posted a video on Facebook in which he called for solidarity with our LGBT brothers and sisters. "The largest mass shooting in US history took place at a gay club and the LGBT community has been profoundly affected," he began. He then implored his fellow Catholics—and people everywhere—to "stand not only with the people of Orlando but also with their LGBT brothers and sisters." A powerful call for tolerance, acceptance, and support—and a reminder of Jesus' message for us to love one another—Father Martin's post went viral and was viewed more than 1.6 million times.Now, Martin expands on his reflections in this moving and inspiring book, offering a powerful, loving, and much-needed voice in a time marked by anger, prejudice, and divisiveness. Adapted from an address he gave to New Ways Ministry, a group that ministers to and advocates for LGBT Catholics, Building a Bridge provides a roadmap for repairing and strengthening the bonds that unite all of us as God's children. Martin uses the image of a two-way bridge to enable LGBT Catholics and the Church to come together in a call to end the "us" versus "them" mentality. Turning to the Catechism, he draws on the three criteria at the heart of the Christian ministry—"respect, compassion, and sensitivity"—as a model for how the Catholic Church should relate to the LGBT community.

    Satan would have us believe that we need to do more, achieve all our goals, and be perfect on our own, but that's not what our Savior has said. Learn how to embrace the broken elements in your life and let the Atonement help you become more than you could ever be alone.

     Dan Savage's mother wants him to get married. His boyfriend, Terry, says "no thanks" because he doesn't want to act like a straight person. Their six-year-old son DJ says his two dads aren't "allowed" to get married, but that he'd like to come to the reception and eat cake. Throw into the mix Dan's straight siblings, whose varied choices form a microcosm of how Americans are approaching marriage these days, and you get a rollicking family memoir that will have everyone-gay or straight, right or left, single or married-howling with laughter and rethinking their notions of marriage and all it entails. BACKCOVER: "Hilarious, heartfelt." -Seattle Post-Intelligencer "As funny as David Sedaris's essay collections, but bawdier and more thought-provoking." -Publisher's Weekly (starred review) "Most of all, a book about creating and appreciating family." -Seattle Times "I think America would be a better place if everyone on every side of the gay marriage debate would read this book." -Ira Glass, host of the public radio show This American Life "The strongest argument here, which [Savage] brilliantly plays down, is that family means everything to these people: married, not married, blended, gay, straight, whatever." -The Washington Post

    Visions of Glory is a mesmerizing and fascinating read that you will not be able to put down.

    Plan and simple. Objectively it made no sense. I, who worked hard at being special, fell in love with a people who valued being ordinary." So begins Sue Bender's story, the captivating and inspiring true story of a harried urban Californian moved by the beauty of a display of quilts to seek out and live with the Amish. Discovering lives shaped by unfamiliar yet comforting ideas about time, work, and community, Bender is gently coaxed to consider, "Is there another way to lead a good life?"Her journey begins in a New York men's clothing store. There she is spellbound by the vibrant colors and stunning geometric simplicity of the Amish quilts "spoke directly to me," writes Bender. Somehow, "they went straight to my heart."Heeding a persistent inner voice, Bender searches for Amish families willing to allow her to visit and share in there daily lives. Plain and Simple vividly recounts sojourns with two Amish families, visits during which Bender enters a world without television, telephone, electric light, or refrigerators; a world where clutter and hurry are replaced with inner quiet and calm ritual; a world where a sunny kitchen "glows" and "no distinction was made between the sacred and the everyday."In nine interrelated chapters--as simple and elegant as a classic nine-patch Amish quilt--Bender shares the quiet power she found reflected in lives of joyful simplicity, humanity, and clarity. The fast-paced, opinionated, often frazzled Bender returns home and reworks her "crazy-quilt" life, integrating the soul-soothing qualities she has observed in the Amish, and celebrating the patterns in the Amish, and celebrating the patterns formed by the distinctive "patches" of her own life.

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    Are we still called to God’s plan of how to love when we are getting none in return? Shauna Shanks’s brave journey through obedience reveals the outcome of when we dare to follow God’s ludicrous outline for love as described in 1 Corinthians 13.Wrecked with news of her husband’s affair and his request for a divorce, Shauna finds herself urgently faced with a decision. Does she give up and divorce her husband and move on, or does she try to fight for her marriage? The former choice seems to contradict God’s plan for how to love, such as “love never gives up,” “love is patient,” and “love is kind.”Taking God at His word and assuming the love chapter was really meant to be followed literally word by word, she not only finds herself falling in love with her spouse again, but also falling in love with Jesus, which changes everything.First Corinthians 13 presents an audacious, illogical, and irrational context of how to love, meant to be applied to every marital context not just the fairytale marriage. If God’s instructions seem illogical and audacious, you might just expect the same kind of results in return!This book is not air-brushed. It was written in the midst of the author’s deepest trauma, and she purposefully did not edit out her mistakes and failures during that season. This book will resonate with women who do not feel like the picture-perfect Christian woman with the fairytale life and marriage.A Fierce Love is the story of a train wreck and reaching out to God not in the calm but in the chaos and finding hope for the future.

    Using twenty-five favorite Book of Mormon scriptures as inspiration, Debra Woods shows mothers how they can find answers to a myriad of parenting questions and challenges as they raise their children in the latter-days. Through stories and experiences taken from her own life, she offers simple suggestions for making meaningful connections with your children - suggestions on how to turn weaknesses into strengths, ideas on how to foster an atmosphere of peace and harmony, ways in which mothers can support each other, and helps for the mother who must forgive her children, and herself. Mothering with Spiritual Power is a celebration of motherhood, family life, and the difference the gospel of Jesus Christ can make for mothers and families everywhere.

    The story of a woman who came of age with the sexual revolution who finds emancipation in the Zen of motherhood, "Surrendering to Motherhood" is about letting go of the need to achieve and finding one's true self.

    While officially intended to preserve the sacredness of the experience, the silence leaves many Latter-day Saints mystified. What are the derivation and development of the holy endowment, and if these were known, would the experience be more meaningful? Modern parishioners lack context to interpret the arcane and syncretistic elements of the symbolism.For instance, David Buerger traces the evolution of the initiatory rites, including the New Testament-like foot washings, which originated in the Ohio period of Mormon history; the more elaborate Old Testament-like washings and anointings, which began in Illinois and were performed in large bathtubs, with oil poured over the initiate’s head; and the vestigial contemporary sprinkling and dabbing, which were begun in Utah. He shows why the dramatic portions of the ceremony blend anachronistic events—an innovation foreign to the original drama.Buerger addresses the abandonment of the adoption sealing, which once linked unrelated families, and the near-disappearance of the second anointing, which is the crowning ordinance of the temple. He notes other recent changes as well. Biblical models, Masonic prototypes, folk beliefs, and frontier resourcefulness all went into the creation of this highest form of Mormon Temple worship. Diary entries and other primary sources document its evolution.

    In I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Joshua Harris exposes the "Seven Habits of Highly Defective Dating" and offers a realistic outline of how to have a biblical vision of marriage. Harris contends that one must begin with a new attitude, viewing love, purity, and singleness from God's perspective rather than thinking that love and romance are to be enjoyed "solely for recreation." In such well-named chapters as "Guarding Your Heart" and "What Matters at Fifty," Harris encourages the reader to look at one's character rather than reveling in infatuation, to regard love as a truly selfless, biblical act rather than a feeling. He refutes the concept that we are victims of "falling in love" (that it is beyond our control), saying that "God wants us to seek guidance from scriptural truth, not feeling. Smart love looks beyond personal desires and the gratification of the moment. It looks at the big picture: serving others and glorifying God." Before you roll your eyes, moaning that this sounds terribly unromantic, know that Harris does a superb job of couching his convictions in the sincere belief that if we are purposeful in our singleness and date with integrity, a fulfilled marriage awaits us--in God's timing. --Jill Heatherly

    In this volume you will find the stories of all the hymns in the 1985 LDS hymnbook, so far as those stories are known. Some of the hymns came about in ways that are quite dramatic and personal; others came into being under ordinary circumstances. And each of the more than three hundred hymns has a message all its own. Prepared with the cooperation and assistance of the General Music Committee of the Church, this companion to the hymnbook gives brief biographies of the authors and composers of the hymns, the stories of the hymns themselves, and an account of changes that may have ocurred in the words or in the music. Our Latter-day Hymns gives insight into the beliefs and history, hopes and fears of the people who sing these hymns. Church members who have music callings as well as those who simply enjoy singing will find this volume fascinating and informative.

    Clamorous and angry, they were hunting down a man they saw as a grave threat to their otherwise quiet lives: the founding prophet of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. They wanted blood.At thirty-nine years old, Smith had already lived an outsized life. In addition to starting his own religion and creating his own “Golden Bible”—the Book of Mormon—he had worked as a water-dowser and treasure hunter. He'd led his people to Ohio, then Missouri, then Illinois, where he founded a city larger than fledgling Chicago. He was running for president. And, secretly, he had married more than thirty women.In American Crucifixion, Alex Beam tells how Smith went from charismatic leader to public enemy: How his most seismic revelation—the doctrine of polygamy—created a rift among his people; how that schism turned to violence; and how, ultimately, Smith could not escape the consequences of his ambition and pride.Mormonism is America's largest and most enduring native religion, and the “martyrdom” of Joseph Smith is one of its transformational events. Smith's brutal assassination propelled the Mormons to colonize the American West and claim their place in the mainstream of American history. American Crucifixion is a gripping story of scandal and violence, with deep roots in our national identity.

    In Faitheist, Chris Stedman challenges the orthodoxies of this movement and makes a passionate argument that atheists should learn to respect religious identity while remaining secular. Stedman draws on his work organizing interfaith and secular communities, his academic study of religion, and his experiences as a former born-again Christian who struggled with his homosexuality and became, for a time, a New Atheist--until he saw its shortcomings. As someone who has stood on both sides of the divide, Stedman is uniquely positioned to present a way for atheists and the religious to find common ground.

    Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof. Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds--and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor's wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi's last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.Have a Little Faith is a book about a life's purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man's journey, but it is everyone's story. Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless.