Valuable not only for their sublime musical expression, the African American spirituals provide profound insights into the human condition and Christian life. Many spirituals focus on the climax of the Christian drama, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the ways in which those events bring about the liberation of Gods people. In these devotions for the season of Lent, Luke A. Powery leads the reader through the spirituals as they confront the mystery of Christs atoning death and victory over the grave. Each selection includes the lyrics of the spiritual, a reflection by the author on the spirituals meaning, a Scripture verse related to that meaning, and a brief prayer.

With her mother off to New York City to study art, fourteen-year-old Jamie is frustrated and confused by her dreams of life in the big city and the realities of life in her predictable small town with her father and younger brother.

This one-of-a-kind new book invites readers to immerse themselves in the life and times of Jesus in an extraordinarily unique way--through the engaging paintings of DiCianni.

Contemporary Christian theology continues to struggle with the tragedy of inexplicable human suffering and the endurance of evil. The pressing issue of "Where is God?" in seemingly godless situations provides the focus of Were You There? Godforsakenness in Slave Religion. In this book, David Emmanuel Goatley investigates the doctrine of God in relation to the experience of those living under conditions of extreme oppression. In this experience of "Godforsakenness" Goatley finds an echo of Jesus' poignant cry from the cross, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" Were You There? approaches this question through a narrative methodology, particularly by examining the slave narratives as well as the spirituals that were products of the same era. Both these sources provide important ways of viewing the experience of "Godforsakenness" and the problem of God's presence or absence in the extremities and absurdities of human suffering. Using these insights as a hermeneutic, Were You There? then proceeds to an interpretation of Jesus' cry of dereliction in Mark.

Beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane and concluding at the tomb, this work offers a powerful, yet personal rendition of the Passion of Jesus. Based on John Paul II's Scriptural Way of the Cross, first prayed by the Pope on March 29,1991, this work's purpose is to renew a time honored devotion. This book makes the journey come alive through its personal and dramatic style.