"It is evident after exploring these heroes' lives and writings that God remains a Mystery—a reality beyond images, descriptions, dogmas and creeds."—From the Epilogue How does a person imagine God? How does that image change as the person matures spiritually and undergoes a significant religious experience? What influences—political, social, gender, faith tradition—shape and change a person's view of God? In this compelling and inspiring book of biographical theology, Brennan Hill uses stories and historical and theological sources to tell us how eight modern religious heroes see God. Hill's religious heroes are diverse: a Hindu (Mahatma Gandhi), a Jewess who converted to Christianity (Edith Stein), a black Baptist minister (Martin Luther King, Jr.), a Catholic laywoman (Dorothy Day), a Salvadoran archbishop (Archbishop Oscar Romero), two Jesuit priests (Pierre Tielhard de Chardin and Daniel Berrigan) and a nun (Mother Teresa of Calcutta). Hill writes: "Many of my religious heroes lived out their faith in an outstanding manner. For all of these religious heroes God was often close at hand, deeply felt in the events of their lives, glimpsed in the people they met, pursuing them in their minds and hearts. God, as it were, came with many intriguing faces: as a God of truth, of the homeless and of the mountain. God came in the cosmos, as one beckoning to prophecy and as a fellow sufferer sharing the cross. Divinity appeared as the power of peace and in the poverty of the abandoned. Each one of us might now ask: What face has my God shown to me?"

Following the success of the best-selling 8 Spiritual Heroes: Their Search for God, Brennan Hill further explores biographical theology-a lived theology that comes out of experiences and events. In this current volume, Hill profiles heroes of freedom-men and women who lived as emancipators, liberators, stars of social justice. From the theological insights of Bernard Häring to the humble leadership of Cesar Chavez, to the life-risking heroics of Harriet Tubman to the lifelong bravery of Susan B. Anthony, the work of these heroes has established the freedoms we enjoy today. Their stories inspire the heroes of tomorrow.

In his third Heroes volume, Brennan Hill profiles eight improbable candidates for the great things they did: - Thomas Merton, at first glance, a party-going lady's man, becomes a Trappist monk and peace activist; - Helen Prejean, a quiet religious sister, befriends and advocates for the seemingly most monstrous among us--murderers on death row; - Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, a bookish, shy son of Italian immigrants, becomes one of the most outspoken prelates of our time; - Pedro Arrupe, a medical student then priest, survives nuclear holocaust and becomes a great Jesuit leader; - Jean Donovan, a Harley-riding businesswoman, turns missionary and is martyred; - Dorothy Stang, a religious sister and schoolteacher, champions the environment and loses her life doing so; - Maximilian Kolbe, a sickly, eccentric Franciscan, turns publisher and "warrior" for peace and dies in Auschwitz trading his life for a Jewish prisoner; - Karol Wojtyla, a young Polish actor whose election to pope makes him one of the most famous men on the world stage. These unlikely heroes saw great injustice, sorrow, and violence in the world and, in their own ways--some small, some universal--sought and created love, justice, peace, and hope for our time.