The fervent debate, civil strife, and bloody riots as Christianity was coming into being, however, is a side of ancient history rarely described. Richard E. Rubenstein takes the reader to the streets of fourth-century Rome, when a fateful debate over the divinity of Jesus Christ is being fought. Ruled by a Christian emperor, followers of Jesus no longer fear for the survival of their monotheistic faith. But soon they break into two camps regarding the direction of their worship: Is Jesus the son of God and therefore not the same as God? Or is Jesus precisely God on Earth and therefore equal to Him? With thorough historical, religious, and social research, Rubenstein vividly recreates one of the most critical moments in the history of religion.

    The greatest stories are found in the Bible, enduring through the centuries. In "Genesis, " acclaimed television journalist Bill Moyers brings together some of the world's liveliest minds for spirited round-table discussions of the ageless stories from the Bible's first, towering book. Creation, temptation, murder, exile, and family strife--these emerge from every page of Genesis and speak to us today. "Genesis" invites readers into a lively and accessible discussion of the manifold meanings of these stories, and engages us in a fascinating exploration of the relationship between interpreter and text. Among the scores of writers, theologians, artists, and thinkers in the series are Mary Gordon, Phyllis Trible, John Barth, Faye Kellerman, Samuel Proctor, Aviva Zornberg, Walter Brueggemann, Robert Alter, Oscar Hijuelos, Charles Johnson, Stephen Mitchell, Leon Kass, Elaine Pagels, Bharati Mukherjee, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Elizabeth Swados, Renita Weems--all in a dazzling, multi-layered chorus of voices.With the same interplay of text, photographs, and art that made "The Power of Myth" and "Healing and the Mind" so dynamic and unforgettable, "Genesis" has the capacity to enrich people's lives intellectually and spiritually.

    Readers looking for an academically informed yet accessible discussion of the Bible's thorniest texts will find a thought-provoking and indispensible resource in The Human Faces of God. --Christians can ignore the facts that Stark brings into the light of day only if they want to be wrong.-- --Dale C. Allison, Jr. author of Constructing Jesus --The Human Faces of God is one of the most challenging and well-argued cases against the doctrine of biblical inerrancy I have ever read.-- --Greg A. Boyd author of The Myth of a Christian Nation --I learned so much from this book that I can strongly encourage anyone who is seeking to move from simplistic proof-texting to a comprehensive understanding of the Bible to read this book carefully.-- --Tony Campolo author of Red Letter Christians --This is must reading for Christians who have agonized over their own private doubts about Scripture--and for others who have given up hope that evangelical Christians can practice intelligent, moral interpretation of the Bible.-- --Neil Elliot author of Liberating Paul --[W]ith the help of this book, we may discover that the Bible--when we read it in all its diversity and vulnerability--does bring healing words to those who keep listening.-- --Ted Grimsrud author of Embodying the Way of Jesus --Stark's book effectively demonstrates how the Bible, in practice, is the most dangerous enemy of fundamentalists.-- --James F. McGrath author of The Only True God --Stark provides a model for theology that is committed to hearing the voice of the victims of history, especially the victims of our own religious traditions.-- --Michael J. Iafrate PhD Cadidate, University of Toronto --This book is the most powerful antidote to fundamentalism that I've ever read.-- --Frank Schaeffer author of Crazy for God Thom Stark was a Fig Tree and Ledbetter scholar at Emmanuel School of Religion. His academic interests include second temple apocalyptic Judaism and Christian origins, as well as modern Christian and Islamic theologies of liberation.

    Look no further than the twelve disciples whose many weaknesses are forever preserved throughout the pages of the New Testament. Jesus chose ordinary men - fisherman, tax collectors, political zealots - and turned their weakness into strength, producing greatness from utter uselessness. MacArthur draws principles from Christ's careful, hands-on training of the original twelve disciples for today's modern disciple - you.

    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.

    When the bound papyrus pages of this lost gospel finally reached scholars who could unlock its meaning, they were astounded. Here was a gospel that had not been seen since the early days of Xianity, & which few experts had even thought existed–a gospel told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, history’s ultimate traitor. Far from being a villain, the Judas that emerges in its pages is a hero. In this radical reinterpretation, Jesus asks Judas to betray him. In contrast to the New Testament Gospels, Judas is presented as a role model for all those who wish to be disciples of Jesus. He's the one apostle who truly understands Jesus. This volume is the 1st publication of the remarkable gospel since it was condemned as heresy by early Church leaders, most notably by Irenaeus, in 180. Hidden away in a cavern in Middle Egypt, the codex containing the gospel was discovered by farmers in the 1970s. In the intervening years the papyrus codex was bought & sold by antiquities traders, hidden away & carried across three continents, all the while suffering damage that reduced much of it to fragments. In 2001, it finally found its way into the hands of a team of experts who would painstakingly reassemble & restore it. The Gospel of Judas has been translated from its original Coptic into clear prose. It's accompanied by commentary that explains its history in the context of the early Church, offering a new way of understanding the message of Jesus.

    The Lost History of Christianity unveils a vast and forgotten network of the world's largest and most influential Christian churches that existed to the east of the Roman Empire. These churches and their leaders ruled the Middle East for centuries and became the chief administrators and academics in the new Muslim empire. The author recounts the shocking history of how these churches—those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church—died.Jenkins takes a stand against current scholars who assert that variant, alternative Christianities disappeared in the fourth and fifth centuries on the heels of a newly formed hierarchy under Constantine, intent on crushing unorthodox views. In reality, Jenkins says, the largest churches in the world were the “heretics” who lost the orthodoxy battles. These so-called heretics were in fact the most influential Christian groups throughout Asia, and their influence lasted an additional one thousand years beyond their supposed demise.Jenkins offers a new lens through which to view our world today, including the current conflicts in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Without this lost history, we lack an important element for understanding our collective religious past. By understanding the forgotten catastrophe that befell Christianity, we can appreciate the surprising new births that are occurring in our own time, once again making Christianity a true world religion.

    Authentic, poetic translations of key texts are coupled with insightful introductions and "grace notes."

    The idea of our own “righteous anger” is a myth. It is the number one problem in our societies today and, as Dallas Willard says, Christians have not been taught out of it. But what if Christians were the most unoffendable people on the planet?In Unoffendable you will find concrete, practical ways to live life with less stress, including: Adjusting your expectations to fit human natureReplacing perpetual anger with refreshing humility and gratitudeEmbracing forgiveness and beginning to love others in unexpected waysIn a humorous and conversational style, Unoffendable seeks to lift religious burdens from our backs and allow us to experience the joy of gratitude, perhaps for the first time, every single day of our lives—flourishing the way God intended.

    [A New Kind of Christianity] is one of these.” —Peter Rollins, IkonA New Kind of Christianity is Brian D. McLaren’s much anticipated follow-up to his breakthrough work of the emergent-church movement, A New Kind of Christian. Named by Time magazine as one of America’s top 25 evangelicals, McLaren, along with such contemporaries as N.T. Wright, Jim Wallis, and Rob Bell, is one of the acknowledged leaders of a new generation of Christians who want to update their faith for current times while remaining true to the core message of Jesus. In this controversial and thought-provoking book, McLaren explores the questions that will determine the shape of Christianity for the next 500 years.

    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.

    It’s an approach that has become her trademark. Now in Small Victories, Lamott offers a new message of hope that celebrates the triumph of light over the darkness in our lives. Our victories over hardship and pain may seem small, she writes, but they change us—our perceptions, our perspectives, and our lives. Lamott writes of forgiveness, restoration, and transformation, how we can turn toward love even in the most hopeless situations, how we find the joy in getting lost and our amazement in finally being found.Profound and hilarious, honest and unexpected, the stories in Small Victories are proof that the human spirit is irrepressible.

    He points out that the Psalms are poems, intended to be sung, not doctrinal treatises or sermons. Proceeding with his characteristic grace, he guides readers through both the form and the meaning of these beloved passages in the Bible.

    We encounter appealing arguments for a Divinity that is a childish projection, for prophets as scheming or deluded imposters, and for scripture as so much fabulous fiction. But there is also compelling evidence that a glorious Divinity presides over the cosmos, that His angels are strangers we have entertained unawares, and that His word and will are made manifest through a sacred canon that is never definitively closed. What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance."As humans, we are, like the poet John Keats, "straining at particles of light in the midst of a great darkness." And yet, the authors describe a version of life's meaning that is reasonable—and radically resonant. It tells of a God whose heart beats in sympathy with ours, who set His heart upon us before the world was formed, who fashioned the earth as a place of human ascent, not exile, and who has the desire and the capacity to bring the entire human family home again.

    Psychology is the only branch of learning in which I am particularly versed. To the psychologist the religious propensities of man must be at least as interesting as any other of the facts pertaining to his mental constitution. It would seem, therefore, as a psychologist, the natural thing for me would be to invite you to a descriptive survey of those religious propensities." When William James went to the University of Edinburgh in 1901 to deliver a series of lectures on "natural religion," he defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." Considering religion, then, not as it is defined by--or takes place in--the churches, but as it is felt in everyday life, he undertook a project that, upon completion, stands not only as one of the most important texts on psychology ever written, not only as a vitally serious contemplation of spirituality, but for many critics one of the best works of nonfiction written in the 20th century. Reading The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is easy to see why. Applying his analytic clarity to religious accounts from a variety of sources, James elaborates a pluralistic framework in which "the divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions." It's an intellectual call for serious religious tolerance--indeed, respect--the vitality of which has not diminished through the subsequent decades.