Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly recreates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians--from the zealous Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II. Drawing together the many strands of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and ranging widely across Europe and the New World, MacCulloch reveals as never before how these dramatic upheavals affected everyday lives--overturning ideas of love, sex, death, and the supernatural, and shaping the modern age.

    "The best telling of the story of the past," writes George Marsden, "relies on a balance of the general and the particular." In this book, a sequel and companion to his widely acclaimed Fundamentalism and American Culture (Oxford, 1980), Marsden uses the history of Fuller Theological Seminary — a durable evangelical institution — as a lens through which to focus an examination of the broader story of evangelicalism and fundamentalism since the 1940s. In fact, at the time of the school's founding in 1947, "evangelicalism" and "fundamentalism" were not considered separate entities. Though Fuller Seminary later became so thoroughly identified with the "new evangelicalism" (or neo- evangelicalism) that its fundamentalist roots are sometimes overlooked, in the school's early years it was in striking ways a fundamentalist institution with a thoroughly fundamentalist constituency. Marsden's detailed history relies heavily on primary sources: personal recollections and correspondence of the seminary's founders, and discussions with students and staff from throughout the seminary's history. Although the story of Fuller Seminary provides the framework for this fascinating look at a segment of American religious history, Marsden's careful and knowledgeable attention to the surrounding worlds of mainline denominations and stricter fundamentalism makes this book a major contribution to the study of a movement that has played an important role in shaping American culture.

    The adjective 'medieval' has become a synonym for brutality and uncivilized behavior. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In God's Philosophers, James Hannam debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth is flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that it is a sphere; the Inquisition burnt nobody for their science nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution; no Pope tried to ban human dissection or the number zero. God's Philosophers is a celebration of the forgotten scientific achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam. Decisive progress was also made in technology: spectacles and the mechanical clock, for instance, were both invented in thirteenth-century Europe. Charting an epic journey through six centuries of history, God's Philosophers brings back to light the discoveries of neglected geniuses like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine, as well as putting into context the contributions of more familiar figures like Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and Saint Thomas Aquinas.

    But too often he is viewed as an Americanized shepherd boy on a Sunday school felt board or a New Testament saint alongside the Virgin Mary. Not only does this neglect one of the Bible’s most complex stories of sin and redemption; it also bypasses the gritty life lessons inherent in the amazing true story of David.  Mark Rutland shreds the felt-board character, breaks down the sculpted marble statue, and unearths the real David of the Bible. Both noble and wretched, neither a saint nor a monster, at times victorious and other times a failure, David was through it all a man after God’s own heart.

    Politi's account balances the perspectives of Pope Francis's supporters, Benedict's sympathizers, and those disappointed members of the Catholic laity who feel alienated by the institution's secrecy, financial corruption, and refusal to modernize.Politi dramatically recounts the sexual scandals that have rocked the church and the accusations of money laundering and other financial misdeeds swirling around the Vatican and the Italian Catholic establishment. Pope Francis has tried to shine a light on these crimes, but his work has been met with resistance from entrenched factions. Politi writes of the decline in church attendance and vocations to the priesthood throughout the world as the church continues to prohibit divorced and remarried Catholics from receiving the communion wafer. He visits European parishes where women now perform the functions of missing male priests--and where the remaining parishioners would welcome the admission of women to the priesthood, if the church would allow it.Pope Francis's emphasis on pastoral compassion for all who struggle with the burden of family life has also provoked the ire of traditionalists in the Roman Curia and elsewhere. He knows from personal experience what life is like for the poor in Buenos Aires and other metropolises of the globalized world, and highlights the contrast between the vital, vibrant faith of these parishioners and the disillusionment of European Catholics. Pope Francis and his supporters are locked in a battle with the defenders of the traditional hard line and with ecclesiastical corruption. In this conflict, the future of Catholicism is at stake--and it is far from certain Francis will succeed in saving the institution from decline.

    His ideas spread like wildfire across Europe, offering the scientific view that the natural world, including the soul of man, was a proper subject of study. The rediscovery of these ancient ideas sparked riots and heresy trials, caused major upheavals in the Catholic Church, and also set the stage for today's rift between reason and religion. In Aristotle's Children, Richard Rubenstein transports us back in history, rendering the controversies of the Middle Ages lively and accessible-and allowing us to understand the philosophical ideas that are fundamental to modern thought.

    At a time when Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael were revolutionizing Western art and culture, Erasmus was helping to transform Europe’s intellectual and religious life, developing a new design for living for a continent rebelling against the hierarchical constraints of the Roman Church. When in 1516 he came out with a revised edition of the New Testament based on the original Greek, he was hailed as the prophet of a new enlightened age. Today, however, Erasmus is largely forgotten, and the reason can be summed up in two words: Martin Luther. As a young friar in remote Wittenberg, Luther was initially a great admirer of Erasmus and his critique of the Catholic Church, but while Erasmus sought to reform that institution from within, Luther wanted a more radical transformation. Eventually, the differences between them flared into a bitter rivalry, with each trying to win over Europe to his vision.In Fatal Discord, Michael Massing seeks to restore Erasmus to his proper place in the Western tradition. The conflict between him and Luther, he argues, forms a fault line in Western thinking—the moment when two enduring schools of thought, Christian humanism and evangelical Christianity, took shape. A seasoned journalist who has reported from many countries, Massing here travels back to the early sixteenth century to recover a long-neglected chapter of Western intellectual life, in which the introduction of new ways of reading the Bible set loose social and cultural forces that helped shatter the millennial unity of Christendom and whose echoes can still be heard today. Massing concludes that Europe has adopted a form of Erasmian humanism while America has been shaped by Luther-inspired individualism.

    But what is the ultimate source of these gifts? Bestselling author and professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. provides the long neglected answer: the Catholic Church. Woods’s story goes far beyond the familiar tale of monks copying manuscripts and preserving the wisdom of classical antiquity. In How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, you’ll learn: · Why modern science was born in the Catholic Church · How Catholic priests developed the idea of free-market economics five hundred years before Adam Smith · How the Catholic Church invented the university · Why what you know about the Galileo affair is wrong · How Western law grew out of Church canon law · How the Church humanized the West by insisting on the sacredness of all human life No institution has done more to shape Western civilization than the two-thousand-year-old Catholic Church—and in ways that many of us have forgotten or never known. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is essential reading for recovering this lost truth.

    You live in a shitty flat in Detroit with a cupboard of stale coffee, a few bottles of light beer in the fridge, and a shoe box of pot that has probably been cut with cat shit. And until this week you have been slouching your way through life and pissing on anything meaningful. But that's all about to change. You are now given a final chance to make something out of this life, if only you can survive this one week.

    The One Year Bible guides readers through God's Word with daily readings from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs.

    Pearce Carey's compelling pages convey the very atmosphere of that extraordinary period of missionary advance. This life of Carey is structured around a series of remarkable events, always unplanned and unexpected, which opened the way to undreamed of achievements. Carey and his colleagues overcame mountainous obstacles to become the most productive church planters and Bible translators of all time. No other work compares with this moving treatment.

    The author exposes the Vatican's involvement in world politics, intrigues, and the fomenting of wars throughout history. It appears, beyond any doubt, that the Roman Catholic institution is not a Christian church and never was. The poor Roman Catholic people have been betrayed by her and are facing spiritual disaster. Paris shows that Rome is responsible for the two great world wars.

    And if Constantine the emperor were not problem enough, we all know that Constantinianism has been very bad for the church. Or do we know these things? Peter Leithart weighs these claims and finds them wanting. And what's more, in focusing on these historical mirages we have failed to notice the true significance of Constantine and Rome baptized. For beneath the surface of this contested story there emerges a deeper narrative of the end of Roman sacrifice--a tectonic shift in the political theology of an empire--and with far-reaching implications. In this probing and informative book Peter Leithart examines the real Constantine, weighs the charges against Constantinianism, and sets the terms for a new conversation about this pivotal emperor and the Christendom that emerged.

    The great heritage of western civilization - from the Greek and Roman classics to Jewish and Christian works - would have been utterly lost were it not for the holy men and women of unconquered Ireland. In this delightful and illuminating look into a crucial but little-known "hinge" of history, Thomas Cahill takes us to the "island of saints and scholars, " the Ireland of St. Patrick and the Book of Kells. Here, far from the barbarian despoliation of the continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly, even playfully preserved the west's written treasures. With the return of stability in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning. Thus the Irish not only were conservators of civilization, but became shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on western culture.

    Collins speaks of what remains to be the most amazing thing that he or anyone else has encountered in a full lifetime. The fact that God would save wicked men and forgive their sins is truly amazing. But the grace of God does not stop there. Our whole life is filled with the manifestation of God's grace to us. Here you will find what grace is and how it affects us who know Christ.