Religious Wars

News reports cover the tragic events - the bombings, the massacres, and the suicide attacks. Our newscasters take time to explain who the players are - from Hezbollah to the Iranian Quds, from ISIS to the Palestinian National Authority. But what is behind these events that fuels atrocity after atrocity?

The West, says author Tony Blankley in this shocking book, is down to its last chance. Within our lifetimes, Europe could become Eurabia, a continent overwhelmed by militant Islam that poses a greater threat to the United States than even Nazi Germany did. In The West's Last Chance, Blankley shows how that could happen and how we can prevent it.

The two great Persian invasions of Greece, in 490 and 480-79 B.C., both repulsed by the Greeks, provide our best opportunity for understanding the interplay of religion and history in ancient Greece on a large scale. Using the Histories of Herodotus as well as other historical and archaeological sources, Jon Mikalson shows how the Greeks practiced their religion at this pivotal moment in their history.

Sacred sites offer believers the possibility of communing with the divine and achieving deeper insight into their faith. Yet their spiritual and cultural importance can lead to competition as religious groups seek to exclude rivals from practicing potentially sacrilegious rituals in the hallowed space and wish to assert their own claims.

In Sacred Scripture, Sacred War, James Byrd offers the first comprehensive analysis of how American revolutionaries defended their patriotic convictions through scripture. Byrd shows that the Bible was a key text of the American Revolution. Indeed, many colonists saw the Bible as primarily a book about war. They viewed God as not merely sanctioning violence but actively participating in combat, playing a decisive role on the battlefield.

This is a fabulous audiobook that explores the life story of Lloyd C. Glover, a soldier and an ambassador for Christ. This book covers 60 years of his life, looking back at the start of his relationship with God and the history of his life.

The year was 1922: World War I had just come to a close, the Ottoman Empire was in decline, and Asa Jennings, a YMCA worker from upstate New York, had just arrived in the quiet coastal city of Smyrna to teach sports to boys. Several hundred miles to the east in Turkey's interior, tensions between Greeks and Turks had boiled over into deadly violence. Mustapha Kemal, now known as Ataturk, and his Muslim army soon advanced into Smyrna, a Christian city, where a half a million terrified Greek and Armenian refugees had fled in a desperate attempt to escape his troops.

Sometimes, a life story is recounted that leaves you amazed at the measures some men will go to in order to find purpose and meaning in their lives. This is one such book. Mark Gee’s moving and no-holds-barred account of his time as a Spanish Foreign Legion mercenary and Bridegroom of Death and also his time served in "Peloton" and their phenomenally vicious penal work section is truly amazing.

Father Vincent Robert Capodanno was a US Navy chaplain killed in Vietnam in 1967 with his Marine search unit in Operation Swift. Outnumbered 2,500 to 500 Marines, he was killed protecting a corpsman who was administering first aid to a soldier.

In 2005 a Chinook helicopter carrying 16 Special Ops soldiers crashed during a rescue mission in a remote part of Afghanistan, killing everyone on board. In that instant, machine gunner Caleb Daniels lost his best friend, Kip Jacoby, and seven members of his unit. Back in the U.S., Caleb begins to see them everywhere - dead Kip, with his Alice in Wonderland tattoos, and the rest of them, their burned bodies watching him. But there is something else haunting Caleb, too - a presence he calls the Black Thing, or the Destroyer.

Chaplain James D. Johnson chose to accompany his men, unarmed, on their daily combat operations, a decision made against the recommendations of his superiors. During what would be the final days for some, he offered his ministry not from a pulpit but on the battlefields - in hot landing zones and rice paddies, in hospitals, aboard ship, and knee-deep in mud. Through his compelling narration, he takes us into the hearts of frightened young boys and the minds of experienced men.

Delve into the heart of religious history, where the enduring legacy of the Abrahamic faiths converge with tales of war and theology, revealing their profound impact on contemporary society. In this compelling narrative, religious historian Frank Kenny navigates the complex evolution of a warlike deity from the early scriptures of Jerusalem to the verses of the Bible and Qur’an they inspired. Challenging the one-dimensional portrayal of a benevolent God, The God of War offers a multifaceted view that spans the history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

America's political landscape is experiencing dangerous polarization and fragmentation, with the extremes pulling the country apart. Voices on the left and right clash over different worldviews, narratives, definitions of America, and what it means to be an American citizen. The levels of incivility and hostility lead some to invoke the language of a cold civil war or even a looming civil war, one that could split the country in two. Is there any way to step back from this dangerous precipice?

While working on his book Gunner's Glory, he interviewed the Medal of Honor Marine Mitchell Paige. Mitch is the hero whom Hasbro Toys designed the GI Joe doll in honor of. On his deathbed, Mitch recounts an astounding miracle that saved his life and changed the course of World War II. Years later, while Johnnie is fighting his own battle with memories of war on a mountain called Graybeard, God does the same incredible miracle with him.

"Sarge, are you dead?" His question brought me back to consciousness. "Uh, no, at least I don't think so." I felt something sticky under my shirt. I reached inside my shirt, and my hand came out soaked in blood. The only thought that went through my mind was, "This is my blood on the outside of my body. This is not good." I joined the Army because I wanted freedom. My high school principal told me that I needed to grow up. We arrived in Vietnam on Dec. 15, and on Christmas day 1967, I grew up. A "training mission" turned into a full-scale firefight.

Kindesmissbrauch in einer Sekte – Natachas Eltern sind echte Hippies, sie träumen von der freien Liebe und dem Weltfrieden. Naiv lassen sie sich von der Sekte Children of God anwerben – so wird ihre Tochter Natacha in die Sekte hineingeboren, ebenso wie ihre Geschwister. Ein normales Familienleben wird Natacha nie kennenlernen. Die Sekte propagiert die freie Liebe, auch mit Kindern! Getrennt von ihren Eltern, sind Natacha und ihre Geschwister dem Missbrauch durch fremde "Onkel" und "Tanten" schutzlos ausgeliefert.

Young Anita Dittman's world crumbles as Hitler begins his rise to power in Germany, but because she's a Christian and only half-Jewish, Anita feels sure she and her family are safe from the "final solution". She couldn't have been more wrong. Shadow of His Hand is an inspirational young adult historical fiction book based on the real-life story of Anita Dittman, a Holocaust survivor. It follows her struggle against Nazi persecution and her growth in her relationship with God through the worst of times.

The modern crisis stems from a great divorce—a divorce between those who have the truth and those who do not. In Philosophies at War, Sheen addresses the American people on the themes of government and politics not only as a bishop but also as a conscious citizen. He writes of war and revolution, the need of an absolute (God), and the roots of democracy, patriotism, and peace. He shows that the culture war is not merely political and economic but also theological.

God at War explores the dark attraction between religion and warfare. Virtually every religious tradition leaves behind it a bloody trail of stories, legends, and images of war, and most wars call upon the divine for blessings in battle. This book finds the connection between religion and warfare in the alternative realities created in the human imagination in response to crises both personal and social.

In the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Fuller Seminary theologian William Pannell decried the then-popular sentiment among White evangelicals that racism was no longer an urgent matter. In The Coming Race Wars? he meticulously unpacked reasons why our nation - and the church - needed to come to terms with our complicity in America's racial transgressions before we face a more dire reckoning. Critics in 1993 dismissed him as alarmist. Here, Pannell revisits his provocative message with an expanded edition that connects its message to current events.