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In the twenty-first century, American culture is experiencing a profound shift toward pluralism and secularization. In Fairy Tales in Contemporary American Culture: How We Hate to Love Them, Kate Koppy argues that the increasing popularity and presence of fairy tales within American culture is both indicative of and contributing to this shift. By analyzing contemporary fairy tale texts as both new versions in a particular tale type and as wholly new fairy-tale pastiches, Koppy shows that fairy tales have become a key part of American secular scripture, a corpus of shared stories that work to maintain a sense of community among diverse audiences in the United States, as much as biblical scripture and associated texts used to.
Written as a series of reflections, this book is a conversation-shifting exploration of how the church understands the role of missionaries and their work. On bicycle and riverboat journeys totaling more than 2000 kilometers, Bob's team visits Pastors, Chiefs, and Warlords in remote towns, including Rev. Jacky Mwayuma (pictured at left with a parishoner), who was appointed to serve a community that had been ravaged by the recent war. As readers are pulled deeper into this voyage, they are invited to wrestle with increasingly challenging questions about the mission of the church, the global economy, neocolonialism, savior complexes, racism, war, and justice. This book follows The Last Missionary, but it also stands on its own as a complete work.
This collection of essays examines the various dynamic processes by which texts are preserved, transmitted, and modified in medieval multi-text codices, focusing on the meanings generated by new contexts and the possible reader experiences provoked by novel configurations and material presentation. Containing essays on text collections from many different European countries and in a wide range of medieval languages, this volume sheds new light on common trends and regional differences in the history of book production and reading practices.
We all know that healthy partnerships are essential to fruitful boundary-crossing ministries, but how exactly do we create them? What barriers must be overcome, and what self-examination must we do? How do the legacies of colonialism, racism, and unhealed trauma impact missional collaborations today? In this doctoral thesis, Denyer reflects on these questions as she examines the history of relational dynamics between American and Congolese United Methodists in the North Katanga Conference (DR Congo). By surveying memoirs, magazines, and journals, and conducting in-depth interviews, Denyer presents a complex and multifaceted example of a partnership that is in the process of decolonizing. More than just a history lesson, Decolonizing Mission Partnerships presents the questions, hard truths, pitfalls, and toxic assumptions we must face when attempting to be in mission together.
What exactly are fairy tales and how did they get their name? Have you ever wondered what fairy tales were like before Walt Disney got his hands on them? And who the heck are these Grimm brothers? Fairy Tales 101 is your one-stop shop for these answers and more, giving you all the dirt on the people who have shaped fairy-tale history and exploring the many ways fairy tales have shape-shifted their way into literature and pop culture. This book also prepares you to think like a fairy-tale scholar by examining how tales are transmitted, by whom, and why. Whether you're a scholar aspiring to join the fairy-tale conversation, a writer or an artist who uses fairy tales in their work, or simply a ...
Four hundred years ago, an expedition set forth from the Commonwealth of Humanity to colonize new worlds and expand the boundaries of human settlement. The expedition eventually settled four new planets—but never heard from the Commonwealth again. Now, facing a relentless and unstoppable enemy, the League of Four Worlds must attempt a daring mission to travel hundreds of light-years back to Commonwealth space for help. But does the Commonwealth exist, and if it does, will it be able to help?
Living into a less colonial way of being together. Methodism and American Empire investigates historical trajectories and theological developments that connect American imperialism since World War II to the Methodist tradition as a global movement. The volume asks: to what extent is United Methodists’ vision of the globe marred by American imperialism? Through historical analyses and theological reflections, this volume chronicles the formation of an understanding of The United Methodist Church since the mid-20th century that is both global and at the same time dominated by American interests and concerns. Methodism and American Empire provides a historical and theological perspective to u...
The Last Missionary is a bicycle adventure story set in remote districts in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Bob Walters travels with a team of Congolese colleagues discovering the state of the villages run over by the Pan-African war that devastated the region’s people through the terror of rape and the killing of millions. Along the way, Bob offers the reader a number of short tutorials and reflections on missiology, the study of mission systems. He ponders patronage and cargo cults, and asks the question, “Is Jesus the answer?” But this is not an answer book, it is a book in search of better questions. The Last Missionary is a challenge to both evangelicals and progressives in the church, missionaries and mission volunteers, and even non-religious aid workers.
Award-winning historian Cassandra A. Good shows how the outspoken stepgrandchildren of George Washington played an overlooked but important role in the development of American society and politics from the Revolution to the Civil War. While it’s widely known in America that George and Martha Washington never had children of their own, few are aware that they raised numerous children together. In First Family, we see Washington as a father figure, as well as meet the children he helped raise and trace their complicated roles in American history. The children of Martha Washington’s son by her first marriage—Eliza, Patty, Nelly and Wash Custis—were born into life in the public eye. Rais...