Showing titles in Religious Studies

Shunned follows Linda as she steps into a world she was taught to fear and discovers what is possible when we stay true to our hearts, even when it means disappointing those we love.

As the perils of our world seem to escalate beyond control, how can we reverse the direction we appear to be heading? According to Eckhart Tolle, the answer lies in discovering a deeper level of awareness both individually and collectively. From Chaos to Consciousness brings you seven solution-oriented sessions on how to rise above the incessant “voice in the head” that leads to so much confusion and conflict—and act on our challenges with wisdom and compassion.

All Christian disciples have one thing in common: As they carry the Gospel across the ocean and across the street, persecution will become the norm for those who choose to follow Jesus. How believers respond in the face of persecution reveals everything about their level of faith and obedience. The Insanity of Obedience is a bold challenge to global discipleship. Nik Ripken exposes the danger of safe Christianity and calls listeners to something greater.

James was a vegetarian, wore only linen clothing, bathed daily at dawn in cold water, and was a life-long Nazirite. In this profound and provocative work of scholarly detection, eminent biblical scholar Robert Eisenman introduces a startling theory about the identity of James - the brother of Jesus - who was almost entirely marginalized in the New Testament.

In 1979, a fiery preacher named Jane Whaley attracted a small group of followers with a promise that she could turn their lives around. In the years since, Whaley’s following has expanded to include thousands of congregants across three continents. Based on hundreds of interviews, secretly recorded conversations, and thousands of pages of documents, Pulitzer Prize winner Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr’s Broken Faith is a terrifying portrait life inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, and the harrowing account of one family who escaped after two decades.

This rich and magisterial work traces Palestine's millennia-old heritage, uncovering cultures and societies of astounding depth and complexity that stretch back to the very beginnings of recorded history.

In the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I and the failed November Revolution of 1918-19, the conservative government of Bavaria identified Jews with left-wing radicalism. Munich became a hotbed of right-wing extremism, with synagogues under attack and Jews physically assaulted in the streets. It was here that Adolf Hitler established the Nazi movement and developed his anti-Semitic ideas. Michael Brenner provides a gripping account of how Bavaria's capital city became the testing ground for Nazism and the Final Solution.

From the preaching of the First Crusade by Pope Urban II in 1095 to the loss of the last crusader outpost in the Levant in 1302-03, and from the taking of Jerusalem from the Fatimids in 1099 to the fall of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291, Crusaders tells a tale soaked in Islamic, Christian and Jewish blood, peopled by extraordinary characters, and characterised by both low ambition and high principle.

In 2013, just two years after the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military ousted the country's first democratically elected president - Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood - and subsequently led a brutal repression of the Islamist group. These bloody events echoed an older political rift: the splitting of nationalists and Islamists during the rule of Egyptian president and Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Fawaz Gerges, one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East, tells how the clash between pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism has shaped the history of the region.

Motivated by the longstanding need to retrieve the classical doctrine of the Trinity, theologian Matthew Barrett brings together Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox scholars to intervene in the conversation. With over forty contributions, this ecumenical volume resurrects the enduring legacy of Nicene orthodoxy, providing a theological introduction that listens with humility to the Great Tradition.

This book is about an idea - namely, that Scripture mandates a Jewish return to the historical region of Palestine - which in turn morphed into a political movement, rallied around a popular slogan ("A country without a nation for a nation without a country"), and eventually contributed to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Christian Zionism continues to influence global politics, especially US foreign policy, and has deeply affected Jewish-Christian and Muslim-Christian relations.

Day after day we read of the caliphate and the Qur'an, of Sunni and Shi'a, Salafis and Sufis, integration and isolation, radicals and refugees. Almost a quarter of the world's populate is Muslim. It is clear that understanding the modern world requires knowing something about Islam. But while much is said and written about Islam and the global trends and historic events connected to it, little attention is given to placing these phenomena within their greater historical, religious and intellectual context.

When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published. In A Book Forged in Hell, Steven Nadler tells the fascinating story of this extraordinary book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired.

From Graeme Wood comes the definitive book on the history, psychology, character and aims of the Islamic State. Based on Wood's unprecedented access to supporters, recruiters and high-ranking members of the most infamous jihadist group in the world, The Way of the Strangers is a riveting, fast-paced deep dive into the apocalyptic dogma that informs the group's worldview, from the ideas that motivate it to the 'fatwa factory' that produces its laws to its very specific plans for the future.

Religious fundamentalists and biblical literalists present any number of arguments that attempt to disprove evolution. Those with a sympathetic ear often fail to critically examine these creationist claims, leading to an ill-informed public and, perhaps more troubling, ill-advised public policy. As Aron Ra makes clear, however, every single argument deployed by creationists in their attacks on evolution is founded on fundamental scientific, religious, and historical falsehoods - all of them.

From simple practices such as walking, working, and getting lost to deep meditations on topics like prayer and pronouncing blessings, Taylor reveals concrete ways to discover the sacred in the small things we do and see. Something as ordinary as hanging clothes on a clothesline becomes an act of devotion if we pay attention to what we are doing and take time to attend to the sights, smells, and sounds around us. Making eye contact with the cashier at the grocery store becomes a moment of true human connection.

Through stories, insights, and step-by-step advice, Easwaran shows us how to calm our minds. When the mind is unhurried, we are patient, kind, and focused, ready to respond to what really matters amidst the clamor of a busy day. The secret is to train our minds to work steadily and with one-pointed attention, however many tasks confront us.

In An Economy of Strangers, Avinoam Yuval-Naeh historicizes the association of Jews with the economy by focusing on one specific time and place - the financial revolution that England underwent from the late seventeenth century that coincided with the reestablishment of the Jewish population there for the first time in almost four hundred years. European Christian societies had to that point shunned finance and constructed a normative system to avoid it, relying on the figure of the Jew as a foil.

Sparked by a controversial debate in February 2014, Bill Nye has set off on an energetic campaign to spread awareness of evolution and the powerful way it shapes our lives. In Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, he explains why race does not really exist; evaluates the true promise and peril of genetically modified food; reveals how new species are born, in a dog kennel and in a London subway; takes a stroll through 4.5 billion years of time; and explores the new search for alien life, including aliens right here on Earth.

Gerald G. May, MD, one of the great spiritual teachers and writers of our time, argues that the dark "shadow" side of the true spiritual life has been trivialized and neglected to our serious detriment. Superficial and naively upbeat spirituality does not heal and enrich the soul. Nor does the other tendency to relegate deep spiritual growth to only mystics and saints. Only the honest, sometimes difficult encounters with what Christian spirituality has called and described in helpful detail as "the dark night of the soul" can lead to true spiritual wholeness.

Scholars, journalists, and politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain - "al-Andalus" - as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: It is a myth. In this groundbreaking book, Northwestern University scholar Darío Fernández-Morera tells the full story of Islamic Spain. As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity", Fernández-Morera sets the record straight.

In this groundbreaking new biography of Justinian, Peter Sarris gives us an intimate insight into both the Emperor and the man. We meet a man who from the humblest beginnings, rose to become ruler of much of the known world achieving an almost god-like status. An emperor who infused even the most mundane tasks with spiritual and religious significance. A gifted administrator obsessed with detail. A middle aged lover who fell for a dancing girl and changed the law so he could marry her, ruling with Empress Theodora by his side for over twenty years.

Lucy Dawidowicz's groundbreaking The War Against the Jews inspired waves of both acclaim and controversy upon its release in 1975. Dawidowicz argues that genocide was, to the Nazis, as central a war goal as conquering Europe, and was made possible by a combination of political, social, and technological factors. She explores the full history of Hitler's "Final Solution", from the rise of anti-Semitism to the creation of Jewish ghettos to the brutal tactics of mass murder employed by the Nazis.

The First World War laid waste to a continent and brought about the end of innocence — and the end of faith. Unlike a generation of young writers who lost faith in the God of the Bible, however, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis found that the Great War deepened their spiritual quest. Both men served as soldiers on the Western Front, survived the trenches, and used the experience of that conflict to ignite their Christian imagination.

George Marsden describes how Lewis gradually went from being an atheist to a committed Anglican - famously converting to Christianity in 1931 after conversing into the night with his friends, J. R. R. Tolkien and Hugh Dyson - and how Lewis delivered his wartime talks to a traumatized British nation in the midst of an all-out war for survival.

Despite predictions of continuing secularisation, the 21st century has witnessed a surge of religious extremism and violence in the name of God. In this powerful and timely book, Jonathan Sacks explores the roots of violence and its relationship to religion, focusing on the historic tensions between the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Though the Torah prohibits eating pig meat, it is not singled out more than other food prohibitions. The pig has become a symbol for people to signal their Jewishness, non-Jewishness, or rebellion from Judaism. Starting with the Hebrew Bible, Jordan D. Rosenblum historicizes the emergence of the pig as a key symbol of Jewish identity, from the Roman persecution of ancient rabbis, to the Spanish Inquisition, to Shakespeare's writings, to modern memoirs of those leaving Orthodox Judaism.

The Book of Enoch contains one of the oldest stories ever told by the human species on Planet Earth. It is an epic tale of lustful angels, man-eating giants, and portentous visions of the end times. It introduces us to the heavenly Watchers and their earthborn hybrid sons, the mighty Nephilim, unlocking the meaning behind some of the most perplexing passages in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

With practical examples, heartfelt encouragement, and a deep reverence for the power of prayer, The Ministry of Intercession urges Christians to embrace this calling and make prayer a central part of their daily lives.

In a world where past pain often feels like a permanent weight, Her Sister’s Choices, Her Tent, invites women on a transformative journey inspired by the powerful truths of Ezekiel 23. Through the lens of this challenging yet redemptive scripture, this women's Bible study reveals how God can take the broken pieces of our lives—marked by hurt, abuse, shame, and guilt—and rebuild them into a sanctuary for His presence.