Art Religion

The pandemic has only exacerbated what was already a startling trend: loneliness and disconnection have been on the rise for a long time in our society. We long for a deep sense of meaning to make sense of our lives, but we don't know how to find it. Even worse, we often search for it in unhealthy ways that hinder the very thing we're desperate for: genuine relational connection.

The White Witch, Aslan, fauns and talking beasts, centaurs and epic battles between good and evil: these have become a part of our collective imagination through the classic volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia. Yet who was the man who created this world? This audiobook attempts to unearth the making of the first Narnian, C. S. Lewis himself.

Power is fundamental in our lives—we express it in every conversation, relationship, and choice we make. All too often, we equate force and domination with power, while gentleness and compassion are considered “soft” or “weak.” The destructive nature of this skewed perspective has never been more obvious, yet there is reason to hope. With Gentle Power, Dr. Emilia Elisabet Lahti shares an illuminating guide to an emerging shift in the way we define true strength.

By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.

Sickness, in ancient times, was due largely to ignorance of the physical laws governing health. In the modern world, sickness is more often the result of ignorance of the laws governing the spiritual, mental, and emotional forces operating in people’s lives. In this now classic exposition of Metaphysical Medicine, Manly Hall argues that although we have largely conquered those external, physical factors, we continue to ignore the internal at great cost to our personal health and well-being.

Howard Fast began to formally practice Zen meditation after turning away from communism in 1956. The Art of Zen Meditation, originally published by the antiwar political collective Peace Press, in 1977, is the fruit of Fast’s study: a brief and instructive history of Zen Buddhism and its tenets, written with a simplicity that is emblematic of the philosophy itself. Fast’s study of Zen also inspired his popular Masao Masuto mystery series about a Zen Buddhist detective in Beverly Hills.

This book is not about religion, and David Young is not a Christian. This story is the result of three years of channeled messages from Jesus and Mary Magdalena that came to Young through incredible synchronicities, his artwork, and inner dialogues, which ultimately guided him toward discovering the hidden truth behind history's greatest deception. This unconventional book will also soothe and inspire you with David Young's heavenly music to accompany this breathtaking, mind-expanding story of true historical events.

From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. Conceived as an accompaniment to How Do We Look and The Eye of Faith, the famed Civilizations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art.

In this neuroscience-based, faith-infused, and immensely practical guide, Dr. W. Lee Warren, a practicing neurosurgeon, trauma survivor, and award-winning writer, reveals how to take control of your own mental, emotional, and physical healing by reordering your mind to change your brain—resulting in a radically transformed life that is healthier, happier, and more hopeful.

Chesterton's Gateway was made for the person who has always loved Chesterton quotes, but has never been able to finish - or perhaps even start - a Chesterton book. This is because there really is no really good "first" Chesterton book. They are all hard the first time around. Chesterton was an essayist, and it is through his essays he is best discovered. Ethan Nicolle has put together this assortment of essays, a list he often gives to people who ask him where to start with Chesterton. Included are chapter introductions to help with context.

Philip K. Dick was a visionary writer. From post-apocalyptic San Francisco to Nazi-occupied America, his strange alternative futures have transfixed the world. But his life was every bit as unusual as his fiction. A Life of Philip K Dick opens a window into PKD's unique mind. Written with close cooperation with two of his ex-wives and a number of his friends, we are taken through his five marriages, his periods living in squalor, and his souring literary success. We are also given unparalleled insight into his transcendental experiences.

Originally delivered in 1962 for artists - and made available now for the first time in English - St. John Paul II's (Karol Wojtyla's) penetrating spiritual exercises on divine beauty and its reflection in our humanity - and the art it produces - remain as timely as ever. The retreat itself, of course, forms the heart of this attractive volume.

In this work, David C. Downing explores the breadth of Lewis's writing, introducing us to the context of Christian mysticism in Lewis's day and the writers who most influenced him. Lewis's critique of mysticism is instructive to us in this day of eclectic religious thought. Exploring Lewis's sense of the mystical can help us safeguard ourselves from false mysticism, even as it opens the way to a full experience of God's presence - the "region of awe."

In this book, Mark Westmoquette speaks from a place of profound personal experience. A Zen monk, he has endured two life-changing traumas caused by other people: his sexual abuse by his own father, and his stepfather’s death and mother’s very serious injury in a car crash due to the careless driving of an off-duty policeman. He stresses that by bringing awareness and kindness to these relationships, our initial stance of “I can’t stand this person, they need to change” will naturally shift into something much broader and more inclusive.

In this book about the Bible, 2019's most misunderstood book, Dr. Welton gives the reader profound insight and understanding in his warm casual writing style. If you want to understand the ancient and mysterious book of Revelation, this is the best place to start.

It was the splendor and the scandal of the age. In 1506, the ferociously ambitious Renaissance Pope Julius II tore down the most sacred shrine in Europe, the millennium-old St. Peter's Basilica built by the Emperor Constantine over the apostle's grave, to build a better basilica.

There are as many paths to holiness as there are saints in Heaven . . . but you cant follow them all. Yet there's one thing every saint practices that you can imitate: the simple art of loving God, which the beloved St. Francis de Sales explains for you here. Under his wise and gentle guidance, you'll discover the secrets to growing holier through the simple things in life work, play, and rest. You'll learn to avoid the distractions (even religious distractions) that trouble and weary your soul . . . and you'll soon be able to focus your energy simply on loving God.

The experience of meaningful coincidences is universal. They are reported by people of every culture, every belief system, and every time period. Synchronicity examines the evidence for the human influence on the meaningfulness of events, and the way the modern computational model of the mind predicts how we create meaning. It demonstrates that these events, based on the activity of the mind, are caused by the person who perceives them.

The Puritan William Perkins was the first to articulate prayer and preaching in his treatise on hermeneutics and homiletics titled The Art of Prophesying (1592). Perkins considered the pastor to be in the great succession of biblical prophets and apostles. Perkins’ method of preaching consists of interpretation, analysis, and application.

C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J. R. R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met weekly in Lewis' Oxford rooms and a nearby pub. They read aloud from works in progress, argued about anything that caught their fancy, and gave one another invaluable companionship, inspiration, and criticism.