Religious Theology

At a time when divisions among the churches are subject to attack, both from within and from without, the author has felt led to write doxologies, essays, and thoughts. These words are a call to action to all true believers in the Word of God, and can only create encouragement in the body of Christ.

Viewing human nature as one that seeks the dichotomy of both imagination and reason, he argues that the Christian faith is the only true fulfillment of both of those needs. Chesterson explains that Christianity is the only faith that can answer the basic needs and desires of all humans because it has both in its very structure. A rigid morality combined with an allowance for some interpretation of truth and way of life, Christianity resolves the human need for a life that follows both logic and romance.

Is it possible that the largest body of Christian believers, Roman Catholics, have fallen from their place in heaven? Dark Halo takes the listener on a fantastic voyage, down the hallowed halls of St. Peters Basilica in the heart of Rome, and behind closed doors in the Vatican to reveal that the horrors and atrocities of the Roman Catholic Church have echoed down the ages, right into our modern times.

For Cardinal Francis George, the Catholic Church is not a movement built around ideas but a communion built around relationships. In A Godly Humanism, he shares his understanding of the church in lively, compelling prose, presenting a way to understand and appreciate the relationships of God to human beings and of human beings to one another. These loving relationships are continually made present to us in and through the church, from the time of Jesus' first disciples down to our own day.

Noll's Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind shows how the orthodox Christology confessed in the ancient Christian creeds, far from hindering or discouraging serious scholarship, can supply the motives, guidance, and framework for learning. Christian faith, Noll argues, can richly enhance intellectual engagement in the various academic disciplines - and he demonstrates how by applying his insights to the fields of history (his own area of expertise), science, and biblical studies in particular.

A virus has been spreading across America. Chances are you've already been infected without even realizing it. The virus is made up of dangerous ideas - worldviews that don't reflect Jesus and biblical living. According to a recent Barna study, less than one in five practicing Christians has a biblical worldview. Idea viruses - stemming from secularism, Marxism, postmodernism, new spirituality, and Islam - are rampant in our churches today. But don't give up - there is hope!

Trying to discover where ultimate truth really begins and ends - if it even exists - can be brutal work. Getting support from someone who has struggled with the same issues is invaluable. In A Man Who Told Us the Truth, author Will Davis Jr. wrestles with questions of truth and spiritual realities, offering a bridge between spiritually inquisitive people and the person of Jesus Christ. Written in a language that seekers and the nonreligious will understand, this remarkable book asks the hard questions about faith.

Most of us take it for granted. We just do it—whether it's trusting that the sun will come up tomorrow, that the lunch we are about to eat is not poisoned or that our religious beliefs are not ill-founded. But why should we believe any of these things? Why should anyone believe anything at all? With insight and humor, James W. Sire examines the reasons people give for believing what they do and suggests what are truly satisfying and compelling reasons for belief. He then turns to the question of a specific belief—namely, belief that the Christian faith is true.

Aware both of the excitement and uncertainty generated by The Shack, theologian Randal Rauser takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the pages of the story. In successive chapters he explores many of the books complex and controversial issues. Through these chapters Rauser offers an honest and illuminating discussion which opens up a new depth to the conversation while providing the reader with new opportunities for Finding God in The Shack.

How could a conservative Christian - an ordained minister with a beard, no less - be against not only Christianity, but theology, sacraments, and ethics as well? Yet that is the stance Peter Leithart takes in this provocative "theological bricolage." Seeking to rethink evangelical notions of culture, church, and state, Leithart offers a series of short essays, aphorisms, and parables that challenge the current dichotomies that govern both Christian and non-Christian thinking about church and state, the secular and the religious.

A towering figure in American literature, Norman Mailer here explores his concept of the nature of God. In a series of probing, challenging, and uncommon dialogues, Mailer establishes his own system of belief, one that rejects both organized religion and atheism. He presents a view in which our world is created by an artistic God who often succeeds but can also fail in the face of determined opposition by contrary powers in the universe.

We live in a multifaith society: an ever-growing, diverse cultural climate, where no religion is viewed as having a monopoly on truth. It is important when that Christ-followers not only share the Word of God but also listen and learn how to interact meaningfully with those of diverse...

From John Calvin until today, Reformed theology and worship have acknowledged Word and sacrament as central to its Christian identity. By exploring key liturgies, confessions, directories for worship, and theological movements, this book examines common theological themes and commitments that have undergirded worship as well as ways that our understandings and practices have developed in light of new contexts and challenges.

A Christian for All Christians looks at the influence and friendships that helped shape the real Clive Staples Lewis - Christian apologist, moral philosopher, literary critic, poet, and fantasy writer - and examines the reasons for his enduring popularity with virtually all types of Christians by analyzing the true meaning of his teaching and faith.

Did Anselm, in his "Ontological Argument" (first advanced around 1070), make one of the greatest intellectual discoveries of all time, or did he merely fall into an interesting blunder? In his day, Anselm was criticized by Gaunilo. Subsequent philosophers have generally considered Gaunilo's criticisms to be weighty. Descartes' attempt to resuscitate Anselm's argument led to Kant's supposed refutation, which most later philosophers have considered to be fundamentally sound.

Dr. Worden carefully traces the historical shift through the centuries of Christianity through the Reformation on how profit-seeking and wealth are assumed to be related to the sin of greed. In short, making and accumulating money was thought by most major theologians for centuries to indicate the presence of greed, the love of more and more. The uncoupling of greed from earthly treasure began to take hold only with Aquinas amid novel pressures from Commercial Revolution.

A spectacular stretch of earth, the Eastern Sierra region of California, reveals volcanic reefs, desert sand dunes, majestic mountains, and snow-fed lakes and rivers. Drawing on 40 years of college teaching on the world's religions, Professor Brad Karelius is your guide, uncovering deep spiritual dimensions in this achingly beautiful place. This book shares crystallizations of religious wisdom collected through the ages, and finely tuned descriptions of holy sites which you may visit, that will draw you deeper in your personal encounters with world spiritualities.

Of all of the important Catholic men and women who have been venerated over the last 2,000 years, one of the faith's most popular and influential men also lived one of the most unique lives. Like Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) found God about as far away from church as possible; it was during military service that he underwent a remarkable conversion.

Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez's 1971 book, A Theology of Liberation, provides an inspiring and groundbreaking argument as to how Christians and the Roman Catholic Church should act in support of the poor. The Catholic Church had traditionally seen itself as politically neutral. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, reformers such as Gutiérrez urged it to seriously address real-world issues such as poverty and oppression.

Throughout history, Christians have pictured the relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through analogies. Such illustrations—some from the West but also from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and other places—come laden with theological ramifications that the church has rejected (heresies) or embraced (doctrines). In Three in One, William David Spencer shares a lifetime of insights from teaching within the global church, bringing fresh images and analogies of the Trinity to deepen our theological vocabulary.