Can Hope Endure

Download or read book Can Hope Endure? written by James C. Kennedy and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The spate of books written recently on Christian higher education highlights a common theme -- how numerous colleges founded by church bodies have gradually lost their religious moorings, often culminating in what historian George Marsden calls "established nonbelief." Can Hope Endure? examines the history of Hope College in Holland, Michigan, as it has struggled to find a faithful middle way between secularization and withdrawal from mainstream academic and American culture. Authors James Kennedy and Caroline Simon track Hope College's responses to various social and intellectual challenges through careful analysis of school records, newspaper stories, extant histories, and interviews with faculty members and past presidents. Hope's history reveals that the school is exceptional, having followed the predictable trajectory, yet changing course in some ways. Given this unusual history, the story of why and how Hope College moved toward reestablishing the role of religion in its institutional life yields important lessons for other schools facing the same challenges. Neither an attack on Hope College nor the kind of celebratory institutional history that so many schools have authorized, this book is instead a thoughtful, instructive study written by two professors who have witnessed firsthand many of Hope's struggles to retain its identity and purpose. The book's narrative is enriched by the "binocular vision" provided by a professional historian and a professional philosopher, and collaboration has afforded Kennedy and Simon the critical distance necessary to ask hard questions about Hope and, by extension, other institutions like it. Can Hope Endure? will be of real interest not only to readers associated with Hope College but also to those following or participating in the ongoing conversation about Christianity and higher education.

Download or read book Hope Endures written by Colette Livermore and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-12-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The searing memoir of an extraordinary woman who served as a nun for eleven years in Mother Teresa's order, Hope Endures is a compelling chronicle of idealistic determination, rigid discipline, and shattering disillusionment. InÊher life's journey from certainty to doubt, Colette Livermore enters the Missionaries of Charity order in 1973 with unwavering faith and total surrender ofÊher will and intellect after seeing a documentary on the order's work in India. Only eighteen at the time, Livermore has been studying to enter medical school -- a lifelong goal -- but virtually overnight severs her many ties with family, friends, and the life she's known in beautiful, rural New South Wales in order to train as a sister to aid the poor. In the process, she also gives herself over to the order's unexpectedly severe, ascetic regime, which demands blind obedience and submission. Given the religious name Sister Tobit, Livermore serves in some of the poorest places in the world -- the garbage dump slums of Manila, Papua New Guinea, and Calcutta -- bringing hope and care to people who are desperately ill, hungry, abandoned, and even dying, and comforting whomever she can. Although she draws inspiration and strength from her humanitarian work, Livermore and other nuns risk their own physical health, as they are sent to dangerous areas while being unschooled in the languages and cultures, untrained in medical care, and sometimes unprotected by vaccines. Livermore herself succumbs to bouts of drug-resistant cerebral malaria that almost kill her and to a new strain of hepatitis. Over time she also beginsÊto notice that the order's rigid insistence on unquestioning obedience harms the young sisters mentally, emotionally, and spiritually -- and she experiences a terrible inner struggle to find the right path for herself. As she tries to respond to the suffering around her, she often falls into an incomprehensible conflict between her vow to obey and her vow to serve, between religious strictures and the practice of compassion, between authority and personal conscience. Pressured to stay with the order by Mother Teresa and other superiors, as well as by the younger nuns, Livermore nonetheless decides to leave at age thirty and attain her medical degree, continuing to take health care and relief to impoverished people in remote areas -- the isolated aboriginal communities of the Outback and war-torn East Timor. Even as she serves others as a medical doctor, she continues in a crisis of faith thatÊeventually leads her to become an agnostic. Hope Endures is the eye-opening, deeply affecting story of a brave woman's search for meaning in a world that is rent with tragedies and contradictions. It is also an unflinching critique of any faith that insists on blind obedience. For true hope to endure, Dr. Livermore demonstrates, we must always strive to question, to face the hard truths, and to discover the courage to follow our convictions.

Download or read book Stitches written by Anne Lamott and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller from the author of Dusk, Night, Dawn, Hallelujah Anyway, Bird by Bird, and Almost Everything “Lamott’s …most insightful book yet, Stitches offers plenty of her characteristic witty wisdom…this slim, readable volume [is] a lens on life, widening and narrowing, encouraging each reader to reflect on what it is, after all, that really matters.”—People What do we do when life lurches out of balance? How can we reconnect to one other and to what’s sustaining, when evil and catastrophe seem inescapable? These questions lie at the heart of Stitches, Lamott’s profound follow-up to her New York Times–bestselling Help, Thanks, Wow. In this book Lamott explores how we find meaning and peace in these loud and frantic times; where we start again after personal and public devastation; how we recapture wholeness after loss; and how we locate our true identities in this frazzled age. We begin, Lamott says, by collecting the ripped shreds of our emotional and spiritual fabric and sewing them back together, one stitch at a time. It’s in these stitches that the quilt of life begins, and embedded in them are strength, warmth, humor, and humanity.

Download or read book Endure written by MR Ian a Warner and published by Cover Ground. This book was released on 2014-06-04 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Olympian Ian Warner explains why life is not about winning but about enduring and understanding we are being prepared for God's purposes. Ian Warner demonstrates the power of endurance through various journeys, personal inspirations, and biblical stories. Fifty athletes share their testimonies and explain the gut-wrenching details of their most difficult athletic experiences. You will gain: Ways to ENDURE anything New perspectives on sports and life Inspiration from quotes and bible verses Inspiration from powerful biblical stories Understanding of the purpose of endurance Different perspectives on success Stories of endurance from over 50 athletes

Download or read book Revelation written by and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.

Download or read book Radical written by David Platt and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestseller What is Jesus worth to you? It's easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily... But who do you know who lives like that? Do you? In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple--then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard. And he tells the dramatic story of what is happening as a "successful" suburban church decides to get serious about the gospel according to Jesus. Finally, he urges you to join in The Radical Experiment -- a one-year journey in authentic discipleship that will transform how you live in a world that desperately needs the Good News Jesus came to bring.

Download or read book The Gift of Disillusionment written by Peter Greer and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2022-04-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hope for Leaders Facing Burnout and Discouragement Around the world, discouragement erodes the vitality of organizations. Visionaries often succumb to cynicism. Zealous advocates give up. Leaders coast as their passion for the cause grows cold. Grounded in research, this book is an invitation for followers of Jesus to sustain hope in long-term service. It's about moving past the false hope of idealism and the faint hope of disillusionment to discover true Christian hope. You will gain encouragement through the study of the book of Jeremiah woven throughout as the authors explore how the Lord prophetically met and sustained Jeremiah during his lifetime of faithfulness despite literally nothing going as he'd hoped. Glean further inspiration by reading the stories of Christian leaders from around the globe: Zimbabwe, Haiti, Guatemala, Poland, Palestine, the Philippines, India, Zambia, and Lebanon. For this is a moment when we need the global Church's perspective and influence. Don't give up and don't check out. These are confounding and perilous days, yet God's sustaining presence can bring joy, hope, and encouragement even amid heartache and disappointment.