Recommendations based on "Prayer; Exhortation to Martyrdom (Ancient Christian Writers series, No. 19)"

C. S. Lewis was a prolific letter writer, and his personal correspondence reveals much of his private life, reflections, friendships, and the progress of his thought. This second of a three-volume collection contains the letters Lewis wrote after his conversion to Christianity, as he began a lifetime of serious writing. Lewis corresponded with many of the twentieth century's major literary figures, including J. R. R. Tolkien and Dorothy Sayers. Here we encounter a surge of letters in response to a new audience of laypeople who wrote to him after the great success of his BBC radio broadcasts during World War II -- talks that would ultimately become his masterwork, Mere Christianity.Volume II begins with C. S. Lewis writing his first major work of literary history, The Allegory of Love, which established him as a scholar with imaginative power. These letters trace his creative journey and recount his new circle of friends, "The Inklings," who meet regularly to share their writing. Tolkien reads aloud chapters of his unfinished The Lord of the Rings, while Lewis shares portions of his first novel, Out of the Silent Planet. Lewis's weekly letters to his brother, Warnie, away serving in the army during World War II, lead him to begin writing his first spiritual work, The Problem of Pain.After the serialization of The Screwtape Letters, the director of religious broadcasting at the BBC approached Lewis and the "Mere Christianity" talks were born. With his new broadcasting career, Lewis was inundated with letters from all over the world. His faithful, thoughtful responses to numerous questions reveal the clarity and wisdom of his theological and intellectual beliefs.Volume II includes Lewis's correspondence with great writers such as Owen Barfield, Arthur C. Clarke, Sheldon Vanauken, and Dom Bede Griffiths. The letters address many of Lewis's interests -- theology, literary criticism, poetry, fantasy, and children's stories -- as well as reveal his relation ships with close friends and family. But what is apparent throughout this volume is how this quiet bachelor professor in England touched the lives of many through an amazing discipline of personal correspondence. Walter Hooper's insightful notes and compre hensive biographical appendix of the correspon dents make this an irreplaceable reference for those curious about the life and work of one of the most creative minds of the modern era.

From bestselling author and provocateur Christopher Hitchens, the classic guide to the art of principled dissent and disagreementIn Letters to a Young Contrarian, bestselling author and world-class provocateur Christopher Hitchens inspires the radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, and angry young (wo)men of tomorrow. Exploring the entire range of "contrary positions"—from noble dissident to gratuitous nag—Hitchens introduces the next generation to the minds and the misfits who influenced him, invoking such mentors as Emile Zola, Rosa Parks, and George Orwell. As is his trademark, Hitchens pointedly pitches himself in contrast to stagnant attitudes across the ideological spectrum. No other writer has matched Hitchens's understanding of the importance of disagreement—to personal integrity, to informed discussion, to true progress, to democracy itself.

Walking is one of the simplest things we do as humans. It’s how most of us experience life.In The Way Under Our Feet, Graham Usher conveys how exhilarating it is to walk into the depths of our humanity. We become more ready to recognize the needs as well as the joys of others; we sift our thoughts; we seek to heal our battered world, even as we glory in the beauty of nature; we find ourselves companying with our three mile an hour God.‘This is a lovely book, full of light, grace and meaning. Usher celebrates his passion for walking by exploring religious texts and stories, but this by no means confines his thoughts. We are drawn by secular texts, too: Macfarlane sits alongside Kierkegaard; Thoreau and Walden alongside T. S. Eliot. Through them all, we learn why walking is so unspeakably good for heart, soul and body.’DAME FIONA REYNOLDS, MASTER OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AUTHOR OF THE FIGHT FOR BEAUTY‘Wonderful. Offers highly original and striking observations combined with apposite, moving and often humorous personal anecdotes. A classic, catching a genuine and humble holiness.’BISHOP DAVID WILBOURNE

Elegant, passionate, and filled with the love of God's creation, Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath has been hailed as a classic of Jewish spirituality ever since its original publication-and has been read by thousands of people seeking meaning in modern life. In this brief yet profound meditation on the meaning of the Seventh Day, Heschel introduced the idea of an "architecture of holiness" that appears not in space but in time Judaism, he argues, is a religion of time: it finds meaning not in space and the material things that fill it but in time and the eternity that imbues it, so that "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals."

The Rule of Taize was written by Brother Roger, its founder, during the winter of 1952-3. His intention was to express for the young men who had committed themselves to the group 'for their whole life in celibacy and to a life together in great simplicity', 'the essential that makes the common life possible'. The community has since become one of the world's most important sites of Christian pilgrimage. Over 100,000 young people from around the world travel there each year for prayer, Bible study, sharing, and communal work. Through the community's ecumenical outlook, they are encouraged to live in the spirit of kindness, simplicity and reconciliation. This is an updated version of the English-French edition first published in 1968.

Saturday, December 14thFeel led to keep a diary. A sort of spiritual log for the benefit of others in the future. Each new divine insight and experience will shine like a beacon in the darkness!Can’t think of anything to put in today.Still, tomorrow’s Sunday. Must be something on a Sunday, surely?Adrian Plass is hilarious, pure and simple. His readers are legion – and this is the bestselling book that started it all, converting thousands of people who love to laugh into avid Plass readers.The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass (aged 37 ¾) is merriment and facetiousness at its best – a journal of the wacky Christian life of Plass’s fictional alter-ego, who chronicles in his ‘sacred’ diary the daily goings-on in the lives of ordinary-but-somewhat-eccentric people he knows and meets. Reading it will doeth good like a medicine!

Manyhave called her a saint. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India'shighest civilian honor, the Jewel of India, in 1980. Pope John Paul II declaredher “Blessed,” beatifying her in 2003. For nearly fifty years at the head ofCalcutta’s Missionaries of Charity, the Albanian-born Agnes GonxhaBojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa, advocatedfor the poor and homeless, ministered to the sick, provided hospice for theafflicted, and embodied the very essence of humanitarianism. Now, revised andupdated, Kathryn Spink’s definitive, authorized biography is “simply the best . . . around,” according to James Martin, SJ, author of The Jesuit Guide to(Almost) Everything. “Thoroughly researched, sensitively written andunfailingly inspiring, Kathryn Spink's book should be, after Mother Teresa'sown writings, your first resource for understanding one of the greatest saintsin Christian history."

The Basis for the HBO Documentary. A National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.   Scientology presents itself as a scientific approach to spiritual enlightenment, but its practices have long been shrouded in mystery. Now Lawrence Wright—armed with his investigative talents, years of archival research, and more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—uncovers the inner workings of the church. We meet founder L. Ron Hubbard, the highly imaginative but mentally troubled science-fiction writer, and his tough, driven successor, David Miscavige. We go inside their specialized cosmology and language. We learn about the church’s legal attacks on the IRS, its vindictive treatment of critics, and its phenomenal wealth. We see the church court celebrities such as Tom Cruise while consigning its clergy to hard labor under billion-year contracts. Through it all, Wright asks what fundamentally comprises a religion, and if Scientology in fact merits this Constitutionally-protected label. Brilliantly researched, compellingly written, Going Clear pulls back the curtain on one of the most secretive organizations at work today. A New York Times Notable Book A Best Book of the Year: The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, New York magazine,Slate, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly, People, The Week, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews A GoodReads Reader's Choice

From the oppression and terror of the killing fields in Cambodia, this is the story of how one man's conversion led to a rebirth of faith that brought hope to a nation. Commissioned by Communists to spy on a Christian evangelistic crusade, Barnabas Mam instead discovered Jesus and came to faith in Him. After spending four years in prison camps at the hands of the Khmer Rouge Barnabas emerged as one of only 200 surviving Christians in all of Cambodia. God raised him up to became the foremost evangelist and church planter in a land broken by genocide. An inspiring story on a personal, church, and national level, this is more than a narrative--it's a blueprint for success for church growth of the most powerful kind.

Enduring and influential early Christian texts. The writings of the Apostolic Fathers give a rich and diverse picture of Christian life and thought in the period immediately after New Testament times. Some of them were accorded almost Scriptural authority in the early Church. This new Loeb edition of these essential texts reflects current idiom and the latest scholarship. Here are the Letters of Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, among the most famous documents of early Christianity; these letters, addressing core theological questions, were written to a half dozen different congregations while Ignatius was en route to Rome as a prisoner, condemned to die in the wild-beast arena. Also in this collection is a letter to the Philippian church by Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna and friend of Ignatius, as well as an account of Polycarp's martyrdom. There are several kinds of texts in the Apostolic Fathers collection, representing different religious outlooks. The manual called the Didache sets forth precepts for religious instruction, worship, and ministry. The Epistle of Barnabas searches the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible, for testimony in support of Christianity and against Judaism. Probably the most widely read in the early Christian centuries was The Shepherd of Hermas, a book of revelations that develops a doctrine of repentance.