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The case for miracles: A journalist investigates evidence for the supernatural
By Lee Strobel. 2018
New York Times bestselling author Lee Strobel trains his investigative sights on the hot-button question: is it really credible to…
believe God intervenes supernaturally in people's lives today? This provocative book starts with an unlikely interview in which America's foremost skeptic builds a seemingly persuasive case against the miraculous. But then Strobel travels the country to quiz scholars to see whether they can offer solid answers to atheist objections. Along the way, he encounters astounding accounts of healings and other phenomena that simply cannot be explained away by naturalistic causes. The book features the results of exclusive new scientific polling that shows miracle accounts are much more common than people think. What's more, Strobel delves into the most controversial question of all: what about miracles that don't happen? If God can intervene in the world, why doesn't he do it more often to relieve suffering? Many American Christians are embarrassed by the supernatural, not wanting to look odd or extreme to their neighbors. Yet, The Case for Miracles shows not only that the miraculous is possible, but that God still does intervene in our world in awe-inspiring ways. Here's a unique book that examines all sides of this issue and comes away with a passionate defense for God's divine action in lives today. Also available: The Case for Miracles Spanish edition, kids' edition, and student editionThis powerful encyclical is Pope Francis' "cry from the heart" to all people of the earth to see beyond their…
differences work with their differences and begin to grow together to build a new and peaceful world. This remarkable document comes from a pastor's heart, setting forth Francis' vision for a new church and new world, against the backdrop of a catastrophic pandemic that has spared nothing and altered everything. Returning again and again to themes he has developed throughout his papacy, Pope Francis speaks of the need for equality and justice for all, cooperation, caring for the most vulnerable, doing the hard work of learning to listen to and accompany others, and caring for the earth that nurtures and sustains us all. Read slowly and reflectively, Pope Francis' message here is full of divine and human wisdom for every person.Women and Redemption: A Theological History
By Rosemary Radford Ruether. 2012
Rosemary Radford Ruether's authoritative, award-winning critique of women's unequal standing in the church, which explored the complex history of redemption…
in evaluating conflict over the fundamental meaning of the Christian gospel for gender relations, is now in an updated and expanded edition. Ruether highlights women theologians' work to challenge the patriarchal paradigm of historical theology and present redemption linked to women's liberation. Ruether turns her attention to the situation of women globally and how the growing plurality of women's voices from multicultural and multireligious contexts articulates feminist liberation theology today.Ancient Judaism
By Max Weber. 1952
Weber’s classic study which deals specifically with: Types of Asceticism and the Significance of Ancient Judaism, History and Social Organization…
of Ancient Palestine, Political Organization and Religious Ideas in the Time of the Confederacy and the Early Kings, Political Decline, Religious Conflict and Biblical Prophecy.How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now
By James L. Kugel. 2007
James Kugel&’s essential introduction and companion to the Bible combines modern scholarship with the wisdom of ancient interpreters for the…
entire Hebrew Bible.As soon as it appeared, How to Read the Bible was recognized as a masterwork, &“awesome, thrilling&” (The New York Times), &“wonderfully interesting, extremely well presented&” (The Washington Post), and &“a tour de force...a stunning narrative&” (Publishers Weekly). Now, this classic remains the clearest, most inviting and readable guide to the Hebrew Bible around—and a profound meditation on the effect that modern biblical scholarship has had on traditional belief. Moving chapter by chapter, Harvard professor James Kugel covers the Bible&’s most significant stories—the Creation of the world, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his wives, Moses and the exodus, David&’s mighty kingdom, plus the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets, and on to the Babylonian conquest and the eventual return to Zion. Throughout, Kugel contrasts the way modern scholars understand these events with the way Christians and Jews have traditionally understood them. The latter is not, Kugel shows, a naïve reading; rather, it is the product of a school of sophisticated interpreters who flourished toward the end of the biblical period. These highly ideological readers sought to put their own spin on texts that had been around for centuries, utterly transforming them in the process. Their interpretations became what the Bible meant for centuries and centuries—until modern scholarship came along. The question that this book ultimately asks is: What now? As one reviewer wrote, Kugel&’s answer provides &“a contemporary model of how to read Sacred Scripture amidst the oppositional pulls of modern scholarship and tradition.&”The Path of Desire: Living Tantra in Northeast India
By Hugh B. Urban. 2024
A provocative study of contemporary Tantra as a dynamic living tradition. Tantra, one of the most important religious currents…
in South Asia, is often misrepresented as little more than ritualized sex. Through a mixture of ethnography and history, Hugh B. Urban reveals a dynamic living tradition behind the sensationalist stories. Urban shows that Tantric desire goes beyond the erotic, encompassing such quotidian experiences as childbearing and healing. He traces these holistic desires through a series of unique practices: institutional Tantra centered on gurus and esoteric rituals; public Tantra marked by performance and festival; folk Tantra focused on magic and personal well-being; and popular Tantra imagined in fiction, film, and digital media. The result is a provocative new description of Hindu Tantra that challenges us to approach religion as something always entwined with politics and culture, thoroughly entangled with ordinary needs and desires.The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
By Henri J. Nouwen. 1972
A radically fresh interpretation of how we can best serve others from the bestselling author of The Return of the Prodigal…
Son, hailed as &“one of the world&’s greatest spiritual writers&” by Christianity Today&“In our own woundedness, we can become a source of life for others.&” In this hope-filled and profoundly simple book, Henri Nouwen inspires devoted men and women who want to be of service in their church or community but who have found traditional outreach alienating and ineffective. Weaving keen cultural analysis with his psychological and religious insights, Nouwen presents a balanced and creative theology of service that begins with the realization of fundamental woundedness in human nature. According to Nouwen, ministers are called to identify the suffering in their own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of their service. Ministers must be willing to go beyond their professional, somewhat aloof roles and leave themselves open as fellow human beings with the same wounds and suffering as those they serve. In other words, we heal from our wounds. The Wounded Healer is a thoughtful and insightful guide that will be welcomed by anyone engaged in the service of others.Moral Vision: Leadership from George Washington to Joe Biden
By Marvin Olasky. 2024
What makes a leader truly great? Is it simply a matter of management style and personality? Or is it character…
that matters most? Moral Visions takes an insightful look into America&’s leaders of the past to answer these questions and demonstrates that values and moral convictions are critical to the strength of a nation.Supposedly, we learn about the candidates for the highest office through a series of tests called &“debates,&” which are instead an exchange of soundbites. We can&’t know whether an aspirant to the presidency has the ability to ask good questions or only a suave or belligerent ability to answer them. Moral Vision is a human-interest introduction to American history through studies of nineteen leaders: presidents, almost presidents, a tycoon, a crusading journalist, and even a leading 19th century abortionist. Its lessons can help voters sort through the candidates in 2024 and beyond by measuring them against previous leaders—none of whom was faultless. It shows how the deepest views often grow out of religious belief and influence political goals, racial prejudices, sexual activities, uses of power, and senses of service. In his 1789 inaugural address, George Washington pledged that &“the foundation for national policy will be laid in the sure and immutable principles of private morality.&” Marvin Olasky shows how 19th-century leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Grover Cleveland partly upheld and partly ignored that promise, and 20th-century leaders like Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton tried to &“compartmentalize&” the private and the public. An extensively updated version of The American Leadership Tradition, Moral Vision is for anyone tired of today&’s textbook tendencies to submerge the role of individuals as big economic and demographic waves roll in. History is more than statistics, economics, and group identities. Human beings are more than paper boats riding the rainfall into gutters.The Genesis Prayer: The Ancient Secret that Can Grant You Miracles
By Jeffrey Meiliken. 2005
A prayer that promises miracles"This book is for anyone who wants a miracle, has ever wanted to see God's work…
in action, or needed proof of His existence. It is for the doubters and believers alike.If you think nothing is out there, think again. Whether you're an agnostic astrophysicist or a seminary priest, you will discover an ancient gift that works every time, no questions asked. By the time you finish this book, your perception of the universe will have changed.If you thought God was out there but not listening, you may discover that you have been tuning into the wrong channels. It doesn't matter whether you want to call it the Light Force of God, the creative power of the Lord, or any other expression of omnipotent omniscience because as you'll soon discover, you have the ability to tap into it. In fact, you've had the ability all along.If you ever wondered if anyone was listening or if anyone cared, you'll soon see for yourself the benevolence that's been available to you and all of us since the dawn of time. You'll learn why the ancient sages said the Light Force always gives, always listens, and always answers. Find out how to get heard. Find out what you've been missing. See an infinite stream of miracles spread out before you, guiding your every step. As you rethink everything you've ever known, you'll see that life is not supposed to be difficult; man isn't supposed to suffer; fate isn't some abstraction beyond our control, and your life can indeed be wonderful".--From the IntroductionAmerican Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
By William Langewiesche. 2002
Selected as one of the best books of 2002 by The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Los…
Angeles Times, and Chicago Sun-TimesWithin days after September 11, 2001, William Langewiesche had secured unique, unrestricted, round-the-clock access to the World Trade Center site. American Ground is a tour of this intense, ephemeral world and those who improvised the recovery effort day by day, and in the process reinvented themselves, discovering unknown strengths and weaknesses. In all of its aspects--emotionalism, impulsiveness, opportunism, territoriality, resourcefulness, and fundamental, cacophonous democracy--Langewiesche reveals the unbuilding to be uniquely American and oddly inspiring, a portrait of resilience and ingenuity in the face of disaster.The Mind of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics
By Robert Aitken. 1984
In Taking the Path of Zen, Robert Aitken provided a concise guide to zazen (Zen meditation) and other aspects of…
the practice of Zen. In The Mind of Clover he addresses the world beyond the zazen cushions, illuminating issues of appropriate personal and social action through an exploration of the philosophical complexities of Zen ethics. Aitken's approach is clear and sure as he shows how our minds can be as nurturing as clover, which enriches the soil and benefits the environment as it grows. The opening chapters discuss the Ten Grave Precepts of Zen, which, Aitken points out, are "not commandments etched in stone but expressions of inspiration written in something more fluid than water." Aitken approaches these precepts, the core of Zen ethics, from several perspectives, offering many layers of interpretation. Like ripples in a pond, the circles of his interpretation increasingly widen, and he expands his focus to confront corporate theft and oppression, the role of women in Zen and society, abortion, nuclear war, pollution of the environment, and other concerns.The Mind of Clover champions the cause of personal responsibility in modern society, encouraging nonviolent activism based on clear convictions. It is a guide that engages, that invites us to realize our own potential for confident and responsible action.Prophets, Priests and Politics
By Stephen Disraeli. 1952
The prophets of the Old Testament were speaking, in the first instance, to the people of their own time. This…
means that we need to locate the prophets in the history of their own time, in order to understand them in the first instance. I propose to survey Israel’s history mainly in terms of the work and role of the prophets, from Moses to Malachi. Of course, they were interacting with the temple priesthood and with the disciples of Machiavelli, who cannot be left out of the story. God himself is in the background of this history, pursuing his purposes through these events and making his will known, which brings us back to the prophets. I’ve been a student of history since I was nine years old, a simple transition from an interest in maps. My mind itches, instinctively, to arrange things in chronological order. In fact, I was trying to synchronise the kings and prophets, for my own interest, while I was still at school. However, this will not be an academic work. My chief source of information will be the Old Testament itself. The story is told from a Christian viewpoint, or even a Protestant viewpoint, as will be evident from time to time. Yet faith will not be over-powering the critical spirit. The charioteer will be running these two horses as a team.African Philosophy of Religion and Western Monotheism (Elements in Religion and Monotheism)
By Null Kirk Lougheed, Null Motsamai Molefe, Null Thaddeus Metz. 2024
The Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are typically recognized as the world's major monotheistic religions. However, African Traditional…
Religion is, despite often including lesser spirits and gods, a monotheistic religion with numerous adherents in sub-Saharan Africa; it includes the idea of a single most powerful God responsible for the creation and sustenance of everything else. This Element focuses on drawing attention to this major world religion that has been much neglected by scholars around the globe, particularly those working in the West or Northern Hemisphere. It accomplishes this primarily by bringing it into conversation with topics in the Anglo-American philosophy of religion.Holiness and Pentecostal Movements: Intertwined Pasts, Presents, and Futures (Studies in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements)
By David Bundy, Geordan Hammond, and David Sang-Ehil Han. 2022
Since the 1830s, Holiness and Pentecostal movements have had a significant influence on many Christian churches, and they have been…
a central force in producing what is known today as World Christianity. This book demonstrates the advantages of analyzing them in relation to one another.The Salvation Army, the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, and the Free Methodist Church identify strongly with the Holiness Movement. The Assemblies of God and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World identify just as strongly with the Pentecostal Movement. Complicating matters, denominations such as the Church of God (Cleveland), the International Holiness Pentecostal Church, and the Church of God in Christ have harmonized Holiness and Pentecostalism. This book, the first in the new series Studies in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements, examines these complex relationships in a multidisciplinary fashion. Building on previous scholarship, the contributors provide new ways of understanding the relationships, influences, and circulation of ideas among these movements in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and Southeast and East Asia.In addition to the editors, the contributors are Kimberly Ervin Alexander, Insik Choi, Robert A. Danielson, Chris E. W. Green, Henry H. Knight III, Frank D. Macchia, Luther Oconer, Cheryl J. Sanders, and Daniel Woods.This volume presents editions of two fascinating anonymous and untitled manuscripts of magic produced in Elizabethan England: the Antiphoner Notebook…
and the Boxgrove Manual. Frank Klaassen uses these texts, which he argues are representative of the overwhelming majority of magical practitioners, to explain how magic changed during this period and why these developments were crucial to the formation of modern magic.The Boxgrove Manual is a work of learned ritual magic that synthesizes material from Henry Cornelius Agrippa, the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, Heptameron, and various medieval conjuring works. The Antiphoner Notebook concerns the common magic of treasure hunting, healing, and protection, blending medieval conjuring and charm literature with materials drawn from Reginald Scot’s famous anti-magic work, Discoverie of Witchcraft. Klaassen painstakingly traces how the scribes who created these two manuscripts adapted and transformed their original sources. In so doing, he demonstrates the varied and subtle ways in which the Renaissance, the Reformation, new currents in science, the birth of printing, and vernacularization changed the practice of magic.Illuminating the processes by which two sixteenth-century English scribes went about making a book of magic, this volume provides insight into the wider intellectual culture surrounding the practice of magic in the early modern period.Ecological Solidarities: Mobilizing Faith and Justice for an Entangled World (World Christianity)
By Krista E. Hughes. 2019
Operating on the premise that our failure to recognize our interconnected relationship to the rest of the cosmos is the…
origin of planetary peril, this volume presents academic, activist, and artistic perspectives on how to inspire reflection and motivate action in order to construct alternative frameworks and establish novel solidarities for the sake of our planetary home.The selections in this volume explore ecologies of interdependence as a frame for religious, theological, and philosophical analysis and practice. Contributors examine questions of justice, climate change, race, class, gender, and coloniality and discuss alternative ways of engaging the world in all its biodiversity. Each essay, poem, reflection, and piece of art contributes to and reflects upon how to live out entangled differences toward positive global change.Constructive and practical, global and local, communal and personal, Ecological Solidarities is an innovative contribution to the discourses on relational and liberative thought and practice in religion, philosophy, and theology. It will be welcomed by scholars of World Christianity and theology as well as seminary students, activists, and laity interested in issues of justice and ecology.Truth in Many Tongues: Religious Conversion and the Languages of the Early Spanish Empire
By Daniel I. Wasserman-Soler. 2020
Truth in Many Tongues examines how the Spanish monarchy managed an empire of unprecedented linguistic diversity. Considering policies and strategies…
exerted within the Iberian Peninsula and the New World during the sixteenth century, this book challenges the assumption that the pervasiveness of the Spanish language resulted from deliberate linguistic colonization.Daniel I. Wasserman-Soler investigates the subtle and surprising ways that Spanish monarchs and churchmen thought about language. Drawing from inquisition reports and letters; royal and ecclesiastical correspondence; records of church assemblies, councils, and synods; and printed books in a variety of genres and languages, he shows that Church and Crown officials had no single, unified policy either for Castilian or for other languages. They restricted Arabic in some contexts but not in others. They advocated using Amerindian languages, though not in all cases. And they thought about language in ways that modern categories cannot explain: they were neither liberal nor conservative, neither tolerant nor intolerant. In fact, Wasserman-Soler argues, they did not think predominantly in terms of accommodation or assimilation, categories that are common in contemporary scholarship on religious missions. Rather, their actions reveal a highly practical mentality, as they considered each context carefully before deciding what would bring more souls into the Catholic Church.Based upon original sources from more than thirty libraries and archives in Spain, Italy, the United States, England, and Mexico, Truth in Many Tongues will fascinate students and scholars who specialize in early modern Spain, colonial Latin America, Christian-Muslim relations, and early modern Catholicism.Catholic Social Thought and Prison Ministry: Resourcing Theory and Practice (Explorations in Practical, Pastoral and Empirical Theology)
By Elizabeth Phillips, Stone-Davis, Férdia J.. 2024
This book explores how the themes and insights of official Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and broader Catholic social thought might…
illuminate, and be illuminated by, a deeper engagement with the context of prisons. What resources might Catholic social thought bring to pastoral work in prisons? And what might listening to the prison context bring to Catholic social thought? The volume includes constructive proposals for the relationship between CST and prison ministry, as well as critical questions about the role and shortcomings of prisons, CST, and chaplaincy. It contains contributions by scholars and practitioners of theology, criminology, and prison chaplaincy from the UK, US, and Ireland, and reflects on the inextricable relationship of social action and pastoral care in the work of prison ministry.Gender, African Philosophies, and Concepts
By Musa W. Dube, Telesia K. Musili, Sylvia Owusu-Ansah. 2024
This volume sets out to explore, propose, and generate feminist theories based on African indigenous philosophies and concepts. It investigates…
specific philosophical and ethical concepts that emerge from African indigenous religions and considers their potential for providing feminist imagination for social justice-oriented earth communities. The contributions examine African indigenous concepts such as Ubuntu, ancestorhood, trickster discourse, Mupo, Akwaaba, Tukumbeng, Eziko, storytelling, and Ngozi . They look to deconstruct oppressive social categories of gender, class, ethnicity, race, colonialism, heteronormativity, and anthropocentricism. The book will be of interest to scholars of religion, philosophy, gender studies, and African studies.Studies in Late Antiquity (Variorum Collected Studies)
By David Neal Greenwood. 2024
Late Antiquity was an era of remarkable change as beliefs were shaped and reshaped by the competing philosophies of traditional…
Greco-Roman religion, Middle and Neoplatonist philosophy, and the theology of the early Church.Current narratives of both peaceful competition and violent struggle between Christianity and paganism are reductive. The research presented in this Variorum volume, originally published between 2013 and 2018 in the fields of history, divinity, and philosophy, demonstrates the complexity of the age and provides a more complete picture of major actors including the emperor Julian, Porphyry of Tyre, and Celsus. From the second to the fourth centuries, these were some of the major players in attempting to define the terrain in the conflict between their philosophies and the Christian religion. While the timeframe remains consistently within the late second to the mid-fourth centuries A.D., the sources range between inscriptions, literature, and historical accounts. The particular focus is the emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus, d. 363), a figure of perennial interest, as not only the last pagan emperor, but the last anti-Christian polemicist of real significance in antiquity.This volume offers a new perspective on Julian, bringing together research from ancient history, Neoplatonist philosophy, and patristic theology, and will be useful to students and scholars alike.