Over two thousand years ago, the Chinese sage Confucius proposed that “learning, and putting persistent learning into practice, is a great joy or pleasure.” In Learning of the Way (Daoxue), Dr. John E. Young presents, from a Confucian perspective, the rationale for engaging in traditional Chinese arts and practices.Dr. Young relies on his experience as a Chinese martial arts expert and professor emeritus to share the results of his comprehensive examination of the concept ...

Church history can get into some extremely weighty matters very quickly. After all, when an author is diving into the good, bad, and ugly of human behavior, and then placing alongside those things considerations of religious faith and practice-always prime kindling for the fires of controversy in their own right-there will inevitably be plenty of serious stuff for the reader to think about. But church history can also be fun. In this volume, historian John Young guides the reader through s...

The story of the Masked Kid is my story at an early age when my parents "pulled up stakes" and moved to Colorado.My mother told me that Dad quit his job in middle management in Michigan and took us to a vacant lot in the Big Thompson Canyon. There he single-handedly built a house using skills he couldn't possibly have acquired in a suburban environment. I was three and a half years old when we arrived on that vacant lot.She said my life would have been entirely different an...

When Marshal Hong breaks the seals which generations of Taoist Masters have placed on the temple doors to hold back 108 incarcerated Demon Princes, powerful forces of disorder are released. One after another, brave men fall out with officialdom and are obliged to join the brotherhood of the rivers and lakes─the mixed company of heroes and vagabonds who live by their wits and their fighting skills. The story of The Broken Seals branches this way and that, following first one hero, then anot...

A mere two years after achieving independence, South Sudan in 2013 descended into violent civil war, refuting US government claims that the country's succession was a major foreign policy success and would end endemic conflict. Worse was to follow when the international community declared famine in 2017. In the first book-length study of the South Sudan civil war, John Young draws on his close but critical relationship with the rebel SPLM-IO leadership to reveal the true dynamics of the co...

"John Young writes with the humor of David Sedaris and the insight and humanity of John Updike."?Aileen GreverThis often-comic novel is not 'Christian' or 'religious,' although the narrator is a 7-foot-tall minister … who becomes obsessed with growing the world's largest pumpkin.John Crackstone is cracking under the pressure of working with the wrong people in the wrong place. And he's aching for success.What begins as backyard lark swells into a hil...

In a radical reflection, John Young contends that the US model of democracy has failed the Global South because its emphasis on the supremacy of market capitalism entails a loss of national sovereignty and a truncated notion of human rights that leaves little room for citizens' engagement or socioeconomic justice.The Global South needs democracy, but the US model does not address issues of national oppression or economic injustices by raising living standards and e...

In 2005, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ended one of Africa's most devastating civil wars and set the stage for the partition of Sudan, Africa's largest country. One of the most important peace agreements in African history, it has had decisive consequences for the entire Horn of Africa. Yet to date there has been little rigorous analysis as to why the parties signed the CPA, what strategies they adopted having signed the agreement, and the political consequences of state partitio...

Quick-witted, sharp-tongued Connor Lambert won't take it any longer: the bullying, the secrets, the sympathy. He's been dying from cancer for years, but he’s not dead yet. He's going down fighting.Forming an unlikely friendship with fellow juvenile delinquent Skeates, the pair stage a break out and set off on a crazy tour across Scotland -- dodging the police, joy riding and extreme partying -- to find Connor's dad, an inmate at Shotts prison.But Connor's left two things behi...

Members of the Stone-Campbell (or Restoration) Movement are often criticized for their purported apathy or even antipathy toward the past. Yet as Redrawing the Blueprints for the Early Church: Historical Ecclesiology in and Around the Stone-Campbell Movement reveals, these restorationist Christians actually participate in a distinctly historical project because their efforts necessarily involve reading sources from and about the past and drawing conclusions about those readings. E...

Like most boys, Jason Blake wants to please his father and older brother. But this erratic father and hyper-competitive brother challenge beyond the norm. To find his way, Jason tries on different roles: schoolyard bully, football player, actor, student. At 20, Jason escapes his Midwest home and seeks independence and adventure: first to Cape Cod, later in Europe. Each adventure takes Jason farther from his father and brother. Each brings him closer to finding himself. When he returns home...

In sixteen apparently simple stories, John Young's memorable characters ask (or refuse to ask) what shapes us. Education? Talent? Impulse? Family? Money? Need for approval? Most of the stories are set in small-town Indiana, with a handful coming from New England villages. All are sensitively written, careful, and real.The impulse to cheat (embellish) shows up early in the collection, as an antique dealer teaches himself to craft high-quality fakes. It reaches a fever pitch and cras...