Yet the truth is, while the Son of God was loving and tender, his words could be equally sharp and biting. The same man who said, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44) also said, “You snakes, how will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Matthew 23:33).  With compelling storytelling and enlightening examinations of Scripture, Tim Harlow journeys through the gospels and looks at what, and who, ignited Jesus’ anger. He guides us through instances of Jesus’ anger in response to the barriers people put up:in the temple, where money changers literally denied access to the Father, especially for the non-Jews and the poor;during his teaching, when little children were denied access;on the Sabbath, when religious leaders put rules above relationship and suffering above healing; and many more.What if, Harlow asks, by coming to understand God’s holy anger, we come to know a savior we never knew before? How can we respond like Jesus when good intentions, prejudices and judgments, traditions and rules, and selfish and joyless people conspire to keep others from God’s presence?

    Yet theology isn't just a matter of what we think. It affects who we are.In the tradition of Helmut Thielicke's A Little Exercise for Young Theologians, Kelly Kapic offers a concise introduction to the study of theology for newcomers to the field. He highlights the value and importance of theological study and explains its unique nature as a serious discipline.Not only concerned with content and method, Kapic explores the skills, attitudes and spiritual practices needed by those who take up the discipline. This brief, clear and lively primer draws out the relevance of theology for Christian life, worship, mission, witness and more."Theology is about life," writes Kapic. "It is not a conversation our souls can afford to avoid."

    In Evolution Impossible, Dr. John Ashton uses discoveries in genetics, biochemistry, geology, radiometric dating, and other scientific disciplines to explain why the theory of evolution is a myth. Regardless of your level of scientific education, you will finish this book able to cite 12 reasons why evolution cannot explain the origin of life.

    "...Therefore, the most important and most profound question of the Christian faith must be, how and from where did death arise, and why has it become stronger than life? Why has death become so powerful that the world itself has become a kind of global cemetery, a place where a collection of people condemned to death live either in fear or terror, or, in their efforts to forget about death, find themselves rushing around one great big burial plot?"- Alexander Schmemann, Radio Liberty Broadcast In this brief collection, Father Alexander Schmemann does not have the luxury for platitudes and pleasantries on the most difficult of life's ultimate questions. Taking us to the heart of Christian revelation and anthropology, he leads us unequivocally and directly, as only he can, to discole why the apostle Paul calls death the "last enemy" (1 Cor. 15:26) and Christ's decisive answer to this enemy. Father Alexander Schmemann (†1983) was a prolific writer, brilliant lecturer, and dedicated pastor.I: I Believe...

    As Pinckaers himself notes in the text, excellently translatedby Michael Sherwin, the interest should in no way be limited to RomanCatholics. Morality recasts the earlier book in an argument that is both lower andupper case ‘catholic,’ and is accessible to readers and teachers outside the limitedcircle of moral theologians and academic ethicists. Pinckaers contends thatChristian morality is not first of all about obligations but about happiness, understandingthat the happiness of union with God is our natural destiny made possibleby grace. The Sermon on the Mount is at the center of an approach to moralitythat turns on the distinction between ‘freedom for excellence’ and ‘freedom ofindifference,’ the former understood as human flourishing and the latter as a ‘neutral’capacity to choose between controversies. The proposal of Morality is thoroughlyChrist-centered, humanistic, and faithful to the magisterial teaching of theChurch. Warmly recommended.”First Things  “If you want to have the experience of reflecting on Catholic morality as thoughyou were reading about it for the first time, treat yourself to Father ServaisPinckaers’ Morality: The Catholic View. He has recovered the classical view of themoral life as the quest for happiness and has presented it with disarming simplicity.Bringing us back to the Sermon on the Mount and Romans 12–15, the writingsof Augustine and Aquinas, and the theme of natural law, he has freed those textsfrom the layers of legalism which has hidden their liberating, spiritual powers formoral living. By distinguishing freedom of indifference from freedom for excellence,he has restored a wise vision of freedom. No one has shown better the roleof virtues as building blocks for morality. Catechists need to read this book.”Rev. Alfred McBride, O.Praem., Professor of Homilectics and Catechetics at BlessedPope John XXIII Seminary, Weston, Massachusetts “Father Pinckaers has given us a masterful exposition of Christian living. The clarityand brevity of his presentation – captured well by the translator – make this bookideal for classroom and parish use.     “Readers will find the historical and systematic observations very informative.”Romanus Cessario, St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, Massachusetts

    It is a meditation on the infinite love of God and the infinite value of the human individual. Not only are we in God's hands, says Desmond Tutu, our names are engraved on the palms of God's hands. Throughout an often turbulent life, Archbishop Tutu has fought for justice and against oppression and prejudice. As we learn in this book, what has driven him forward is an unshakeable belief that human beings are created in the image of God and are infinitely valuable. Each one of us is a God-carrier, a tabernacle, a sanctuary of the Divine Trinity. God loves us not because we are loveable but because he first loved us. And this turns our values upside down. In this sense, the Gospel is the most radical thing imaginable.It is extremely moving that in this book Archbishop Tutu returns to something so simple and so profound after a life in which he has been involved in political, social, and ethical issues that have seemed to be so very complex.

    In The Smoke of Satan, veteran Catholic journalist Philip Lawler explains why the crisis is even more severe than when it first commanded headlines in 2002, and how the failure of Church leaders goes all the way to the Vatican. In this unflinching look at the crisis threatening the Church and her members, Lawler: --Shows how the sex-abuse scandal is not a question of pedophilia, but of homosexual activity within the clergy. --Explains how Catholic bishops have developed a habit of covering up serious problems, to avoid the serious divisions that have developed within the faith since Vatican II. --Demonstrates a catastrophic rupture in Church unity, causing a breakdown in morale and discipline among priests, bishops, and laity, paving the way for the current crisis. --Reveals the growth of a faction within the Vatican that is ready to make peace with secularism. --Details the charges in the explosive “Vigano testimony,”— and the efforts by Vatican officials including Pope Francis himself to ward off a thorough investigation. --Concludes with a program for reform, led by faithful lay Catholics, demanding a new policy of candor and a forthright proclamation of Church teaching. This crisis, brought about by the failures of corrupt and cowardly bishops and clerics, has been allowed to fester long enough. It is well past time for serious action to be taken at every level before more lives are ruined, more souls are lost, and more fractures divide the Church. In these pages, Lawler details the problems besetting the Church…and lays out a clear plan to overcome them in order that the Church and Her members may once again thrive and bring souls to Christ.

    First published in 1992 and now in its seventh printing in English, with translations underway into Spanish, Korean, and Indonesian, Bevans's book is a judicious examination of what the terms "contextual theology" and "to contextualize" mean. In the revised and expanded edition, Bevans adds a "counter-cultural" model to the five presented in the first edition -- the translation, the anthropological, the praxis, the synthetic, and the transcendental model. This means that readers will be introduced to the way in which figures such as Stanley Hauerwas, John Milbank, Lesslie Newbigin, "and (occasionally) Pope John Paul II" need to be taken into account. The author's revisions also incorporate suggestions made by reviewers to enhance the clarity of the original three chapters on the nature of contextual theology and the five models.

    Here he discusses the seeming scientific naiveté behind the creation story, God’s love and goodness, and humanity’s creation, its free will, and its blessedness. Bonhoeffer also tackles difficult questions that are raised from the first book of the Bible, questions about the seemingly redundant second story of creation, about God’s own beginning, about the source of the light that was created the first day. The author then expounds upon Adam and Eve’s fall from grace: How could they, creatures made in God’s image, have thought to oppose God so foully? Where did the first evil come from? How did humanity lose its right to live in paradise?In “Temptation,” Bonhoeffer questions how temptation appeared in the midst of Eden’s innocence, and he explores the very nature of evil. Bonhoeffer explains that Jesus Christ helps us to understand and conquer physical and spiritual temptation through His grace and goodness.

    House, 2002.

    The end result of this conversation, Dark hopes, will be a better understanding that there is a reality more important, more lasting, and more infinite than the cultures to which we belong, the reality of the kingdom of God.

    But you might not love what you think.In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship.Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas presented in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.

    Bunge analyzes the views of Evagrius Ponticus, the famous "philosopher of the desert," on the dangers of acedia. Evagrius develops a sophisticated psychology which remains beneficial to us today. Indeed, this 4th-century Desert Father writes for Christians everywhere: for those in modern deserts -the city- and for those subject to silent despair. This is a companion book to Dragon's Wine and Angel's Bread (SVS Press, 2009).

    And I have an increasingly keen sense that, wherever I am, someone nearby is suffering now.For that reason, I lately have settled in to mull the matter over, gathering my troubled wits to undertake a difficult essay, more like what we used to call an assay, really—an earnest inquiry. I am thinking of it just now as a study in suffering, by which I hope to find some sense in affliction, hoping—just as I have come to hope about experience in general—to make something of it.” Is there meaning in our afflictions?With the thoughtfulness of a pilgrim and the prose of a poet, Scott Cairns takes us on a soul-baring journey through “the puzzlement of our afflictions.” Probing ancient Christian wisdom for revelation in his own pain, Cairns challenges us toward a radical revision of the full meaning and breadth of human suffering. Clear-eyed and unsparingly honest, this new addition to the literature of suffering is reminiscent of The Year of Magical Thinking as well as the works of C. S. Lewis. Cairns points us toward hope in the seasons of our afflictions, because “in those trials in our lives that we do not choose but press through—a stillness, a calm, and a hope become available to us.”

    Asserting that all the tools necessary for self-discovery are inherent within us, he focuses primarily on reason, not as narrowly defined by modern philosophers, but as an openness to existence, a capacity to comprehend and affirm reality in all of its dimensions. Part of the so-called new religious revival, The Religious Sense avoids any sentimental or irrational reduction of the religious experience. It is a forthright and refreshing call to reassess our lives.