These evangelicals raise a starkly consequential question for electoral politics: Why do they claim morality while supporting politicians who act immorally by most Christian measures? In this clear-eyed, hard-hitting chronicle of American religion and politics, Anthea Butler answers that racism is at the core of conservative evangelical activism and power.Butler reveals how evangelical racism, propelled by the benefits of whiteness, has since the nation’s founding played a provocative role in severely fracturing the electorate. During the buildup to the Civil War, white evangelicals used scripture to defend slavery and nurture the Confederacy. During Reconstruction, they used it to deny the vote to newly emancipated blacks. In the twentieth century, they sided with segregationists in avidly opposing movements for racial equality and civil rights. Most recently, evangelicals supported the Tea Party, a Muslim ban, and border policies allowing family separation. White evangelicals today, cloaked in a vision of Christian patriarchy and nationhood, form a staunch voting bloc in support of white leadership. Evangelicalism’s racial history festers, splits America, and needs a reckoning now.Anthea Butler is associate professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World. A leading historian and public commentator on religion and politics, Butler has appeared on networks including CNN, BBC, and MSNBC and has published opinion pieces in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many other media outlets.

    More impressively, he is almost unparalleled in his creativity. The Sacred Canopy brings together all of these virtues and is easily his most important book. Indeed, I think it’s the most important contribution to the sociology of religion since Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.” —Jeffery K. Hadden, Commonweal “This is a brilliant analysis that gives evidence of a sociology of religion that is able to clarify the often ironic interaction of religion and society.” —A. Theodore Kachel, Union Seminary Quarterly ReviewThis important contribution to the sociology of religion provides an analysis that clarifies the often ironic interaction between religion and society.  Berger is noted for his concise and lucid style.

    In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms.

    His application of family systems theory to congregational life has enormously clarified its operative systems and especially its emotional system. In this sequel, Richardson employs the same methodology to address the roots of personal issues that may hinder pastors' ability to function effectively as leaders within their congregations, and may in fact cause them deep difficulties. He especially addresses pastors' own families of origin, a major but often hidden component in how they function emotionally in their congregations. When anxiety arises, unresolved familial issues and old family patterns return, often unhelpfully. Richardson explores these patterns, how they operate in church situations, and how pastors can do their own family-of-origin assessment. His volume will become a standard tool for analysis of patterns in ministerial behavior and developing strong personal effectiveness.

    delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, calling on all Americans to view others not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Yet King included another powerful word, one that is often overlooked. Warning against the "tranquilizing drug of gradualism," King emphasized the fierce urgency of now, the need to resist the status quo and take immediate action.King's call to action, first issued over fifty years ago, is relevant for the church in America today. Churches remain racially segregated and are largely ineffective in addressing complex racial challenges. In The Color of Compromise, Jemar Tisby takes us back to the root of this injustice in the American church, highlighting the cultural and institutional tables we have to flip in order to bring about progress between black and white people.Tisby provides a unique survey of American Christianity's racial past, revealing the concrete and chilling ways people of faith have worked against racial justice. Understanding our racial history sets the stage for solutions, but until we understand the depth of the malady we won't fully embrace the aggressive treatment it requires. Given the centuries of Christian compromise with bigotry, believers today must be prepared to tear down old structures and build up new ones. This book provides an in-depth diagnosis for a racially divided American church and suggests ways to foster a more equitable and inclusive environment among God's people.

    If you want to know what the Koran is really about, you have to know what it really says. Don Richardson gives you a nitty-gritty inside look at the Koran, helping to separate fact from fiction. These hard-hitting observations are not the author's opinion based on what he thinks the Koran seems to imply. Muslim boys are indoctrinated in military camps. Madrasa Schools force memorization and repetition of the Koran-particularly those verses that promise heavenly rewards for martyrdom. It took courage to write this serious, documented and well-sourced book. But the price of truth is courage, regardless of ones religion.

    Avoiding tired labels of past debates (Exclusivism, Pluralism, and Inclusivism), Knitter suggests four different models (Replacement, Fulfillment, Mutuality, and Acceptance) that more adequately link together thirteen ways of approaching and understanding the variety of the world's religious expressions.

    Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture or to copy culture. Most of the time, we just consume culture. But the only way to change culture is to create culture. Andy Crouch unleashes a stirring manifesto calling Christians to be culture makers. For too long, Christians have had an insufficient view of culture and have waged misguided "culture wars." But we must reclaim the cultural mandate to be the creative cultivators that God designed us to be. Culture is what we make of the world, both in creating cultural artifacts as well as in making sense of the world around us. By making chairs and omelets, languages and laws, we participate in the good work of culture making. Crouch unpacks the complexities of how culture works and gives us tools for cultivating and creating culture. He navigates the dynamics of cultural change and probes the role and efficacy of our various cultural gestures and postures. Keen biblical exposition demonstrates that creating culture is central to the whole scriptural narrative, the ministry of Jesus and the call to the church. He guards against naive assumptions about "changing the world," but points us to hopeful examples from church history and contemporary society of how culture is made and shaped. Ultimately, our culture making is done in partnership with God's own making and transforming of culture. A model of his premise, this landmark book is sure to be a rallying cry for a new generation of culturally creative Christians. Discover your calling and join the culture makers.

    Josh McDowell's timeless examination of the true nature of Christ and his impact on our lives is one of the best-selling Christian books ever. Written by a former skeptic of Christianity, it is a hard-hitting book for those who doubt Jesus' deity and his purpose.

    How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion-an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus-was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.

    In The Culture of Disbelief, Stephen Carter explains how we can preserve the vital separation of  church and state while embracing rather than  trivializing the faith of millions of citizens or  treating religious believers with disdain. What makes Carter's work so intriguing is that he uses liberal means to arrive at what are often considered conservative ends. Explaining how preserving a special  role for religious communities can strengthen our democracy, The Culture of Disbelief recovers the long tradition of liberal religious witness (for example, the antislavery, antisegregation, and Vietnam-era antiwar movements). Carter argues that the problem with the 1992 Republican convention was not the fact of open religious advocacy, but the political  positions being advocated.

    An essential introduction to the world's living religions by experts from each tradition -- published in conjunction with the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions.

    We stamp God on our money, our bumper stickers, and our bodies. With a church on nearly every street, it's hard to deny our country's deep connection with the divine. Yet culture critic Matthew Paul Turner says that God didn't just change America-America changed God. As a result, do we even recognize the "real" God? Whip-smart and provocative, Turner explores the United States' vast influence on God, told through an amazing true history of faith, politics, and evangelical pyrotechnics. From Puritans to Pentecostals, from progressives to mega-pastors, Turner examines how American history and ideals transformed our perception of God. Fearless and funny, this is the definitive guide to the American experience of the Almighty-a story so bizarre, incredible, and entertaining that it could only be made in the U.S.A. No matter what your political or religious affiliation, this book will challenge and delight with its razor sharp wit, social commentary, and savvy historical insight. It will make you reconsider the way you think about America as a "Christian nation," and help you re-imagine a better future for God and country. Ultimately, Turner dares to ask: Does God control the future of America-or is it the other way around?

    This led him to recast, by cutting and pasting from the gospels, a new narrative of the life and teachings of Jesus, where, according to Jefferson, there will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.

    Which social medium platforms make sense for your church community? How can you make them an effective tool for ministry? As a veteran social media expert, author, and sociologist, Meredith Gould has helped answer these questions and more in her best-selling book The Social Media Gospel. In this second edition, Gould provides an easy-to-understand, step-by-step guide to digital ministry for those wishing to embrace new technologies to build community and deepen faith. In this expanded edition, Gould delivers new content with humor, helpful tips, and counsel anchored in practical experience. She focuses on key topics for effective church communication, including: • Building and ministering to online communities • Privacy and self-disclosure in the digital age • Integrating communications across digital platforms • Managing and monitoring social media • Faith storytelling with visual social media • Hashtag development and live-tweeting