When I Was a Child I Read Books


Marilynne Robinson - 2012
    Her compelling and demanding collection The Death of Adam—in which she reflected on her Presbyterian upbringing, investigated the roots of Midwestern abolitionism, and mounted a memorable defense of Calvinism—is respected as a classic of the genre, praised by Doris Lessing as “a useful antidote to the increasingly crude and slogan-loving culture we inhabit.” In this new collection she returns to the themes which have preoccupied her work: the role of faith in modern life, the inadequacy of fact, the contradictions inherent in human nature. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as a modern rhetorical master.

Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America


Chris Arnade - 2019
    Arnade's raw, deeply reported accounts cut through today's clickbait media headlines and indict the elitists who misunderstood poverty and addiction in America for decades.After abandoning his Wall Street career, Arnade decided to document poverty and addiction in the Bronx. He began interviewing, photographing, and becoming close friends with homeless addicts, and spent hours in drug dens and McDonald's. Then he started driving across America to see how the rest of the country compared. He found the same types of stories everywhere, across lines of race, ethnicity, religion, and geography.The people he got to know, from Alabama and California to Maine and Nevada, gave Arnade a new respect for the dignity and resilience of what he calls America's Back Row--those who lack the credentials and advantages of the so-called meritocratic upper class. The strivers in the Front Row, with their advanced degrees and upward mobility, see the Back Row's values as worthless. They scorn anyone who stays in a dying town or city as foolish, and mock anyone who clings to religion or tradition as naive.As Takeesha, a woman in the Bronx, told Arnade, she wants to be seen she sees herself: "a prostitute, a mother of six, and a child of God." This book is his attempt to help the rest of us truly see, hear, and respect millions of people who've been left behind.

Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall–and Those Fighting to Reverse It


Steven Brill - 2018
    He shows us how, over the last half-century, America's core values--meritocracy, innovation, due process, free speech, and even democracy itself--have somehow managed to power its decline into dysfunction. They have isolated our best and brightest, whose positions at the top have never been more secure or more remote. The result has been an erosion of responsibility and accountability, an epidemic of shortsightedness, an increasingly hollow economic and political center, and millions of Americans gripped by apathy and hopelessness. By examining the people and forces behind the rise of big-money lobbying, legal and financial engineering, the demise of private-sector unions, and a hamstrung bureaucracy, Brill answers the question on everyone's mind: How did we end up this way? Finally, he introduces us to those working quietly and effectively to repair the damages. At once a diagnosis of our national ills, a history of their development, and a prescription for a brighter future, Tailspin is a work of riveting journalism--and a welcome antidote to political despair.

Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make A Difference


Max Lucado - 2010
    A story of a movement that exploded like a just-opened fire hydrant out of Jerusalem and spilled into the ends of the earth: into the streets of Paris, the districts of Rome, and the ports of Athens, Istanbul, Shanghai, and Buenos Aires. A story so mighty, controversial, head spinning, and life changing that two millennia later we wonder:Might it happen again?Heaven knows we hope so. These are devastating times: 1.75 billions people are desperately poor; one billion are hungry. Lonely hearts indwell our neighborhoods and attend our schools. In the midst of it all, here we stand: you, me, and our one-of-a-kind lives. We are given a choice ... an opportunity to make a big difference during a difficult time. What if we did? What if we rocked the world with hope?Worth a try, don't you think?- Max LucadoOne hundred percent of the author's royalties from Outlive Your Life products will benefit children and families through World Vision and other ministries of faith-based compassion.

Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion


David Barton - 1996
    Filled with hundreds of the Founders' quotes revealing their beliefs on the role of religion in public affairs, the proper role of the courts, the intended limited scope of federal powers, and numberous other current issues.

Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary


Frederick Buechner - 1988
    "I think of faith as a kind of whistling in the dark, because in much the same way," writes Buechner, "it helps to give us courage and to hold the shadows at bay."

The Quest for Character


John F. MacArthur Jr. - 2006
    It's the truth! You're a holy treasure buried in the wilderness of this world and John MacArthur wants to take you on an excursion to unearth your heaven-sent value. That's where "The Quest for Character begins.>"In an easy, conversational style, MacArthur focuses on dozens of character traits formed as you interact with others. Quick-read chapters examine discernment, purity, courage, passion, humility, sincerity, accountability, devotion, integrity, selflessness, resiliency, generosity, and more. Adults as well as teens will enjoy this innovative approach to building a more Christlike character and learning to live a richer life on earth. Start now to gather your treasure for Jesus. Come on x2026;take The Quest!

Shadowland: From Jeffrey Epstein to the Clintons, from Obama and Biden to the Occult Elite, Exposing the Deep-State Actors at War with Christianity, Donald Trump, and America's Destiny


Thomas Horn - 2020
    From Jeffrey Epstein to the Clintons—from Obama and Biden to the Occult Elite—Dr. Thomas Horn uncovers terrifying realities behind today’s polarizing culture war and the energies operating behind the contest for dominance over values, beliefs, and religious practices. Now, for the first time ever, readers will discover: • Occult practices and enthroned “Egregores” over the mysterious shadow empire • Diabolical “body count” lists and “sacrificed” whistleblowers • Jeffrey Epstein and Shadowland’s deals with the Devil • Hillary Clinton and the bizarre effort to summon Antichrist • Whether some in “Christianity” have joined Luciferian objectives • What really was behind the Russia Hoax and Trump impeachment effort • Shocking facts about Obama and his so-called Birth Certificate • Contrasting visions for America—Progressives vs. Conservatives • And much more!

Essence of Prayer


Ruth Burrows - 2006
    Ought we to do so? What do we mean by prayer? What does the word mean in the Christian context? Almost always when we talk about prayer we refer to something we do. From that standpoint, questions problems, confusion, discouragement and illusions multiply. For Ruth Burrows it is essential to correct this view. Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the Divine Self in love. What then is the core of the central message of the revelation of Jesus? It is the unconditional love of God for us, for each one of us. God the unutterable, incomprehensible Mystery, the Reality of all reality, the Life of all Life. And this means that divine Love desires to communicate its Holy Self to us. This is the richness of the vision of a contemplative nun who contradicts the heresy of so much modern writing about the spiritual life--namely that we reach God by running faster. The growing fascination for the public of the contemplative and monastic life is evidence of the profound appeal of this approach. For this there is a real hunger. At its simplest we do no look for success so as to be assured that we do believe. We give ourselves over completely to divine love. Ultimately, we live for God and not for ourselves.

The God Who Smokes: Scandalous Meditations on Faith


Timothy J. Stoner - 2008
    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.

God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life


Paul Kengor - 2004
    Yet until now little attention has been paid to the role Reagan's personal spirituality played in his political career, shaping his ideas, bolstering his resolve, and ultimately compelling him to confront the brutal -- and, not coincidentally, atheistic -- Soviet empire.In this groundbreaking book, political historian Paul Kengor draws upon Reagan's legacy of speeches and correspondence, and the memories of those who knew him well, to reveal a man whose Christian faith remained deep and consistent throughout his more than six decades in public life. Raised in the Disciples of Christ Church by a devout mother with a passionate missionary streak, Reagan embraced the church after reading a Christian novel at the age of eleven. A devoted Sunday-school teacher, he absorbed the church's model of "practical Christianity" and strived to achieve it in every stage of his life.But it was in his lifelong battle against communism -- first in Hollywood, then on the political stage -- that Reagan's Christian beliefs had their most profound effect. Appalled by the religious repression and state-mandated atheism of Bolshevik Marxism, Reagan felt called by a sense of personal mission to confront the USSR. Inspired by influences as diverse as C.S. Lewis, Whittaker Chambers, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, he waged an openly spiritual campaign against communism, insisting that religious freedom was the bedrock of personal liberty. "The source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual," he said in his Evil Empire address. "And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow man."From a church classroom in 1920s Dixon, Illinois, to his triumphant mission to Moscow in 1988, Ronald Reagan was both political leader and spiritual crusader. God and Ronald Reagan deepens immeasurably our understanding of how these twin missions shaped his presidency -- and changed the world.

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America


Michael Eric Dyson - 2017
    In his 2016 New York Times op-ed piece "Death in Black and White," Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Now he continues to speak out in Tears We Cannot Stop―a provocative and deeply personal call for change. Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted.The time is at hand for reckoning with the past, recognizing the truth of the present, and moving together to redeem the nation for our future. If we don't act now, if you don't address race immediately, there very well may be no future.

A Free People's Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future


Os Guinness - 2012
    As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.Abraham LincolnNothing is more daring in the American experiment than the founders' belief that the American republic could remain free forever. But how was this to be done, and are Americans doing it today?It is not enough for freedom to be won. It must also be sustained. Cultural observer Os Guinness argues that the American experiment in freedom is at risk. Summoning historical evidence on how democracies evolve, Guinness shows that contemporary views of freedom--most typically, a negative freedom from constraint-- are unsustainable because they undermine the conditions necessary for freedom to thrive. He calls us to reconsider the audacity of sustainable freedom and what it would take to restore it.In the end, Guinness writes, the ultimate threat to the American republic will be Americans. The problem is not wolves at the door but termites in the floor. The future of the republic depends on whether Americans will rise to the challenge of living up to America's unfulfilled potential for freedom, both for itself and for the world.

When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today


Harvey Cox - 2004
    As he did in his undergraduate class Jesus and the Moral Life—a course that grew so popular that the lectures were held in a theater often used for rock concerts—Cox examines contemporary dilemmas in the light of lessons gleaned from the Gospels. Invigorating and incisive, this book encourages an intellectual approach to faith and inspires a clear way of thinking about moral choices for all of us.

Do Something Beautiful for God: The Essential Teachings of Mother Teresa, 365 Daily Reflections


Mother Teresa - 2019
    This is not an abstract invitation but a deeply personal and intimate one. There is so much happening in the world and so much happening within our own hearts, minds, and souls. All this makes it is easy to lose sight of what matters most and get absorbed in what matters least.Mother Teresa is an icon of goodness, one of the most beloved women in history. How did she become so much to so many people? Little by little. Small acts performed with great love. You become an icon of goodness by striving to be good and by consistently doing good.On these pages, you will find the essential teachings of Mother Teresa. They provide remarkable insight into the depths of her heart, mind, soul, and life. They will comfort you in your affliction and afflict you in your comfort. But most of all, in the midst of all this activity and noise of your life, you will hear Mother Teresa encouraging you by gently saying: Do something beautiful for God with your life!