Showing titles in Religious Studies

Throughout history, the Jewish people have faced catastrophe after catastrophe. They have been expelled, ghettoised, murdered and forcibly converted. The question that Jonathan Sacks asks in this original and compelling book is not how Judaism survived four thousand years of persecution, but how it found ways to flourish and thrive. Originally written as a wedding gift for his son over twenty years ago, now featuring a new foreword by Natan Sharansky, this revised edition is a reminder of the enduring beauty and wisdom of one of the world’s oldest religions.

When he was elected pope in the fall of 1978, few people had ever heard of the charismatic Karol Wojty³a. But in a very short time he would ignite a revolution of conscience in his native Poland that would ultimately lead to the collapse of European communism and death of the Soviet Union. What even fewer people knew was that the KGB, the Polish Secret Police, and the East German Stasi had been waging a dangerous, decades-long war against Wojty³a and the Vatican itself.

In The Einstein Vendetta, Thomas Harding recounts the story of an unthinkable crime, one that unspools to reveal Italy’s brutal wartime history – its fall to fascism, antisemitism and bitter partisanship – and a family’s search for justice. Vividly told, drawing on previously unpublished archival sources and first-hand accounts, Harding threads history and detective story to build an unquiet, haunting testimony.

Who are the Goddess and the God, and where did they come from? Why do they have different names in different Wiccan traditions, and how do you begin to work with them in your personal practice? Magical Deities, by best-selling author Lisa Chamberlain, answers these questions and more. Going beyond the brief introduction to the God and Goddess found in many beginner guides to Wicca, Lisa covers the origins of the Wiccan deities as well as the difference between traditional duotheism and more eclectic polytheistic practices, both of which are found in some forms of modern Wicca.

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.

Moved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity, exploring one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium.

Judah Smith digs deep to answer the most common and the most difficult questions about Jesus, a man so few understand and so many desperately need. In Jesus Is, Judah Smith explores a number of topics that reveal Jesus’ purpose for coming, what he accomplished while he was here, and what that means for those of us who came after. Jesus is greatly revered, harshly criticized, and sorely misunderstood.

Does your knowledge of the Old Testament feel like a grab bag of people, books, events, and ideas? How many times have you resolved to really understand the OT? To finally make sense of it? Perhaps you are suffering from what Sandra Richter calls the "dysfunctional closet syndrome". If so, she has a solution. Like a home-organizing expert, she comes in and helps you straighten up your cluttered closet. Whether you are a frustrated do-it-yourselfer or a beginning student enrolled in a course, The Epic of Eden will organize your understanding of the Old Testament.

After the Bible, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis is the favorite book of Catholics throughout the world and has been the spiritual guide of the saints since it first appeared in 1418. And of the English editions, none can equal this inspiring translation of Bishop Richard Challoner. This book speaks to the soul of every true Christian, reminding him of the fleeting nature of earthly joy as opposed to the eternity of happiness with God.

The late great astronomer and astrophysicist describes his personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, Sagan presents his views on a wide range of topics, including the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, creationism and so-called intelligent design.

Who is Satan in the New Testament, and what is the evil that he represents? In this groundbreaking book, Elaine Pagels, Princeton's distinguished historian of religion, traces the evolution of Satan from its origins in the Hebrew Bible, where Satan is at first merely obstructive, to the New Testament, where Satan becomes the Prince of Darkness, the bitter enemy of God and man, evil incarnate. In The Origin of Satan, Pagels shows that the four Christian gospels tell two very different stories.

In 1948, after surviving World War II by escaping Nazi-occupied France for refugee camps in Switzerland, the author's grandparents, Anna and Armand, bought an old stone house in a remote, picturesque village in the South of France. Five years later, Anna packed her bags and walked out on Armand, taking the typewriter and their children. Aside from one brief encounter, the two never saw or spoke to each other again, never remarried, and never revealed what had divided them forever.

The reader will soon discover that I am an enthusiastic admirer of the men whose lives and ministries I have narrated in this volume. I confess it honestly. I am a thorough admirer of them. I firmly believe that, with the exceptions of Martin Luther and his contemporaries and our own martyred reformers, the world has not seen any such men since the days of the apostles. I now send forth this volume with an earnest prayer that God will pardon all its imperfections, use it for His own glory, and raise up in His church today men like those who are here described.

From the classroom to mainstream media, Christians regularly find their fundamental beliefs discounted by opponents who consider faith to be incompatible with reason. Faith is viewed as subjective, emotional, and a crutch for those who find the real world too hard. The late R. C. Sproul, however, claims faith reveals just how rational Christianity truly is. This audiobook surveys the history and fundamentals of apologetics to demonstrate how reason and scientific inquiry actually support Christianity's claims—thus equipping believers to defend the existence of God and the Bible's authority.

In Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart, Russ Ramsey digs into these artists' stories for readers who may be new to art, as well as for lifelong students of art history, to mine the transcendent beauty and hard lessons we can take from their masterpieces and their lives. Each story from some of the history's most celebrated artists applies the beauty of the gospel in a way that speaks to the suffering and hope we all face.

Why do Hindus feed their dead ancestors? And why do they prefer burning the dead to building tombs? Does Hinduism have no concept of Judgement Day? What is the impact of death on its notions of womanhood and caste? Is the Vedic approach to death different from the Tantric one? The idea of death and rebirth is embedded in the Hindu mind through ritual and story. Death is not just tragic, but ambiguous too. For instance, it is the end of one journey, but it is also the beginning of another.

This is the fascinating journey of Australian lawyer, Ron Tesoriero, in pursuit of answers. On the way he invites well-known and highly respected investigative journalist Mike Willesee to join him. What they discover will confront the mind and heart of every listener.

This audiobook is a long-awaited major statement by a pre-eminent analytic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, on one of our biggest debates - the compatibility of science and religion. The last twenty years has seen a cottage industry of books on this divide, but with little consensus emerging. Plantinga, as a top philosopher but also a proponent of the rationality of religious belief, has a unique contribution to make. His theme in this short book is that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.

Cults prey on the very attributes that make us human: our desire to belong, to find a deeper meaning in life, to live everyday with divine purpose. Their existence creates a sense that any one of us, at any time, could step off the cliff’s edge and fall into that daunting abyss of manipulation and unhinged dedication to a misplaced cause. Perhaps it’s this mindset that keeps us so utterly obsessed and desperate to learn more, or it’s that the stories are so bizarre and unsettling that we are simply in awe of the mechanics that make these infamous groups tick.

Everything you were taught about evolution is wrong. In this shocking book, Berkeley-educated doctor of biology Jonathan Wells lets you in on scientific discoveries you won't learn about from college and high-school textbooks - and reveals a dirty little secret known only to some of his fellow biologists.