Orthodox Theology: An Introduction


Vladimir Lossky - 1958
    Can we know God? What is the relation of creation to the Creator? How did man fall, and how is he saved? Lossky demonstrates the close relationship between the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and the Orthodox understanding of man.

Divine Revelation of Deliverance


Mary K. Baxter - 2007
    A Divine Revelation of Deliverance exposes these schemes of Satan. Through Scriptures, visions of warfare, and personal encounters with evil spiritual forces, Mary K. Baxter discovered powerful truths to help you:Overcome your fear of the enemyRecognize and conquer satanic trapsExperience victory over sins and failuresBe free from unexplained attacksIntercede for the deliverance of othersThis is a war that must be fought with the supernatural power and weapons of God.

Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition


Richard Smoley - 2002
    It speaks from a nonsectarian point of view, unearthing insights from the whole of the Christian tradition, orthodox and heretical, famous and obscure. The esoteric tradition has traditionally searched for meanings that would yield a deeper inner knowledge of the divine. While traditional Christianity draws a timeline from Adam's Fall to the Day of Judgment, the esoteric often sees time as folding in on itself, bringing every point to the here and now. While the Church fought bitterly over dogma, the esoteric borrowed freely from other traditions—Kabbalah, astrology, and alchemy—in their search for metaphors of inner truth. Rather than basing his book around exponents of esoteric doctrine, scholar Richard Smoley concentrates on the questions that are of interest to every searching Christian. How can one attain direct spiritual experience? What does "the Fall" really tell us about coming to terms with the world we live in? Can we find salvation in everyday life? How can we ascend, spiritually, through the various levels of existence? What was Christ's true message to humankind? From the Gospel of Thomas to A Course in Miracles, from the Jesus Prayer to alchemy and Tarot, from Origen to Dante to Jung, Richard Smoley sheds the light of an alternative Christianity on these issues and more.

When You Pray: A Practical Guide to an Orthodox Life of Prayer


L. Joseph Letendre - 2017
    Praying consistently seems almost impossible. Too often and too easily, prayer becomes a burden: one more item on an already overcrowded to-do list. Failing to pray becomes a source of guilt and stress as we must once again admit our inconstancy and procrastination to our father confessor. Yet, our Lord said, “Come to me, all of you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. My burden is easy and my yoke is light” (Matt. 11:30). The purpose of this book, then, is not to add to the burden, but to ease it by distilling the advice and experience of those who pray.

Fifty-Seven Words that Change the World: A Journey through the Lord's Prayer


Darrell W. Johnson - 2005
    In eight stirring meditations, Darrell Johnson shows how the Lord's Prayer sums up the essence of Christian faith and, when prayed in faith, draws us into draws us into the Triune God's work of transforming the world. Darrell W. Johnson is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A popular conference and retreat speaker, he has also served as the preaching pastor for a number of congregations in North America and the Philippines and Adjunct Professor of Preaching for the Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. His other books include Experiencing the Trinity and Discipleship on the Edge: An Expository Journey through the Book of Revelation.

Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality: Making Space for God


Tim Stead - 2017
    But what exactly does this practice offer to Christians?In Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality, Tim Stead explores how practicing mindfulness can help Christians better live out their faith. Stead explains what mindfulness is and what is beneficial about it. He also reflects on how it can impact what and how we believe and seeks to find how mindfulness enables our Christian faith to work for us. Mindfulness practices that are designed to help readers make space for God in their everyday lives are included.

Jesus Behaving Badly: The Puzzling Paradoxes of the Man from Galilee


Mark L. Strauss - 2015
    Don't they? We overlook that Jesus wasJudgmental?preaching hellfire far more than the apostle PaulUncompromising?telling people to hate their familiesChauvinistic?excluding women from leadershipRacist?insulting people from other ethnic groupsAnti-environmental?cursing a fig tree and affirming animal sacrificeAngry?overturning tables and chasing moneychangers in the templeHe demanded moral perfection, told people to cut off body parts, made prophecies that haven't come true, and defied religious and political authorities. While we tend to ignore this troubling behavior, the people around Jesus didn't. Some believed him so dangerous that they found a way to have him killed. The Jesus everybody likes, says Mark Strauss, is not the Jesus found in the Gospels. He's a figure we've created in our own minds. Strauss believes that when we unpack the puzzling paradoxes of the man from Galilee, we find greater insight into his countercultural message and mission than we could ever have imagined.

Arguing Religion: A Bishop Speaks at Facebook and Google


Robert Barron - 2018
    Whether with friends, family, or on social media, we expend lots of energy, lots of sharp words, and lots of strong feelings. But very few know how to have a good religious argument a rational, respectful, and productive exchange of differing views.Bishop Robert Barron, one of the leading Catholic figures in the world and among the most active on social media, has enjoyed thousands of fruitful religious arguments. In this book based on talks delivered at Facebook and Google, he explains why religion at its best opens up the searching mind, and how we all believer and unbeliever alike can share better discussions about God.

Quaker faith & practice


Religious Society of Friends - 2013
    It is largely composed of extracts: a fitting way of expressing the breadth of Quaker theology. It also describes the current structures of Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

Ancient Book of Enoch


Ken Johnson - 2012
    The Ancient Book of Enoch opens by addressing those in the Tribulation period. It contains numerous prophecies about the flood and fire judgments, and the two comings of the Messiah. It teaches that the Messiah is the Son of God and that He will shed His blood to redeem us and even predicts the generation that this would occur! The book of Enoch prophesies a window of time in which the Second Coming would occur and prophesies that there will be twenty-three Israeli Prime Ministers ruling in fifty-eight terms from AD 1948 to the beginning of the Tribulation period, and much more. Even though it prophecies that the Bible would be created and says we will be judged by our obedience to the Bible, it also makes it clear that this book is not to be added to the Canon of Scripture.The Ancient Book of Enoch recounts the history of the angels that fell in the days of Jared, Enoch’s father. It testifies to their marriages with human women and their genetic experiments. This commentary includes a previously unknown chapter from the Dead Sea Scrolls that actually explains how they did their genetic tampering. The commentary is from a fundamentalist Christian view, brought to you by Biblefacts Ministries, biblefacts.org.

Prayer of Petition: Breaking Through the Impossible


Jerry Savelle - 2011
    Yet many Christians don’t know how to pray both effectively—in a way that gets results—and humbly—in a way that aligns with God’s will. Prayer is a powerful weapon against the true adversaries of God’s people: principalities, powers, dark rulers and spiritual wickedness in high places. These forces are the perpetrators of all kinds of evil: Addiction, abuse, poverty and spiritual bondage run rampant through families, churches, cities and nations. What can believers do to battle these forces? They can pray.Not just any prayer: the prayer of petition, known throughout Christian history as the prayer that gets results. Prayer of Petition explores this powerful prayer in detail, from the many examples found in God’s Word to more recent instances of incredible miracles ushered in by this prayer. Readers will learn the biblical definitions of petition and supplication, and examine the key components of preparation, thanksgiving and humility. As readers learn to petition the Ruler of All, their confidence that God will prevail—no matter what—will grow, and as they learn to rest in His promises, peace will reign over their hearts through the coming revival.

The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus


Marvin W. Meyer - 2005
    Marvin Meyer, premier scholar of Gnostic and other Christian literature outside the New Testament, presents every Gnostic Gospel and Jesus text with a brilliant overall introduction, introductions to each text, and notes that explain everything the reader needs to know to understand the text. He includes his latest translations of not only the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, but other texts such as the Secret Book of John, which some scholars regard as the second part of the New Testament Gospel of John. The material is largely from the discovery at Nag Hammadi, freshly translated and introduced, but also includes texts found elsewhere. The texts, especially taken together, present an image of Jesus as the ultimate wisdom teacher, a kind of mysterious Jewish Zen master, who scandalized listeners by his radical egalitarianism (regarding women, slaves, the poor, the marginalized as of equal status, or more, with establishment male believers) and his insistence on living the message, spiritual experience, vs. outer observance only. For those wanting to learn more after reading The Da Vinci Code. This book provides the definitive next book for those looking for expert presentation of the alternative Gnostic stream of Christianity, in which there is no talk of crucifixion and Mary Magdalene is presented as the disciple that Jesus loved best. "Marv is one of the original secret gospels scholars who has done an enormous amount of work to bring these texts to light. All of his research on the Nag Hammadi texts is having an incredible impact on our knowledge of early Christian history--it is virtually redefining it." --Dr. Elaine Pagels, Princeton University

Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from Patristic Era with Commentary


Olivier Clément - 1986
    Newman compared the early history of the Church to the opening chords of a symphony when the subjects that will later be brought out one

The Dynamic Laws of Prayer


Catherine Ponder - 1987
    DeVorss & Company; 2nd Revised edition (May 1, 1987)

Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence


Jonathan Sacks - 2015
    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—that is, my religion is the only right path to God, therefore your religion is by definition wrong—and individuals are motivated by what Rabbi Sacks calls “altruistic evil,” violence between peoples of different beliefs appears to be the only natural outcome.   But through an exploration of the roots of violence and its relationship to religion, and employing groundbreaking biblical analysis and interpretation, Rabbi Sacks shows that religiously inspired violence has as its source misreadings of biblical texts at the heart of all three Abrahamic faiths. By looking anew at the book of Genesis, with its foundational stories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Rabbi Sacks offers a radical rereading of many of the Bible’s seminal stories of sibling rivalry: Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, Rachel and Leah.   “Abraham himself,” writes Rabbi Sacks, “sought to be a blessing to others regardless of their faith. That idea, ignored for many of the intervening centuries, remains the simplest definition of Abrahamic faith. It is not our task to conquer or convert the world or enforce uniformity of belief. It is our task to be a blessing to the world. The use of religion for political ends is not righteousness but idolatry . . . To invoke God to justify violence against the innocent is not an act of sanctity but of sacrilege.” Here is an eloquent call for people of goodwill from all faiths and none to stand together, confront the religious extremism that threatens to destroy us, and declare: Not in God’s Name.