Religious Freedom

Here is an impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith. This important and timely work delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behavior and sometimes heinous crimes.

For fans of Educated and The Sound of Gravel, The Dirt Beneath Our Door tells the remarkable and inspirational story of how a mother escaped a fundamentalist Mormon cult with her eight youngest children, only to struggle with newfound freedom in an America she barely knew.

Award-winning journalist David Batstone reveals the story of a new generation of 21st century abolitionists and their heroic campaign to put an end to human bondage. In his accessible and inspiring book, Batstone carefully weaves the narratives of activists and those in bondage in a way that not only raises awareness of the modern-day slave trade, but also serves as a call to action.

The American political scene today is poisonously divided, and the vast majority of white evangelicals plays a strikingly unified, powerful role in the disunion. These evangelicals raise a starkly consequential question for electoral politics: Why do they claim morality while supporting politicians who act immorally by most Christian measures? In this clear-eyed, hard-hitting chronicle of American religion and politics, Anthea Butler answers that racism is at the core of conservative evangelical activism and power.

Throughout history the world’s greatest conquerors have made their mark not just on the battlefield, but in the societies they have transformed. Genghis Khan conquered by arms and bravery, but he ruled by commerce and religion. He created the world’s greatest trading network and drastically lowered taxes for merchants, but he knew that if his empire was going to last, he would need something stronger and more binding than trade. He needed religion.

God’s people are hiding in plain sightTens of millions of Christians live in China today, leading double lives to hide from a government that relentlessly persecutes them. By day, Bob Fu was a teacher in a communist school; by night, he was a preacher in an underground house church network. This edge-of-your-seat book tells the true story of Fu’s conversion to Christianity, his arrest and imprisonment for starting an illegal house church, his harrowing escape, and his subsequent rise to prominence in the United States as an advocate for his oppressed brethren.

When a murderous psychopath goes on a killing spree, law enforcement officials and the media never make his religion the central issue - unless he happens to be a Muslim. Then it sets off another frenzied wave of commentary about the inherent evils that lurk within the Muslim faith. From Fox News talking heads, who regularly smear Muslim leaders as secret terrorists, to Bill Maher, who has made Islam a routine target, it has become widely acceptable to libel a religion with a following of over 1.5 billion people.

In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International, Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates for 977 days. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history.

His grandfather’s lynching in the deep South, the murders of his two older brothers, and his verbally harsh and absent father all worked together to form Jason Wilson’s childhood. But it was his decision to acknowledge his emotions and yield to God’s call on his life that made Wilson the man and leader he is today. As the founder of one of the country’s most esteemed youth organizations, Wilson explains the dangers men face in our culture’s definition of “masculinity” and gives listeners hope that healing is possible.

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul - the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter - environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man - she was doing her small part to build a better world.

According to the establishment media, the intelligentsia, and our political chattering class, the greatest threat to American freedom lies in right-wing authoritarianism. We’ve heard that some 75 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump represent the rise of American fascism; that conservatives have allowed authoritarianism to bloom in their midst, creating a grave danger for the republic.

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.

Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education". Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea.

For 16 years, Angela Merkel bore the governmental responsibility for Germany, leading the country through numerous crises and shaping German and international politics and society with her actions and attitude. But Angela Merkel was not born a Chancellor. In her memoirs, co-written with her long-standing political advisor Beate Baumann, she looks back on her life in two German states—35 years in the GDR (German Democratic Republic), 35 years in reunified Germany.

On a clear spring day in 1995, five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas on the Tokyo subway system. In attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakmi talks to the people who lived through the catastrophe, and in so doing lays bare the Japanese psyche. As he discerns the fundamental issues that led to the attack, Murakami paints a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere.

There is a war being waged on the soul of America, but Phil Robertson believes there is hope. Your Daily Phil compiles readings taken from Phil Robertson's bestselling books The Theft of America's Soul and Jesus Politics, along with newly added prayers and Bible verses, to give you 100 daily devotions. These devotions encourage you and show you how you can turn away from the lies of the devil and embrace the life-giving, healing, and wholly transforming love of God, helping to bring the kingdom of heaven to your home, neighborhood, church, community, and country.

The Color of Compromise takes listeners on a historical journey: from America's early colonial days through slavery and the Civil War, covering the tragedy of Jim Crow laws and the victories of the Civil Rights era, to today's Black Lives Matter movement. Author Jemar Tisby reveals the obvious - and the far more subtle - ways the American church has compromised what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality.

He was a husband, a father, a preacher - and the preeminent leader of a movement that continues to transform America and the world. Now, in a special program commissioned and authorized by his family, here is the life and times of Martin Luther King, Jr. Featuring King's I Have a Dream Speech.

This is the book that launched William F. Buckley, Jr.'s career. As a young, recent Yale graduate, he took on Yale's professional and administrative staffs, citing their hypocritical diversion from the tenets on which the institution was built. Yale was founded on the belief that God exists, and thus that virtue and individualism represent immutable cornerstones of education. However, when Buckley wrote this scathing expose, the institution had made an about face.

The Convenient Terrorist is the definitive inside account of the capture, torture, and detention of Abu Zubaydah, the first “high-value target” captured by the CIA after 9/11. But was Abu Zubaydah, who is still being indefinitely held by the United States under shadowy circumstances, the blue-ribbon capture that the Bush White House claimed he was?