Religion Religions Religious

Muhammad's was a life of almost unparalleled historical importance, yet for all the iconic power of his name, the intensely dramatic story of the prophet of Islam is not well known. In The First Muslim, Lesley Hazleton brings him vibrantly to life. Drawing on early eyewitness sources and on history, politics, religion, and psychology, she renders him as a man in full, in all his complexity and vitality. Hazleton's account follows the arc of Muhammad's rise from powerlessness to power, from anonymity to renown.

Science and Christianity are often presented as opposites, when in fact the order of the universe and the complexity of life powerfully testify to intelligent design. With this comprehensive resource that includes the latest research, you'll witness how the findings of scientists provide compelling reasons to acknowledge the mind and presence of a creator.

In this provocative book one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious "histories" offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’s misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history.

More than 500 years ago, 16th-century Reformer John Calvin was born—a theologian whose teachings set the stage for reformation of the church around the world. The modern world is in continual need of his Christ-exalting doctrine and vision of the Christian life. In 20 essays by leading Reformed pastors and scholars, this primer explores Calvin’s life, teaching, and legacy for a new generation. This book is a clarion call to Christians everywhere to take seriously the ongoing need of theological reformation across the globe.

When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during World War II. Those questions have only grown and festered, making Pius XII one of the most controversial popes in Church history, especially now as the Vatican prepares to canonize him.

For centuries, many have been taught to believe that the Bible presents a vivid picture of a fiery Hell, where God sadistically torments most of humanity by burning their skin for all eternity. But is this really the picture Scripture paints? Were you raised to view Hell through the lens of the Augustinian-Calvinist tradition, perhaps too intimidated ever to question it? If so, this book is for you. In it, we will challenge the fundamentalist perspective on Hellfire by exploring the original context in which the biblical teachings on Hell were written.

This version includes an introduction from Yogi Ramachakra from his book, Mystic Christianity, giving additional incite into the unknown years of Jesus Christ's life. There is also an afterword by Baird T. Spalding from his book, Life And Teaching of The Masters of The Far East. Nicolas Notovitch journeyed to Tibet in 1887 and discovered manuscripts in a monastery describing some of the unknown years of Jesus Christ. In The Manuscripts he is referred to as Saint Issa.

From Dallas Willard, one of the most important Christian intellectuals of the 20th century, comes a collection of readings, interviews, talks, and articles - many previously unpublished. In his groundbreaking books, teacher, philosopher, and spiritual guide Dallas Willard forever changed the way many Christians experience their faith. Three years after his death, the influence of this provocative Christian thinker - "a man devoted to reestablishing the exalted place moral reasoning once held in the academy" ( Christianity Today) - remains strong.

In this powerful and timely book, one of the most admired and authoritative religious leaders of our time tackles the phenomenon of religious extremism and violence committed in the name of God. If religion is perceived as being part of the problem, Rabbi Sacks argues, then it must also form part of the solution. When religion becomes a zero-sum conceit and individuals are motivated by what Rabbi Sacks calls "altruistic evil", violence between peoples of different beliefs appears to be the only natural outcome.

The Charismatic Renewal is an international movement that has made inroads into the Catholic Church and numerous Protestant denominations. The Renewal comes with promises of miracles and spiritual wonders, and participants have long attested to supernatural phenomena taking place as a result of Charismatic practices. However, there is a dark side to the Renewal, and many of the teachings presented by its defenders are incompatible with historical Christianity. In this book, we take a journey through the history of the Renewal, starting with its ancient roots.

Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind is a 1901 book by the psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke. The author explores the concept of cosmic consciousness, which he defines as a higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary person. He works on a premise of three levels of consciousness: simple consciousness, self-consciousness, and cosmic consciousness.

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology, published in three parts from 1794, was a best seller in America, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. Promoting a creator-God while advocating reason in the place of revelation, Paine’s controversial pamphlet caused his native British audience, fearing the results of the French Revolution, to receive it with more hostility than their American counterparts.

Según los japoneses, todo el mundo tiene un ikigai, un motivo para existir. Algunos lo han encontrado y son conscientes de su ikigai, otros lo llevan dentro, pero todavía lo están buscando. Este es uno de los secretos para una vida larga, joven y feliz como la que llevan los habitantes de Okinawa, la isla más longeva del mundo.

Sigrid Undset's Catherine of Siena is critically acclaimed as one of the best biographies of this well-known and amazing 14th-century saint. Known for her historical fiction, which won her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928, Undset based this factual work on primary sources, her own experiences living in Italy, and her profound understanding of the human heart.

No word in our language is more misunderstood than the word “heart.’ And almost no word is more important, for it refers to what is at the very center of our soul. We have mapped the outer world, in fact the whole universe, with amazing exactness . . . but we have neglected the world within. This new book by venerable Catholic thinker Peter Kreeft offers a map of that inner world, of the self. In it, he takes up the mantle of Dietrich von Hildebrand and plumbs the depths of that most misunderstood (by the world) and overlooked (by philosophers and theologians) part of the human being.

Exploring the relationship between Christianity and Zen, especially through his dialogue with the great Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki, the book makes an excellent introduction to a comparative study of these two traditions, as well as giving the listener a strong taste of the mature Merton. Never does one feel him losing his own faith; rather, one feels that faith getting deeply clarified and affirmed. Just as the body of "Zen" cannot be found by the scavengers, so too, Merton suggests, with the eternal truth of Christ.

In this original and riveting exploration, Susan Jacoby argues that conversion - especially in the free American "religious marketplace" - is too often viewed only within the conventional and simplistic narrative of personal reinvention and divine grace. Instead, the author places conversions within a secular social context that has, at various times, included the force of a unified church and state, desire for upward economic mobility, and interreligious marriage.

A “flip,” writes Jeffrey J. Kripal, is “a reversal of perspective,” “a new real,” often born of an extreme, life-changing experience. The Flip is Kripal’s ambitious, visionary program for unifying the sciences and the humanities to expand our minds, open our hearts, and negotiate a peaceful resolution to the culture wars.

Steve Saint was five years old when his father, missionary pilot Nate Saint, was speared to death by a primitive Ecuadorian tribe. In adulthood Steve, having left Ecuador for a successful business career in the United States, never imagined making the jungle his home again. But when that same tribe asks him to help them, Steve, his wife, and their teenage children move back to the jungle.

God’s people are hiding in plain sightTens of millions of Christians live in China today, leading double lives to hide from a government that relentlessly persecutes them. By day, Bob Fu was a teacher in a communist school; by night, he was a preacher in an underground house church network. This edge-of-your-seat book tells the true story of Fu’s conversion to Christianity, his arrest and imprisonment for starting an illegal house church, his harrowing escape, and his subsequent rise to prominence in the United States as an advocate for his oppressed brethren.