Modern Religion

In Biblical Critical Theory Audio Lectures, Part 1 Watkin draws a winsome vision for biblical cultural engagement in which faithfulness to Scripture and sensitivity to culture walk hand in hand. If Christians want to speak with a fresh, engaging and constructive voice within our culture, we need to press deeper into the core truths of the Bible.

Many Christians today tend to view the story of medieval faith as a cautionary tale. Too often, they dismiss the Middle Ages as a period of corruption and decay in the church. They seem to assume that the church apostatized from true Christianity after it gained cultural influence in the time of Constantine, and that the faith was only later recovered by the 16th-century Reformers or even the 18th-century revivalists. As a result, the riches and wisdom of the medieval period have remained largely inaccessible to modern Protestants.

Blood Sex Magic is an invitation and an awakening—a guide toward a life of connection to self and spirit, to the seen and unseen realms, and to magical traditions past and future. Bri Luna honors traditions from her African American and Mexican roots and celebrates magic that is “from dirt and blood, jewels and bones, moon and sun.”

Best-selling spiritual author of The Soul Searcher’s Handbook, Emma Mildon - the “goddess-messenger-girlfriend who may just lead you to your inner guru” (Katie Silcox, New York Times best-selling author) - provides a fascinating, fun, and inspiring exploration of female divinity throughout history, myth, and religion to help women understand, embody, and celebrate their inner goddess.

Only two years after Pope Pius IX’s election in 1846 had triggered great popular enthusiasm across Italy, the pope found himself a virtual prisoner in his own palace. The revolutions that swept through Europe and shook Rome threatened to end the popes’ thousand-year reign over the Papal States, if not the papacy itself. The resulting drama was rife with treachery, tragedy, and international power politics. David Kertzer, one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of Italy and the Vatican, brings this pivotal moment vividly to life.

Lifelong meditation teacher Eric Harrison intimately understands the benefits of mindfulness, from improved focus and better judgment to relaxation and inner peace. He’s helped 10s of thousands of students to achieve these goals by rooting his practice in the Buddha’s original text on how to meditate and live mindfully: The Satipatthana Sutta. Brain Training with the Buddha offers a secular perspective on this ancient wisdom that requires no familiarity with Buddhism itself - only openness to the Buddha’s original teachings.

A significant number of Americans, especially evangelical Christians, believe Earth and humankind were created in their present form sometime in the last 10,000 years or so - the rationale being that this is (presumably) the story told in the book of Genesis. Within that group, any threatening scientific evidence that suggests otherwise is rejected or, when possible, retrofitted into a creationist worldview.

You believe God can still do miracles, but how do you know which stories are true? A blind man suddenly sees. A lame man gets up and walks. A little boy is raised from the dead. You believe the Biblical accounts that these miracles happened, but do you believe eyewitness reports that miracles still happen today? Between shady faith healers, weeping madonnas, and gimmicks like holy land water, it’s difficult - even foolish - to believe every miracle account we hear.

Veteran astrologer Skye Alexander offers numerous ideas and inspiration for incorporating star power in rituals, celebrations, and everyday life. In addition to providing a historic overview of astrology's impact on architecture, the body, music, and language, Alexander thoroughly explains how to assess your birth chart and includes information on working with planetary cycles, transits, lunar energies, eclipses, and more.

Ásatrú is a religion that revives, rebuilds, and reimagines the ancient polytheism of Northern Europe. This religious movement officially began in Iceland in 1972, but new iterations of the Old Way quickly spread worldwide, and Asatru is one of the fastest-growing spiritual movements in the United States today.

The monsters of ancient mythology, folklore, and more contemporary urban legend have long captured the popular imagination. While most people in America today relegate monsters to just that - our imaginations - we continue to be fascinated by the unknown. Linda Godfrey is one of the country's leading authorities on modern-day monsters and has interviewed countless eyewitnesses to strange phenomena.

Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity is one of the great landmarks of Protestant theological literature, and indeed of English literature generally, but is scarcely read today on account of its difficult and archaic style. The time has come to translate it into modern English so that Hooker may teach a new generation of churchmen and Christian leaders about law, reason, Scripture, church, and politics.

Build a deep, contemporary practice rooted in ancient Greek traditions. Whether you are Pagan or simply drawn to the Greek pantheon, this book provides everything you need to remember and rebirth these ancient practices in ways that are powerful for modern people. Gwendolyn Reece provides more than seventy exercises, rites, and prayers that help you meet and build relationships with the deities and create a vibrant and balanced spiritual practice, including pathworkings to meet the gods, creating an Omphalos stone, and seeking a healing dream.

When you take the time to plan something with your own hands, it lands holiness to the dinner. It will make you want to spend time savoring it with your family as opposed to merely snarfing it down on your way out the door to soccer practice. Viewing nourishment this way, its preparation, and its utilization, you can make some practical enchantment at its simplest level.

As the world entered the long night of 2020, Philip Yancey turned to John Donne's Devotions, a nearly 400-year-old manuscript, for guidance. In it, he found a trustworthy companion for living through a global pandemic—or any other crisis. As Yancey says, "Nothing had prepared me for Donne's raw account of confrontations with God." By faithfully and poetically rendering Donne's 17th century prose into 21st century vernacular, Yancey opens up this classic work to a new generation.

With seminaries teaching heresy, denominations accepting blasphemy, ministers preaching for currency, and true biblical Christians being accused of lunacy, there is no doubt that we are now in the great apostasy that the Apostle Paul spoke of! Find out why so many denominations today require tithes from their members and proclaim that if one is not tithing to the church, they are disobeying God.

Of all the teachings of Christianity, the doctrine of hell is easily the most troubling, so much so that in recent years the church has been quietly tucking it away. Rarely mentioned anymore in the pulpit, it has faded through disuse among evangelicals and been attacked by liberal theologians. Hell is no longer only the target of those outside the church. Today, a disturbing number of professing Christians question it as well. Perhaps more than at any other time in history, hell is under fire. The implications of hell make the popular alternatives, annihilationism and universalism, appealing.

This follow-up to the wildly successful Wiccapedia, written by the two authors of that book, gives listeners a broader knowledge of Wicca, nature magick, and spellcraft today.

Kori Hahn has always done life her way - living off the grid as a young woman in Alaska; studying with spiritual teachers and soul guides in Mexico, Sri Lanka, and Morocco; surfing around the world. Whether she was seeking adventure, sunshine, or the perfect wave, her primary, perennial quest has been an inner one. To that end she evolved the practices she shares here, simple daily steps that create a veritable "stairway to heaven" and allow any listener to do life their own way, with maximum meaning and joy.

Witchcraft meets astrology in this comprehensive guide to the power of the planets tailored specifically for witches so you can incorporate the celestial study into your spells and magical rituals. This guide to astrology was written just for witches, with information to help you understand how the positions of the celestial bodies can affect your magic and spellcraft—and how you can use a deeper understanding of the zodiac to strengthen your magic by becoming in tune with the planets.