Ideas Have Consequences
Richard M. Weaver - 1948
Weaver unsparingly diagnoses the ills of our age and offers a realistic remedy. He asserts that the world is intelligible and that man is free. The catastrophes of our age are the product of unintelligent choice and the cure lies in man's recognition that ideas--like actions--have consequences. A cure, he submits, is possible. It lies in the right use of man's reason, in the renewed acceptance of an absolute reality, and in the recognition that ideas like actions have consequences.
Traces of the Trinity: Signs of God in Creation and Human Experience
Peter J. Leithart - 2015
This evocative book by an influential Christian thinker explores the pattern of mutual indwelling that characterizes the creation at every level. Traces of the Trinity appear in myriad ways in everyday life, from our relations with the world and our relationships with others to sexuality, time, language, music, ethics, and logic. This small book with a big idea—the Trinity as the Christian theory of everything—changes the way we view and think about the world and places demands on the way we live together in community.
Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air
Francis J. Beckwith - 1998
The authors survey the rising tide of relativism in recent decades, explore its inherent inconsistencies, suggest specific approaches that can be used in the course of dialogue, and consider its everyday implications. (48)
Is God Just a Human Invention?: And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists
Sean McDowell - 2010
From bookstores to bus campaigns, the question of God is up for public debate--and well-known atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are leading the charge. While these authors, who have been dubbed The New Atheists, argue against religion in general, they aim most of their criticisms and complaints at the world's largest religion--Christianity. Why are people reading books that bash God and ridicule faith? And how can Christians respond?The writings of the New Atheists are especially challenging to the emerging generation who are skeptical of authority and have not been given answers to the hows and whys of faith's honest questions. For these readers especially, authors Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow have penned an accessible yet rigorous look at the arguments of the New Atheists. Writing from a distinctively Christian perspective, McDowell and Morrow lay out the facts so that the emerging generation can make up their own mind after considering all the evidence. Divided into two parts--the first addressing the scientific and philosophical challenges to belief in God and the second dealing with the moral and biblical challenges--Is God Just a Human Invention? will respond to each major argument in a way that is balanced, thorough, and easy to understand.McDowell and Morrow believe that the current religious landscape is both an opportunity and a challenge for people of faith. Now is the time to respond.
Letter to a Christian Nation
Sam Harris - 2006
Letter to A Christian Nation is his reply. Using rational argument, Harris offers a measured refutation of the beliefs that form the core of fundamentalist Christianity. In the course of his argument, he addresses current topics ranging from intelligent design and stem-cell research to the connections between religion and violence. In Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris boldly challenges the influence that faith has on public life in our nation.
God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics
C.S. Lewis - 1971
S. Lewis. "His whole vision of life was such that the natural and the supernatural seemed inseparably combined."It is precisely this pervasive Christianity which is demonstrated in the forty-eight essays comprising God in the Dock. Here Lewis addresses himself both to theological questions and to those which Hooper terms "semi-theological," or ethical. But whether he is discussing "Evil and God," "Miracles," "The Decline of Religion," or "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment," his insight and observations are thoroughly and profoundly Christian.Drawn from a variety of sources, the essays were designed to meet a variety of needs, and among other accomplishments they serve to illustrate the many different angles from which we are able to view the Christian religion. They range from relatively popular pieces written for newspapers to more learned defenses of the faith which first appeared in The Socratic Digest. Characterized by Lewis's honesty and realism, his insight and conviction, and above all his thoroughgoing commitments to Christianity, these essays make God in the Dock very much a book for our time.
When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God
T.M. Luhrmann - 2012
M. Luhrmann, an anthropologist trained in psychology and the acclaimed author of Of Two Minds, explores the extraordinary process that leads some believers to a place where God is profoundly real and his voice can be heard amid the clutter of everyday thoughts.While attending services and various small group meetings at her local branch of the Vineyard, an evangelical church with hundreds of congregations across the country, Luhrmann sought to understand how some members were able to communicate with God, not just through one-sided prayers but with discernable feedback. Some saw visions, while others claimed to hear the voice of God himself. For these congregants and many other Christians, God was intensely alive. After holding a series of honest, personal interviews with Vineyard members who claimed to have had isolated or ongoing supernatural experiences with God, Luhrmann hypothesized that the practice of prayer could train a person to hear God’s voice—to use one’s mind differently and focus on God’s voice until it became clear. A subsequent experiment conducted between people who were and weren’t practiced in prayer further illuminated her conclusion. For those who have trained themselves to concentrate on their inner experiences, God is experienced in the brain as an actual social relationship: his voice was identified, and that identification was trusted and regarded as real and interactive. Astute, deeply intelligent, and sensitive, When God Talks Back is a remarkable approach to the intersection of religion, psychology, and science, and the effect it has on the daily practices of the faithful.
The Imitation of Christ
Thomas à Kempis
This meditation on the spiritual life has inspired readers from Thomas More and St. Ignatius Loyola to Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul I. Written by the Augustinian monk Thomas à Kempis between 1420 and 1427, it contains clear instructions for renouncing wordly vanities and locating eternal truths. No book has more explicitly and movingly described the Christian ideal:
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity
Elaine Pagels - 1988
Deepens & refreshes our view of early Christianity while casting a disturbing light on the evolution of the attitudes passed down to us.AcknowledgmentsThe Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-3Introduction "The Kingdom of God is at hand" Christians against the Roman orderGnostic improvisations on Genesis The "Paradise of Virginity" regained The politics of paradise The nature of nature EpilogueNotesIndex
The Courage to Be
Paul Tillich - 1952
This edition includes a new introduction reflecting on the impact of the book since it was written.
Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power - And How They Can Be Restored
Marcus J. Borg - 2011
Borg. Borg argues that Christianity's important words, and the sacred texts and stories in which those words are embedded, have been narrowed by a modern framework for the faith that emphasizes sin, forgiveness, Jesus dying for our sins, and the afterlife. Here, Borg employs the "historical-metaphorical" method for understanding Christian language that can restore for us these words of power and transformation. For example,Redemption: now narrowly understood as Jesus saving us from sins so we can go to heaven, but in the Bible it refers to being set free from slavery.Savior: now refers to Jesus as the one who saves us from our sins, but in the Bible it has a rich and wonderful variety of meanings having nothing to do with the afterlife. Sacrifice: now refers to Jesus's death on the cross as payment for our sins, but in the Bible it is never about substitutionary payment for sin.In Speaking Christian, Borg delivers a language for twenty-first-century Christians that grounds the faith in its deep and rich original roots and allows it once again to transform our lives.
End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context
Myron Bradley Penner - 2013
It tends toward an unbiblical and unchristian form of Christian witness and does not have the ability to attest truthfully to Christ in our postmodern context. In fact, Christians need an entirely new way of conceiving the apologetic task. This provocative text critiques modern apologetic efforts and offers a concept of faithful Christian witness that is characterized by love and grounded in God's revelation. Penner seeks to reorient the discussion of Christian belief, change a well-entrenched vocabulary that no longer works, and contextualize the enterprise of apologetics for a postmodern generation.
Abraham Kuyper: A Short and Personal Introduction
Richard J. Mouw - 2011
As he struggled to find the right Christian stance toward big social issues such as the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, Mouw discovered Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism — and, with it, a robust vision of active Christian involvement in public life that has guided him ever since. In this “short and personal introduction” Mouw sets forth Kuyper’s main ideas on Christian cultural discipleship, including his views on sphere sovereignty, the antithesis, common grace, and more. Mouw looks at ways to update — and, in some places, even correct — Kuyper’s thought as he applies it to such twenty-first-century issues as religious and cultural pluralism, technology, and the challenge of Islam.
Gospel Truth
Russell Shorto - 1997
With the skill of a seasoned journalist and the passion of an amateur sleuth, he moves from scholarly conclave in California to archaeologcal digs in Israel, tracking down the story of the astounding consensus emerging from a varied group of experts.