Our publishing house welcomes these compassionate Christian voices of resilience and hope

COVER STORY—Today, Front Edge Publishing is joining with the new Reformed Journal Books in unveiling the cover of our first joint venture in what both teams of media professionals hope will become an ongoing series bringing readers thoughtful, helpful books for individual reflection, group discussions and educational programs.

Please read this story and share this good news with friends via social media and email. That small act—sharing our stories—spread a bit of hope and healing in our troubled world. Please, help us spread this good news.

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From our authors—

Howard Brown, George A. Mason and Suzy Farbman

Encouraging Spiritual Resilience in a Time of Darkness

THE THEME OF SPIRITUAL RESILIENCE is central to the ongoing work of many of our writers. We are especially proud of the interfaith range of responses to the troubles in our world right now.

So first, we want to thank many of our friends for sending us messages of encouragement about our ReadTheSpirit cover story last week by Howard Brown, titled: Our Hearts Are Heavy, but We Must Keep Sharing Our Light with Others. Addressing the overwhelming violence globally and the rise in hate crimes across the U.S. is a challenging mission and Howard Brown walks a careful line in that cover story, pointing out practical ways we all can continue to do good work in our world. Of course, Howard has been involved in international peacemaking and interfaith work for many years as a representative of various Jewish organizations. Thank you, Howard, for your ongoing work!

SECOND, George A. Mason, author of the new Word Made Fresh, this week added a unique online meditation and prayer from his Christian perspective. George was in Israel when the attack from Gaza was launched, so feels especially close to that conflict. If you click on this link, you will jump to the first page of George’s multi-page reflection. Thank you, George!

And a final “thanks” as well to more than a dozen of our writers who have personally emailed our home office this week, asking how they can help to share some kind of positive message.

THIRD: Our longtime GodSigns author and columnist, Suzy Farbman, writes this week about an important truth about this journey through grief: It is long. We need to remember and honor that truth as we reach out to our neighbors. Please read and share Suzy’s column with friends, as well.

 

Dr. David Gushee

‘The Kingdom Ethics Podcast is Back!’

WITH THOSE WORDS, Christian ethicist Dr. David Gushee announced this week to his readers around the world that he is rejoining “my indefatigable protégé and friend Jeremy Hall … for an informal discussion about the various topics in my new book, Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies. If you listen in, maybe it’s almost like joining a book club discussion about the book. The first episode is here—or is available wherever you listen to podcasts.”

On October 1, our ReadTheSpirit interview with Dr. Gushee focused on this important new book. For a deeper dive into Dr. Gushee’s global approach to Christian ethics, you’ll want a copy of Introducing Christian Ethics, a unique book that also includes audio and video from Dr. Gushee.

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Holidays & Festivals

 

Light up the darkness! It’s Diwali.

MORE THAN A BILLION PEOPLE celebrate the Indian festival of lights, including observances in the United States. Holidays & Festivals columnist Stephanie Feton has the story for us.

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WANT TO SEE ALL OF THE UPCOMING HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS?—It’s easy to find our annual calendar of global observances. Just remember the web address: InterfaithHolidays.com

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Faith & Film

ED McNULTY, for decades, has published reviews, magazine articles and books exploring connections between faith and film. Most of his work is freely published. Ed supports his work by selling the Visual Parables Journal, a monthly magazine packed with film reviews and discussion guides. This resource is used nationwide by individuals who love the movies and by educators, clergy and small-group leaders.

Here are some of Ed’s most recent free reviews and columns:

• BROTHER OUTSIDER: THE LIFE OF BAYARD RUSTIN—Ed recommends that we look back and watch this 2003 film—as background for the upcoming biopic Rustin, which hits theaters November 3 and is streamed on Netflix the 17^th.
• KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON—Ed writes, “We are indebted to master filmmaker Martin Scorsese that during the process of co-writing this film he switched from making it a police procedural show centered on a white detective and focused instead on the Osage Indians who were being victimized by the greed of their white neighbors.”
• MEDICINE MAN: THE BRIAN BROCK STORY—”In director Paul Michael Angell’s documentary, we discover a man whose concern for health care has benefitted hundreds of thousands of people, even though he was not a doctor.”
• MY SAILOR, MY LOVE—”Director Klaus Härö’s film could be seen as a variation on the classic story Beauty and the Beast, with James Cosmo’s grumpy, retired sea captain Howard a good stand-in for the Beast.”
• NOWHERE—”Director Albert Pintó’s film is a paean to motherhood, a story in which a timid woman discovers an indomitable will to survive, not for herself, but for her new-born child who is totally dependent upon her.”
• FLORA AND SON—”Director/writer John Carney has given us a delightful ode to mother-son relationship.”
• FREETOWN—”Director Garrett Batty’s is a faith film but not one that preaches at you. His script, which he wrote with co-writer Melissa Leilani Larson, tells the true story of a small group of Liberian Morman missionaries caught up in one of the civil wars that ravished that nation.”
• SIMPLE JUSTICE—”This 1993 docudrama from the PBS series American Experience is a wonderful history lesson filling in the details of the Supreme Court’s decision that knocked down the separate-but-equal decision.”
• FREMONT—”Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali’s film about a refugee from Afghanistan is the second immigrant or refugee film that I have seen within the same week. But it is as different from The Swimmers as possible.”
• THE SWIMMERS—Ed highly recommends this film, based on a true story, about “two teenage girls who were among the Syrians forced to flee their war-torn nation and risk the dangerous waters of the Aegean Sea.”

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