Revelation By Hans Memling

In this paper, I will review Charles Ryrie’s book The Holy Spirit. I will detail what I feel the book is about. I will emphasize various points given by the author that stood out to me. Finally, I will give my personal evaluation of the book.

The quote "Character is what you are in the dark" - Dwight Lyman Moody has a few meanings. Mostly it means that you're different when you're alone. When you're around people they are influences of some sort. If you get into a situation when you're with people you might react differently than if you were alone, resulting in a different outcome. A lot of the time people aren't their true self around friends, or family, or whoever it may be for many reasons. A big reason is they don't want to be judged. Maybe they wanna look "cool" or get popular for something. Maybe they think they'll be looked at differently for being who they truly are. So basically fear of what others think keeps us from being who we really are. Fear can make us act different,

Michael Wigglesworth’s poem, “The Day of Doom” describes the ideals of Judgement Day; when at last, the Puritans would meet and be tried before God. This poem was arguably one of the most prevalent pieces of literature at the time of its release. Puritan principles regarding fearing God were recurrent in texts aimed toward people of all ages. A workbook known as The New England Primer, was geared towards teaching young readers not only about reading, but about the fundamentals of their faith. The New England Primer assists in explaining Michael Wigglesworth’s poem, “The Day of Doom,” through the concepts of original sin, depravity, providence, and absolute sovereignty.

The book I read for my Political Science class was In God's Underground, by Richard Wurmbrand.

Darkness at Noon, written by British novelist Arthur Koestler in 1940, is a criticism of Stalinism and the methods used by the Communist Party in the USSR. The novel was set in 1938 during the Stalinist Great Purge and Moscow show trials. Even though the story depicts actual occurrences, it does not specifically name either Russia or the USSR, but the characters do have Russian names while other generic terms are used to depict individuals and associations. For instance, the Soviet government is alluded to as "the Party" and Nazi Germany is alluded to as "the Dictatorship." Joseph Stalin, a terrorizing dictator, is represented by "Number One." The novel is a strong and moving picture of a Communist revolutionary caught up in the terror

The Great Awakening was a revival of religion in the early American colonies. Some will say that the awakening had negative effects on the colonies, maybe, but overall I believe the Great Awakening had a positive effect and opened the eyes of the colonist, showing them truths of living in the New World and of things that could come for its future. These effects that the Great Awakening had on the early colonies is greatly studied and looked at, because it was what set the ground work for the religious views we have today in our country. Three sources, given to me, telling of the effects that the revival of religion had on early America was quite interesting to me. I found them to be a great insight to the basis of how the revival effected

Often times we are at a loss for words when it comes to talking about the person of the Holy Spirit. Beth Felker Jones in her work entitled “God the Spirit” serves as an introduction to the study of the Holy Spirit in a distinctly Wesleyan and Ecumenical Perspective. Jones is working against the notion that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is often the most neglected of all Christian teachings (1). She recognizes her experience within the Wesleyan tradition as one that shapes her pneumatology and this book. She asserts that one of Wesleyan Christianity’s special gifts is it’s “leaning against any tendency to neglect the Spirit” (4). Even with this framework she aims to place the Wesleyan perspective in a larger ecumenical milieu that shows the continuity of a Wesleyan pneumatology with the Tradition of the Church. Overall, her approach is very accessible, as she assumes very little and writes in such a way that allows her to cover large dogmatic topics clearly and concisely. By merit of simply being an introduction only style book, there is the risk of glossing over topics and not providing enough in depth discussion to fully understand and comprehend the doctrine discussed. A reader should feel confident that Jones has indeed provided us with a solid introduction to Wesleyan pneumatology that has the ability to bear fruit and initiate growth in the life of the believer.

Howard Thurman removes the window dressing in the African American experience of segregation in America. Thurman in his book, “The Luminous Darkness” paints an obscure portrait that delved deep into the consciousness of Black men, women and children freshly freed from chattel slavery. Two hundred years of slavery and one hundred years of darkness seeping into each soul perpetuated by an evil explained only through the Word of God. Although this book was published in the 60’s, the stigma segregation continues resonate in the souls of those who remember and perhaps even in the souls of those who do not.

America’s answer for dealing with crime prevention is locking up adult offenders in correctional facilities with little rehabilitation for reentry into society. American response for crime prevention for juvenile’s offenders is the same strategy used against adult offenders taken juvenile offenders miles away from their environment and placed in adult like prisons.

Social change comes from a societies understanding and acceptance of controversial topics, laws that enforce social norms and the politics that play a role in such change. The author Gerald Rosenberg of “The Hollow Hope” believes that the Supreme Court is able to bring about social change. Rosenburg main argument seemed to be questioning if a courts ruling that had once been accepted and had standing for several years were to be over turned, would the environment outside of the courtroom suddenly change and be accepting of their division.

All the light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, chronicles the lives and relationship between Marie and Werner, two children who grew up in France and Germany. The society around them forces discriminatory ideals that cloud their perception of the world, but they find its meaning through their own self-definition. In this, they are both guided by a single radio and the message and legacy that it contains. Throughout the book, the author isolated the two characters, but also created subtle connections between the two. The most important of which would be the radio. It created a bond between the two where they learned from each other’s experiences and struggles. All the Light We Cannot See recreates a new picture of the world by contrasting the two separate journeys taken by Marie- Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig to gain that image, which is guided by the power of a radio and the message it contains, ultimately leading to the meeting of the two characters that officially forms an image of the world where one’s actions are valued more than one’s physical features.

In the introduction of the book, Levitt and Dubner use scenarios from history and everyday events that explain how in many of them, generally accepted beliefs, known as conventional wisdom, are wrong. For example, they mention a scenario in which crime rates in the 1990’s were expected to rise greatly; however, they dropped to its lowest level in 35 years. Due to conventional wisdom, people predicted the increase in crime rates, crime was deemed unstoppable.

The Indigenous Australian imagination perceives the way of the world and all that exists as not the result of a singular force or mind, but, rather, the result of powerful totemic ancestral beings who once roamed the land. This ontological tradition, known as “The Dreaming”, serves as an infinite link between past and present, people and place, and both the natural and spiritual world. “The Dreaming,” then, asserts that all of humanity and nature in its entirety is alive and connected. In his ethnographic account titled, Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self, Fred Myers examines the importance of The Dreaming to Pintupi society and its centrality in the constitution of their lived world. Descriptions of what happened in The Dreaming underlie Pintupi social relationships and constructions of “country.” It is through this mythological construct that the Pintupi Aboriginal people mediate their relationships with the land and negotiate aspects of personhood and identity.

I my book The Titans Curse I admire Percy Jackson (the main character) he never gives up when he is a war he did not stop fighting even though he was outnumbered and did stop believing in himself and his friends I think the author Rick Riordan wanted the readers to preserver even if you don't think you can do it and want to give up don't and finish want you always wanted to and strive for perfection or victory.

Throughout his novel Everything Flows, Vasily Grossman provides numerous occasions for defining freedom. In the midst of attempting to give meaning to freedom, Grossman greatly invests in wrestling with the issue of why freedom is still absent within Russia although the country has seen success in many different ways. Through the idea and image of the Revolution stems Capitalism, Leninism, and Stalinism. Grossman contends that freedom is an inexorable occurrence and that “to live means to be free”, that it is simply the nature of human kind to be free (200-204). The lack of freedom expresses a lack of humanity in Russia, and though freedom never dies, if freedom does not exist in the first place, then it has no chance to be kept alive. Through Grossman’s employment of the Revolution and the ideas that stem from it, he illustrates why freedom is still absent from Russian society, but more importantly why the emergence of freedom is inevitable.