The Babylonian Exile And The Color Purple Essay

• May believe that accomplishment of one goal or activity fulfills obligations to minority communities; may engage in token hiring practices.

Desperate to escape the despotic government, many people from Judah turned to false gods and idolatry.6 Pleading to God for rescue from such an immoral, faithless place, Habakkuk learned that the situation of Judah would be rectified in time.7 God said that He had prepared a chastising rod and that Babylon would be the avenging instrument of the just Judeans.8 After the Babylonians expelled Jehoiakim from the throne, God emancipated the Judeans and relieved the heinous social situation. In the end, Habakkuk knew that the just Israelite would not perish from the calamities of the Babylonian attacks;9 he knew that righteousness and faith would prevail. Instead of rectifying the situation at once, the Chaldean empire took control and continued to treat the Judeans harshly. Furthermore, Habakkuk became angry and questioned God again. Nevertheless, he heeded to the previous words of God and kept his faith. Before humanity lost faithfulness, Habakkuk needed to spread this message throughout the empire to save the Judeans. Habakkuk had to extend the word of God to all oppressed people, so he wrote in a style the Israelites could grasp.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's “The Minister's Black Veil” there are many secrets, many dark areas, both literal and metaphorical. An intensely private man who allowed few to know him well, Nathaniel Hawthorne was fascinated by the dark secrets of human nature. One of the first American writers to explore his characters’ hidden motivations, Hawthorne broke new ground in American literature with his morally complex characters. He explored such themes as sin, hypocrisy, and guilt. This essay is discussed about a pleasant scene in Milford, a small Puritan town where men, women, and children mill about enjoying the prospect of another Sunday. This peace is interrupted by the

The central theme of both John Winthrop’s “City Upon a Hill” and Jonathan Edward’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, is the prospect of religion in one’s everyday life influencing their future. In order to build up their ideas about acting in a way that pleases the Lord, both these authors use repetition, diction, allusions, and metaphors as a way to build momentum in their speech as they allude to teachings of the bible and their diction install a notion of uncertainty. However, while Winthrop uses his notion of uncertainty to give the audience a sense of security, in their endeavors to the Americas, with the prospect of religion, Edwards does the opposite and makes the audience fear God even more as he talks about his

In every aspect of their lives, the goal of the Puritans was to make a society that would be in every way, connected to God. In “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards and “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two authors convey Puritan beliefs in two very different ways. Edwards projects these ideas by putting fear into his people, while Hawthorne takes a less critical approach to express his Puritan beliefs. While Hawthorne’s style is gloomy and strange, Jonathan Edwards challenges the reader’s understanding of Puritan ideals of religion by using symbolism, imagery, and details to steer his congregation away from sin and toward God.

Throughout centuries, humans have expressed different perspectives toward a single idea. The subject of religion invites challenging discussions from skeptical minds because religion is diversely interpreted based on personal faith. The authoress sets her novel in a fictional town, Cold Sassy, where religion plays a predominant role in people’s lives. Through Will Tweedy’s narration she explores the religious opinions of the town’s most prominent citizen Rucker Blakeslee, Will’s grandpa. Although Blakeslee spent his whole life in a religiously conservative town, he has a radical approach toward religious concepts such as predestination, suicide, funerals, faith, and God’s will, thus forcing him to challenge the traditional views of

Martin Luther King’s vision for Beloved community stands out as the most captivating desire for human harmony, transcending the lines of racial, ethnic, cultural, gender, and social stratification. It aims to acknowledge and respect the imago Dei, rather than objectify the human individual. It shouts for the display of justice at, both, the local and global landscapes. The call for justice i.e., social justice, dominates conversational points throughout the media, town-hall meetings, demonstrations, and Sunday sermons. There remains, however, an affiliated point of justice rarely considered. Throughout the contents of this essay, I look at the grounding of justice as it relates to God and human relations. I submit that justice – according

Edwards, Jonathan. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. In Literature of America, complied by Jan Anderson and Laurel Hicks, 19-25. Pensacola: A Beka Book, 2010.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown,” tells the tale of a man whose Puritan beliefs were shaken to the core because reality turned out to be much different than he was taught in catechism. Goodman Brown showed readers how much he believed in his family’s goodness when he claimed “We have been a race of honest men and good Christians… We are a people of prayer, and good works, to boot, and abide no such wickedness” (Hawthorne 247). Because of this, Brown is surprised when he comes to know that people he thought were holy were in fact advocates for the devil and sinners- especially his wife Faith. People that he held in the highest regard were nothing but the lowest of the low to him now. He becomes surly, loses all faith in humanity, and develops a bitter worldview after this revelation.

In his book God Behaving Badly David Lamb examines difficult texts in the Old Testament and tries to answer the hard questions that arise from those readings. In my own examination of Lamb’s God Behaving Badly I will look at a few of the- questions and difficult texts that I found most interesting. Specifically, I will examine Lamb’s response to God 's anger, apparent lack of concern for race and genocide, and violence in the Old Testament, and I will offer my own response.

In the eyes of Cone, two of the most foundational factors that help to shape a person’s theology and their image of God is their identity and experiences. In the Preface of God of the Oppressed, Cone quickly identify himself as black (one who lives the black experience). Given that the black experience is one of struggle, he sheds light on his identity and his experiences in order to explain why he reads and interprets the Bible through the perspective of

The message to the exiles was very practical. First, they should realize that God had sent them into captivity. “There are no greetings from Jeremiah here, no personal words. Instead the letter begins with “This is what the Lord says,” as Yahweh addresses the entire exilic community and identifies himself as the one who exiled them from Jerusalem to Babylon.”6 That being the case, they should make the best of their situation. The normal activities of life should be resumed. Specifically he mentioned building houses, planting gardens, and marrying their children. Jeremiah directed them to pray for the

Jeremiah had instituted the help of his friend and secretary, Baruch, to take dictations. Together they created a scroll that warned of Babylonian danger. When the scroll was sent to the Jehoiakim, the king, He ripped the columns off with a knife and had them burned. Shortly after Jeremiah and Baruch started on another scroll, this one they did not send to the king. After warnings from Jeremiah Jerusalem was subdued by Babylon in 598B.C.E. Many were taken into Exile including the newly appointed king Jehoiachin. In 594B.C.E Babylon seemed vulnerable due to a revolt in King Nebuchadnezzer's army. Jeremiah was sent to Jerusalem by Yahweh to discourage this

In a postmodern world it is worth contemplating in what we can put our faith. Does culture, religion, or God merit our trust? Or is this a world of mechanical and biological evolutionary processes void of any meaning and purpose? The Sunset Limited, “a novel in dramatic form,” by Cormac McCarthy, is a dialogue between two persons who approach each other from opposite worlds to answer these questions. Black, a born-again believer and ex-con, and White, a nihilistic college professor, attempt to determine whether belief in God is viable in this world and if life is worth living. Despite Black’s efforts to convince him otherwise, White remains a Depressed Self who denies God’s existence, affirms his view of the world as deranged, and leaves to complete his suicide.

J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson’s grief-stricken mind – in Chapter 8: ‘You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!’”