Art Religion

The Puritan William Perkins was the first to articulate prayer and preaching in his treatise on hermeneutics and homiletics titled The Art of Prophesying (1592). Perkins considered the pastor to be in the great succession of biblical prophets and apostles. Perkins’ method of preaching consists of interpretation, analysis, and application.

"If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?" And what of the suffering of animals, who neither deserve pain nor can be improved by it? The greatest Christian thinker of our time sets out to disentangle this knotty issue. With his signature wealth of compassion and insight, C. S. Lewis offers answers to these crucial questions and shares his hope and wisdom to help heal a world hungering for a true understanding of human nature.

The average American watches five hours of TV every day. Collectively, we spend roughly $30 billion on movies each year. Simply put, we're entertainment junkies. But can we learn something from our insatiable addiction to stories? Mike Cosper thinks so. From horror flicks to rom-coms, the tales we tell and the myths we weave inevitably echo the narrative underlying all of history: the story of humanity's tragic sin and God's triumphant salvation.

“The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental.” With this powerful statement, The Kybalion, authored by the enigmatic Three Initiates, opens a doorway to a mystical realm where ancient wisdom and universal truths intertwine. Published in 1908, this extraordinary work encapsulates the teachings of Hermetic philosophy, a tradition tracing back to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus, a figure revered as a bridge between human consciousness and divine knowledge.

Radio personality and best-selling author Barbara Rainey knows firsthand the challenges newly married couples face. Dismayed by Hollywood depictions of marriage and the seemingly easy solution of divorce, she sees a desperate need for a voice of experience, a mentor who has been there and understands - and can encourage, coach, and care. As her daughters began their married lives, Barbara wanted to share with them, and now you, some of the lessons learned throughout her own marriage as well as those gleaned from years of ministry to couples.

Learn to make every moment a once-in-a-lifetime experience with this definitive guide to the Japanese art of ichigo ichie, from the best-selling authors of Ikigai. Every moment in our life happens only once, and if we let it slip away, we lose it forever - an idea captured by the Japanese phrase ichigo ichie. Often spoken in Japan when greeting someone or saying goodbye, to convey that the encounter is unique and special, it is a tenet of Zen Buddhism and is attributed to a 16th-century master of the Japanese tea ceremony.

In conversations with the Dalai Lama over the past several years, Howard Cutler has asked the questions we all want answered about how to find happiness in the place we spend most of our time - work. This guide is an invaluable source of strength and peace for anyone who earns a living.

Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man - or at any rate a man like me - out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself."

The cacophony of modern life can be deafening, leaving us feeling frazzled and uneasy. In this warm, wise book, Prem Rawat teaches us how to turn down the noise to “hear ourselves” - to listen to the subtle song of peace that sings inside each of us. Once we learn to truly “hear ourselves” and the voice of peace within, then we can hold on to that as we face all the noise of the world. The culmination of a lifetime of study, Hear Yourself lays out the crucial steps we can use to focus on the voice within.

The Art of Vinyasa takes a unique look at Ashtanga yoga as meditation in motion that produces profound inner change. Two of the most well-respected teachers of the Ashtanga style of yoga, Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor, explore this rigorous practice not as a gymnastic feat but as a meditative form.

Most all tarot books present card-by-card interpretations as well as an instruction on how to read spreads. This book takes the next logical step inward by presenting the art of reading in a workbook format and helps you learn to interpret the cards intuitively. The book falls into two parts. The first part concerns learning about the cards and includes exercises for each card that teaches you to trust your interpretation of the card. The second part helps you develop that ability, a skill that Reed calls “intuition”.

Doesn’t it feel like the world could use a major spiritual upgrade these days? But what would that look like? Perhaps something completely unexpected, something everyone could understand, something easy and incorruptible, something unifying... Perhaps a symbol that doesn't even require language to work its wonders… In its elegant simplicity, the Infinity Wave could be just that.

Striving for beauty, art also reveals what is broken. It presents us with the tremendous struggles and longings common to the human experience. And it says a lot about our Creator too. Great works of art can speak to the soul in a unique way. Rembrandt Is in the Wind is an invitation to discover some of the world's most celebrated artists and works and how each of them illuminates something about God, people, and the purpose of life. Part art history, part biblical study, part philosophy, and part analysis of the human experience, this book is nonetheless all story.

Many of us would love to hold the attention of a crowd, a classroom, or just a group of our friends by telling them a great story. We have felt the pressure of a public presentation or the disappointment of a story that is ignored and we are ready for more. In The Art of Storytelling, John Walsh talks through the steps to presenting a compelling story, outlining the strategies that helped him move from stutterer to storyteller as he fulfilled his calling of becoming a preacher.

Margaret Guenther uses the images of the spiritual director as host, teacher, and midwife to describe the ministry of spiritual direction today. She pays particular attention to spiritual direction for women, and addresses such down-to-earth questions as setting, time, and privacy. The stories of real people bring the practice of spiritual direction alive.

For centuries Christians have been tormented by one question above all, "If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?"

Over the years, you willingly pour everything you have into your family, but in the process, you lose the essence of who you are. In her characteristic raw and visceral style, Rachel teaches you how to rewrite the pages of your story, follow your passion, and discover the beauty of who you are. Drawing on lessons from her own incredible journey - together with insight from conversations with thousands of other women - Rachel encourages moms to break cycles, take off masks, and prevent fear from taking control.

The Art of Dying Well gives a rough sketch of how to live life well, so that one can die well, and have confidence before the judgment seat of Christ. It is a timeless classic of the Catholic world, and the advice St. Bellarmine gives rings as true now as it did 400 years ago.

“When the odds were stacked against us - and there have been many times when the great experiment we call America could have and should have failed - did God intervene to save us?” That question, posed by authors Chris and Ted Stewart, is the foundation for this remarkable book. And the examples they cite provide compelling evidence that the hand of Providence has indeed preserved the United States of America on multiple occasions.

We want the thousands of hours we will work over our lifetime to matter. But how do we know they're really significant? How do we go from being defined by what we do to having our work become an expression of who we are? There is not a quick fix but a progressive solution: it begins with surrendering our whole lives and then every moment of our lives to God. In The Spiritual Art of Business, "corporate mystic" Barry Rowan invites us to be transformed by God that he might transform the world through us as we begin to see our work as an extension of our faith.