb, who eventually joined the ranks of their ancient counterparts"--

Roman identity is one of the most interesting cases of social identity because in the course of time, it could mean so many different things: for instance, Greek-speaking subjects of the Byzantine empire, inhabitants of the city of Rome, autonomous civic or regional groups, Latin speakers under ‘barbarian’ rule in the West or, increasingly, representatives of the Church of Rome. Eventually, the Christian dimension of Roman identity gained ground. The shifting concepts of Romanness represent a methodological challenge for studies of ethnicity because, depending on its uses, Roman identity may be regarded as ‘ethnic’ in a broad sense, but under most criteria, it is not. Romanness is indeed a test case how an established and prestigious social identity can acquire many different shades of meaning, which we would class as civic, political, imperial, ethnic, cultural, legal, religious, regional or as status groups. This book offers comprehensive overviews of the meaning of Romanness in most (former) Roman provinces, complemented by a number of comparative and thematic studies. A similarly wide-ranging overview has not been available so far.