In My Father's House Order Printed Copy

Author: Zola Levitt
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About the Book

"In My Father's House" by Zola Levitt is a memoir that tells the story of Levitt's life growing up as a Jewish boy in a Christian household. The book explores his struggles with faith, identity, and belonging, and how he ultimately reconciles his Jewish heritage with his Christian beliefs. Levitt's journey is a powerful and emotional exploration of the complexities of religion and family.

Billy Graham

Billy Graham (born November 7, 1918, Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.—died February 21, 2018, Montreat, North Carolina), American evangelist whose large-scale preaching missions, known as crusades, and friendship with numerous U.S. presidents brought him to international prominence. Conversion and early career The son of a prosperous dairy farmer, Billy Graham grew up in rural North Carolina. In 1934, while attending a revival meeting led by the evangelist Mordecai Ham, he underwent a religious experience and professed his “decision for Christ.” In 1936 he left his father’s dairy farm to attend Bob Jones College (now Bob Jones University), then located in Cleveland, Tennessee, but stayed for only a semester because of the extreme fundamentalism of the institution. He transferred to Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College), near Tampa, graduated in 1940, and was ordained a minister by the Southern Baptist Convention. Convinced that his education was deficient, however, Graham enrolled at Wheaton College in Illinois. While at Wheaton, he met and married (1943) Ruth Bell, daughter of L. Nelson Bell, a missionary to China. By the time Graham graduated from Wheaton in 1943, he had developed the preaching style for which he would become famous—a simple, direct message of sin and salvation that he delivered energetically and without condescension. “Sincerity,” he observed many years later, “is the biggest part of selling anything, including the Christian plan of salvation.” After a brief and undistinguished stint as pastor of Western Springs Baptist Church in the western suburbs of Chicago, Graham decided to become an itinerant evangelist. He joined the staff of a new organization called Youth for Christ in 1945 and in 1947 served as president of Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Evangelism Graham’s emergence as an evangelist came at a propitious moment for 20th-century Protestants. Protestantism in the United States was deeply divided as a result of controversies in the 1920s between fundamentalism and modernism (a movement that applied scholarly methods of textual and historical criticism to the study of the Bible). The public image of fundamentalists was damaged by the Scopes Trial of 1925, which concerned the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in public schools in Tennessee; in his writings about the trial, the journalist and social critic H.L. Mencken successfully portrayed all fundamentalists as uneducated country bumpkins. In response to these controversies, most fundamentalists withdrew from the established Protestant denominations, which they regarded as hopelessly liberal, and retreated from the larger society, which they viewed as both corrupt and corrupting. Although Graham remained theologically conservative, he refused to be sectarian like other fundamentalists. Seeking to dissociate himself from the image of the stodgy fundamentalist preacher, he seized on the opportunity presented by new media technologies, especially radio and television, to spread the message of the gospel. In the late 1940s Graham’s fellow evangelist in Youth for Christ, Charles Templeton, challenged Graham to attend seminary with him so that both preachers could shore up their theological knowledge. Graham considered the possibility at length, but in 1949, while on a spiritual retreat in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California, he decided to set aside his intellectual doubts about Christianity and simply “preach the gospel.” After his retreat, Graham began preaching in Los Angeles, where his crusade brought him national attention. He acquired this new fame in no small measure because newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, impressed with the young evangelist’s preaching and anticommunist rhetoric, instructed his papers to “puff Graham.” The huge circus tent in which Graham preached, as well as his own self-promotion, lured thousands of curious visitors—including Hollywood movie stars and gangsters—to what the press dubbed the “canvas cathedral” at the corner of Washington and Hill streets. From Los Angeles, Graham undertook evangelistic crusades around the country and the world, eventually earning international renown. Despite his successes, Graham faced criticism from both liberals and conservatives. In New York City in 1954 he was received warmly by students at Union Theological Seminary, a bastion of liberal Protestantism; nevertheless, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, a professor at Union and one of the leading Protestant thinkers of the 20th century, had little patience for Graham’s simplistic preaching. On the other end of the theological spectrum, fundamentalists such as Bob Jones, Jr., Carl McIntire, and Jack Wyrtzen never forgave Graham for cooperating with the Ministerial Alliance, which included mainline Protestant clergy, in the planning and execution of Graham’s storied 16-week crusade at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1957. Such cooperation, however, was part of Graham’s deliberate strategy to distance himself from the starchy conservatism and separatism of American fundamentalists. His entire career, in fact, was marked by an irenic spirit. Graham, by his own account, enjoyed close relationships with several American presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush. (Although Graham met with Harry Truman in the Oval Office, the president was not impressed with him.) Despite claiming to be apolitical, Graham became politically close to Richard Nixon, whom he had befriended when Nixon was Eisenhower’s vice president. During the 1960 presidential campaign, in which Nixon was the Republican nominee, Graham met in Montreaux, Switzerland, with Norman Vincent Peale and other Protestant leaders to devise a strategy to derail the campaign of John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee, in order to secure Nixon’s election and prevent a Roman Catholic from becoming president. Although Graham later mended relations with Kennedy, Nixon remained his favourite politician; indeed, Graham all but endorsed Nixon’s reelection effort in 1972 against George McGovern. As Nixon’s presidency unraveled amid charges of criminal misconduct in the Watergate scandal, Graham reviewed transcripts of Oval Office tape recordings subpoenaed by Watergate investigators and professed to be physically sickened by his friend’s use of foul language. Legacy of Billy Graham Graham’s popular appeal was the result of his extraordinary charisma, his forceful preaching, and his simple, homespun message: anyone who repents of sins and accepts Jesus Christ will be saved. Behind that message, however, stood a sophisticated organization, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, incorporated in 1950, which performed extensive advance work in the form of favourable media coverage, cooperation with political leaders, and coordination with local churches and provided a follow-up program for new converts. The organization also distributed a radio program, Hour of Decision, a syndicated newspaper column, “My Answer,” and a magazine, Decision. Although Graham pioneered the use of television for religious purposes, he always shied away from the label “televangelist.” During the 1980s, when other television preachers were embroiled in sensational scandals, Graham remained above the fray, and throughout a career that spanned more than half a century few people questioned his integrity. In 1996 Graham and his wife received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest civilian award bestowed by the United States, and in 2001 he was made an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). Graham concluded his public career with a crusade in Queens, New York, in June 2005. Graham claimed to have preached in person to more people than anyone else in history, an assertion that few would challenge. His evangelical crusades around the world, his television appearances and radio broadcasts, his friendships with presidents, and his unofficial role as spokesman for America’s evangelicals made him one of the most recognized religious figures of the 20th century.

date differently this year - four resolutions for better relationships

It takes extraordinary courage to change how you date. It’s not easy to reset boundaries, communicate better, flee sexual immorality, confess failures, and end the relationship that needs to end. But you will never regret making the right changes. There were moments through high school and college when I knew with crystal clarity that things needed to change, but the costs kept me from changing sooner. What will others think about me when I confess how I’ve failed? What if I fail again, and things never get better? What if the change I need means I’m single and alone again? Like a merciless lawyer, Satan piled up every conceivable reason not to do what I knew I had to do — to make excuses, to put off decisions, to be almost honest with friends and family, to stay in unhealthy relationships, to avoid Christ and indulge in sin. I have prayed that the four resolutions that follow might give some the courage to do what you’ve been afraid to do for weeks, for months, maybe even for years. To lay down your excuses. To take up your cross. To welcome what it will cost you today to pursue love in light of eternity. To date differently this year, in a way that says something stunning about your God. 1. Above all else, I will look for Jesus. “Welcome what it will cost you today to pursue love in light of eternity.” If you resolve to change nothing else about your patterns in relationships, resolve to make Jesus the most important thing in your dating. Raise Philippians 1:21 over your next relationship: “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” If to live is Christ, then to date is Christ. To marry is Christ. To remain single is Christ. He is our reason for living and working, growing and learning, dating and marrying. Above every other priority in dating, look for Jesus. It may sound simple and easy, but Satan wages an all-out war on our hearts and minds to keep us from single-minded devotion. Nothing could be harder. It is emotionally impossible to put Christ before our desires for intimacy and marriage — unless we have the Spirit of Christ. Unless it is no longer we who live and date, but Christ who lives in and through us (Galatians 2:20). Before you entrust your heart to someone else, resolve to love Jesus with all your heart. Before you let yourself daydream about potential futures with him or her, resolve to love Jesus with all your mind. Before you think about knitting your soul with another, resolve to love Jesus with all of your soul first. Before you risk, sacrifice, and work for love, resolve to love Jesus with all your strength. Resolve to love him more than love. And as you give your heart first and foremost to Christ, make sure your boyfriend (or girlfriend) has too — in the deepest places of who he is and what he wants. His faith is not a box to check along with lots of others; it should be the ink that shapes every other box. Whether you are currently in a relationship or might begin one this year, decide right now to date from a deeper, wider, higher love for the Lord. 2. I will grow where I have failed before. One reason we fail in the same ways year after year is that we fail to admit and address our failures. If you have a sexual past or a trail of mistakes behind you, you need to know there is nowhere safer to deal with your failures than in Christ. Someone may have led you to suspect that how you’ve dated has disqualified you from his love, but Christ came and died precisely for the things you’re most ashamed of. The apostle Paul says, The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15–16) “If you resolve to change nothing else, resolve to make Jesus the most important thing in your dating.” Guilt and shame qualify us for his love. He wants to put his patience and mercy on display for the world by showering you with mercy and being patient with you . He wants you to step forward, like Paul, to experience what he died to give you. The process begins by boldly bringing our failures before his feet (1 John 1:9), knowing he loves to forgive our wrongs, heal our wounds, and restore our brokenness. If we draw our darkness into his light, he will not only cover our darkness, but dispel it. He will make us someone new, someone different from the stains of our dating history (2 Corinthians 5:17). The process begins at the feet of Jesus, but it does not end there. Those who truly want to change where we have fallen before resolve to seek flesh-and-blood accountability in the specific areas where we have failed (Hebrews 3:12–13). A resolve to grow is a resolve to share with others — to consistently confess our failures, seek out counsel, embrace hard questions, and fold others into our dating relationships. Everyone expects this to happen naturally, and in a few rare instances, it might. In the vast majority of cases, though, this will require extraordinary effort and sacrifice. You will have to care about what other believers think about your relationships more than even they care about what they think. Resolve to grow where you have failed in relationships — to bring your specific failures to your perfectly patient Savior, to confess your specific failures to another believer, and to pursue specific steps, with God’s help, to overcome temptation and cultivate godliness. 3. I will pursue clarity, and postpone intimacy. Likely you have asked yourself (over and over again) what you’re looking for in a significant other. Most people, no matter who they are or what they believe, ask that question. The more important question that fewer of us ask is this: What am I looking for from dating? “Christ came and died precisely for the things you’re most ashamed of. Guilt and shame qualify you for his love.” For many, the answer is simply intimacy. In the fantasies of our imagination, intimacy may look like a thousand different experiences and sensations, but intimacy is often the grail of great price. Unfortunately, when intimacy becomes the great prize, it also becomes the great price we pay. When intimacy fails to materialize, or fails to satisfy us, or fails to last for long, we have only bartered precious pieces of our hearts for painful regret and deeper longings. Beware of letting your dating be driven by the pursuit of intimacy this year. Date to find precious clarity from God about whether to marry. The great prize in marriage is Christ-centered intimacy. The great prize in dating is Christ-centered clarity. This does not mean marry the next person you date, or only date someone you’re certain you would marry; it means make Christ-centered clarity toward marriage the measure of your romance. Am I increasingly confident over time that this is someone I can marry in the Lord? A new resolve to pursue clarity in dating cuts against our impulses toward flirtation, ambiguity, and enticement, and flows into clear and loving communication. Any relationship that cuts against flirtation, ambiguity, and enticement, that intentionally postpones physical intimacy for the covenant of marriage, swims against the current, at least in America today. It will seem strange and awkward to others your age — and beautiful to God. Date for something far more satisfying than physical and emotional intimacy. Date for a deeper purpose. Not because everyone else is doing it. Not because it’s fun. Not because he’s cute. Date because of God. Date for God. Let your love life stem from seeing and enjoying and sharing more of him. 4. I will ask God for help. The most important change in your love life may not be between you and your significant other, but between you and God. Before we try to establish healthy boundaries in our relationship, we need direction from God. Before we go looking for love, we need to seek the Lord. Before we address our communication in dating, we need to address our communication with our Father. Better relationships will begin with God in prayer. “Date for a deeper purpose. Not because everyone else is doing it. Not because it’s fun. Date because of God.” Unless the Lord builds (or rebuilds) our relationships, we date in vain (Psalm 127:1). Unless the Lord watches over you and your girlfriend (or boyfriend), you risk, worry, and date in vain. He knows exactly what you need (Matthew 6:32), where you are weak, and how you will glorify him. Refuse to date anyone unless, like Moses, God goes up with you (Exodus 33:15). And then talk to him about your relationships as much as you talk with anyone else. When passion rises within you, or anxiety creeps in, or confusion clouds your mind and heart, run first to God. No one will help you, keep you, or hear you like him. The best way to discern what God is doing, and how he is directing you, in a relationship this year is to stay close to him. The greater the intimacy you have with him, the greater clarity you will have about who to pursue, what to change, and when to marry.