Civil Religion

In 1765, 11 years before composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson bought a Qur'an. This marked only the beginning of his lifelong interest in Islam, and he would go on to acquire numerous books on Middle Eastern languages, history, and travel, taking extensive notes on Islam as it relates to English common law. Jefferson sought to understand Islam notwithstanding his personal disdain for the faith, a sentiment prevalent among his Protestant contemporaries in England and America.

Among the pressing concerns of Americans in the first century of nationhood were day-to-day survival, political harmony, exploration of the continent, foreign policy, and - fixed deeply in the collective consciousness - hell and eternal damnation. The fear of fire and brimstone and the worm that never dies exerted a profound and lasting influence on Americans' ideas about themselves, their neighbors, and the rest of the world.

Retired New York attorney Mick Holland rents a house in Las Vegas next door to a devout Muslim family. Acrimony soon results as their cultural differences clash. Later, while volunteering at a legal clinic, Mick discovers that Muslims are being forced out of their rentals in alarming numbers using "no cause evictions". When he proposes a practical solution to the Muslim community, he is vilified as a bigot and called Satan's spawn. Is it possible for American society and traditional Muslim culture to coexist peacefully? ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Donald W. Desaulniers is a retired Canadian lawyer ...

Drawing from the history of social movements in the US, especially the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign, Rev. Barber and the contributors to this volume speak to the most pressing issues of our time, including Black Lives Matter, the fight for a $15 minimum wage, the struggle to protect voting rights, the march for women’s rights, and the movement to overcome poverty and unite the dispossessed across all dividing lines.

"Hart serves up a dramatic romance with a side of intrigue. Fans of Civil War romance will enjoy this." — Publisher's Weekly In times of war, is anything as it seems? Her aunt’s invitation to Richmond is just the change Beatrice Swanson needs after her brother’s release from a Union prison. Bea’s father agrees to the trip with a condition—one that tosses her emotions into swirling confusion. Though Jay Nickson wants to serve his country as a Confederate soldier, his work is too important to the government. Bea’s interest in his job, which includes secrets that would benefit the ...

The Supreme Court has issued a decision, but that doesn't end the debate. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, Americans face momentous debates about the nature of marriage and religious liberty. Because the Court has redefined marriage in all 50 states, we have to energetically protect our freedom to live according to conscience and faith as we work to rebuild a strong marriage culture.

NISH is a historical novel based on the life of Abraham Dionysius Chenault, a minister and physician from Lincoln County, Georgia, who lived from the 1830s-1880s. Nish, as folks called him, is perhaps best-known for being tortured by a fanatical Union general in his search for the booty from the robbery of a wagon train of gold following the Civil War in the summer of 1865. The beloved planter was an outspoken supporter of secession and a popular preacher at Methodist camp meetings, despite lacking formal religious training. After relocating to Northeast Georgia, Chenault became a ...

On October 3, 1807, Thomas Jefferson was contacted by an unknown traveler urgently pleading for a private "interview" with the president, promising to disclose "a matter of momentous importance". By the next day, Jefferson held in his hands two astonishing manuscripts whose history has been lost for over two centuries. Authored by Muslims fleeing captivity in rural Kentucky, these documents delivered to the president in 1807 were penned by literate African slaves, and written entirely in Arabic.

In Seven Statist Sins, Chris Hume provides seven indictments against the civil government of the United States. In so doing, he provides the path for repentance necessary to see blessing in the land. Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Seven Statist Sins today.

In his groundbreaking new book, Counterpunch, Floyd G. Brown issues both the battle cry and a strategic action plan for a populist movement in America that goes beyond any president or political party. Issue by issue, the Left chooses new markers in the sand and waits to see who will embrace their agenda. Those who don't are canceled and silenced. This leads to alienation and the feeling that violence is the only option left. Brown wants listeners to know there is another way, a civil disobedience of the state that allows us to be peaceful—and potentially more successful.

With their new book, Cristofer Pereyra and Erin Monnin provide a guide to authentic lay Catholic leadership. Catholic Leadership for Civil Society is structured to show that lay Catholic leadership is not meant to be lived out within the confines of the Catholic community exclusively, but instead serve mainly as a guiding force which illuminates every aspect of secular society with the Truth of the Gospel. The book explains why lay Catholic professionals have a unique responsibility and opportunity to influence the world for Christ, as their duty as baptized children of God.

Can you describe America’s founding principles? Thomas Jefferson said America’s founding principles “should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the service of those we trust.” He added, “should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.” Can you name America’s most influential founders? For many, the first people that come to mind are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. To be sure, ...

Religious-liberty lawyer Asma Uddin has long considered her work defending people of all faiths to be a calling more than a job. Yet even as she seeks equal protection for Evangelicals, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Native Americans, Jews, and Catholics alike, she has seen an ominous increase in attempts to criminalize Islam and exclude American Muslims from their inalienable rights. Somehow, the view that Muslims aren’t human enough for human rights or constitutional protections is moving from the fringe to the mainstream - along with the claim “Islam is not a religion.”

SOMETHING'S DIFFERENT ABOUT JONAH Other Civil War re-enactors thought all along there was something different about Jonah the way he corrected the placement of a line of Confederate riflemen, the way he took apart and reassembled an old cannon with ease, the way he walked over the battlefield like he'd been there before. Their suspicions were confirmed when he started firing live ammo into the Yankee lines. Find out if there are any additional casualties at the Battle of Brice's Crossroads more than 150 years after the last shots were fired. WHERE DID HE COME FROM? In the deepest mud at the...

In a time of war, love has to fight for a happily-ever-after. Millie Gibson has loved Troy McNeil for years. So when he suddenly confesses his attraction to her, she’s ecstatic, even if their time together is limited as Troy must stay on the move to avoid the Confederate army. When Troy rescues her from an attacker, Millie begs him to replace the awful memory with one of love. But will that love last when he learns their time together produced lasting consequences? Dodging the Rebel army has kept Troy apart from Millie for months, but he can’t forget their last hours together. The last ...

Deep Conviction features four ordinary Americans who put their reputations and livelihoods at risk as they fought to protect their first amendment right to live their personal beliefs. Though these individuals couldn’t be more different, they share a similar conviction and determination, and the principles of religious freedom apply equally to all of them.

In 1957, Melba Beals was one of the nine African American students chosen to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. But her story of overcoming didn't start - or end - there. While her white schoolmates were planning their senior prom, Melba was facing the business end of a double-barreled shotgun, being threatened with lynching by rope-carrying tormentors, and learning how to outrun white supremacists who were ready to kill her rather than sit beside her in a classroom. Only her faith in God sustained her.

White privilege. Black Lives Matter. George Floyd. When it comes to racism in America, many of us feel confused, overwhelmed, angry - and eager to know how to engage in meaningful conversations and actions surrounding such a difficult topic. In Not So Black and White, public school communicator and internationally acclaimed speaker Reggie Dabbs and pastor John Driver team up to offer a hope-filled, convicting, inspiring look at how to be anti-racist in America today.

On growing up in the American South of the 1960s - an all-American white boy - son of a long line of Methodist preachers, in the midst of the civil rights revolution, and discovering the culpability of silence within the church. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and columnist for The Birmingham News.

In It's Dangerous to Believe, Mary Eberstadt documents how people of faith - especially Christians who adhere to traditional religious beliefs - face widespread discrimination in today's increasingly secular society. Eberstadt details how recent laws, court decisions, and intimidation on campuses and elsewhere threaten believers who fear losing their jobs, their communities, and their basic freedoms solely because of their convictions.