Faith On The Avenue

An epic tale blending Persian and Jewish cultures travels from Tehran's Jewish ghetto, through Turkish whorehouses, to Los Angeles as Lili, with the help of Aunt Miriam the Moon, searches for her magical mother Roxanna the Angel.

Manuel Mu�oz's dazzling second collection finds the author returning, once again, to the small towns of California's Central Valley. Set in a neighborhood with characters whose lives often intersect with each other, The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue offers ten stories about a wide range of lives: a mother coping with a mortally injured son after his motorcycle accident; a single father returning from San Francisco and attempting a reconciliation with an estranged sister; a young woman trying to provide safe haven to her cousin fleeing a vicious boyfriend; and a teenager who sees himself in the trials of the town's most-gossiped-about resident. How these characters cross paths reveal a neighborhood shaped by misunderstandings and long-held secrets, and show how a community can be both embracing and unforgiving, revealing a truth about the nature of home: you always live with its history.Stories from The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue were previously published in Epoch, Glimmer Train (marking Manuel's third appearance in this literary journal), Rush Hour, and Swink. His work has appeared in many other journals, including The Massachusetts Review, The Colorado Review, Boston Review, and Puerto del Sol, and has also been broadcast on National Public Radio's Selected Shorts.

In a richly illustrated, revelatory study of Philadelphia's Germantown Avenue, home to a diverse array of more than 90 Christian and Muslim congregations, Katie Day explores the formative and multifaceted role of religious congregations within an urban environment. Germantown Avenue cuts through Philadelphia for eight and a half miles, from the affluent neighborhood of Chestnut Hill to the high crime section known as ''the Badlands.'' The congregations along this route range from the wealthiest to the poorest populations in Philadelphia. Some congregants are immigrants who find safety and support in close fellowship, while others are long-time residents whose congregations are actively involved in providing social services. Cities undergo constant change, and their congregations change with them. As Day observes, some congregations have sprung up in former commercial strips, harboring new arrivals and recreating a sense of home, and others form an anchor for a neighborhood across generations, providing a connection to the past and a hope of stability for the future. Social scientists, urban planners, and politicians have long overlooked the agency of communities of faith in the construction of the social, cultural, economic, and physical reality of life in the city. Drawing on years of research, in-depth interviews with religious leaders and congregants, and a wealth of demographic data, Day demonstrates the powerful influence cities exert on their congregations, and the surprising and important impact congregations have on their urban environments.

Since the 1930s, organizing movements for social justice in the U.S. have largely been built on secular assumptions. But what if Christians were to shape their organizing around the implications of the truth that God is real and Jesus is risen? Reverend Alexia Salvatierra and theologian Peter Heltzel propose a model of organizing that arises from their Christian convictions, with implications for all faiths.

Expands students' understanding of their own religious history and practice by examining other religions of the world. Each religion is introduced with a brief history, and explored through each religion's scripture or major writings, beliefs and practices, and sacred spaces and times.

The Reed of God is an inspirational classic written by a British Roman Catholic ecclesiastical artist, Caryll Houselander. This book contains a beautiful meditation on Mary, Mother of God and so much more. Reading this book will bring you closer to Our Blessed Mother, and hence, to Christ Himself. Filled with lyrical prose and touching analogies, the author shows how Mary was the "Reed of God" and that we are all vessels waiting to do God's work, and carrying Christ within us.

One woman's search for the truth after scandal rocks her family, and the explosive family secrets she uncovers, in this complex, moving fourth novel from bestselling and award-winning author Jennifer Haigh.

The Old Testament: Our Call to Faith and Justice is geared toward an introductory class in Scripture. This textbook has been found in conformity with The Catechism of the Catholic Church and can serve as an ancillary or primary text for Course I or Elective Course A of the USCCB curriculum framework. The Old Testament: Our Call to Faith and Justice covers the remarkable journey of God s Chosen People and their journey in Scripture. As with any relationship, the divine-human one described in theOld Testament has dramatic episodes of jealousy and angry disappointment, but also shows moments of moving love, compassion, and forgiveness. The Jewish people forged an intimate relationship with God that was brought tofullness in the coming of God s Son, Jesus Christ. This text also includesa Catholic Handbook for Faith, an appendix section with a wealth of information to help students review material they have covered in other religion courses.

Our Catholic Faith: Living What We Believe offers a general overview of the Catholic faith as outlined by the four pillars of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and is designed for use in an introductory Catholic high school theology course.

This study explores the Shepherd Controversy (1975-1982) and the contemporary debate on covenant and justification by faith from the perspectives of historical, systematic, and biblical theology. The distinctive contribution lies in the identification that the Shepherd Controversy as a logical outcome of rejecting the distinction between Law and Gospel at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. The larger problem is that Norman Shepherd and other associated theologians reject the distinction between Law and Gospel, injecting their monocovenantalism into the theologies of Calvin, the Westminster Standards, and Murray. The result has been hermeneutical and theological confusion among some of the followers of the Union with Christ School scholars. Reformed theonomists (led by Greg Bahnsen), Auburn Avenue theologians, and pastors are also monocovenantalists and have been influenced by the Union with Christ School scholars directly and indirectly. Their common denominator is the rejection of the distinction between Law and Gospel in their analysis and understanding of covenant and justification by faith. Having been influenced by the Union with Christ School scholars at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, some scholars began to adopt the hermeneutics and theology of the New Perspective on Paul, which is anti-Reformational and anti-Pauline. The adaptation of the New Perspective on Paul among some of the followers of the Union with Christ School is a logical step because both of them reject the distinction between Law and Gospel, which was a key hermeneutical and theological tool during the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation against the background of the medieval legalistic religion.