Memoir Religion

When Alice Greczyn's parents felt called by God to exchange worldly employment for heavenly provision, they followed their faith into homelessness with five children and a cat in tow. Homeschooled and avowed never to kiss a man until her wedding day, Alice had plans to escape by becoming a missionary nurse—plans that were put on hold with the opening of an unexpected door: the opportunity to be a Hollywood actress. What followed was a test of faith unlike any she had prepared for, one that forced her to learn to survive without the only framework for life she had ever known.

Jeanna Kadlec knew what it meant to be faithful--in her marriage to a pastor’s son, in the comfortable life ahead of her, in her God--but there was no denying the truth that lived under that conviction: she was queer and, if she wanted to survive, she would need to leave behind the church and every foundational building block she knew. Heretic is a memoir of rebirth. Within, Kadlec reckons with religious trauma and Midwestern values, as a means of unveiling how evangelicalism directly impacts every American--religious or not--and has been a major force in driving our democracy towards fascism.

From one of the foremost medievalists of our time, a groundbreaking work on history and memory that goes well beyond the life of this influential saint.

From one of our most trusted spiritual advisers, a thoughtful, illuminating guide to that most fascinating of biblical texts, the book of Job, and what it can teach us about living in a troubled world.

Since his retirement as Archbishop of Canterbury and his return to academic life (Master of Magdalene College Cambridge), Rowan Williams has demonstrated a massive new surge of intellectual energy. In this new audiobook, he turns his attention to St Augustine. St Augustine not only shaped the development of Western theology, he also made a major contribution to political theory ( The City of God) and, through his Confessions, to the understanding of human psychology.

Banished is an eye-opening, deeply personal account of life inside the cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church, as well as a fascinating story of adaptation and perseverance. Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it's perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later. Banished is the story of Lauren's fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.

As a woman in today’s world, you know what it’s like to feel pressure on all sides from clashing cultural expectations. How can you stay true to who God has uniquely created you to be in the face of the script you’ve been given? What’s more, how can you stand your ground with grace? The classy confidence you know and love - whether it’s on set at Full House or Fuller House, Dancing with the Stars, The View, or Candace’s Hallmark films - is no act. But it hasn’t come easy. In fact, learning to stay true to herself with grace has been one of the biggest fights of Candace’s life.

In Black Catholics on the Road to Sainthood, Michael R. Heinlein provides the first book to explore the lives of the six Black Catholics from the United States whose causes are under formal consideration by the Catholic Church for canonization. Including biographies and personal reflections from diverse contributors, this book shows how these six men and women provide a model of holiness for all Catholics and people of good will.

With the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright became generally acknowledged as one of our major journalists writing on terrorism in the Middle East. This collection draws on several articles he wrote while researching that book as well as many that he's written since, following where and how al-Qaeda and its core cultlike beliefs have morphed and spread.

In her best-selling books Anything and Restless, Jennie Allen challenged women to fully surrender their lives to God and then offered a process to uncover and understand the raw materials he had given them. Now, those two concepts have been combined to create a 40-day journey for women to pursue God and find the deepest yearnings of their heart fulfilled. This step-by-step process, to fully surrender to God and then identify the threads of gifts, passions, places, relationships, and sufferings in your life, is not to get what you want but to find what God wants of you.

Following the death of his little sister and the publication of his New York Times best-selling memoir The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Rod Dreher found himself living in the small community of Starhill, Louisiana, where he grew up. But instead of the fellowship he hoped to find, he discovered that fault lines within his family had deepened. Dreher spiraled into depression and a stress-related autoimmune disease.

How did one man's unshakable faith shape the future of thousands struggling to break free from the grip of addiction, poverty, and sin? Join Gary Wilkerson as he shares a never-before-seen look at the incredible life and legacy of his father, bestselling author and evangelist David Wilkerson.

Spiced with his trademark comedy and self-deprecating humor, Scott Davis serves up a dose of reality about the correlation between the state of our hearts and the location of our waistline. Scott explores the spiritual depths and practical steps to losing significant weight and shows how you can adopt a healthy lifestyle too. Foreword by Christian singer and comedian Mark Lowry.

Cults prey on the very attributes that make us human: our desire to belong, to find a deeper meaning in life, to live everyday with divine purpose. Their existence creates a sense that any one of us, at any time, could step off the cliff’s edge and fall into that daunting abyss of manipulation and unhinged dedication to a misplaced cause. Perhaps it’s this mindset that keeps us so utterly obsessed and desperate to learn more, or it’s that the stories are so bizarre and unsettling that we are simply in awe of the mechanics that make these infamous groups tick.

Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs unites past Christians with believers today. Building on over fifty years of ministry to persecuted Christians, The Voice of the Martyrs organization shares sixty-seven stories of Christians who have stood faithfully to the death since 2000. Their courage in the face of ISIS and the Taliban, brutal dictatorships, and government crackdowns will inspire you to boldness and remind you that the same Spirit of Christ who strengthened Stephen, Peter, and Paul is at work in you today.

It’s the 1950’s, and Irish Catholic Tricia Williams is surviving childhood in Brooklyn, New York, watching Leave It to Beaver and hanging out at Gino’s Pizzeria. Though the family scene is short on security, she’s got friends and faith. Twenty years later, the surging sexual revolution is in full swing, and her obsession is “breaking away.” She’s abandoned the Church, and now in a hurry to leave home, makes a daring move to Los Angeles. It’s a strange city, and Tricia soon realizes it might not be the start of something big, but bad. It’s not the obsessive apartment-...

At the time of his murder trial, Jarvis Jay Masters was in solitary confinement and spent 22 years in a five-foot-by-11-foot cell. This is where The Buddhist on Death Row takes off. With uncanny clarity, David Sheff describes Masters’ path to enlightenment - from being sullen and violent to discovering how easy and how hard it is to just sit and breathe, how those minutes spawn heightened perception and deepened compassion, the right way to remember one’s pain, and much more.

Blurring the boundaries of righteous and irreverent, Red Lip Theology invites us to discover freedom in a progressive Christian faith that incorporates activism, feminism, and radical authenticity. Essayist and theologian Candice Marie Benbow’s essays explore universal themes like heartache, loss, forgiveness, and sexuality, and she unflinchingly empowers women who struggle with feeling loved and nurtured by church culture.

Pursuing his calling with singleness of vision, John Wesley defied the strength of angry mobs and longstanding traditions to offer the hope of Christ to millions of people who were outside the influence of the churches of the day. Passionate and tireless, this Anglican clergyman rode a quarter of a million miles on horseback during his lifetime, stopping to preach more than forty thousand sermons in open fields, churches, and barns.

As a long-time Christian, Heather Kopp never expected to become an out-of-control alcoholic. Engaging, funny and bracingly honest, Kopp shares her remarkable journey into darkness... and back to the light again. Her story reveals the unique challenges and spiritual conundrums Christians face when they become ensnared in an addiction. If you love Jesus but shop too much, drink too much, eat too much, crush on men who aren't your husband, or otherwise fixate on doing things you hate but can't stop doing, Sober Mercies is for you.