Religion Crisis

The boring debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers is finally moved on by Alain de Botton's inspiring new book, which boldly argues that the supernatural claims of religion are of course entirely false - and yet that religions still have important things to teach the secular world.

In The Truth about Muhammad, New York Times best-selling author and Islam expert Robert Spencer offers an honest and telling portrait of the founder of Islam - perhaps the first such portrait in half a century - unbounded by fear and political correctness, unflinching, and willing to face the hard facts about Muhammad's life that continue to affect our world today.

May 1565. Suleiman the Magnificent, emperor of the Ottomans, has declared a jihad against the Knights of Saint John the Baptist. The largest armada of all time approaches the Knights' Christian stronghold on the island of Malta. The Turks know the Knights as the "The Hounds of Hell." The Knights call themselves "The Religion." In Messina, Sicily, a French countess, Carla la Penautier, seeks a passage to Malta in a quest to find the son taken from her at his birth twelve years ago. T

Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status...and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader.

Written with wisdom, warmth, and clarity, this inspirational and practical handbook offers tools for overcoming problems and enjoying more fulfilling lives. Judy Tatelbaum contends that while hurt is inevitable in life, suffering is not. We cannot control our circumstances and tragedies, but we can choose how much we suffer over them. The author suggests "We can use powerful experiences like losses, illness, hardship, and disappointment as stepping stones to our own growth."

"I first met al-Qaeda before there was an al-Qaeda, way back in the winter of 1984. It was an encounter that came within a split second of costing me my life." So begins Rob Schultheis's gripping account of his journey into the heart of one of the world's most dangerous places, on the trail of the world's most wanted man. A veteran war correspondent, Schultheis offers a first-hand look at how the seeds of al-Qaeda were planted by foreign jihadists in the 1980s, before most Americans knew what the word "jihad" meant.

Discover wisdom and guidance to face the climate emergency from the most influential environmental and spiritual leaders of our time, including the Dalai Lama, Greta Thunberg, Joanna Macy, Vandana Shiva, Paul Hawken, Katharine Hayhoe, and Matthieu Ricard. A Future We Can Love inspires each of us to rise to the occasion to ensure a brighter future for generations to come.

Many pastors and lay counselors have had minimal training in clinical methods of grief and trauma counseling. The Complete Guide to Crisis and Trauma Counseling is a biblical, practical guide to pastoral counseling written by one of the most respected Christian therapists of our time. Dr. H. Norman Wright brings more than 40 years of clinical and classroom experience to this topic. He shares real-life dialogues from his decades in private practice to demonstrate healthy, healing counseling sessions.

The current prolonged season of war and worldwide economic crisis has created countless personal crises. Unemployment, foreclosures, threats, and fears loom, and Christians are not exempt. You can survive and even thrive during these times. Myles Munroe teaches how to overcome any crisis by applying the sure wisdom and the time-tested principles of the Kingdom of God.

Why is religion still around in the 21st century? Why do so many still believe? And how do various traditions still shape the way people experience everything from sexuality to politics, whether they are religious or not? In Why Religion? Elaine Pagels looks to her own life to help address these questions. Drawing upon the perspectives of neurologists, anthropologists, and historians, as well as her own research, Pagels opens unexpected ways of understanding persistent religious aspects of our culture.

It was the final test. A chance to win not only the love of Allah, but the love of her father - something she had never been able to earn. Esther took a deep breath and raised her hand in the air. At the age of 18, she had just volunteered to become a suicide bomber. Defying Jihad is the true story of a girl growing up under radical Islamic rule, trained to believe her ultimate purpose was to serve Allah by dying as a jihadist. But two nights before she was to leave forever, she had a dream...one that would change the course of her destiny.

Nearly 40 years ago, Ralph Martin's best-selling A Crisis of Truth exposed the damaging trends in Catholic teaching and preaching that, combined with attacks from secular society, threatened the mission and life of the Catholic Church. While much has been done to counter false teaching over the last four decades, today the church faces even more insidious threats from outside and within. In A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward, Martin offers a detailed look at the growing hostility to the Catholic Church and its teaching.

The Dalai Lama, at his most compassionate and outspoken, here elaborates and deepens his vision for the nonreligious way. Transcending the mere "religion wars", he outlines a system of secular ethics that gives tolerant respect to religion, those that ground ethics in a belief in God and an afterlife, and those that understand good actions as leading to better states of existence in future lives. And yet, with the highest level of spiritual and intellectual authority, the Dalai Lama makes a claim for what he calls a third way.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is an inspiring parable about a lawyer, Julian Mantle, whose out-of-balance life provokes a spiritual crisis. As he journeys to an ancient culture, he gains powerful and practical wisdom. The story offers a step-by-step approach to a life of balance, courage, abundance, and joy.

In Religion and Science (1961), Bertrand Russell's popular polemic against religious dogma, he covers the ground from demonology to quantum physics, yet concedes that science cannot touch the profound feelings of personal religious experience.

There's no doubt the world is in trouble. We see tragedy in the streets and violence in the news. We hear increasingly divisive political debates that spotlight the deep and bitter divisions in our society. We feel the pain and confusion of a culture that seems to be coming apart at the seams. How do we explain so much chaos? How do we live with such turmoil? And is there any hope for peace in our time? As one of the world's most beloved Bible teachers, Dr. David Jeremiah is the perfect voice to help answer these questions.

Increasing numbers of people involved in personal transformation are experiencing spiritual emergencies - crises when the process of growth and change becomes chaotic and overwhelming. Unfortunately, much of modern psychiatry has failed to distinguish these episodes from mental illness. As a result, transformational crises are often suppressed by routine psychiatric care, medication, and even institutionalization. When understood and treated in a supportive manner, spiritual emergencies can become gateways to higher levels of functioning and new ways of being.

Just as the moon obscures the sun's light during an eclipse, today's radical secularism has obscured the light of God. But God's light still shines—and He is calling us to shine His light in the growing darkness. In The Eclipse of God, bestselling author Erwin Lutzer exposes our nation's disastrous efforts to redefine God in its own image. The resulting damage has been so great that confusion about God has even crept into the church.

The Koran: It may be the most controversial book in the world. Some see it as a paean to peace, others call it a violent mandate for worldwide Islamic supremacy. How can one book lead to such dramatically different conclusions?

With the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright became generally acknowledged as one of our major journalists writing on terrorism in the Middle East. This collection draws on several articles he wrote while researching that book as well as many that he's written since, following where and how al-Qaeda and its core cultlike beliefs have morphed and spread.