Contemporary Religion

Mary Stoltzfus is 30 years old, splashed with freckles, and unmarried. In her Amish world, that qualifies her to be called an old maid. She is living her quiet schoolteacher life in the Lancaster County Amish community when she gets a surprising invitation in the mail one day. Would she come to Montana to teach?

"In this house we believe that: Black Lives Matter, Love Is Love, Gay Rights Are Civil Rights, Women’s Rights Are Human Rights, Transgender Women Are Women". You may have seen signs with some of these messages in your neighborhood. They offer us an all-or-nothing package deal - in short, a secular creed. In this provocative audiobook, Rebecca McLaughlin helps us disentangle the beliefs Christians gladly affirm from those they cannot embrace, and invites us to talk with our neighbors about the things that matter most.

Contemporary Christian music-it is the innovation of the hour in our age of church history. It has taken the Bible believing church by storm. When a fundamental church institutes CCM as it’s musical style, it always moves into the new evangelical hemisphere. Where CCM comes, new evangelicalism follows, as certainly as the tail follows the dog. Reverent worship disappears, sound doctrine declines, and the holy living is despised. Why does this happen? This wonderfully written book will give you the answer. Missionary Spencer Smith confronts the issues with a loving approach that instructs ...

Expanded Edition: Now with a brand-new bonus epilogue… In the tense months following 9/11, a chance encounter sparks an unlikely connection between two strangers—a young college student and a marine on his way to Afghanistan. Mark has no interest in romance, especially just a week before he deploys. But when he sees a man follow a pretty waitress from a Providence hotspot, his gut tells him she’s in danger. He feels compelled to intervene. Amanda hoped to learn the restaurant business when she took the waitressing job, but so far all she’s learned is how to fend off handsy guys. ...

Before it was a religion, a culture, or even a system of meditation, what was Buddhism? On Buddhism Without Beliefs, celebrated teacher, translator, and former Buddhist monk Stephen Batchelor takes us back to the first years after the Buddha's awakening to reveal the root insights of Buddhism hidden beneath centuries of history and interpretation.

Why does a 2,000-year-old book still matter? Why should it? The answer is found in The Message: REMIX New Testament, today's Bible in contemporary language for tomorrow's leaders. The Message has had a profound impact on millions of people worldwide, including some of the best-known artists in contemporary Christian music today. The Message: REMIX is read by artists whose lives have been impacted by The Message.

While attending college, Emily Anderson meets the man who changes her life: Army reservist Justin Baker. Emily's reunited birth parents, Lauren Gibbs and Shane Galanter struggle to move past their opposing beliefs. After Lauren ends their relationship, they both believe that this time it has ended forever. Then tragedy sends shockwaves through all their lives. Can Lauren and Shane set aside their opposing views so that God's love, might win, no matter how great the odds?

Best-selling author Lisa Wingate serves up small-town values with humor and romance. Lauren hasn't returned to her hometown since her husband's death. But when her dad needs her help, she heads for their horse ranch in Daily, Texas. There she must prepare a "broke down" race horse for his role in a movie that will alter the fortunes of her dad, a Hollywood star, and a screenwriter.

Of the many recent books on the historical Jesus, none has explored what the latest biblical scholarship means for personal faith. Now, in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Marcus Borg addresses the yearnings of those who want a fully contemporary faith that welcomes rather than oppresses our critical intelligence and openness to the best of historical scholarship. Borg shows how a rigorous examination of historical findings can lead to a new faith in Christ, one that is critical and, at the same time, sustaining.

Amy came to Rosemary Cottage to grieve, to heal, maybe even find love. But there’s a deadly undertow of secrets around Hope Island.... The charming Rosemary Cottage on the beach offers Amy Lange respite she needs to mourn her brother, Ben. She’s even thinking of moving her midwife practice to the Outer Banks community. Coast Guard officer Curtis Ireland has lost a sibling, too. His sister, Gina, was run down by a boat, leaving him to raise her infant daughter. If anyone knew who little Raine’s father was, Curtis could lose his beloved niece. Yet he can’t help being drawn to Hope Beach’s new midwife, Amy.

Heathenry is one of the fastest growing polytheistic religious movements in the United States today. In A Modern Guide to Heathenry, listeners will have the opportunity to explore the sacred stories of the various heathen gods like Odin, Frigga, Freya, and Thor, and will be granted a look into the devotional practices of modern votaries.

Commander Mark Bishop is deliberately low-key: "I'm in the Navy." But commanding the ballistic missile submarine USS Nevada, keeping her crew trained and alert during 90-day submerged patrols, and being prepared to launch weapons on valid presidential orders, carries a burden of command like few other jobs in the military. Mark wants someone to come home to after sea patrols. The woman he has in mind is young, with a lovely smile, and very smart. She's a civilian, yet she understands the U.S. Navy culture.

Portrays the life of the Chinese mystic, Saihung Kwan, and depicts his pursuit of the spiritual goals of the religion of Taoism. Deng Ming-Dao is the author of eight books, including 365 Tao, Everyday Tao, Scholar Warrior, and Chronicles of Tao.

“An indispensible study” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience that presents a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy, and issues an urgent call for White Christians to reckon with this legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation.

A sparklingly strange odyssey through the kaleidoscope of America's new spirituality: the cults, practices, high priests, and prophets of our supposedly post-religion age.

When a new highway threatens to bypass the town of Rossmore and cut through Whitethorn Woods, everyone has a passionate opinion about whether the town will benefit or suffer. But young Father Flynn is most concerned with the fate of St. Ann's Well, which is set at the edge of the woods and slated for destruction. People have been coming to St. Ann's for generations to share their dreams and fears, and speak their prayers.

Struggling to succeed in the Nashville music scene, talented singer/songwriter Parker James finds the competition fierce...even deadly. A young womans murder, industry corruption, and a menacing stalker draw Parker into danger and intrigue. Nothing is as it appears, and unraveling the truth challenges everything Parker believes about her talent, her future, and her faith.

Do you feel at home right now? Or do you sense a hovering anxiety or uncertainty, an underlying unease that makes you feel just a bit uncomfortable, a bit distracted and disconnected from those around you? In The Road Home, Ethan Nichtern, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, investigates the journey each of us takes to find where we belong.

In many ways, we seem to be living in wintry times at present in the Western world. In this new book, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a noted scholar of Eastern Christianity, introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era, that suggest where we might look for fresh light and warmth.

Everlasting is the sixteenth novella in the ongoing story of the Andersen family. Livia Andersen was a woman who held her family together with a quiet smile and an iron will. It’s been months since her death and her children and grandchildren she leaves behind continue to grapple with the shifting changes in their lives now that she’s gone. Some look back at what else has been lost to them and struggle to make sense of it. Claire Andersen Slavik has invited Ethan Gilchrist to visit her lakeside resort so that he can research his family’s history in the area. She knows it’s important...