Just Thinking: About the State


Darrell Harrison - 2021
    

The Francis Chan Collection: Crazy Love, Forgotten God, Erasing Hell, and Multiply


Francis Chan - 2014
    This new collection contains:Crazy Love: Revised & Updated Edition! God is Love. Crazy, relentless, all-powerful love. Have you ever wondered if we're missing it?Forgotten God: Francis Chan offers a compelling invitation to understand, embrace, and follow the Holy Spirit's direction in our lives. Erasing Hell: Addressing a variety of views on hell, the Bible, and the character of God, Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle offer an eloquent response to the recent media storm surrounding questions of eternal destiny. Multiply: One plus one plus one. Every copy of Multiply is designed to do what Jesus did: make disciples who make disciples who make disciples…. until the world knows the truth of Jesus Christ.--A pastor and church planter based in San Francisco, Francis Chan speaks to tens of thousands of people around the world every year. Known for his passionate, biblical style, Chan is on the board of World Impact and is the author of Forgotten God, Erasing Hell, and Crazy Love, which has sold nearly two million copies.

Abandonment to Divine Providence


Jean-Pierre de Caussade - 1861
    For de Caussade, living in the moment meant having a complete trust and faith in God, for God's will defined and guided all things. The practical advice contained in his guidebook for the faithful was originally a series of letters written for the Nuns of the Visitation of Nancy, meant to help them navigate the confusing and difficult work of spiritual enlightenment, and comes together here in two distinct parts, one for the theoretical foundations of abandoning oneself to the present moment and one with practical advice on how to live such a life. Though a departure from the standard Christian perspective, Abandonment to Divine Providence remains a deeply spiritual work with a message that many Christians may find freeing and inspiring.

God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It


Jim Wallis - 2005
    Jim Wallis argues that America's separation of church and state does not require banishing moral and religious values from the public square. God's Politics offers a vision for how to convert spiritual values into real social change and has started a grassroots movement to hold our political leaders accountable by incorporating our deepest convictions about war, poverty, racism, abortion, capital punishment, and other moral issues into our nation's public life. Who can change the political wind? Only we can.

The Brother of Jesus and the Lost Teachings of Christianity


Jeffrey J. Bütz - 2005
    Evidence that Jesus had siblings contradicts Church dogma on the virgin birth, and James is also a symbol of Christian teachings that have been obscured. While Peter is traditionally thought of as the leader of the apostles and the “rock” on which Jesus built his church, Jeffrey Bütz shows that it was James who led the disciples after the crucifixion. It was James, not Peter, who guided them through the Church's first major theological crisis--Paul's interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. Using the canonical Gospels, writings of the Church Fathers, and apocryphal texts, Bütz argues that James is the most overlooked figure in the history of the Church. He shows how the core teachings of Jesus are firmly rooted in Hebraic tradition; reveals the bitter battles between James and Paul for ideological supremacy in the early Church; and explains how Paul's interpretations, which became the foundation of the Church, are in many ways its betrayal. Bütz reveals a picture of Christianity and the true meaning of Christ's message that are sometimes at odds with established Christian doctrine and concludes that James can serve as a desperately needed missing link between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to heal the wounds of centuries of enmity.

Lutheranism 101


Scot A. Kinnaman - 2010
    If you are a lifelong Lutheran searching for more information or new to Lutheranism looking to understand what we believe, this book will be your guide.

unPHILtered: The Way I See It


Phil Robertson - 2014
    Now, he returns to share his philosophy on life, which can be summed up in five short words. Love God, love your neighbor. In this inspirational and entertaining book, you will learn what makes Phil Robertson tick. Robertson shares his views on faith—and how it has totally changed his way of life and how he treats others; family—how he raised his kids and is raising grandkids while teaching them the life principles he lives by; ducks—and the business principles that started the Duck Commander empire; marriage—including what he’s learned from his own marriage; and of course, his opinions on controversial topics like gun control, taxes, prayer in school, and the government.UnPHILtered is the ultimate guide to everything Phil Robertson believes in. Balancing his sometimes off-the-wall comments with his strong focus on home and family life, it is sure to spark discussion, laughs, and a sincere appreciation for Phil’s unique approach to life.

The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It


Peter Enns - 2014
    But the further he studied the Bible, the more he found himself confronted by questions that could neither be answered within the rigid framework of his religious instruction or accepted among the conservative evangelical community.Rejecting the increasingly complicated intellectual games used by conservative Christians to “protect” the Bible, Enns was conflicted. Is this what God really requires? How could God’s plan for divine inspiration mean ignoring what is really written in the Bible? These questions eventually cost Enns his job—but they also opened a new spiritual path for him to follow.The Bible Tells Me So chronicles Enns’s spiritual odyssey, how he came to see beyond restrictive doctrine and learned to embrace God’s Word as it is actually written. As he explores questions progressive evangelical readers of Scripture commonly face yet fear voicing, Enns reveals that they are the very questions that God wants us to consider—the essence of our spiritual study.

Half Truths: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn't Say


Adam Hamilton - 2016
    They sound Christian--like something you might find in the Bible. We've all heard these words. Maybe we've said them. They capture some element of truth, yet they miss the point in important ways. Join Adam Hamilton in searching for the whole truth by comparing common Christian clichEs to the message and ministry of Jesus. The clichEs include:Everything happens for a reason. God helps those who help themselves. God won't give you more than you can handle. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. Love the sinner, hate the sin. Half Truths is also part of a small-group experience complete that includes a DVD, Leader Guide, and a youth study.

God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales


Penn Jillette - 2011
    A scathingly funny reinterpretation of the Ten Commandments from the larger, louder half of world-famous magic duo Penn and Teller reveals an atheist's experience in the world: from performing on the Vegas strip with Siegfried and Roy to children and fatherhood to his ongoing dialogue with proselytizers of the Christian Right and the joys of sex while scuba-diving, Penn has an outrageous sense of humor and a brilliantly entertaining opinion on, well, anything you care to think of.

Illogical Atheism: A Comprehensive Response to the Contemporary Freethinker from a Lapsed Agnostic


Bō Jinn - 2013
    Illogical Atheism comprises a comprehensive four-part analysis of the deep-seated philosophical tensions in the New Atheist agenda and serves as one of but a handful of important books seeking to alert the public consciousness toward the propagandist maneuvers of the the Freethinking community's most prominent figureheads. No stone is left unturned as Jinn takes all Four Famed Horsemen to task.

Believing God


Beth Moore - 1995
    Is it really working? God’s intention all along has been for the believer’s life to work. From divine perspective toward terrestrial turf, God meant for his children to succeed. . .Are our Christian lives successful? Are they achieving and experiencing what Scripture said they would? In a recent sermon my son-in-law preached, Curt told us the only way we were going to impact the world and the next generation is to prove that our faith in Christ is real and that it works. For countless Christians I’m convinced it’s real. My concern is whether or not we have the fruit to suggest it works.”—Beth Moore; Believing God

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: A Memoir of Humor and Healing


Reba Riley - 2015
    This was transformation by spiritual shock therapy. Reba would find peace and healing ... if the search didn't kill her first. During her spiritual sojourn without leaving home, Reba: Danced the disco in a Buddhist temple; Went to church in virtual reality, a movie theater, a drive-in bar, and a basement; Was interrogated about her sex life by Amish grandmothers; Got audited by Scientologists, mobbed by NPR junkies, and killed (almost); Fasted for thirty days without food - or wine, dammit!; Washed her lady parts in a mosque bathroom; Learned to meditate with an Urban Monk, sucked mud in a sweat lodge with a Suburban Shaman, and snuck into Yom Kippur with a fake grandpa; Discovered she didn't have to choose religion to choose God ... or good. For everyone who has ever needed healing of body or soul, this poignant, funny memoir reminds us all that transformation is possible, brokenness can be beautiful, and sometimes we have to get lost to get found.

Essence of Prayer


Ruth Burrows - 2006
    Ought we to do so? What do we mean by prayer? What does the word mean in the Christian context? Almost always when we talk about prayer we refer to something we do. From that standpoint, questions problems, confusion, discouragement and illusions multiply. For Ruth Burrows it is essential to correct this view. Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the Divine Self in love. What then is the core of the central message of the revelation of Jesus? It is the unconditional love of God for us, for each one of us. God the unutterable, incomprehensible Mystery, the Reality of all reality, the Life of all Life. And this means that divine Love desires to communicate its Holy Self to us. This is the richness of the vision of a contemplative nun who contradicts the heresy of so much modern writing about the spiritual life--namely that we reach God by running faster. The growing fascination for the public of the contemplative and monastic life is evidence of the profound appeal of this approach. For this there is a real hunger. At its simplest we do no look for success so as to be assured that we do believe. We give ourselves over completely to divine love. Ultimately, we live for God and not for ourselves.

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement


Kathryn Joyce - 2009
    Here, women live within stringently enforced doctrines of wifely submission and male headship, and live by the Quiverfull philosophy of letting God give them as many children as possible so as to win the religion and culture wars through demographic means.From the Trade Paperback edition.