What happens when three American women put their faith into action in a developing nation? In I Am That Child, Episcopal priest Elizabeth Geitz proves that cross-cultural relationships among people of faith can change our world one person at a time. Geitz welcomes readers to join her pilgrimage to an orphanage in Cameroon, sharing both humorous and gut-wrenching wisdom from leaders and children who struggle against AIDS, global poverty and sexism. Along the way, Geitz and readers take a hard look at race and cultural privilege and find hope for reconciliation back home. The book concludes with study and resource guides to help readers engage global poverty efforts and build community across continents or across the street.
Timely, informative reflections on the relationship between poverty and Christianity, the responsibilities of the haves and have-nots, and the lessons Christians can learn from the poor.
In a culture built on consumption--especially of food--it is easy to forget the poor that Jesus cared so much about. Following the pattern of his successful Advent Conspiracy, Chris Seay invites readers on a journey of self-examination, discipline, and renewed focus on Jesus that will change their lives forever.
He challenges readers to eat like the poor for forty days in solidarity with a much-neglected group of people, and to donate the money they save on groceries to a charity or project that serves the poor in concrete ways. But he doesn't expect them to go it alone. A Place at the Table includes a short chapter for each of those forty days with Scripture, reflections, prayers, encouragement, and tips for engaging the whole family in the process. The six-session DVD, shot in such locations as the Holy Land, Haiti, and Ecuador, will help small groups and entire churches go on a passionate journey of radical faith, personal action, solidarity with the poor, and extravagant grace.
Be it fair trade coffee or foreign oil, our choices as consumers affect the well-being of humans around the globe, not to mention the natural world and of course ourselves. Consumption is a serious ethical issue, and Christian writers throughout history have weighed in, discussing topics such as affluence and poverty, greed and gluttony, and proper stewardship of resources. These voices are often at odds, however. In this book, Laura M. Hartman formulates a coherent Christian ethic of consumption, imposing order on the debate by dividing it into four imperatives: Christians are to consume in ways that avoid sin, embrace creation, love one's neighbor, and envision the future. An adequate ethics of consumption, she argues, must include all four considerations as tools for discernment, even when they seem to contradict one another. The book includes discussions of Christian practices such as fasting, gratitude, solidarity, gift-giving, Sabbath-keeping, and the Eucharist. Using exemplars from the Christian tradition and practical examples from everyday life, The Christian Consumer offers a thoughtful guide to ethical consumption.
This groundbreaking book is distinctive for the explicit attention it gives to the communal, intersubjective, cultural, and linguistic embodiment of the workings of God in the world. It emphasizes not simply acting justly but living with, in, and from the justice of the triune God by which we are justified. Finally, it offers an important sacramental and liturgical grounding to the Christian understanding of both justice and the triune God. David N. Power and Michael Downey make clear to contemporary believers why a spiritual and sacramental life that is ordered by its trinitarian orientation must include the desire for justice. In short, it is an ethic of social justice that springs from contemplation of the Divine Trinity in the world.
