Church Politics

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?

Toxic Charity provides proven new models for charitable groups who want to help - not sabotage - those whom they desire to serve. Lupton, the founder of FCS Urban Ministries (Focused Community Strategies) in Atlanta, the voice of the Urban Perspectives newsletter, and the author of Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life, has been at the forefront of urban ministry activism for 40 years. His groundbreaking Toxic Charity shows us how to start serving needy and impoverished members of our communities in a way that will lead to lasting, real-world change.

In this eye-opening book, Matthew Rose introduces us to one of the most controversial intellectual movements of the 20th century, the "radical right", and discusses its adherents' different attempts to imagine political societies after the death or decline of liberalism. Questioning democracy's most basic norms and practices, these critics rejected ideas about human equality, minority rights, religious toleration, and cultural pluralism not out of implicit biases, but out of explicit principle.

We live in a fractured country, a country in which identity politics, creeping socialist policies, toxic social media, and the vast partisan divide threaten the very fabric of America. After decades of political decay and of losing sight of our first principles, the American people are suffering from runaway debt, increased rates of depression, broken families, moral decay, and more. In Jesus Politics, Phil Robertson provides an alternate path: a radical call for Christians to use their freedoms to advance the agenda of the King and win back the divided soul of America.

America’s story is one of great social achievement. From the abolitionists who fought to outlaw slavery, to the suffragettes who championed women’s right to vote, to the civil rights proponents who battled segregation and institutionalized white supremacy, to the proponents of the women’s movement and gay rights seeking equality for all, citizens for generations have risen up to fulfill the promise of our nation. Over the course of America’s history, these activists have both embodied and enacted the nation’s deepest values.

Somehow, this long-discredited economic philosophy is making a comeback, not only on college campuses and political talk shows, but among sincere Catholics. Some think that it could be the answer to greed and globalism. Others even argue that it’s the best way to obey Christ’s command to help the poor. Let’s give socialism a fresh chance, they say. A democratic socialism, this time, friendly to religion and ordered to the common good like the church says the economy should be.

In American Gospel (literally meaning the "good news about America"), New York Times best-selling author Jon Meacham sets the record straight on the history of religion in American public life. As Meacham shows, faith, meaning a belief in a higher power, and the sense that we are God's chosen, has always been at the heart of our national experience, from Jamestown to the Constitutional Convention to the Civil Rights Movement to September 11th.

A hilarious and eye-opening account of leaving Christian Nationalism behind to follow Jesus better. Social media influencer and podcast host April Ajoy wouldn’t have called herself a Christian Nationalist when she performed her original song “America Say Jesus” on the Jim Bakker show, or...

Fatima, Portugal, 1917: The Virgin Mary appears to three peasant children, sharing with them three secrets, two of which are soon revealed to the world. The third secret is sealed away in the Vatican, read only by popes, and not disclosed until the year 2000. When revealed, its quizzical tone and anticlimactic nature leave many faithful wondering if the church has truly unveiled all of the Virgin Mary's words or if a message far more important has been left in the shadows.

From before the creation of our world, God intended to have a people to love forever, enjoying their company as they enjoyed His. Jesus told his disciples that he would build this church, and nothing could destroy it (Matthew 16:18). God has kept his promise. For two thousand years, Christ has continued to preserve His church even when destruction looked likely. Simonetta’s book starts after the death of Jesus’s 12 apostles and continues to today: it’s a fascinating story that helps you know the God who planned it and who is keeping His church for an even more exciting future.

This comprehensive book presents a political philosophy from the perspective that the Gospel pertains to all of life, including politics. Politics—According to the Bible is an in-depth analysis of conservative and liberal plans to do good for the nation, evaluated in light of the Bible and common sense.

In his four decades of urban ministry, Robert D. Lupton has experienced firsthand how our good intentions can have unintended, dire consequences. We fly off on mission trips to poverty-stricken villages, hearts full of pity and suitcases bulging with giveaways - trips that one Nicaraguan leader describes as effective only in "turning my people into beggars." In Toxic Charity, Lupton urges individuals, churches, and organizations to step away from these spontaneous, often destructive acts of compassion and toward thoughtful paths to community development.

In a day when church membership has decreased, evangelistic zeal has cooled, and budgets are disappearing, ReClaimed Church is the tool that struggling churches need. Having previously written and taught seminary courses on church revitalization, Bill Henard uses his expertise to provide all the practical insights and instructions needed to reclaim your church.

“An indispensible study” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience that presents a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy, and issues an urgent call for White Christians to reckon with this legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation.

Reaching out to listeners of all religious backgrounds, Desmond Tutu shows us how to transform suffering into joy both in our lives and in our world. He tells us that God dreams of a world where laughter, love, and peace reign, and where we realize that we are all members of one family, God's family. In this extremely personal and liberating message, Father Tutu helps us "see with the eyes of the heart" and cultivate the qualities of forgiveness, humility, generosity, and courage.

In this taut inquiry, Posner digs deep into the radical history of the religious right to reveal how issues of race and xenophobia have always been at the movement’s core, and how religion often cloaked anxieties about perceived threats to a white, Christian America. Fueled by an antidemocratic impulse, and united by this narrative of reverse victimization, the religious right and the alt-right support a common agenda.

Many people today find that their prayers don't work. And like a broken cell phone, DVD player, or TV remote, they throw prayer out as unnecessary clutter in their busy lives. Anne Graham Lotz has found that while prayer does work, sometimes the pray-ers don't. So she has turned to the prophet Daniel for help. The Daniel Prayer is born deep within your soul, erupts through your heart, and pours out on your lips, words created by and infused with the Spirit of God, quivering with spiritual electricity.

We are living in angry times. No matter where we go, what we watch, or how we communicate, our culture is rife with conflict. Unfortunately, Christians appear to be caught up in the same animosity as the culture at large. We are perceived as angry, judgmental, and defensive, fighting among ourselves in various media while the world looks on. How have we failed to be a people of reconciliation and renewal in the face of such tumult?

Joy Unspeakable focuses on the aspects of the Black church that point beyond particular congregational gatherings toward a mystical and communal spirituality not exclusive to any denomination. This mystical aspect of the black church is deeply implicated in the wellbeing of African American people but is not the focus of their intentional reflection. Moreover, its traditions are deeply ensconced within the historical memory of wider society and can be found in Coltrane's riffs, Malcolm's exhortations, the Black Lives Matter Movement and the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.

Western civilization and the Christian church stand at a moment of great danger. Facing them both is a hurricane-force battle of ideas that will determine the future of Western civilization and the soul of the Christian church. The forces arrayed against the West and the church are destructive ideologies, policies, and worldviews deeply established among intellectual elites, the political class, and our schools. More menacingly, these forces have also invaded the Christian church.