He is well known for his commitment to protecting the environment, and for opening communications with other Christians as well as with Muslims and other religious groups. His efforts for raising environmental awareness globally have earned him the title "Green Patriarch."Written with personal warmth and great erudition, Encountering the Mystery illuminates the rich culture and soul of Orthodox Christianity. Bartholomew traces the roots of Orthodox Christianity to its founding two thousand years ago, explores its spirituality and doctrine, and explains its liturgy and art. More especially, in a unique and unprecedented way, he relates Orthodox Christianity to contemporary issues, such as freedom and human rights, social justice and globalization, as well as nationalism and war.With a recent rebirth of Orthodox Christian churches (particularly in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe), there has been great interest in understanding this important branch of Christianity with its close ties to the traditions of the early Church. As USA Today recently reported, Orthodox Christian churches throughout the country are drawing converts attracted by the beauty of its liturgy and inspired by its enduring theology. But for the general seeker, whatever their background, Encountering the Mystery is a rich spiritual source that draws upon the wisdom of millennia.

    Donald E. Knuth so loved the Bible that he dedicated five years of his life to creating this masterpiece. With it, you will learn about each 3:16 verse of the Bible, how it came to be written, and how it contributes to the wholeness of the Bible.

    In thirty brief chapters, she invites you to choose the adventure that fits who you are in authentically loving those around you.Yes, she knows: just the thought of adding something more to your life sounds exhausting. But here's the fantastic truth she's discovered in her own journey: "We don't have to add lots more overwhelming activity to what we've already got going. The regular stuff of our lives—the commute to work and the potlucks and home improvement projects and errands and play dates—are the exact places in which we express and experience God's love for a world in need."With a list of resources, a study guide and a six-week "Adventure Challenge," as well as plenty of stories and hilarity from Margot's own life, Small Things with Great Love will open your eyes to the people around you and the huge impact you can have on them through small acts of love."Small things happen when I learn the name of my daughter's school bus driver," Margot writes. "Small things happen when I listen to the dreams of a woman who lives in a group home on my block. Small things happen when I risk crossing a language barrier even though I look really stupid doing it."And small things add up to big adventures and surprises, for you and others. The biggest surprise of all might be how powerfully God can use you, right in the midst of your walking-the-dog, paying-the-bills, doing-laundry life, when you're living out his love. Do the first small thing by opening these pages—and let the adventure begin!

    How credible is the evidence for, and against, the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Focusing his award-winning skills as a legal journalist on history's most compelling enigma, Lee Strobel retraces the startling findings that led him from atheism to belief in the biblical New Testament story.

    Best-selling French author Nicolas Diat set out to find what their deaths can reveal about the greatest mystery faced by everyone—the end of life.How to die? How to respond to our fear of death? To answer these and other questions, Diat travelled to eight European monasteries including Solesmes Abbey and the Grande Chartreuse. Through extraordinary interviews with monks, he learned that their death experiences are varied and unique, with elements of peace, pain, humility, sorrow, and joy.These monks have the same fears, torments, and sorrows as everyone else, Diat discovered. What is exemplary about them is their humility and simplicity. When death approaches, and its hand reveals its strength, they are like happy and naïve children who wait with impatience to open a gift. They have complete confidence in the mercy of God.

    of Manchester) has hitherto been known for his several excellent books on the Dead Sea Scrolls. In an unusual reversal, he has now produced a book that will make The Passover Plot seem the last refuge of theological ultra-conservatism. The thesis of the book is simple enough: Jesus did not exist, the Gospels were & are a hoax, & Christianity is the atavistic vestige of an ancient fertility cult in which the object of worship was a peculiarly phallic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, capable of producing psychedelic reactions. As farfetched as all this may seem, it cannot be denied that he has brought to this work the same care & scholarly detachment that have characterized his earlier, & more conventional, works; & he has made not one concession to the sensational nature of his thesis. The book is, in fact, a demanding one, which presupposes in the reader at least a working knowledge of the ancient Semitic tongues & of the sciences considered auxiliary to biblical studies. Only the most determined non-professional iconoclast will be willing to wade through his unrelenting jargon. None of which, of course, will affect the demand for what is probably to become a very controversial work.--Kirkus (edited)

    As a young man in the early 1980s, he left his family’s upscale North Shore Chicago neighborhood for the West Bank city of Hebron, where he joined a group of settlers who were committed to reconstituting the Jewish state within its biblical borders. He carried a gun and, on one occasion, used it. He still doesn’t know if his bullets found their mark.Now, Hirschfield has renounced all such rigid delineations of people into categories of totally right and totally wrong, entirely good and entirely evil. He seeks to build bridges among people of different faiths—and those with no faith at all. He is devoted to teaching inclusiveness, celebrating diversity, and delivering a message of acceptance—not as feel-good pabulum but as forceful and indispensable antidotes to the blind passions and willful ignorance that threaten us all.Grounded in biblical scholarship and interwoven with personal stories, You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right provides a pragmatic path to peace, understanding, and hope that appeals to the common wisdom of all religions. Pointing the way through the continuum of conflict, Hirschfield addresses:• the ways faith has many faces• how justice can coexist with forgiveness and mercy• how unity does not necessitate uniformity• the ways we can learn to disagree without disconnectingThough conflict is an inevitable part of life—a function of being connected to one another—Hirschfield is a voice of peace and reconciliation, showing us that conflict is also an opportunity to learn and grow and often to grow closer.