The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination has been regarded as the authoritative work in this field. A contemporary classic.

    It combines authoritative research with a captivating style to bring our heritage home to us.

    An inspiring exploration of the beliefs and commitment of a unique religious group, it was an instant sell-out when it first appeared in 2011. Geoffrey Durham has now revised and updated the book for its second edition, incorporating new developments and fresh thinking. With its well-judged balance of personal experience, spiritual guidance and practical advice, this book explains how Quaker meetings can change people, and then goes on to show the nature of the change. Quakers insist on working for peace, equality, simplicity and truth in their everyday lives and find themselves nourished and enriched by the experience. Being a Quaker: A Guide for Newcomers includes extracts from the testimony of Quakers of all backgrounds and beliefs, talking about the ways in which they put their religion into practice. It is a warm and incisive first book for all readers interested in Quakers, and an exhilarating read for anyone absorbed by the life of the Spirit.‘This book contains everything you always wanted to know about Quakerism but were afraid to ask. It is an ideal gift to give to newcomers who want to understand what ‘the Quaker way’ is all about.’ The Friend About the Author Geoffrey Durham became a Quaker in 1999. He was a contributor to the successful Twelve Quakers and … series of books, has compiled an anthology, The Spirit of the Quakers, and is a regular speaker at Quaker events. He has worked professionally in the performing arts for over forty years.

    In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms.

    Though tragic, it is also a story of triumph that scarcely has an equal. It is one of history's great witnesses of the power of faith and sacrifice. Although this story is one of the most frequently told of all Mormon pioneer accounts, it is also among the least understood. This book provides the most comprehensive and accessible account of these pioneers' epic 1856 journey. In addition to painting a broad perspective of the trek, it includes dozens of personal stories from the pioneers themselves. Woven into the larger story of the journey west, these stories inspire, build faith, recount miracles, and reveal how these pioneers were able to endure such adversity. The book also includes chapters on the lives of many of these pioneers after the handcart trek. Immerse yourself in the challenges and miracles of this astounding odyssey as never before!

    Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong. Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right--an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves so that they could participate in a well regulated militia. He shows how the modern collective right view of the Second Amendment, the one federal courts have accepted for over a hundred years, owes more to the Anti-Federalists than the Founders. Likewise, the modern individual right view emerged only in the nineteenth century. The modern debate, Cornell reveals, has its roots in the nineteenth century, during America's first and now largely forgotten gun violence crisis, when the earliest gun control laws were passed and the first cases on the right to bear arms came before the courts. Equally important, he describes how the gun control battle took on a new urgency during Reconstruction, when Republicans and Democrats clashed over the meaning of the right to bear arms and its connection to the Fourteenth Amendment. When the Democrats defeated the Republicans, it elevated the collective rights theory to preeminence and set the terms for constitutional debate over this issue for the next century. A Well-Regulated Militia not only restores the lost meaning of the original Second Amendment, but it provides a clear historical road map that charts how we have arrived at our current impasse over guns. For anyone interested in understanding the great American gun debate, this is a must read.Winner of the Langum Prize in American Legal History/Legal Biography

    Eminently readable, chock-full of information, Donnelly's book is a must-read. (Human Rights Quarterly) In this new edition, Jack Donnelly updates his classic text on the rise of human rights issues since World War II to reflect the new challenges posed by globalization and the war on terrorism. The third edition includes two entirely new chapters on the Universality of Human Rights and Terrorism, and focuses on the recent emergence of nonstate actors such as the UN and NGO's.

    Himself a priest, Tyndale boldly claims that there is just one social structure created by God to which all must be obedient, without the intervention of the rule of the Pope. He argues that Christians cannot be saved simply by performing ceremonies or by hearing the Scriptures in Latin, which most could not understand, and that all should have access to the Bible in their own language - an idea that was then both bold and dangerous. Powerful in thought and theological learning, this is a landmark in religious and political thinking.

    Toxic Charity provides proven new models for charitable groups who want to help—not sabotage—those whom they desire to serve. Lupton, the founder of FCS Urban Ministries (Focused Community Strategies) in Atlanta, the voice of the Urban Perspectives newsletter, and the author of Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life, has been at the forefront of urban ministry activism for forty years. Now, in the vein of Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty, Richard Stearns’s The Hole in Our Gospel, and Gregory Boyle’s Tattoos on the Heart, his groundbreaking Toxic Charity shows us how to start serving needy and impoverished members of our communities in a way that will lead to lasting, real-world change.