Book picks similar to
From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition by John Witte Jr.
theology
history
marriage
dissertation
Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth: An Analysis of More Than 100 Disputed Questions
Wayne Grudem - 2004
In this helpful book, Bible scholar Wayne Grudem considers over a hundred egalitarian arguments and finds them contrary to the Bible. According to Grudem, the Bible teaches that God values men and women equally. However, their roles in home and church are complementary to each other, not interchangeable. Arguing against both feminism on the left and male chauvinism on the right, his carefully researched handbook is a valuable resource defending the complementarian viewpoint.God created us, male and female, in His image. So what does that mean? Has the modern church suffered a tragic loss of the beauty of manhood and womanhood as created by God? Has the feminist influence within today’s evangelical church led to a rejection of the effective authority of the Bible? In this reasoned, comprehensive response to more than one hundred controversial claims from evangelical feminists, biblical scholar Wayne Grudem answers these questions and examines the egalitarian perspective on every major doctrinal issue, including: What the Bible says about the roles of men and women in marriage Women in the church and in church leadership Theology and the concepts of equality, fairness, and justice Claims that a complementarian view is harmful “This is the fullest and most informative analysis available, and no one will be able to deny the cumulative strength of the case this author makes” — J. I. Packer “This is the most thorough, balanced, and biblically accurate treatment of feminism and the Bible I have seen” — Stu Weber “After the Bible, I cannot imagine a more useful book for finding reliable help in understanding God’s will for manhood and womanhood in the church and the home” — John Piper Story Behind the BookI would like to see this book as the “final answer” to the question of feminsm in the church today. There has been a lot of controversy and debate in the church on this subject and I have used the Bible exclusively to answer the question of feminism in the church. This book must not be portrayed as anti-women, or as putting women down in any way. This book will seek throughout to elevate and honor women, to regard them as equal in value to men yet with different God-given roles. This book fairly presents arguments and facts, leading people to conclude for themselves that evangelical feminism is clearly contrary to Scripture.
The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith
Peter Hitchens - 2009
With unflinching openness and intellectual honesty, Hitchens describes the personal loss and philosophical curiosity that led him to burn his Bible at prep school and embrace atheism in its place. From there, he traces his experience as a journalist in Soviet Moscow, and the critical observations that left him with more questions than answers, and more despair than hope for how to live a meaningful life. With first-hand insight into the blurring of the line between politics and the Church, Hitchens reveals the reasons why an honest assessment of Atheism cannot sustain disbelief in God. In the process, he provides hope for all believers who, in the words of T. S. Eliot, may discover the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great
Ben Carson - 2011
Ben Carson helps us learn from our past in order to chart a better course for our future. From his personal ascent from inner-city poverty to international medical and humanitarian acclaim, Carson shares experiential insights that help us understand: … what is good about America … where we have gone astray … which fundamental beliefs have guided America from her founding into preeminence among nations Written by a man who has experienced America’s best and worst firsthand, America the Beautiful is at once alarming, convicting, and inspiring. You’ll gain new perspectives on our nation’s origins, our Judeo-Christian heritage, our educational system, capitalism versus socialism, our moral fabric, healthcare, and much more. An incisive manifesto of the values that shaped America’s past and must shape her future, America the Beautiful calls us all to use our God-given talents to improve our lives, our communities, our nation, and our world.
Shameless: A Sexual Reformation
Nadia Bolz-Weber - 2019
And that's why in Shameless, Pastor Nadia sets out to reclaim the conversation for a new generation. In the spirit of Martin Luther, Bolz-Weber calls for a reformation of the way believers understand and express their sexuality. To make her case, Bolz-Weber draws on experiences from her own life as well as her parishoners', then puts them side by side with biblical narrative and theology to explore what the church has taught and about sex, and the harm that has often come as a result. Along the way, Bolz-Weber reexamines patriarchy, gender, and sexual orientation with candor but also with hope--because, as she writes, "I believe that the Gospel can heal the pain that even the church has caused."
Reasonable Faith Study Guide
William Lane Craig - 2008
It takes the reader through the book chapter by chapter, using "fill in the blank" questions to highlight the crucial points and to promote personal reflection. Excellent for small group studies as well as individual use.
The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus
Mathetes
The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus is one of the earliest examples of Christian apologetics, and is written to defend Christianity from its accusers.
Three to Get Married
Fulton J. Sheen - 1951
Frankly and charitably, Sheen presents the causes of and solutions to common marital crises, and tells touching real-life stories of people whose lives were transformed through marriage. He emphasizes that our Blessed Lord is at the center of every successful and loving marriage. This is a perfect gift for engaged couples, or for married people as a fruitful occasion for self-examination.
An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America
Joseph Bottum - 2010
Huge swaths of American culture are driven by manic spiritual anxiety and relentless supernatural worry. Radicals and traditionalists, liberals and conservatives, together with politicians, artists, environmentalists, followers of food fads, and the chattering classes of television commentators: America is filled with people frantically seeking confirmation of their own essential goodness. We are a nation desperate to stand of the side of morality--to know that we are righteous and dwell in the light. In An Anxious Age, Joseph Bottum offers an account of modern America, presented as a morality tale formed by a collision of spiritual disturbances. And the cause, he claims, is the most significant and least noticed historical fact of the last fifty years: the collapse of the mainline Protestant churches that were the source of social consensus and cultural unity. Our dangerous spiritual anxieties, broken loose from the churches that once contained them, now madden everything in American life. Updating The Protestant Ethic and the Sprit of Capitalism, Max Weber's sociological classic, An Anxious Age undertakes two case studies of contemporary social classes adrift in a nation without the religious understandings that gave them meaning. Looking at the college-educated elite he calls "the Poster Children," Bottum sees the post-Protestant heirs of the old mainline Protestant domination of culture: dutiful descendants who claim the high social position of their Christian ancestors even while they reject their ancestors' Christianity. Turning to the Swallows of Capistrano, the Catholics formed by the pontificate of John Paul II, Bottum evaluates the early victories--and later defeats--of the attempt to substitute Catholicism for the dying mainline voice in public life. Sweeping across American intellectual and cultural history, An Anxious Age traces the course of national religion and warns about the strange angels and even stranger demons with which we now wrestle. Insightful and contrarian, wise and unexpected, An Anxious Age ranks among the great modern accounts of American culture.
Faithful: A Theology of Sex
Beth Felker Jones - 2015
In Faithful, author Beth Felker Jones sketches a theology of sexuality that demonstrates sex is not about legalistic morals with no basis in reality but rather about the God who is faithful to us.In Hosea 2:19-20 God says to Israel, I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord. This short book explores the goodness of sexuality as created and redeemed, and it suggests ways to navigate the difficulties of living in a world in which sexuality, like everything else, suffers the effects of the fall.As part of Zondervan s Ordinary Theology series, Faithful takes a deeper look at a subject Christians talk about often but not always thoughtfully. This short, insightful reflection explores the deeper significance of the body and sexuality."
The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book
Timothy Beal - 2009
Showing us how a single official text was created from the proliferation of different scripts, Beal traces its path as it became embraced as the word of God and Book of books. Among his surprising insights:• Christianity thrived for centuries without any Bible—there was no official canon of scriptures, much less a book big enough to hold them all. Congregations used various collections of scrolls and codices. • There is no “original” Bible, no single source text behind the thousands of different Bibles on the market today. The farther we go back in the Bible’s history, the more versions we find. • The idea of the Bible as the literal Word of God is relatively new—only about a century old. Beal’s is an inspiring new take on the Bible. In calling for a fresh understanding of the ways scriptures were used in the past, he offers the chance to rediscover a Bible, and a faith, that is truer to its own history—not a book of answers but a library of questions.
The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going
Ryan P. Burge - 2021
Burge details a comprehensive picture of an increasingly significant group--Americans who say they have no religious affiliation.The growth of the nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just 5 percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making the nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that the nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade.Burge illustrates his precise but accessible descriptions with charts and graphs drawn from over a dozen carefully curated datasets, some tracking changes in American religion over a long period of time, others large enough to allow a statistical deep dive on subgroups such as atheists and agnostics. Burge also draws on data that tracks how individuals move in and out of religion over time, helping readers understand what type of people become nones and what factors lead an individual to return to religion.The Nones gives readers a nuanced, accurate, and meaningful picture of the growing number of Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. Burge explains how this rise happened, who the nones are, and what they mean for the future of American religion.
Secrets of the Koran
Don Richardson - 2003
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.
52 Things Wives Need from Their Husbands: What Husbands Can Do to Build a Stronger Marriage
Jay Payleitner - 2011
To be their knight in shining armor. Their leader. Their listener. Their lover.In 52 Things Wives Need from Their Husbands, Jay Payleitner, veteran radio producer and author of 52 Things Kids Need from a Dad, offers a bounty of welcome advice, such as"Stir her pots""Buy sparkly gifts""Be the handyman""Stay married""Kiss her in the kitchen""Leave your mommy""Put her second"A great gift or men's group resource, 52 Things Wives Need from Their Husbands provides a full year's worth of advice. And no chapter will make husbands feel guilty or criticize them for acting like men!For the husband who wants to live God's plan for his marriage, this book will put him on the right track.
Men and Marriage
George Gilder - 1986
He examines the deterioration of the family, the well-defined sex roles it offered, and how this change has shifted the focus of our society. Poverty, for instance, stems from the destruction of the family when unmarried parents are abandoned by their lovers or older women are divorced because society approves of their husbands' younger girlfriends.Gilder claims that men will only fulfill their paternal obligations when women lead them to do so, and that this civilizing influence, balanced with proper economic support, is the most important part of maintaining a productive, healthy, loving society.He offers a concrete plan for rebuilding the family in America. His solutions challenge readers to return to these roles and reestablish the family values that were once so crucial in staving off the ills that plague our country. Gilder insists that it is time to reexamine what "liberation" has wrought and at what cost. Only a return to traditional family values, he contends, can stem the tide of disaster.George Gilder is the author of Wealth and Poverty, the best-selling critique of Reaganomics, The Spirit of Enterprise, Visible Man, Naked Nomads, and The Party That Lost Its Head . He was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and now writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and National Review about material advances and their effect on society. His most recent books include two other well-known social commentaries, Microcosm and Life After Television. Also available in paperback.
Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injustice
Eric Mason - 2018
They spoke hard words that often chafed and unsettled their listeners. Like the Old Testament prophets, and more recent prophetic voices like Frederick Douglass, Dr. Eric Mason calls the evangelical church to a much-needed reckoning. In a time when many feel confused, complacent, or even angry, he challenges the church to:Be Aware – to understand that the issue of justice is not a black issue, it’s a kingdom issue. To learn how the history of racism in America and in the church has tainted our witness to a watching world.Be Redemptive – to grieve and lament what we have lost and to regain our prophetic voice, calling the church to remember our gospel imperative to promote justice and mercy.Be Active – to move beyond polite, safe conversations about reconciliation and begin to set things aright for our soon-coming King, who will be looking for a WOKE CHURCH.