His name was Peter Morrone, a hermit, a founder of a religious order, and, depending on whom you talk to, a reformer, an instigator, a prophet, a coward, a saint, and possibly the victim of murder. A stroke of fate would, practically overnight, transform this humble servant of God into the most powerful man in the Catholic Church. Half a year later, he would be the only pope in history to abdicate the chair of St. Peter, an act that nearly brought the papacy to its knees. What led him to make that decision and what happened afterward would be shrouded in mystery for centuries. The Pope Who Quit pulls back the veil of secrecy on this dramatic time in history and showcases a story that involves deadly dealings, apocalyptic maneuverings, and papal intrigue.

    MacMullen’s provocative conclusion is that mass conversions to Christianity were based more on the appeal of miracle or the opportunity for worldly advantages than simply on a “rising tide of Christian piety.”“Provocative to the Christian religious scholar and the nonreligious historian alike. . . . MacMullen’s style is lucid, and the story of a period with its own innate interest is narrated with compelling feeling. . . . It is an important book, and highly recommended for the general reader of history as well as the Christian who wonders how the ‘Jesus movement’ came, by Constantine’s time, to be the church we know—Choice“Written in a fresh and vigorous style, . . . [this book] offers an admirable survey of some major aspects of the history [of the early Christian church].”—Robert M. Grant, New York Times Book Review “Gently provocative. . . . MacMullen has written an instructive and enjoyable book on a great theme.”—Henry Chadwick, Times Literary Supplement  “A carefully argued and well-written study.”—Jackson P. Hershbell, Library Journal

    Designed to help individuals, families, and congregations pray together across denominations, this book of common prayer will help you and your community join together each day with the same songs, scriptures, and prayers. Composed under an advisory team of liturgy experts, these three influential and inspiring authors have created Common Prayer--a tapestry of prayer that will help the church be one as God is one.This universal prayer book allows readers to greet each day together, remembering significant dates and Christian heroes in church history, as well as important historic dates in the struggle for freedom and justice. There are morning prayers for each day of the year, evening prayers for each of the seven days of the week, a midday prayer to be repeated throughout the year, and prayers for special occasions. In addition, there are morning prayers for Holy Week.Common Prayer also includes a unique songbook composed of music and classic lyrics to more than fifty songs from various traditions, including African spirituals, traditional hymns, Mennonite gathering songs, and Taize chants. Tools for prayer are scattered throughout to aid those who are unfamiliar with liturgy and to deepen the prayer life of those who are familiar with liturgical prayer.Ultimately, Common Prayer makes liturgy dance, taking the best of the old and bringing new life to it with a fresh fingerprint for the contemporary renewal of the church.

    This work contains the 26 visions of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), who was the first of the great German mystics, as well as a poet and a prophet, a physician and a political moralist.

    The adjective 'medieval' has become a synonym for brutality and uncivilized behavior. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In God's Philosophers, James Hannam debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth is flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that it is a sphere; the Inquisition burnt nobody for their science nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution; no Pope tried to ban human dissection or the number zero. God's Philosophers is a celebration of the forgotten scientific achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam. Decisive progress was also made in technology: spectacles and the mechanical clock, for instance, were both invented in thirteenth-century Europe. Charting an epic journey through six centuries of history, God's Philosophers brings back to light the discoveries of neglected geniuses like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine, as well as putting into context the contributions of more familiar figures like Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and Saint Thomas Aquinas.

    Through these works and those of other early Christian thinkers, this book surveys the development of early church theology. Long recognized for the quality of its translations, introductions, explanatory notes, and indexes, the Library of Christian Classics provides scholars and students with modern English translations of some of the most significant Christian theological texts in history. Through these works--each written prior to the end of the sixteenth century--contemporary readers are able to engage the ideas that have shaped Christian theology and the church through the centuries.

    It includes Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, St. Thomas More, Cranmer, Calvin, Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary"), Mary Stuart ("Queen of Scots"), Cardinal Richelieu and many others--23 in all--analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, motives and mistakes and showing how this or that seemingly insignificant factor actually changed the course of history. An amazing book!

    At a time when many Catholics are disillusioned, questioning their faith, and filled with doubts about the relevance of Catholicism in the modern world, the voice of one man cries out to the world's largest faith community with a clarity that is rare and inspiring.

    In it Gustave Thibon, the farmer to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death, compiled in one remarkable volume a compendium of her writings that have become a source of spiritual guidance and wisdom for countless individuals. On the fiftieth anniversary of the first English edition - by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1952 - this Routledge Classics edition offers English readers the complete text of this landmark work for the first time ever, by incorporating a specially commissioned translation of the controversial chapter on Israel. Also previously untranslated is Gustave Thibon's postscript of 1990, which reminds us how privileged we are to be able to read a work which offers each reader such 'light for the spirit and nourishment for the soul'. This is a book that no one with a serious interest in the spiritual life can afford to be without.

    Helplessness in the face of disease and human disaster helped to perpetuate this belief in magic and the supernatural. As Keith Thomas shows, England during these years resembled in many ways today's underdeveloped areas. The English population was exceedingly liable to pain, sickness, and premature death; many were illiterate; epidemics such as the bubonic plague plowed through English towns, at times cutting the number of London's inhabitants by a sixth; fire was a constant threat; the food supply was precarious; and for most diseases there was no effective medical remedy. In this fascinating and detailed book, Keith Thomas shows how magic, like the medieval Church, offered an explanation for misfortune and a means of redress in times of adversity. The supernatural thus had its own practical utility in daily life. Some forms of magic were challenged by the Protestant Reformation, but only with the increased search for scientific explanation of the universe did the English people begin to abandon their recourse to the supernatural. Science and technology have made us less vulnerable to some of the hazards which confronted the people of the past. Yet Religion and the Decline of Magic concludes that if magic is defined as the employment of ineffective techniques to allay anxiety when effective ones are not available, then we must recognize that no society will ever be free from it.

    Filled with compassion and brilliant scholarship, Fulton Sheen's recounting of the Birth, Life, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Christ is as dramatic and moving as the subject Himself.

    M. Scott Peck brilliantly probes into the essence of human evil.People who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. Peck demonstrates the havoc these people of the lie work in the lives of those around them. He presents, from vivid incidents encountered in his psychiatric practice, examples of evil in everyday life.This book is by turns disturbing, fascinating, and altogether impossible to put down as it offers a strikingly original approach to the age-old problem of human evil.

    Alone Of All Her Sex: The Myth And The Cult Of The Virgin Mary, by Warner, Marina

    In doing so, she finally sets the record straight that women played an important and influential role in early Christianity, indeed a role that has been long overshadowed by men. She begins with an exploration of the historical context and spirituality of the desert ascetics. Then she weaves together the sayings of the major desert ammas, or mothers, along with commentary that invites readers to reflect on their own spiritual journey as they share their wisdom. The book then journeys between desert, monastery and city to reveal the stories of ascetics and solitaries whose stories are rarely heard, organized in the author's own alphabetical collection. The Forgotten Desert Mothers demonstrates, like no other work, that women have long had a history of leadership in Christianity. This engaging, eye-opening and insightful work targets all faith seekers looking to reclaim the history and spirituality of the women who came before them, as well as to understand their own inner journey. It will be a welcome addition to courses on early church history, women's studies and religious studies. +

    However, not every pontiff has acted in an entirely admirable and saintly manner. A Dark History: The Popes reveals the darkest deeds of the papacy: the murky and immoral past of the throne of St. Peter.The darkness of the papal history revealed here goes a great deal further than bribery, nepotism, and other vices. There were also atrocities perpetrated by the Church under papal orders, such as the medieval crusade against the dissident Cathars, which ultimately amounted to genocide. Popes committed—or at least sanctioned— murder. Popes were themselves murdered. By the order of Pope Urban VIII (1623–1644), the astronomer Galileo Galilei was persecuted by the Inquisition and kept under house arrest for ten years. Pope Pius XII (1939–1958) remains controversial today for his actions—or lack of them—during World War II.This book reveals a catalog of wrongdoings perpetrated by popes over the centuries, a record that has been mainly kept from the public eye. Fortunately, the dirty doings of the popes have not been confined to papal records. Diaries, letters, reports from foreign ambassadors to the Vatican, and official registers of the ecclesiastical courts have revealed a broader picture which shows how popes could be sinners as well as saints, and between them indulged in virtually every sin and every vice it was possible to commit.