Ronald Rolheiser’s most beloved books, leads us to a deeper experience of the beauty and poetry of Christian spirituality.

    In distinguishing religions from belief systems, Carse works to reveal how belief—with its restriction on thought and encouragement of hostility—has corrupted religion and spawned violence the world over. Galileo, Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ—using their stories Carse creates his own brand of parable and establishes a new vocabulary with which to study conflict in the modern world. The Religious Case Against Belief introduces three kinds of ignorance: ordinary ignorance (a mundane lack of knowledge, such as ignorance of tomorrow’s weather or the reason why your stove is malfunctioning), willful ignorance (an intentional avoidance of accessible knowledge), and finally higher ignorance (a learned understanding that no matter how many truths we may accumulate, our knowledge falls infinitely short of the truth). While ordinary ignorance is common to all people, Carse associates the strongest manifestation of willful ignorance with the most fervent (and dangerous) of believers. He points to the historic conflict between Martin Luther and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V both to reveal this seemingly religious collision as a clash of belief and to identify belief ’s inherently destructive characteristics. From Luther to the contemporary Christian right, we learn that believers construct identity by erecting boundaries and by fostering aggression between the believer and the other. This is why belief systems choose—at great cost—to remain locked in bloody conflict rather than to engage in dialogue, recognizing the great deal they have in common. This is willful ignorance. In fierce contrast to willful ignorance, higher ignorance is an acquired state enhanced by religion. Those traveling the path to higher ignorance recognize faith teachings (such as the Bible) as poetry intended to promote contemplation, interpretation, and a sense of wonder. For evidence of religion’s deeply embedded rejection of singular truth and its acceptance of diverse dialogue, Carse looks to the many faces of Jesus presented in the books of the Bible and elsewhere. Uncontaminated by belief systems, religion rejects the imagined boundaries that falsely divide people and ideas, working to expand horizons. The Religious Case Against Belief exposes a world in which religion and belief have become erroneously (and terrifyingly) conflated. In strengthening their association with powerful belief systems, religions have departed from their essential purpose as agencies of higher ignorance. Carse uses his wideranging understanding of religion to find a viable and vital path away from what he calls the Age of Faith II and toward open-ended global dialogue. Far from abstract philosophical musing, The Religious Case Against Belief is required reading for our age.

    Filled with humorous insights and challenging ideas, The God Who Smokes imagines a twenty-first-century church where hope hangs with holiness, passion sits next to purity, and compassion can relate to character.

    India's tolerant and diverse vision of the Divine is all here: meditative, devotional, philosophical, scriptural and yogic.

    The Religions Book is also perfect for religion and philosophy students.

    The spirituality of imperfection, steeped in the rich traditions of the Hebrew prophets and Greek thinkers, Buddhist sages and Christian disciples, is a message as timeless as it is timely. This insightful work draws on the wisdom stories of the ages to provide an extraordinary wellspring of hope and inspiration to anyone thirsting for spiritual growth and guidance in these troubled times.Who are we? Why so we so often fall short of our goals for ourselves and others? By seeking to understand our limitations and accept the inevitably of failure and pain, we being to ease the hurt and move toward a greater sense of serenity and self-awareness. The Spirituality Of Imperfection brings together stories from many spiritual and philosophical paths, weaving past traditions into a spirituality and a new way of thinking and living that works today. It speaks so anyone who yearns to find meaning within suffering. Beyond theory and technique, inside this remarkable book you will find a new way of thinking, a way of living that enables a truly human existence.

    He explores the impact of information sciences on our understanding of ancient texts...including microcodes, macrocodes, and metacodes...as well as the highly controversial "equidistant letter sequences" discovered in the Bible. You will be able to use this exciting information to discover the hidden messages yourself because many of them do not require a computer to decipher.Enhance your study with a Cosmic Codes Workbook (paper version) or as a Download. (this is to be used in conjunction with the audio/multimedia materials as an aid to study)

    "Now I am forty and realize that I could have found the Tao in Jesus." This is an intriguing book that reveals how Zen philosophy parallels the core message of the gospel. It is the spiritual side of Zen, the art to trust and accept life that coincides with the core of the Gospel message. For power, dogma and doctrine were not Jesus' passion, but the mystery of life and the possibility of love. Sometimes people have overlooked the joy, the humor and the depth of Jesus' teachings—often because they could not surmount the narrow confines of openness to the scripture's power to transform our lives.

    Far more than a personality test, author Chris Heuertz writes, the enneagram is a sacred map to the soul. Lies about who we think we are keep us trapped in loops of self-defeat. But the enneagram offers a bright path to cutting through the internal clutter and finding our way back to God and to our true identity as God created us.Chris Heuertz’ life was forever changed after he learned about the enneagram 15 years ago. Today, he leads enneagram workshops all over the world. Join Chris as he shows you how this ancient tool can help you awaken to the gifts God has given you, find freedom from your personal patterns of sin and fear, and grow in acceptance of your identity as you grow with God.In conversational style with compelling stories, The Sacred Enneagram will show youHow to understand the 'why' behind your type, beyond caricatures and stereotypesHow to align your type with prayer posturesHow to identify and find freedom from self-destructive patternsHow to grow in spiritual discernmentHow to face your past wounds and step toward healingHow to awaken your unique gifts to serve today’s broken worldChris’s own journey with the enneagram is an accessible introduction and exploration of how the enneagram can change your life, because to the extent that we are transformed, the world will be transformed.

    Yet his theological views are complex and presume acquaintance with technical philosophical language. Now Timothy Renick has produced an attractive and accessible account of Aquinas's life and thought that will make his views clear to nonspecialists. The topics dealt with include God, angels, evil, metaphysics, morality, sex, war, abortion, and politics. Illustrations are interspersed throughout the text and humorously illuminate key points providing an engaging introduction to an all-important theologian.Written by experts but designed for the novice, the Armchair series provides accurate, concise, and witty overviews of some of the most profound moments and theologians in Christian history. These books are essential supplements for first-time encounters with primary texts, lucid refreshers for scholars and clergy, and enjoyable reads for the theologically curious.

    Wayne Grudem's bestselling Systematic Theology has several distinctive features:A strong emphasis on the scriptural basis for each doctrineClear writing, with technical terms kept to a minimumA contemporary approach, treating subjects of special interest to the church todayA friendly tone, appealing to the emotions and the spirit as well as the intellectFrequent application to lifeResources for worship within each chapter Bibliographies in each chapter that cross-reference subjects to a wide range of other systematic theologies.

    Written in easy-to-understand language, Religion 101 offers a fascinating--and memorable--glimpse at the sacred stories, traditions, and doctrines that have influenced today's most popular religions.From Jesus and the Four Noble Truths to the Buddhist Wheel of Existence, this book provides you with thought-provoking insight into the customs and beliefs of common faiths like Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam. Inside, you will also discover hundreds of important religious facts, illustrations, and thought puzzles that you won't be able to find anywhere else.So whether you're looking to unravel the mysteries of existence and meaning, or just want to find out what Kabbalah is all about, Religion 101 has all the answers--even the ones you didn't know you were looking for.

    Now, in I Want You to Be, Halík examines the connection between faith and love, meditating on a statement attributed to St. Augustine—amo, volo ut sis, “I love you: I want you to be”—and its importance for contemporary Christian practice. Halík suggests that because God is not an object, love for him must be expressed through love of human beings. He calls for Christians to avoid isolating themselves from secular modernity and recommends instead that they embrace an active and loving engagement with nonbelievers through acts of servitude. At the same time, Halík critiques the drive for mere material success and suggests that love must become more than a private virtue in contemporary society. I Want You to Be considers the future of Western society, with its strong division between Christian and secular traditions, and recommends that Christians think of themselves as partners with nonbelievers. Halik’s distinctive style is to present profound insights on religious themes in an accessible way to a lay audience. As in previous books, this volume links spiritual and theological/philosophical topics with a tentative diagnosis of our times. This is theology written on one’s knees; Halik is as much a spiritual writer as a theologian. I Want You to Be will interest both general and scholarly readers interested in questions of secularism and Christianity in modern life.

    

    The Age of Reason represents the results of years of study and reflection by Thomas Paine on the place of religion in society.Paine wrote: "Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity."The cool rationale of Paine's The Age of Reason influenced religious thinking throughout the world; and its pervasieve influence continues to the present day.