Religious Biographies

On February 14, 1989, Valentine's Day, Salman Rushdie was telephoned by a BBC journalist and told that he had been "sentenced to death" by the Ayatollah Khomeini. For the first time he heard the word fatwa. His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses, which was accused of being "against Islam, the Prophet and the Quran". So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of a police protection team.

In Good Day!: The Paul Harvey Story, author Paul J. Batura follows the remarkable life of one of the founding fathers of the news media. Paul Harvey started his career during the Great Depression and narrated America's story day by day, through wars and peace, the threat of communism and the crumbling of old colonial powers, consumer booms and eventual busts.

Ronald Blythe lives at the end of an overgrown farm track deep in the rolling countryside of the Stour Valley, on the border between Suffolk and Essex. His home is Bottengoms Farm, a sturdy yeoman's house once owned by the artist John Nash. From here, Blythe has spent almost half a century observing the slow turn of the agricultural year, the church year, and village life in a series of rich, lyrical rural diaries. Beginning with the arrival of snow on New Year's Day and ending with Christmas carols sung in church, Next to Nature invites us to witness a simple life richly lived.

The wisdom acquired during C. T. Vivian's lifetime is generously shared in It's In the Action, the civil rights legend's memoir of his early life and time in the civil rights movement. Vivian worked hand in hand with the movement's most famous figures, including Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, and his contributions were no less vital to the successes of nonviolent resistance. Bearing a foreword from Andrew Young, It's in the Action is an important addition to civil rights history from Vivian and coauthor Steve Fiffer.

It is one of the great mysteries of life that in atmospheres of the harshest cruelty, a certain few not only survive, but emerge as beacons of light and life. Father Arseny, former scholar of church art, became Prisoner No. 18736 in the brutal "special sector" of the Soviet prison camp system.

At just under five feet tall, Virginia Prodan was no match for the towering six-foot-ten-inch, gun-wielding assassin the Romanian government sent to her office to take her life. It was not the first time her life had been threatened - nor would it be the last. As a young attorney under Nicolae Ceausescu's brutal communist regime, Virginia had spent her entire life searching for the truth.

Suddenly, Corrie's ordered life was lost in the insanity of war. With bravery and compassion, her family and countless other Dutch citizens risked everything to extend God's hand to those innocents marked for certain execution in a world gone mad. Corrie ten Boom's life of determination, faith, and forgiveness in the face of unimaginable brutality and hardship is a stunning testimony to the sustaining power of God.

Becoming Jewish chronicles the author's lifelong search for spiritual meaning and a true religious home. Raised in a decidedly Christian yet theologically conflicted family, she never felt she fit into the churches of her childhood. Dissatisfied with pat answers and disillusioned by denominational hypocrisies, she embarked on an exploration of diverse religions.

In Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, the author of the bestsellers Traveling Mercies and Plan B delivers a poignant, funny, and bittersweet primer of faith, as we come to discover what it means to be fully alive.

Over the course of the last five years, Tim Tebow established himself as one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of college football and a top prospect in the NFL. During that time he amassed an unparalleled resume - winning two BCS national championships; becoming the first sophomore in NCAA history to win the Heisman trophy; and in the face of massive public scrutiny, being drafted in the first round of the NFL draft by the Denver Broncos.

Once she answered the divine calling, Aimee Semple McPherson rose fast from unfulfilled housewife in Rhode Island to "miracle woman" - the most enigmatic, pioneering, media-savvy Christian evangelist in the country. She preached up and down the United States, traveling in a 1912 Packard with her mother and her children - and without a man to fix flat tires. Her ministry was rolled out in tents, concert halls, boxing rings, and speakeasies. She prayed for the healing of hundreds of thousands of people, and built a Pentecostal temple in Los Angeles of Hollywood-epic dimensions.

At the age of 17, Spurgeon became pastor to a handful of believers at Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, meeting in what had been a dovecote. Within five years, he had become the best-known minister in London. Two years later, following the Sepoy Mutiny, he conducted a service of national humiliation in the Crystal Palace that was attended by 24,000 people. But this volume is far from being a record of human fame and success....

In Love, At Ease is a heartfelt, intimate reflection on the life of Pramukh Swami Maharaj who personified the eternal spiritual values of selfless love and service, humility, inclusiveness and stability. The book presents a roadmap to inner happiness and success based on the interactions of a spiritual master who guided people from different faiths and backgrounds through the journey of life

A few years ago, people began encouraging me to write the story of my spiritual journey from New Age back to Christianity. This is it. It has been a lot of fun to write. As I remembered and wrote down each step through my life, I began to see a wonderful pattern as a powerful and awesome God was at work in my life.

He is perhaps most well-known for being exiled from the league for praying—instead of standing and saluting the flag–during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games throughout the 1995-96 season. Abdul-Rauf’s protest sent shockwaves through the NBA that can still be felt today. With wit and candor, Abdul-Rauf tells the story of how he rose to the top of his game—only to have his career taken away in the blink of an eye when he stood up for his principles.

The story of Corrie ten Boom has inspired millions of people all over the world. Jean Watson is a skillful author and presents Corrie's stirring life and challenging hope-filled messages for young listeners. The Watchmaker's Daughter traces the life of this outstanding Christian woman from her childhood in Haarlem, through her suffering in Nazi concentration camps, to her world-wide ministry to the handicapped and underprivileged.

Embrace your identity as God's beloved, step out of your own brokenness, and bring hope to a darkened world. You have a calling to fulfill. Are you ready to take the risk of moving past your past to fulfill it? Christine Caine faced hurdles that seemed insurmountable - abuse, abandonment, and the loss of a child. Yet she decided to answer God's call on her life no matter where it would lead her. Many times, the only thing that kept her going was knowing that she was God's beloved. She was God's chosen.

The Wisdom of John Paul II is a powerful, illuminating distillation of the Pope's most moving, wise, and penetrating statements on a range of important issues. In this compilation by Nick Bakalar and Richard Balkin, the Pope addresses spirituality in modern life, human rights and religious freedom, marriage and family, morality, peace, prayer, women's roles, poverty, and many other concerns vital to Christian life and thought.

For the first time in thirty years, more than a dozen former ATF agents who participated in the initial February 28, 1993, raid speak on the record about the poor decisions of their commanders that led to this deadly confrontation. Revelations in this book include why the FBI chose to end the siege with the use of CS gas; how both ATF and FBI officials tried and failed to cover up their agencies’ mistakes; where David Koresh plagiarized his infamous prophecies; and direct links between the Branch Davidian tragedy and the modern militia movement in America.

What do George Whitefield, Elisabeth Elliot, and J. Gresham Machen have in common? They were all Evangelical Heroes. In Evangelical Heroes, Joel Beeke and Douglas Bond present thirty biographical sketches of faithful evangelical leaders from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. From George Whitfield to Charles Spurgeon to R.C. Sproul, these men and women held firm to the authority of Scripture and the reality of Christ's death and resurrection in the face of rising liberalism in the Church.