Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Christian Living

Since when did believing in God and having moral values make you pro-war, pro-rich, and solely pro-Republican? And since when did promoting and pursuing a progressive social agenda with a concern for economic security, health care, and educational opportunity mean you had to put faith in God aside?

Writing in response to our current “constitutional crisis”, New York Times best-selling author and Christian activist Jim Wallis urges America to return to the tenets of Jesus once again as the means to save us from the polarizing bitterness and anger of our tribal nation.

What do you do when you start to feel a shift and must decide if it’s time to make a change? When it comes to navigating big decisions about when to stay and go, how can we know for sure when the time is right? Though we enter and exit many rooms over the course of our life—jobs, relationships, communities, life stages—knowing how and when it’s time to leave is a decision that rarely has a clear answer.

Rachel Held Evans is widely recognized for her theologically astute, profoundly honest, and beautifully personal books, which have guided, instructed, edified, and shaped Christians as they seek to live out a just and loving faith. At the time of her tragic death in 2019, Rachel was working on a new book about wholeheartedness. With the help of her close friend and author Jeff Chu, that work-in-progress has been woven together with some of her other unpublished writings into a rich collection of essays.

World-renowned Jesus scholar Marcus J. Borg shows how we can live passionately as Christians in today's world by practicing the vital elements of Christian faith. For the millions of people who have turned away from many traditional beliefs about God, Jesus, and the Bible, but still long for a relevant, nourishing faith, Borg shows why the Christian life can remain a transforming relationship with God. Emphasizing the critical role of daily practice in living the Christian life, he explores how prayer, worship, Sabbath, pilgrimage, and more can be experienced as authentically life-giving practices.

For years, Christena Cleveland spoke about racial reconciliation to congregations, justice organizations, and colleges. But she increasingly felt she could no longer trust in the God she’d been implicitly taught to worship—a white male God who preferentially empowered white men despite his claim to love all people. A God who clearly did not relate to, advocate for, or affirm a Black woman like Christena.

Modern pastors and their flocks have long considered N. T. Wright a role model for being a thoughtful Christian in today’s world. His bestselling books, including Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, Simply Jesus, and After You Believe, have guided Christians in their belief and practice of the faith. Now, Christians can rely on his wisdom to guide them through each day of their lives with this thoughtful book of daily meditations, featuring short selections from his classic works.

Writing from his prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young German theologian, sketched a vision of what he called "Religionless Christianity". In this book, John Shelby Spong puts flesh onto the bare bones of Bonhoeffer's radical thought. The result is a strikingly new and different portrait of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jesus for the non-religious.

In Between Heaven and Mirth, James Martin, SJ, assures us that God wants us to experience joy, to cultivate a sense of holy humor, and to laugh at life’s absurdities—not to mention our own humanity. Father Martin invites believers to rediscover the importance of humor and laughter in our daily lives and to embrace an essential truth: faith leads to joy.

America is in crisis. Happiness is falling, loneliness and despair are rising, too many schools are riddled by fights and failure, crime is unacceptably high, and the American Dream is out of reach for millions. The problems are visible to us all, but virtually no one is talking about the solution that matters most: Marriage. New research by University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox shows that Americans who get married and have children today are leading happier and more prosperous lives, on average, than men and women who are single and childless.

In an era when many Christians consider Jesus a beloved but remote savior, Willard argues compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our existence. Christians, Willard says, for the most part consider the primary function of Christianity to be admittance to heaven. But, as Willard clearly shows, a faith that guarantees a satisfactory afterlife, yet has absolutely no impact on life in the here and now, is nothing more than "consumer Christianity" and "bumper-sticker faith".

For too long, the history of Christianity has been told as the triumph of orthodox doctrine imposed through power and hierarchy. In A People's History of Christianity, historian and religion expert Diana Butler Bass reveals an alternate history that includes a deep social ethic and far-reaching inclusivity: "the other side of the story" is not a modern phenomenon, but has always been practiced within the church. Butler Bass persuasively argues that corrective - even subversive - beliefs and practices have always been hallmarks of Christianity and are necessary to nourish communities of faith.

When Christians share their faith, they often appeal to reason, logic, and the truth of doctrine. But these tactics often are not effective. A better approach to spread Christ's word, Dallas Willard suggests, is to use the example of our own lives. To demonstrate Jesus's message, we must be transformed people living out a life reflective of Jesus himself, a life of love, humility, and gentleness.

Sixteen years ago Vin Baker was an NBA All-Star, an Olympic Gold medalist, and a multimillionaire. While he excelled on the court, Vin harbored a dark secret: a dependency on drugs and alcohol that began after the clean-cut preacher's son turned pro. Eventually becoming a full-blown yet functional alcoholic, Vin convinced himself he played better under the influence - until his addiction cost him his basketball career, his fortune, and his health. But Vin's story isn't a tragic fall from grace. It is a joyous tale of salvation.

You can be wildly successful without losing your faith. In fact your secular success will strengthen your faith if you allow it. Too often we believe that success in secular environments contradicts the core principles of faith, but the opposite is true: Your faith was designed to thrive in the secular world and to transform it as a result. You may never experience the true fulfillment you were created for until you pursue the secular ambitions in your heart. DeVon Franklin knows this to be true.

With the warmth, wisdom, and grace that infuse his works, Father James Martin explains why Jesus' crucifixion and death on the cross is an important teaching moment in the Gospels. Jesus' final statements, words that are deeply cherished by his followers, exemplify the depth of his suffering but also provide a key to his empathy and why we can connect with him so deeply.

Lies My Therapist Told Me has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

The Great Omission has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

On the day after the Orlando nightclub shooting, James Martin SJ posted a video on Facebook in which he called for solidarity with our LGBT brothers and sisters. "The largest mass shooting in US history took place at a gay club, and the LGBT community has been profoundly affected," he began. He then implored his fellow Catholics - and people everywhere - to "stand not only with the people of Orlando but also with their LGBT brothers and sisters."

Over the course of the last five years, Tim Tebow established himself as one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of college football and a top prospect in the NFL. During that time he amassed an unparalleled resume - winning two BCS national championships; becoming the first sophomore in NCAA history to win the Heisman trophy; and in the face of massive public scrutiny, being drafted in the first round of the NFL draft by the Denver Broncos.