Religion Theory

For Protestants or Catholics seeking to understand Eastern Orthodoxy, the Cross is a good place to start. In the West a multitude of different views sprang up over the last millennium, but Orthodox Christian beliefs have remained unchanged. The contrast between those views is suggested by the two images on the book's cover, showing how differently the meaning of the Cross was understood, East and West.

Join investigative journalist and bestselling author Lee Strobel as he embarks on his life-changing quest to solve the riddle of grace. Along the way, you'll find the undeniable evidence of grace in the true stories of racists, addicts, and even murderers who have found new hope and purpose—all through the redemptive power of God's amazing grace.

Cold Tangerines is a collection of stories that celebrate the extraordinary moments hidden in our everyday lives. It is about God, and about life, and about the thousands of daily ways in which an awareness of God changes and infuses everything. It is about spiritual life, and about all the things that we have called nonspiritual life that might be spiritual after all.

Grace is more story than doctrine. It's more than forgiveness or compassion. It's undeserved by definition, essential to salvation. And it turns out that God's grace—though it's the only thing we stand on and the only thing we should stand for—is the very thing that we consistently distort and hesitate to extend to others. Why is that? To understand the story of grace—what it means and how it's misunderstood, why we need it and how it was given to us—we have to begin at the beginning.

Gay marriage, transgender rights, birth control - sex is at the heart of many of the most divisive political issues of our age. The origins of these conflicts, historian R. Marie Griffith argues, lie in sharp disagreements that emerged among American Christians a century ago. From the 1920s onward, a once-solid Christian consensus regarding gender roles and sexual morality began to crumble, as liberal Protestants sparred with fundamentalists and Catholics over questions of obscenity, sex education, and abortion.

What happens in the heart when it experiences real saving faith? John Piper argues that faith in Christ is not saving unless it includes an "affectional dimension of treasuring Christ." Nor is God glorified as he ought to be unless he is treasured in being trusted. Saving faith in Jesus Christ welcomes him forever as our supreme and inexhaustible pleasure. What Is Saving Faith? explains that a Savior who is treasured for his all-satisfying worth is more glorified than a Savior who is only trusted for his all-forgiving competence

Are you for Christ or are you against him? You know you are either one or the other, for he says so. We learn in Matthew 12:30 in the words of Jesus himself: He that is not with me is against me. Everyone is either with Jesus wholeheartedly, confessedly, and openly, or else they are against Jesus. Which are you? For Christ or against him?

Según R.C. Sproul, la predestinación no es solo para los calvinistas, sino para «todos» los cristianos bíblicos. En esta edición actualizada y ampliada de Escogidos por Dios, Sproul muestra que la doctrina de la predestinación no crea una imagen caprichosa o rencorosa de Dios, sino que pinta el retrato de un Dios amoroso que provee redención a una humanidad radicalmente corrupta. Hay misterio en los caminos de Dios, pero no contradicción.

Is the gift of tongues for today? Does God want me to have the gift of tongues? Should I ask for the gift of tongues? Believers have asked these questions and many others about this debated and mysterious spiritual gift. Offering fresh biblical insight, Robert Henderson has written an essential guide that helps believers understand and discover the power of tongues to remove limits and establish a renewed relationship with God transcending the natural realm.

From mourning to discernment, from invitation to intimacy, and from community to the charge to go forth and witness, this work seeks a fuller understanding of the Eucharist through the story of the disciples on their way to Emmaus and calls us to experience the entire journey, to know that what we celebrate and what we are called to live are one and the same.

We generally understand "radical Islam" as a purely Islamic phenomenon, but Buruma and Margalit show that while the Islamic part of radical Islam certainly is, the radical part owes a primary debt of inheritance to the West. Whatever else they are, al Qaeda and its ilk are revolutionary anti-Western political movements, and Buruma and Margalit show us that the bogeyman of the West who stalks their thinking is the same one who has haunted the thoughts of many other revolutionary groups, going back to the early 19th century.

Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will (1525) is a response to Desiderius Erasmus's "Diatribe on Free Will.’ The work is considered as one of the great masterpieces of the Reformation. Luther writes powerfully about man's depravity and God's sovereignty in his direct style, which combines spirituality and humor. For Luther, the crucial issue was the ability of free will, and the extent to which it is subject to God's sovereignty.

Does anyone really want to forgive? Or admit that we need forgiveness? Whether we're giving or receiving, forgiveness is hard. It seems unfair. It feels unnatural. And as best-selling author and Pastor John MacArthur demonstrates, forgiveness apart from Christ is unnatural. It is only as we understand our need, Christ's power and example, and what it really means to love that we can embrace two of the most liberating acts of love: forgiving and being forgiven.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 has been described as an epochal event, called the peak of 20th century Islamic revivalism and revitalization, and analyzed as the one key incident that continues to impact politics across Iran, the Middle East, and the even the world as a whole. As a phenomenon that led to the creation of the first modern Islamic Republic in the world, the revolution marked the victory of Islam over secular politics, and Iran quickly became the aspiring model for Islamic fundamentalists and revivalists across the globe, regardless of nationality, culture, or religious sect.

Christians have long differed with one another on both the meaning and the practice of water baptism. Using the classic Counterpoints forum of presentation-critique-response, this insightful book explores four prominent views of baptism held by different branches of Protestantism: Baptist, Christian Church/Church of Christ, Lutheran, and Reformed.

If life is but a dream, to what do we awake? The central premise of this book is the admittedly ridiculous but incontrovertibly true assertion that the universe does not exist. This is something you can understand conceptually, like watching a documentary about Antarctica, or experientially, like moving to Antarctica. There's also a related phenomenon where you fall asleep watching the documentary and wake up in the frozen wasteland.

In an easy-to-follow and conversational manner, researcher Mike Ricksecker formally introduces his Stacked Time Theory with an exploration of the fabric of the cosmos, starting with ancient symbolism and alchemy up through today's modern science and technology. What clues did our ancient ancestors leave for us about the nature of the universe that we're just now rediscovering today, and where throughout history have we seen those clues resurface?

Abortion and critical race theory are twin evils born of the same diabolical monster: racism. And yet, there are many in the church who want to call them good, even as America begins to unravel under their influence. In Eraced, John Amanchukwu Sr. dispels the myths surrounding abortion and critical race theory, and uncovers the Left's sinister plot to destroy the Black community and divide the church. Along the way, he brings to light important gospel truths to help all believers learn to think biblically about some of the most important and explosive issues of our day.

Should the church baptize infants? This question has been an issue of debate for over 1500 years. The Baptism Debate provides a fresh look at the Reformed perspective on infant baptism. After thoroughly explaining and examining the Reformed position on infant baptism, this book provides a genuine and thoughtful analysis of Reformed covenant theology and its implications for infant baptism.

New release from Jerry Bridges, author of more than a dozen books, including The Pursuit of Holiness, which has sold more than one million copies. His devotional, Holiness Day By Day, garnered the 2009 ECPA Christian Book Award for the inspiration and gift category, and The Discipline of Grace received a similar award in 1995 for the Christian living category.