A New History of Early Christianity shows how our current debates are rooted in the many controversies surrounding the birth of the religion and the earliest attempts to resolve them. Charles Freeman’s meticulous historical account of Christianity from its birth in Judaea in the first century A.D. to the emergence of Western and Eastern churches by A.D. 600 reveals that it was a distinctive, vibrant, and incredibly diverse movement brought into order at the cost of intellectual and spiritual vitality. Against the conventional narrative of the inevitable “triumph” of a single distinct Christianity, Freeman shows that there was a host of competing Christianities, many of which had as much claim to authenticity as those that eventually dominated. Looking with fresh eyes at the historical record, Freeman explores the ambiguities and contradictions that underlay Christian theology and the unavoidable compromises enforced in the name of doctrine.Tracing the astonishing transformation that the early Christian church underwent—from sporadic niches of Christian communities surviving in the wake of a horrific crucifixion to sanctioned alliance with the state—Charles Freeman shows how freedom of thought was curtailed by the development of the concept of faith. The imposition of "correct belief," religious uniformity, and an institutional framework that enforced orthodoxy were both consolidating and stifling. Uncovering the difficulties in establishing the Christian church, he examines its relationship with Judaism, Gnosticism, Greek philosophy and Greco-Roman society, and he offers dramatic new accounts of Paul, the resurrection, and the church fathers and emperors.

    Backed by intellectuals at respectable universities, Intelligent Design Theory (ID) proposes an alternative to accepted accounts of evolutionary theory: that life is so complex, and that the universe is so fine-tuned for the appearance of life, that the only plausible explanation is the existence of an intelligent designer. For many ID theorists, thedesigner is taken to be the god of Christianity.Niall Shanks has written the first accessible introduction to, and critique of, this controversial new intellectual movement. Shanks locates the growth of ID in the last two decades of the twentieth century in the growing influence of the American religious right. But as he shows, its roots go backbeyond Aquinas to Ancient Greece. After looking at the historical roots of ID, Shanks takes a hard look at its intellectual underpinnings, discussing modern understandings of thermodynamics, and how self-organizing processes lead to complex physical, chemical, and biological systems. He considerscosmological arguments for ID rooted in so-called anthropic coincidences and also tackles new biochemical arguments for ID based on irreducible biological complexity. Throughout he shows how arguments for ID lack cohesion, rest on errors and unfounded suppositions, and generally are grosslyinferior to evolutionary explanations.While ID has been proposed as a scientific alternative to evolutionary biology, Shanks argues that ID is in fact old creationist wine in new designer label bottles and moreover is a serious threat to the scientific and democratic values that are our cultural and intellectual inheritance from theEnlightenment.

    Yet comprehending the vast, often fractious, 2000 year story of his followers can be a bewildering task. Stephen Tomkins leads readers on an enjoyable and enlightening journey through the key stages of Christian development, covering the people, the movements, the controversies of the ever-expanding Church. His "Short History of Christianity" is a penetrating, energetic account sure to please a wide spectrum of those interested in the Christian story.

    Lewis, always “Jack” to family and friends, never shied from intellectual debate, and through his written works encouraged others to wrestle with the difficult questions of faith. A master of visual illustration and allegory, Lewis wrote with the intuitive understanding that his readers wrestled with the same questions about the Christian story, about pain, suffering, and notions of Heaven and Hell, as he himself had wrestled. He also understood that others found reason and imagination to be incompatible aspects of an understanding of God and the universe.

    During his life, Rich Mullins challenged the sensibilities of what it means to follow Jesus in today's world, and now in his death, he challenges all to build upon his legacy of joy, compassion, brokenness, unblinking honesty, and wonder of an Awesome God

    We're three mothers from three faiths -- Islam, Christianity, and Judaism -- who got together to write a picture book for our children that would highlight the connections between our religions. But no sooner had we started talking about our beliefs and how to explain them to our children than our differences led to misunderstandings. Our project nearly fell apart.""After September 11th, Ranya Idliby, an American Muslim of Palestinian descent, faced constant questions about Islam, God, and death from her children, the only Muslims in their classrooms. Inspired by a story about Muhammad, Ranya reached out to two other mothers -- a Christian and a Jew -- to try to understand and answer these questions for her children. After just a few meetings, however, it became clear that the women themselves needed an honest and open environment where they could admit -- and discuss -- their concerns, stereotypes, and misunderstandings about one another. After hours of soul-searching about the issues that divided them, Ranya, Suzanne, and Priscilla grew close enough to discover and explore what united them."The Faith Club" is a memoir of spiritual reflections in three voices that will make readers feel as if they are eavesdropping on the authors' private conversations, provocative discussions, and often controversial opinions and conclusions. The authors wrestle with the issues of anti-Semitism, prejudice against Muslims, and preconceptions of Christians at a time when fundamentalists dominate the public face of Christianity. They write beautifully and affectingly of their families, their losses and grief, their fears and hopes for themselves and their loved ones. And as the authors reveal their deepest beliefs, readers watch the blossoming of a profound interfaith friendship and the birth of a new way of relating to others.In a final chapter, they provide detailed advice on how to start a faith club: the questions to ask, the books to read, and most important, the open-minded attitude to maintain in order to come through the experience with an enriched personal faith and understanding of others.Pioneering, timely, and deeply thoughtful, "The Faith Club"'s caring message will resonate with people of all faiths.For more information or to start your own faith club visit www.thefaithclub.com

    The hypocrisy, the politics, the gargantuan building budgets, the scandals--church culture seemed so far removed from Jesus. Yet, despite her cynicism and misgivings, something kept drawing her back to Church. And so she set out on a journey to understand Church and to find her place in it.Centered around seven sacraments, Evans' quest takes readers through a liturgical year with stories about baptism, communion, confirmation, confession, marriage, vocation, and death that are funny, heartbreaking, and sharply honest.A memoir about making do and taking risks, about the messiness of community and the power of grace, Searching for Sunday is about overcoming cynicism to find hope and, somewhere in between, Church.

    We know him as the brave young man who defeated Goliath, the first king of a united Israel, the composer of the beloved Psalms, and, for Christians, the messianic forerunner to Jesus. And yet for all the glory we attribute to David's legend, the historical reality is both fascinating and disturbing.In The Historical David, Joel Baden reveals that, in David's case, the Bible is political spin, "the goal of which is to absolve David of any potential guilt and to show him in a positive light." Through deep textual analysis, Baden reveals how the historical David has been painstakingly and successfully diminished, replaced by the portrait of a glorious king we are now familiar with.To question David's legend opens up a debate about what it means to be a descendant of David--be it nationally, ethnically, or religiously. In The Historical David, Baden confronts this challenge, bringing the historical David vibrantly to life, and ultimately revealing that the flesh-and-blood man was far more complex and interesting than the mythical king.

    S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Madeleine L'Engle, Charles Williams, G. K. Chesterton, John Buyan, Dante and others is examined in this introductory volume to Christian mythopoeia.

    Donald H. Calloway, comes a powerful and comprehensive history of a spiritual weapon: the rosary.

    S. Lewis, John F. Kennedy and Aldous Huxley to investigate the claims of Christ.

    . . wide-eyed children gathered 'round a beach fire, listening to a father's stories of the high seas . . . an expansive, you-can-see-forever view from the top of Pike's Peak . . . another view from a Stryker frame, where an active young woman learns she will never walk again . . . heading down a church aisle to marry the man she loves . . . looking into the eyes of a child in a wheelchair, and seeing the family God has prepared for a loving heart . . . sitting by the pool of Bethesda, reflecting on the miracle of healing God has performed in her heart . . .The God I Love brings to life these and many other moments. It offers an eternal perspective from a woman in a wheelchair who affirms that the God she knows and loves is the center, the peacemaker, the passport to adventure, the joy ride, and the answer to her deepest longings. Raised in an active, adventurous family, Joni Eareckson Tada worked hard and played hard to keep up with her older sisters and athletic father--until one day a diving accident left her a quadriplegic. But the tragedy that could have ended her life was in reality the beginning of an amazing, constantly unfolding story of grace that has touched the lives of millions worldwide and brought Joni unexpected joy and fulfillment.In this book, Joni unveils the God whom she has found to be faithful through over thirty years as a paralytic. This is not the story of a woman who has all the answers or who is very different from you. Joni struggles with the same fears, questions, and heartaches we all have in common. But as the weeks and months turn into years, and the years into decades, she meets her Savior at every turn.In this book, you'll discover that he is there for you as well, no matter what your circumstance or situation may be. Written with beauty, feeling, and amazing honesty, The God I Love captures the heart and soul of one woman's powerful, deeply personal journey of hope. It is a sojourn from a naïve child's belief to a tempered faith that transforms and transcends personal tragedy, bringing light to the darkest places and good out of the most difficult situations, and offering glimpses of the glory that awaits God's children.

    The Paradigm will reveal secrets and mysteries taking place all around you and show you what you never could have imagined. Jonathan Cahn, who caused an international stir with his New York Times best-selling book The Harbinger, will take you from the ancient Middle East to the news of the modern world on a journey you will never forget. As you open up The Paradigm, his most explosive book yet, you may never see your world the same way again.

    From King David to Barack Obama, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel–Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence.How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the ‘centre of the world’ and now the key to peace in the Middle East? In a dazzling narrative, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city in its many incarnations, bringing every epoch and character blazingly to life. Jerusalem’s biography is told through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the men and women – kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores – who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem. As well as the many ordinary Jerusalemites who have left their mark on the city, its cast varies from Solomon, Saladin and Suleiman the Magnificent to Cleopatra, Caligula and Churchill; from Abraham to Jesus and Muhammad; from the ancient city of Jezebel, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod and Nero to the modern times of the Kaiser, Disraeli, Mark Twain, Rasputin and Lawrence of Arabia.Drawing on new archives, current scholarship, his own family papers and a lifetime’s study, Montefiore illuminates the essence of sanctity and mysticism, identity and empire in a unique chronicle of the city that is believed will be the setting for the Apocalypse. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem, and the only city that exists twice – in heaven and on earth.

    This exceptional work, by one of the world's leading Biblical scholars, provides a full account of how the different parts of the Bible came to be written; how some writings which were regarded as holy became canonical and were included in the Bible, and others were not; what the relationship is of the different parts of the Bible to each other; and how, once it became a stable text, the Bible has been disseminated and interpreted around the world. It gives full weight to discussion of the importance of the Tanakh (Old Testament) in Judaism as in Christianity. It also demonstrates the degree to which, contrary to widespread belief, both Judaism and Christianity are not faiths drawn from the Bible texts but from other sources and traditions. It shows that if we are to regard the Bible as 'authoritative' it cannot be as believers have so often done in the past.