Sociology Religion

The Fabulous Reinvention of Sunday School is an indispensable guidebook to transformational teaching in children’s ministries of every size and setting. Create excellence for kids through four ministry-rocking values. Unleash fabulous and powerful techniques that lead to unforgettable teaching moments. Consult a veritable handbook of twenty creative methods that bring any Bible story to life.

Mainstream perceptions about what it means to be Buddhist in America often whitewash and invisibilize the diverse, inclusive, and intersectional communities that lie at the heart of American Buddhism. Be the Refuge is both critique and celebration, calling out the erasure of Asian-American Buddhists while uplifting the complexity and nuance of their authentic stories and vital, thriving communities. Drawn from in-depth interviews with a pan-ethnic, pan-Buddhist group, Be the Refuge is the first book to center young Asian-American Buddhists' own voices.

Do you want the greatest political and societal challenges of the day to be addressed with thoughtful, reality-based solutions rather than with cherry-picked quotations from scripture? Do you want to shrink religion - especially fundamentalist religion - to the point that it plays no noticeable role in public life? Do you want right-wing religious leaders to be so unpopular that politicians avoid them rather than pander to them for endorsements? This book illustrates specific, actionable steps for facilitating fundamentalist religion's decline.

Near death experience is a recognized universal phenomenon. Is it bringing us closer to the meaning of life itself? The phrase "near death experience" can be incredibly evocative. While for some it might simply suggest the proximity to an accident or a personal tragedy, the meaning behind a near death experience is often a great deal more spiritual. After listening to this audiobook, you will be knowledgeable about near death experiences and will know the truth behind NDEs.

Intimate and honest essays on motherhood, marriage, love, and acceptance. Brown White Black is a portrait of Nishta J. Mehra's family: her wife, who is White; her adopted child, Shiv, who is Black; and their experiences dealing with America's rigid ideas of race, gender, and sexuality. Her clear-eyed and incisive writing on her family's daily struggle to make space for themselves amid racial intolerance and stereotypes personalizes some of America's most fraught issues.

Told with equal parts raw honesty and unbridled compassion, All Day recounts a year in Liza Jessie Peterson's classroom at Island Academy, the high school for inmates detained at New York City's Rikers Island. A poet and an actress who had done occasional workshops at the correctional facility, Peterson was ill prepared for a full-time stint teaching in the GED program for the incarcerated youths.

David Ireland, pastor of a multiracial megachurch in New Jersey and diversity consultant to the NBA, equips Christians to usher in a new era of racial reconciliation in One in Christ. Racial disharmony is tearing communities apart, both inside and outside the church. But Jesus Christ is, and was, a great reconciler. Warmth, regard, and respect emanated from His person toward others - all others. Part of this allure was the fact Jesus was comfortable in His skin. This made others who approached Him comfortable in their skin.

Soaking is a metaphor for practices like resting in the Spirit, prayer for spiritual gifts, healing, prophecy, impartation, and supports overall charismatic spirituality. Attending "Catch the Fire" conferences, churches, and house meetings in the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, Wilkinson and Althouse observed firsthand how people soak, what it means to soak, and why soaking is considered an important practice among charismatics.

A powerful and deeply personal exploration of a divided country - and a hopeful vision for change. Weaving together history, reportage and memoir, Sarfraz Manzoor journeys around Britain in search of the roots of this division - from the fear that Islam promotes violence, to the suspicion that Muslims wish to live segregated lives, to the belief that Islam is fundamentally misogynistic.

Randall Balmer was a late convert to sports talk radio, but he quickly became addicted, just like millions of other devoted American sports fans. As a historian of religion, the more he listened, Balmer couldn't help but wonder how the fervor he heard related to religious practice. From baseball to basketball and football to ice hockey, Balmer explores the origins and histories of big-time sports from the late nineteenth century to the present, with entertaining anecdotes and fresh insights into their ties to religious life.

For fifty years “Detroit” has been shorthand for all that's wrong with urban America: crime, corruption, decay, racial tension, struggling businesses, failing schools, a declining tax base, and more. Since 1950 Detroit has lost two-thirds of its population, falling from fifth place in the U.S. (just behind Los Angeles) to twenty-fourth (just behind Nashville). Between 2000 and 2017 alone, its population fell 28%, a steeper drop than any other major American city.

"If only..." "I should have..." "What if..." Don't punish yourself with regret. It only poisons your daily life and robs you of the peace you long for. Instead, transform past pain into a powerful force that propels you toward a better tomorrow. With this book, looking at your past will bring healing and growth - not regret, guilt, or shame. You can pack away your if-onlys, give perfectionism the boot, and rejoice in who and where you are today.

How do you know what you know - or what you think you know? Have you ever wondered why you believe in God, why some people don’t believe in God, or what it means to be religious? How do you answer the question, “Who are you?” Norman Orr provides new ways to think about these questions and many more in this book that promotes the idea of embracing biological humanism.

When Caylin Louis Moore was a young child, his mother gathered her three young children and fled an abusive husband, landing in poverty in a heavily policed, gang-ridden community. When Moore’s father was convicted of murder and his mother was sexually assaulted in the hospital while recovering from open-heart surgery, Moore was forced to enter adulthood prematurely.

Uncensored grace is what you get from a loving God when all the religious types have gone home, and every last hope for your own effort has ended. What comes to mind first when you think Las Vegas? Maybe glitz and glam. Or dealers and dancers, high rollers and hell raisers. And why not? After all, the town they call Sin City is an American icon, an anything-goes shrine to pleasure, money, sex-and another lucky roll of the dice.

The current controversy over teaching evolution in the public schools has grabbed front-page headlines and topped news broadcasts all across the United States. In the Beginning investigates the movement that has ignited debate in state legislatures and at school board meetings. Reaching back to the origins of antievolutionism in the 1920s, and continuing to the promotion of intelligent design today, Michael Lienesch skillfully analyzes one of the most formidable political movements of the 20th century.

Drawing on his years of reporting, Jenkins examines the reemergence of progressive faith-based activism, detailing its origins and contrasting its goals with those of the religious right. Today’s rapidly expanding interfaith coalition - which includes Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and other faiths - has become a force within the larger “resistance” movement. Jenkins profiles Washington political insiders as well as a new generation of progressive faith leaders at the forefront today.

Have you ever been able to witness a glow around another person? Have you ever looked into a mirror and seen a field of energy surrounding your body? If so, you have already witnessed an aura. In the field of intuition medicine, this field of energy, simply called an aura, is believed to shield and protect your subtle, non-physical body. The health and well-being of your aura will determine how happy, joyful, and peaceful you feel mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

In 2005 a Chinook helicopter carrying 16 Special Ops soldiers crashed during a rescue mission in a remote part of Afghanistan, killing everyone on board. In that instant, machine gunner Caleb Daniels lost his best friend, Kip Jacoby, and seven members of his unit. Back in the U.S., Caleb begins to see them everywhere - dead Kip, with his Alice in Wonderland tattoos, and the rest of them, their burned bodies watching him. But there is something else haunting Caleb, too - a presence he calls the Black Thing, or the Destroyer.

The proclaimed hope of America rings most hollow for Native peoples, people of color, the rural poor, and other communities pressed to the margins. Author Jonathan Walton exposes the cultural myths and misconceptions about America's identity. Focusing on its manipulation of Scripture and the person of Jesus, he redirects us to the true promises found in the gospel. Walton identifies how American ideology and way of life has become a false religion and reveals that orienting our lives around American nationalism is idolatry.