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About the Contributor(s):Leon Sims has been fortunate to have two careers. As a United Methodist pastor, he served churches in south central Texas during the early years of his ministry. At midpoint he specialized in pastoral care, working as chaplain and psychotherapist in health care institutions. He is former Director of the Center for Counseling and Wellness, Methodist Healthcare System of San Antonio, Texas, and now works part time in private practice.

As a poetic drama, The Stone Ship transports readers on a lifetime''s voyage of discovery. Jerome, an amnesiac, wonders how he became a monastic porter at Cloistergarth. His search for the lost years becomes a deep well from which all the fragments of his past emerge; the demonized adolescent rescued by the ghost of his admonitory mother; the pius twelve-year-old who relives the passion play with his siblings; and the boy of eight who declares, Wasn''t no ghost came back! Don''t know where he is, but my dad isn''t dead. And who is the youth of twenty-three, pursuing priestly studies, but badgered by peers, visits the brawling town Magdalene? While Eli, the extortionist, lays his blackmail trap for the youth.The Sabat nightmare ensues. Whether real or hallucinatory, it delivers at the climax a blow to the stricken conscience of the youth, and a blinding lucidity of recall to the monk.Later, the boy attempts suicide but is caught in the fisherman''s nets. Sent off to the Confessor, he is absolved, and the inevitable Lethean river descends. Upon his embarkation, Jerome knows the immense joy of going home as a son to his Father''s good pleasure.Dunstan Massey is a monk of Westminster Abbey in Mission, Canada, and a faculty member of the Seminary of Christ the King. He is a sculptor, fresco painter, poet, and the author of The Mystic Mountain (2002).

We live in a society where the value of an individual is distilled into impersonal numbers, reduced to a mere target for marketing campaigns and newsflashes that scroll across our screens or are texted to thousands. The individual may be discarded just as quickly, disappearing into a morass of numbers to be instantaneously replaced. The Apostle Paul saw things differently in his letter to Philemon. He overcame spiritual, sociological, and status differences to restore the personal value of one runaway slave called Onesimus. This book is about how easily we can overlook a person, even one who is close to us and valued by God. It is about God giving us the honor of participating in someone''s life, even if only for a moment, to become part of a discovery that will forever alter that person''s direction--and perhaps our own. This story teaches us to never minimize the significance of any individual, look negatively at our own circumstances, or trivialize opportunities placed in our path during life''s journey. God has individuals for us all to meet, however briefly, to engage in mutual discovery of our human value. (In)Visible shows how Jesus leads us to discover people who are of value to him so they might be transformed and ""returned"" to others, and to God, as better for having met us.In the book of Philemon, the Apostle Paul called Onesimus ''useful.'' So would I label Dr. Arthur Ammann. While serving as head of Pediatric Immunology at UCSF Medical School, he discovered the link between blood transfusion and HIV/AIDS. Now mothers and children in developing countries benefit from his knowledge and connections through Global Strategies for HIV Prevention. This useful man now draws on those experiences to share his thoughts on the biblical book of Philemon so that we too can become useful.--Diane M. Komp, author of The Healer''s HeartJesus called us to love one another as he loved us, and (In)Visible is a clarion reissuing of that call to go beyond the ''spiritually gated communities'' in which we are prone to live. By telling of the Apostle Paul''s relationship with Onesimus and his own relationships with family and friends, a taxi driver, a fellow camp worker, and a wise, young patient, Arthur Ammann--in illuminating dialogue with Barbara McClennan--shows that God''s grace knows no boundaries of age, class, or origin. In our life-stifling culture of overwork and depersonalized relations, this lean book offers aerobics for the soul.--Susan S. Phillips, author of CandlelightArthur J. Ammann, MD, is Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the UCSF School of Medicine and founder of Global Strategies, a nonprofit organization partnering with healthcare providers in some of the poorest countries in the world. As a lifelong advocate for compassionate care of the disadvantaged, he has traveled extensively, published widely, and spoken worldwide on the intersection between healthcare, science and technology, government, and religious institutions in impacting the individual. His most recent book is Women, HIV, and the Church.Barbara McLennan was born and raised in Chicago, IL, and attended St. Olaf College and Wheaton College. As an artist and a writer, Barbara speaks and writes on the intersection of faith, creativity, and everyday life. Before collaborating with Dr. Ammann, Barbara edited The Season for Reflection: Stories from Bill Starr''s Life.

The book assumes that in learning to translate the Greek New Testament, it is necessary to know (a) the Greek letters, (b) the alterations to the roots, (c) the rules of agreement, and (d) the vocabulary. By comparing the original Greek against the English translation, the author considerably reduces the effort needed to accomplish this worthwhile adventure. Many students who have used this book have enjoyed it, and one student who succeeded admirably in his study of Greek without Tears writes: The notes were brief and very clear, the illustrations graphic and sometimes humorous, and the concepts easily understood and retained. These notes shall ever be among my choicest and most treasured compilation of theological study material!Ted Edwards was Principal of Regent College of the Caribbean (formerly Jamaica Bible College). Known as a gifted administrator, teacher, and scholar, he obtained Distinction in Greek grammar, syntax, and composition at the University of London. His love for Spanish and Latin, which he has taught for many years, inspired his passionate study of Greek. His aim is to foster such love for Greek among Christians that they will desire to read the New Testament in its original tongue. He is also the author of Let Us Reason Concerning Tongues (1978).

How Jews and Christians Interpret Their Sacred Texts is a comparative textual study that demonstrates the connections between the Hebrew Scriptures, sacred to both Judaism and Christianity, and the Jewish Talmud and Christian New Testament, which respectively became the bases for all modern systems of the two faiths. Even as official interpretations changed from ""plain sense"" to more elaborate explications, commentators in both faith systems continued to hold to the position that their conclusions were not only based firmly upon the initial authoritative text, but were in fact the natural extension and continuation of it. To describe these classical and early post-classical appropriations, Isbell discusses the ""transvaluation"" of texts, or efforts to retain the core values of authoritative sacred texts that are bound to specific times and situations while seeking to extrapolate from these ancient documents meanings that are relevant to current faith and praxis. As Isbell shows, transvaluation presupposes both the freedom and the necessity of reinterpreting perceived timeless teachings in light of historical, theological, sociological, and political developments that occurred long after the composition of the texts themselves.Charles David Isbell is Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Louisiana State University. He has authored more than two hundred scholarly articles and eight books, the most recent of which is Sermons from a Southern Rabbi (2009).

Inner Messiah, Divine Character encourages readers to deploy their imaginations in describing their lives as a confluence of narrative constructs to identify, analyze, and overcome obstacles and destructive patterns in both their personal and professional lives. The book promotes a three-point strategy to empower and to improve readers' attitudes about their personal and professional struggles. Drawing on the scholarship of Ancient Jewish mysticism and its influence on Freudian and Jungian analysis, Inner Messiah, Divine Character helps readers discover the "Be" within their "Being" to create new opportunities in the present, motivates readers to perceive "Beyond" their limitations and ordinary expectations, and encourages readers to strive for the superlative in their endeavors to achieve their "Best."

Virtually all scholars agree that Jesus did one very risky thing: he exorcised demons. Exorcism was an illicit activity in the Roman world, so why would Jesus risk condemnation, arrest, and even death for the sake of the demon-possessed? Some point to his compassion. Roger Busse, a thirty-nine-year veteran of risk analysis and a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, has another answer from the world in which he lives: risk assessment. People engage in risky ventures only when not doing so would pose even greater risks. What was the greater risk for Jesus? He believed that his land and home, then suffering under foreign occupation, was filled with demons. He believed that if he did not drive them off, all might be lost and the forces of darkness might win out, leaving only the kingdom of Satan. Given this context, Busse reassesses the gospel traditions. Using risk analysis, Busse provides a new approach that recovers the specific charismatic practices, sayings, and parables that the exorcist Jesus' employed in his deliberate and dangerous strategy to drive Satan from the land and reestablish the kingdom of God. To Be Near the Fire offers a new portrait of Jesus and the origins of Christianity.

As a freshman in college, Rachel Murr found herself trying to decide which campus social group to join: the gay and lesbian advocacy group or the campus Christian fellowship. She knew it couldn't be both. For the next fifteen years she held onto the belief that she couldn't be both gay and Christian. When the pain involved in trying not to be lesbian called for a change in theology, she came out to her evangelical church. Conflict ensued.Unnatural is a collection of stories--not only of the harm religiously-inspired negative messages about homosexuality inflict, but also of redemption. Rachel uses her own story as well as personal interviews with ten other queer women and one female-to-male transgender man to tell how they were judged, lectured, kicked out of homes and families, subjected to reparative therapies, and even assaulted. Some faced homelessness, depression, suicide attempts, and pervasive shame. Still, they fought to keep their faith alive. Each demonstrated an Unnatural ability to forgive, love, believe, advocate, and heal.

Do you consume God's blessings, or do you share them?Most Christians are consumers. We are obsessed with knowing the right theology and following the right set of rules in hopes that God will bless us. Yet, no matter how much God blesses us, we are still looking for more. James says our faith is dead. But there is another type of Christian, one who craves being put to work as the servant of God to share God's blessings with others. Their faith spurs them on to become the hands and feet of Christ. James says their faith is alive. James in the Suburbs is far more than your ordinary Bible study guide. It is also a parable--an energizing story of the lives of six men and women--that wraps itself around the Epistle of James, making its teachings immediately applicable to modern life. You will walk away with not only a thorough understanding of the epistle, but also the unforgettable story of people just like you, whose lives the Holy Spirit turned upside down. This book can be read casually by an individual or studied within a group. The final chapter provides everything readers need for a guided twelve-week study.

Trouble in the Diocese is a petulant, funny book of poetry. Its contrary protagonist/antagonist, the Apprentice, embraces life in both the large and the absurdly small. At the same time, he emphatically rejects the easy rigidity of doily-headed orthodox Catholics as well as the impulse in the Catholic literary Pixar world that seeks to serve two masters.Jesus and his Church are lifted up here, but so is the cross. Discipleship necessarily involves dis-ease, purgation, and if we as readers have any sense, we will--more quietly perhaps--do well to listen (with patience) to his rants.