The perfect combination of scholarship and accessible presentation for Christians who desire to know how to better understand and defend their faith.Bestselling authors Ed Hindson and Ergun Caner have brought together a who's who of apologetic experts—including Lee Strobel, Norm Geisler, Josh McDowell, and John Ankerberg—to produce a resource that's both easy to understand and comprehensive in scope.Every entry provides a biblical perspective and mentions the key essentials that believers need to know about a wide variety of apologetic concerns, including...issues concerning God, Christ, and the Biblescientific and historical controversiesethical matters (genetic engineering, homosexuality, ecology, feminism)a Christian response to world religions and cultsa Christian response to the major worldviews and philosophies of our dayIncluded with each entry are practical applications for approaching or defending the issue at hand, along with recommendations for additional reading on the subject.

    In Holy Envy, she contemplates the myriad ways other people and traditions encounter the Transcendent, both by digging deeper into those traditions herself and by seeing them through her students’ eyes as she sets off with them on field trips to monasteries, temples, and mosques. Troubled and inspired by what she learns, Taylor returns to her own tradition for guidance, finding new meaning in old teachings that have too often been used to exclude religious strangers instead of embracing the divine challenges they present. Re-imagining some central stories from the religion she knows best, she takes heart in how often God chooses outsiders to teach insiders how out-of-bounds God really is.Throughout Holy Envy, Taylor weaves together stories from the classroom with reflections on how her own spiritual journey has been complicated and renewed by connecting with people of other traditions—even those whose truths are quite different from hers.  The one constant in her odyssey is the sense that God is the one calling her to disown her version of God—a change that ultimately enriches her faith in other human beings and in God.

    Are those engaged in these arguments even talking about the same thing? In a wide-ranging response to this confusion, esteemed scholar David Bentley Hart pursues a clarification of how the word “God” functions in the world’s great theistic faiths.Ranging broadly across Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Vedantic and Bhaktic Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, Hart explores how these great intellectual traditions treat humanity’s knowledge of the divine mysteries. Constructing his argument around three principal metaphysical “moments”—being, consciousness, and bliss—the author demonstrates an essential continuity between our fundamental experience of reality and the ultimate reality to which that experience inevitably points.Thoroughly dismissing such blatant misconceptions as the deists' concept of God, as well as the fundamentalist view of the Bible as an objective historical record, Hart provides a welcome antidote to simplistic manifestoes. In doing so, he plumbs the depths of humanity’s experience of the world as powerful evidence for the reality of God and captures the beauty and poetry of traditional reflection upon the divine.

    Edward Sri provides an approachable but in-depth exploration of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. At the outset, he emphasizes the importance of every Christian’s developing the desire to be a true disciple of Christ and gives the reader a first glimpse of what the life of a disciple looks like. As the book progresses, he unfolds what a true encounter of love with Christ entails and explores the transforming power of God’s grace. He also offers for consideration “the four habits of a disciple”: prayer, the breaking of bread (the Sacraments), fellowship, and the teaching of the Apostles. The book concludes with a powerful call to fulfill every Christian’s mission of evangelization. Into His Likeness is a down-to-earth and tremendously valuable handbook for anyone wishing to pursue Christ wholeheartedly.

    An enduring masterwork and "one of the most neglected resources of our century" (Adrienne Rich), Waiting for God will continue to influence spiritual and political thought for centuries to come."Simone Weil has become a legend, and her writings are regarded as a classic document of our period." THE NEW YORKER"Her example, her achievements, her frustrations, her intellectual or moral or religious impasses, and her failures, self-described or apparent to us from hindsight, all can serve to focus the mind, enlarge the heart, and stir the soul." ROBERT COLES

    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.

    He tackles the tough issues in an attempt to expose how the opposition is misunderstanding the Scriptures and history. He uses many Protestant scholars and historians to support the Catholic position. This book contains the most complete compilation of Scriptural and Patristic quotations on the primacy of Peter and the Papal office of any book available. It has over 500 footnotes with supporting evidence from Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical, and non-Christian authorities.

    But according to that same Bible, everyone can know God directly through an actual relationship with Jesus. Jesus Unbound is an urgent call for the followers of Jesus to know Him intimately because the Gospel is not mere information about God, but a transformational experience with a Christ who is closer to us than our own heartbeat.

    Welcoming this as a sign of vitality, Avery Dulles has carefully studied the writings of contemporary Protestant and Catholic ecclesiologists and sifted out six major approaches, or models, through which the Church's character can be understood: as Institution, Mystical Communion, Sacrament, Herald, Servant, and, in a recent addition to the book, as Community of Disciples. A balanced theology, he concludes, must incorporate the major affirmations of each. The method of models or types, observes Cardinal Dulles, can have great value in helping people to get beyond the limitations of their own particular outlook and to enter into fruitful conversation with others... Such conversation is obviously essential if ecumenism is to get beyond its present impasses.This new edition includes a new Appendix and Preface by the author.

    It's time to try something new: Give up. Pastor and author Kevin DeYoung counsels Christians to settle down, make choices, and do the hard work of seeing those choices through. Too often, he writes, God's people tinker around with churches, jobs, and relationships, worrying that they haven't found God's perfect will for their lives. Or—even worse—they do absolutely nothing, stuck in a frustrated state of paralyzed indecision, waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting for clear, direct, unmistakable direction. But God doesn't need to tell us what to do at each fork in the road. He's already revealed his plan for our lives: to love him with our whole hearts, to obey His Word, and after that, to do what we like. No need for hocus-pocus. No reason to be directionally challenged. Just do something.

    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.

    In October 2008, a meeting of the world Synod of Bishops scheduled by Pope Benedict XVI will focus on "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church." Coinciding with that meeting is the launch of the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (CCSS), a series that responds to the desire of Catholics to access the living Word of God. The Gospel of Mark is the first of seventeen volumes, which will cover the entire New Testament. Written by trusted Catholic biblical scholars, these commentaries interpret Scripture in the light of Catholic tradition. Accessibly written yet substantive, the CCSS fills a gap in the available literature by offering commentaries that cover more than brief study guides but are less daunting than scholarly commentaries.

    With a simple yet penetrating style, Zacharias uses rich illustrations to celebrate the power of Jesus Christ to transform lives. Jesus Among Other Gods contrasts the truth of Jesus with founders of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, strengthening believers and compelling them to share their faith with our post-modern world.

    Even those who do not follow him admit the vast influence of his life. For anyone interested in knowing more about Jesus, study of the four biblical Gospels is essential. Four Portraits, One Jesus is a thorough yet accessible introduction to these documents and their subject, the life and person of Jesus. Like different artists rendering the same subject using different styles and points of view, the Gospels paint four highly distinctive portraits of the same remarkable Jesus. With clarity and insight, Mark Strauss illuminates these four books, first addressing their nature, origin, methods for study, and historical, religious, and cultural backgrounds. He then moves on to closer study of each narrative and its contribution to our understanding of Jesus, investigating things such as plot, characters, and theme. Finally, he pulls it all together with a detailed examination of what the Gospels teach about Jesus’ ministry, message, death, and resurrection, with excursions into the quest for the historical Jesus and the historical reliability of the Gospels.

    Generational changes and the shifting racial make-up of evangelical Christians are changing what we think of as evangelical culture and politics. Today’s young evangelicals are more likely than their elders to accept same-sex marriage, more inclined to think of “pro-life” issues as being about support for the poor, and more accepting of equality between men and women. Those on the leading edge of progressive evangelicalism—white, black, Asian, and Hispanic, as well as straight and LGBTQ, believers—are working to change the substance of evangelicalism and to wrest power away from conservative Christians. In Rescuing Jesus, Deborah Jian Lee, a journalist and former evangelical, brings readers deep inside this progressive movement and tells the stories of the young women and men at the forefront of it. Given the clout that conservative evangelicals still hold in national politics, Lee argues, this movement is important not only for the future of evangelicalism but for the future of our country.