The Luminous Web

Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Publisher: Canterbury Press
ISBN: 1848259654
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 97

Book Description
With her customary grace, intelligence and wit, Barbara Brown Taylor wonders why science and faith have become polarized in the popular imagination. She explores what quantum physics, the new biology and chaos theory can teach people of faith and why scientists sound like poets and why physicists use the language of imagination, ambiguity, and mystery that is also found in scripture. In explaining why the church should care about the new insights of science, Taylor suggests ways we might close the gap between spirit and matter, between the sacred and the secular, and celebrate our shared life in the “web of creation” where nothing is without consequence, where all things coexist, where faith and science together seek to discover the same truths about the universe.

Expanding Humanitys Vision Of God

Author: Robert Herrmann
Publisher: Templeton Foundation Press
ISBN: 1599470977
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
How has our understanding of our world and our place in the universe changed in recent decades through the momentous discoveries of science? Do recent developments in the philosophy of science, which place limitations on scientific knowing, provide a more level playing field? This collection of essays and sermons, which have not been readily available before, address these thought-provoking questions. The John Templeton Foundation sponsored an essay and sermon contest to convey an expanded vision of God, one that is informed by recent discoveries of science on the nature of the universe and the place we have in the world. These selections are the winners of that competition. The book is divided into three sections: “Contemporary Science Raising Theological Questions,” “New Visions of Theology,” and “Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on the Science-Religion Dialogue.” The essays cover such areas as physics, theology, cosmology, origins, and artificial intelligence. “There is another way to conceive our life together. There is another way to conceive of our life in God, but it requires a different worldview—not a clockwork universe in which individuals function as discrete springs and gears, but one that looks more like a luminous web, in which the whole is far more than the parts. In this universe, there is no such thing as an individual apart from his or her relationships. Every interaction—between people and people, between people and things, between things and things—changes the face of history. Life on earth cannot be reduced to four sure-fire rules. It is an ever-unfolding mystery that defies precise prediction. Meanwhile, in this universe, there is no such thing as 'parts‚' The whole is the fundamental unit of reality.” —Barbara Brown Taylor, “Physics and Faith,”

The Preaching Life

Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 156101074X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
Like Annie Dillard's The Writing Life, Taylor emphasizes the holy dimensions of ordinary life and describes the essentials of faith with insight and humor, touching on the vocations, imagination, worship, sacraments, ministry and the Bible as they relate to the life of faith.

The Life of Meaning

Author: Bob Abernethy
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1609800001
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 398

Book Description
PBS's Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, which Bob Abernethy conceived and anchors, has been described as "the best spot on the television landscape to take in the broad view of the spiritual dimension of American life . . ." by the Christian Science Monitor. "Finally," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, "something intelligent on TV about religion." Now, together with his coauthor William Bole, Abernethy has turned his attention to making a book that asks all the big questions—and elicits the most surprising answers from a who’s-who of today’s serious religious and spiritual thinkers from across the spectrum of faiths and denominations. In this thoughtful collection, extraordinary people give their personal and private accounts of their own spiritual struggle. Their insights on community, prayer, suffering, religious observance, the choice to live with or without a god, and the meanings that are gleaned from everyday life form an elegant meditation on the desire for something beyond what we can see and measure. More than fifty contributors, including Jimmy Carter, Francis Collins, The Dalai Lama, Robert Franklin, Irving Greenberg, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Harold Kushner, Anne Lamott, Madeleine L’Engle, Thomas Lynch, Martin Marty, Mark Noll, Rachel Remen, Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Brown Taylor, Studs Terkel, Thich Nhat Hanh, Phyllis Tickle, Desmond Tutu, Jean Vanier, and Marianne Williamson.

Holy Envy

Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Publisher: Canterbury Press
ISBN: 1786220792
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
The renowned Christian preacher and New York Times bestselling author of An Altar in the World recounts her moving discoveries of finding the sacred in unexpected places while teaching world religions to undergraduates in Baptist-saturated rural Georgia, revealing how God delights in confounding our expectations. Christians are taught that God is everywhere--a tenet that is central to Barbara Brown Taylor's life and faith. In Holy Envy, she continues her spiritual journey, contemplating the myriad ways she encountered God while exploring other faiths with her students in the classroom, and on field trips to diverse places of worship. Both she and her students ponder how the knowledge and insights they have gained raise important questions about belief, and explore how different practices relate to their own faith. Inspired by this intellectual and spiritual quest, Barbara turns once again to the Bible for guidance, to see what secrets lay buried there. Throughout Holy Envy, Barbara weaves together stories from her classroom with reflections on how her own spiritual journey has been challenged and renewed by connecting with people of other traditions--and by meeting God in them. At the heart of her odyssey is her trust that it is God who pushes her beyond her comfortable boundaries and calls us to "disown" our privatised versions of the divine--a change that ultimately deepens her relationship with both the world and with God, and ours.

An Altar in the World

Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061971294
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Book Description
In the New York Times bestseller An Altar in the World, acclaimed author Barbara Brown Taylor continues her spiritual journey by building upon where she left off in Leaving Church. With the honesty of Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) and the spiritual depth of Anne Lamott (Grace, Eventually), Taylor shares how she learned to find God beyond the church walls by embracing the sacred as a natural part of everyday life. In An Altar in the World, Taylor shows us how to discover altars everywhere we go and in nearly everything we do as we learn to live with purpose, pay attention, slow down, and revere the world we live in. The eBook includes a special excerpt from Barbara Brown Taylor's Learning to Walk in the Dark.

Saving God from Religion

Author: Robin R. Meyers
Publisher: Convergent Books
ISBN: 1984822527
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
A revelatory manifesto on how we can reclaim faith from abstract doctrines and rigid morals to find God in the joys and ambiguities of everyday life, from the acclaimed author of Saving Jesus from the Church “In this book of stories from four decades of ministry, Meyers powerfully captures what it means to believe in a God who’s revealed not in creeds or morals but in the struggles and beauty of our ordinary lives.”—Richard Rohr, bestselling author of The Universal Christ People across the theological and political spectrum are struggling with what it means to say that they believe in God. For centuries, Christians have seen him as a deity who shows favor to some and dispenses punishment to others according to right belief and correct behavior. But this transactional approach to a God “up there”—famously depicted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—no longer works, if it ever did, leaving an increasing number of Christians upset, disappointed, and heading for the exits. In this groundbreaking, inspiring book, Robin R. Meyers, the senior minister of Oklahoma City’s Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ, shows how readers can move from a theology of obedience to one of consequence. He argues that we need to stop seeing our actions as a means for pleasing a distant God and rediscover how God has empowered us to care for ourselves and the world. Drawing on stories from his decades of active ministry, Meyers captures how the struggles of ordinary people hint at how we can approach faith as a radical act of trust in a God who is all around us, even in our doubts and the moments of life we fear the most.

The Luminous Brush

Author: Altoon Sultan
Publisher: Altoon Sultan
ISBN: 9780823028887
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Book Description
"Illustrated with 150 beautiful paintings by the author as well as some by old masters and other contemporary artists working in the medium, The Luminous Brush is the most comprehensive how-to guide on this luminous painting medium that is experiencing a newfound popularity among today's artists."--BOOK JACKET.

Learning to Walk in the Dark

Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Publisher: Canterbury Press
ISBN: 1848256175
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
In this long awaited follow-up to the best-selling An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor explores ‘the treasures of darkness’ that the Bible speaks about. What can we learn about the ways of God when we cannot see the way ahead, are lost, alone, frightened, not in control or when the world around us seems to have descended into darkness?

God in Pain

Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Publisher: Canterbury Press
ISBN: 1786220946
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 132

Book Description
To speak of God in pain is to consider no only the biblical accounts of Christ's suffering and death, but also to proclaim that God is present in our pain. Barbara Brown Taylor explores the eternal mystery of suffering from human and divine perspectives with her characteristic grace, sensitivity and profound biblical insight. In this collection of addresses, she explores pain experienced both in life and around death, with subjects including: • The Gift of Disillusionment; • Learning to Hate Your Family; • Feeding the Enemy; • The Triumphant Victim; • The Myth of Redemptive Violence; • May He Not Rest in Peace.