Religion Theory

Conventional wisdom holds that America has been a Christian nation since the Founding Fathers. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse argues that the idea of "Christian America" is nothing more than a myth - and a relatively recent one at that.

Destined for Joy is a collection of essays devoted to the theme of the absolute love of God and the gospel of universal salvation. Written over a period of 10 years and revised for publication in this volume, they represent the fruition of the author’s theological and spiritual development over a span of four decades in parish ministry. If God has truly revealed himself in his incarnate Son Jesus Christ as absolute and unconditional love, does this not mean that he intends the salvation of all?

Viktor Frankl is known to millions of listeners as a psychotherapist who has transcended his field in his search for answers to the ultimate questions of life, death, and suffering. Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning explores the sometimes unconscious basic human desire for inspiration or revelation and illustrates how life can offer profound meaning at every turn.

In 2013, just two years after the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military ousted the country's first democratically elected president - Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood - and subsequently led a brutal repression of the Islamist group. These bloody events echoed an older political rift: the splitting of nationalists and Islamists during the rule of Egyptian president and Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Fawaz Gerges, one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East, tells how the clash between pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism has shaped the history of the region.

Why are we here? Do ghosts exist? Will we ever travel back in time? Are we being visited by extraterrestrials? Will we ever talk to animals? Are we being told the truth? Are mysterious creatures roaming the Earth? And why, when you’re in the shower, does the shower-curtain always billow in towards you? We don’t know the answers to any of these questions. But don’t worry, no matter what questions you have, you can bet on the fact that there is someone (or something) out there, investigating it on your behalf – and this book collects their latest findings.

Although Christian believers agreed with one another that the Bible was authoritative and that it should be interpreted through commonsense principles, there was rampant disagreement about what Scripture taught about slavery. Furthermore, most Americans continued to believe that God ruled over the affairs of people and nations, but they were radically divided in their interpretations of what God was doing in and through the war.

Why is the church so ineffectual and characterized by the mosaic generation as unchristian? The term born again has been devalued both in society and in the church. Recent social studies surveys have shown that those who regard themselves as born again Christians have the same tendency to divorce as people who aren't Christians at all! In these surveys, being born again is defined by what people say they believe.

In this magisterial work, leading cultural critic Mary Eberstadt delivers a powerful new theory about the decline of religion in the Western world. The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshalling an impressive array of research, Eberstadt shows that the reverse has also been true: the undermining of the family has further undermined Christianity itself.

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.

It is June 1936. Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) has finally been granted a visa for asylum in Norway, having been banned first from living in Paris, and then the whole of France. With him comes the draft of The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?, which is completed and sent to the publishers on the 4th of August. The book, published by Faber in 1937, is considered to be Trotsky’s major work on Stalinism.

We don't understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today's political dramas are unintelligible to us. The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe.

Far too many Christians are waiting, hoping, and praying for healing, but either it doesn’t last, or it doesn’t come at all. Doctors shrug and say there is nothing they can do. Pastors say it is your sin or attacks of the devil that blocks your healing. This only leaves people more helpless, hopeless, afraid, ashamed, and still sick or in pain.

Wounds Are Where Light Enters is a collection of stories that are warm, sometimes funny, sometimes not, but always taking unexpected turns to find the care of God in all the pathways of life. In them we find the grace that enables us to live with the answers we see and the answers we don't see. In this collection we meet Arthur Bias, the retired black police officer who loves those who hate; Agnes Brill, the shrill piano teacher of patience; Junie Piper, precious of the homeless; Melvin, who honors his aging mother by honoring the little girl she has become; Lucian; and more.

In her powerful, prophetic teaching style, best-selling author Jennifer Eivaz helps listeners to continually sharpen their gift in order to minister healing, breakthroughs, and a supernatural display of God's glory.

Secular models of peacemaking are insufficient. And the church has not always fulfilled its call to be agents of reconciliation in the world. In Reconciling All Things, Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice cast a comprehensive vision for reconciliation that is biblical, transformative, holistic, and global. They draw on the resources of the Christian story, including their own individual experiences in Uganda and Mississippi, to bring solid, theological reflection to bear on the work of reconciling individuals, groups, and societies.

In this updated classic Bible study, bestselling author and pastor Max Lucado pulls back the curtain on his favorite Bible passage to move you to a profound awareness of God's limitless love, His incalculable sacrifice, and the certainty of His offer of eternal life. With deeply personal accounts of the way this verse shaped Max's own faith journey, this audio Bible study will reveal the gospel story surrounding the promise and unpack God's plan of restoration from the human problems of sin and death. If you know nothing about the Bible, the promise of John 3:16 is where to start.

Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the 16th century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces listeners to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.

The alleged spontaneous and even intelligent movements of various inanimate objects, under some circumstances, without the application of any known mechanical force, is a phenomenon which has never been explained to the satisfaction of scientific men. I do not think it possible to explain away the allegations of the fact on the assumption that all the persons who have testified to the evidence of their senses in this matter have been either mistaken or mendacious.

What does the Bible mean when it says that Christians have died to sin? How is it possible for a just God to justify the ungodly without becoming unjust Himself? What is regeneration? What is justification? This book attempts to set forth in clear Biblical light the nature and characteristics of justification and regeneration that God may be glorified and His children brought to know more fully the liberty that is theirs in Christ.

The academic culture in which science is practiced today is one of tacit - if not explicit - atheism. Nowhere is this more evident than in the scientific study of how the universe began and developed - the field of origins. This book has been written in the conviction that the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis - the Bible's book of beginnings - provide a trustworthy and accurate account of the early history of the universe.