We live in a radically skeptical age. Tough questions are being asked about Christianity. And most believers are ill-equipped to provide the answers our culture and communities desperately need. Many in today’s church do not know the Bible as well as they should and they struggle with their own “big questions” about the faith. After receiving more than four thousand questions at his Christian Thinkers Society events over the span of six years, Dr. Jeremiah Johnston began to recognize six categories of recurring, trending questions that dominated the rest. In Unanswered, he tackles these tough issues that plague the minds of believers but are rarely addressed in church, such as… Why is it that God often seems to remain silent? How can we trust in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and what does it mean for us today? What do Christians need to understand about suicide and mental illness? How should Christians respond to spiritual darkness and the obsession with paranormal activity? Why is biblical illiteracy so dangerous for Christians and the church? Why do we experience suffering and pain? Unanswered will leave you enriched, characterized by a thinking faith, capable to communicate confidently, and committed to escape the tendency to offer trite answers to a skeptical world.

In 1939, as the Nazis closed in, Alfred Berger mailed a desperate letter to an American stranger who happened to share his last name. He and his wife, Viennese Jews, had found escape routes for their daughters. But now their money, connections, and emotional energy were nearly exhausted. Alfred begged the American recipient of the letter, “You are surely informed about the situation of all Jews in Central Europe.... By pure chance I got your address.... My daughter and her husband will go... to America.... Help us to follow our children.... It is our last and only hope....” After languishing in a California attic for decades, Alfred’s letter ended up in the hands of Faris Cassell, a journalist who couldn’t rest until she discovered the ending of the story. Traveling across the United States as well as to Austria, the Czech Republic, Belarus, and Israel, she uncovered an extraordinary story of heart-wrenching loss and unforgettable love that endures to this day. Did the Bergers’ desperate letter find a response? Did they—and their daughters—survive? Did they leave living descendants? You will find the answers here. A story that will move any reader, The Unanswered Letter is a poignant reminder that love and hope never die.

Sex vs. Rape Whats the difference? Can you tell? Is there a difference? Do you know? Sex The most Sacred Private Powerful connection Shared between two people Or is that love? Either way Its not something Thats supposed to be taken lightly Played around with Dismissed without a second thought Or entered into Without a great deal of thought And commitment And yet Its something Thats taken lightly Played around with Dismissed without a second thought And entered into without a great deal of thought And commitment Its something Thats abused Mistreated Misused Mis-executed And mis-perpetrated Only In that case Its called Rape

It's 340 years in the future. Humanity's darkest secret is reawakening, and the only thing that can stop it is to find the Members of the legendary Council. The problem? They're all teenagers.With no memories of how she got there, Nikki stumbles into the small rural region of North Cordell, with nothing by her name and only a glowing green Stone. She intends to listen to the Stone's instructions to stay safe and out of sight, but a light blinking in the mountain calls to her. Winding up trapped in the woods during a storm with five other teens, they're attacked by people in capes and supernatural abilities. Saved by the mysterious Defending Sergeant, and accused of a ridiculous crime, they have on chance to prove their innocence. With everyone against them, the six reluctant friends must put their differences aside and embrace the truth of their destiny against the very nature of which they know.

The beginnings of "the poetic Roland" were mostly penned in a Waco coffee shop in early 2002, then portions were scribbled in notebooks in train compartments all over Europe; and more were written in Japan. This multipart narrative fragment builds a fantasy frame for the mostly romantic, mostly sad, mostly sonnets which follow.

Why have states throughout history regularly underestimated dangers to their survival? Why have some states been able to mobilize their material resources effectively to balance against threats, while others have not been able to do so? The phenomenon of "underbalancing" is a common but woefully underexamined behavior in international politics. Underbalancing occurs when states fail to recognize dangerous threats, choose not to react to them, or respond in paltry and imprudent ways. It is a response that directly contradicts the core prediction of structural realism's balance-of-power theory--that states motivated to survive as autonomous entities are coherent actors that, when confronted by dangerous threats, act to restore the disrupted balance by creating alliances or increasing their military capabilities, or, in some cases, a combination of both. Consistent with the new wave of neoclassical realist research, Unanswered Threats offers a theory of underbalancing based on four domestic-level variables--elite consensus, elite cohesion, social cohesion, and regime/government vulnerability--that channel, mediate, and redirect policy responses to external pressures and incentives. The theory yields five causal schemes for underbalancing behavior, which are tested against the cases of interwar Britain and France, France from 1877 to 1913, and the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) that pitted tiny Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Randall Schweller concludes that those most likely to underbalance are incoherent, fragmented states whose elites are constrained by political considerations.

An empire demolished, a family destroyed, from the memories of one of five siblings. She was eleven before she even remembers knowing whom her grandparents were. It took until her adulthood before she realized their wealth and power in the community. The very people who swore to serve and protect turned a blind eye to her and her sublimes when they needed them most. Was this because of the money that her grandparents had or where they stood in the community? As a child, she watched her family slowly being destroyed and her grandparents empire brought down. One man could and would control her even past adulthood. To this day she still does not know how she could love someone and be afraid of that person at the same.. Her Mother searched her whole live for love but found only men who wanted her parents money and someone to take care of them. Alcohol took her from her children and left them dependent on the one person she feared most. Leaving her Mother on Christmas Eve and being taken to the lover of her Mothers husband. That woman soon became the Mother she did not have to be. Teaching her all the things that her mother never had time to. Losing that woman thirty-five years almost to the day I she met her, would prove very hard to overcome. Finding out in her late forties of an uncle who was her birth fathers twin and an aunt she had never known about. Though she has never married she borne two children now in their early thirties. The oldest one broke her heart with the abuse of his daughter and the eventual adoption of her. The cycle of abuse and adoption had gone full circle. Her mother was adopted and now her granddaughter. She has drawn many simple pictures of every home she remembers starting at age four. She recalls every town or city that she lived in and some of the people who made a mark on my life. As you can expect, not everyone is pleased about this book being published. Some family members who were not present for many years feel that this story should remain untold. This was an undertaking that started while she was in grade eight, and she believes there was a reason she started it way back then.. This is something she did for her. She hopes that in her telling her story that she can help others. Anyone that has experienced abuse in the past should seek help in dealing with the feelings that remain. As well, anyone dealing with it now should ask for help no matter how young or old you are or how afraid you are. If they do not listen, yell louder. Stop the cycle of abuse!