For more than two thousand years Christian expansion and proselytizing was couched in terms of “defending the faith.” Until recently in the United... States, much of that defense came in the form of reactions against the “liberal” influences channeled through big-corporate media such as popular music, Hollywood movies, and network and cable television. But the election of Ronald Reagan as a Hollywood President introduced Christian America to the tools of advertising and multimedia appeals to children and youth to win new believers to God’s armies.   Christotainment examines how Christian fundamentalism has realigned its armies to combat threats against it by employing the forces it once considered its chief enemies: the entertainment media, including movies, television, music, cartoons, theme parks, video games, and books. Invited contributors discuss the critical theoretical frameworks of top-selling devices within Christian pop culture and the appeal to masses of American souls through the blessed marriage of corporatism and the quest for pleasure.

Christ Our Hope is a masterful reflection on Christian eschatology, in a textbook of twelve accessible chapters. Paul O'Callaghan considers the return... of Christ in glory at the end of time, final resurrection, the renewal of the cosmos, and general judgment. An extensive chapter explores eternal life, perpetual communion with God in heaven, as well as perpetual condemnation, the possibility of forever losing what God has promised to those who are faithful to him. The guiding principle of the work is the theological virtue of hope, in keeping with Benedict XVI's 2007 encyclical, Spe Salvi. The book also considers the impact of hope on the earthly life of the believer, and especially the process of the purification of hope through death and purgatory. O'Callaghan highlights two significant developments of twentieth-century eschatology. First, the ecumenical challenge, mainly deriving from Protestant and Eastern theology, and centered on what is often called "intermediate eschatology." And second, an awareness of the presence of eschatology at the very heart of Christian theology as a whole: Christology, ecclesiology and sacraments, anthropology, ethics, and spirituality. Several interesting features inform the work. The discussion of each topic is rooted in Scripture. The author uses New Testament eschatology to re-work Old Testament apocalyptic material in light of Christ. He also considers the principal elements of eschatological fulfillment in light of the doctrine of the Trinity, and especially of the Holy Spirit. Christ Our Hope includes extensive references to the Fathers of the Church and to the history of theology. Especially important is the author's effort to inform the discussion with a contemporary focus on the person, taking into account both human aspirations and the findings of various sciences.

This sweeping book tells the story of Calvinism’s origins, expansion, and impact across Europe from the upheavals of the early Reformation to the end... of the seventeenth century. The faith’s fundamental doctrines, diverse ecclesiastical institutions, and significant consequences for lived experience are all explored, revealing the ongoing interplay between a dynamic religious tradition and the worlds in which it took root."This is a rare and great achievement: a broad survey . . . that is at once a gripping narrative and a fresh interpretation of the subject, as masterful with the small details as with the big picture." —Carlos Eire, Yale University

A probing but clearly written book, Calendar will find an appreciative audience beyond academia and clergy to the laity of the church: choirs and their... directors, worship planners, adult study groups, and others who want to understand better the church's times of preparation and celebration. Calendar centers largely on theological meaning and parish practice in relation to liturgical time. Deliberately, almost no attention is given to detailed historical development, much of which is exceedingly complex in its origins and technical in its detail. An appendix entitled "Forgetting What You Were Always Taught (Or, This Book in a Nutshell)" aptly describes the radical reordering that Stookey believes occurs when our understanding of time and the story of Jesus takes its bearings from the Incarnation. So, just as the Christian week begins with Sunday, the day of Resurrection, Stookey follows the Christian year beginning with the season of Easter, and only then Lent; Christmas, then Advent. Illuminating discussions of Ordinary and Extraordinary Time, and the Sanctoral Cycle follow.

In the south of Italy, between Apulia and Calabria, lies a land that is barren, desolate, and malarial, where the peasants live out their existence in... poverty and in the presence of death. it was here in primitive Lucania, at the start of the Ethiopian war (19350, that Carlo Levi, doctor, painter, philosopher, and man of letters, was confined as a political prisoner because of his uncompromising opposition to Fascism. Christ Stopped at Eboli is Levi's classic, starkly beautiful account of a place beyond hope and a people abandoned by history.

It was to Lucania, a desolate land in southern Italy, that Carlo Levi—a doctor, painter, philosopher, and man of letters—was confined as a political... prisoner because of his opposition to Italy’s Fascist government at the start of the Ethiopian war in 1935. While there, Levi reflected on the harsh landscape and its inhabitants, peasants who lived the same lives their ancestors had, constantly fearing black magic and the near presence of death. In so doing, Levi offered a starkly beautiful and moving account of a place and a people living outside the boundaries of progress and time.

Through the intensely intimate relationship that arises between God and humans in the incarnation of the Word in Christ, God gives us the gift of God's... own life. This simple claim provides the basis for Kathryn Tanner's powerful study of the centrality of Jesus Christ for all Christian thought and life: if the divine and the human are united in Christ, then Jesus can be seen as key to the pattern that organizes the whole, even while God's ways remain beyond our grasp. Drawing on the history of Christian thought to develop an innovative Christ-centered theology, this book sheds fresh light on major theological issues such as the imago dei, the relationship between nature and grace, the Trinity's implications for human community, and the Spirit's manner of working in human lives. Originally delivered as Warfield Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary, it offers a creative and compelling contribution to contemporary theology.

The second book in Anne Rice's hugely ambitious and masterful life of Christ.It's a winter of no rain, endless dust, and talk of trouble in Judea. All... who know and love Jesus find themselves waiting for some sign of the path he will eventually take. After his baptism, he is at last ready to confront his destiny. At the wedding at Cana, he takes water and transforms it into red wine. Thus, he's recognized as the anointed one and called by God the Father to begin a ministry that will transform an unsuspecting world.

In response to actual questions many people have asked him about angels and demons, well-known author and philosophy professor Peter Kreeft separates... fact from fantasy and myth from reality as he answers 100 common questions about these spiritual beings. Based on a very popular college course he teaches on this subject, this book responds to the incredible amount of interest in angelic beings and attempts to clear up some of the misinformation abounding in the numerous books today on what we know about these mysterious spirits. Drawing on the Bible, traditional Church teaching and St. Thomas Aquinas, Kreeft gives straight, clear answers to the perennial and philosophical questions asked about angels and demons throughout time. In his typical lucid, profound and sometimes humorous style, Kreeft answers such questions as ''What are angels made of'', ''How do angels communicate with God'', ''How do angels communicate with us'', ''Do demons, or devils, or evil spirits really exist?'' and many more. Includes angel art.

This book provides a unified and balanced introduction to the general theory of chromatography, followed by a detailed treatment of the principles... and practice of all the major techniques currently employed in the industrial and academic sectors. It is written as a broad introduction to the subject for mid to advanced undergraduates in chemistry, pharmacy, biochemistry, and is suitable for students following the now quite numerous Masters degrees in instrumental analysis. The book has been updated to incorporate advances of the last ten years, and it contains around 50% new or revised material.

The first edition of Chromatography: Concepts and Contrasts, published in 1988, was one of the first books to discuss all the different types of... chromatography under one cover. The second edition continues with these principles but has been updated to include new chapters on sampling and sample preparation, capillary electrophoresis and capillary electrochromatography (CEC), chromatography with mass spec detection, and industrial and governmental practices in regulated industries. Covers extraction, solid phase extraction (SPE), and solid phase microextraction (SPME), and introduces mass spectrometry Updated with the latest techniques in chromatography Discusses both liquid chromatography (LC)and gas chromatography(GC)

The first edition of Chromatography: Concepts and Contrasts, published in 1988, was one of the first books to discuss all the different types of... chromatography under one cover. The second edition continues with these principles but has been updated to include new chapters on sampling and sample preparation, capillary electrophoresis and capillary electrochromatography (CEC), chromatography with mass spec detection, and industrial and governmental practices in regulated industries. Covers extraction, solid phase extraction (SPE), and solid phase microextraction (SPME), and introduces mass spectrometry Updated with the latest techniques in chromatography Discusses both liquid chromatography (LC)and gas chromatography(GC)

This title presents a comprehensive overview of the principles, methods and fundamental theories used in the separation, quantification and analysis of... individual compounds and substances. It identifies recent advances, mathematical relationships and useful design techniques for optimal system operation and control of chemical and chromatographic processes.