Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe


Voddie T. Baucham Jr. - 2021
    As riots rocked American cities, Christians affirmed from the pulpit and in social media that “black lives matter” and that racial justice “is a gospel issue.” But what if there is more to the social justice movement than those Christians understand? Even worse: What if they’ve been duped into preaching ideas that actually oppose the Kingdom of God? In this powerful book, Voddie Baucham, a preacher, professor, and cultural apologist, explains the sinister worldview behind the social justice movement and Critical Race Theory—revealing how it already has infiltrated some seminaries, leading to internal denominational conflict, canceled careers, and lost livelihoods. Like a fault line, it threatens American culture in general—and the evangelical church in particular. Whether you’re a layperson who has woken up in a strange new world and wonders how to engage sensitively and effectively in the conversation on race or a pastor who is grappling with a polarized congregation, this book offers the clarity and understanding to either hold your ground or reclaim it.

Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality


Nancy R. Pearcey - 2018
    A two-time winner of the ECPA Gold Medallion Award, Pearcey has been hailed by The Economist as "America's preeminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual." In Love Thy Body she offers a respectful but riveting exposE of the secular worldview that lies behind trendy slogans and political talking points. A former agnostic, Pearcey is a sensitive guide to the secular ideas that shape current debates. She empowers readers to intelligently and compassionately engage today's most controversial moral and social challenges.In a surprise shattering of stereotypes, Pearcey demonstrates that while secularism promises much, in reality it delivers little. She turns the tables on stereotypes that portray Christianity as harsh and bigoted, and invites a fresh look at its holistic, life-affirming principles: it is a worldview that matches the real world and fits with human experience.All along, Pearcey keeps readers entranced with gripping stories of real people wrestling with hard questions in their own lives--sharing their pain, their struggles, and their triumphs.

Searching for Enough: The High-Wire Walk Between Doubt and Faith


Tyler Staton - 2021
    And I know I'm not supposed to say this, but God's not enough for me either." Whether or not we attend church, deep down we wonder if the biblical story of faith is really enough for the complexity of the world in which we live. We fill our lives with other things, hoping that maybe the next experience or accomplishment will complete us. Yet with every goal we reach, we still feel discouraged and anxious.In Searching for Enough, Pastor Tyler Staton draws on ancient and modern insights to introduce us, as if for the first time, to Jesus' disciple Thomas: history's most notorious skeptic. Like Thomas, we are caught between two unsatisfying stories: We want to believe in God but can't reconcile his presence with our circumstances and internal struggles.But what if there's a better story than shame? What if there's redemption so complete that there's nothing left to hide? What if there is a God who can heal your resentments, fears, and loneliness in such a profound way that you feel whole?From a place of spiritual companionship and deep authenticity, Tyler shows us that it is not an empty tomb that will change our lives, but the presence of the living God. Whether you are a distant skeptic, an involved doubter, or a busy but bored Christian, Searching for Enough invites you to find enough in a God who offers the only promises that never disappoint.

Jesus Journey: Shattering the Stained Glass Superhero and Discovering the Humanity of God


Trent Sheppard - 2017
    If the gospel is true, he still is.Christians worldwide believe that Jesus is God. But this belief wasn’t the starting point for Jesus’ earliest followers. While Jesus’ humanity was a given for the disciples, his divinity was a truth they grew into believing—it was a journey of faith. As Christians today, we are also called into a faith journey—this time, to rediscover Jesus’ humanity.Yes, we believe that Jesus is God, but do we truly believe that Jesus is human? And if so, how does that transform our own experience of being human?Through eye-opening yet down-to-earth reflections, Jesus Journey invites you to encounter Jesus again—as if for the first time—by experiencing his breathing, heart-beating, body-and-blood, crying-and-laughing humanity.Join Bible teacher and storyteller Trent Sheppard as he shines new light on the vibrant humanity of the historical Jesus through an up-close look at Jesus’ relationships with Mary and Joseph, with the God he called Abba, with his closest friends and followers, and how, ultimately, his crucifixion and resurrection finally and forever redefine what we mean by the word God. Come encounter the human who radically transforms our view of God.Come encounter the God who forever changes what it means to be human.

Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together


Ron Hall - 2006
    . . and an East Texas honky-tonk . . . and, without a doubt, inside the heart of God. It unfolds at a Hollywood hacienda . . . an upscale New York gallery . . . a downtown dumpster . . . a Texas ranch.Gritty with betrayal, pain, and brutality, it also shines with an unexpected, life-changing love.Bonus material in this special movie edition includes:

Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir. . . of Sorts


Ian Morgan Cron - 2011
    The boy was beckoning me to join him on a voyage through the harrowing straits of memory. He was gambling that if we survived the passage, we might discover an ocean where the past would become the wind at our back rather than a driving gale to the nose of our boat. This book is the record of that voyage."When he was sixteen years old, Ian Morgan Cron was told about his father's clandestine work with the CIA. This astonishing revelation, coupled with his father's dark struggles with chronic alcoholism and depression, upended the world of a boy struggling to become a man. Decades later, as he faces his own personal demons, Ian realizes the only way to find peace is to voyage back through a painful childhood marked by extremes--privilege and poverty, violence and tenderness, truth and deceit--that he's spent years trying to escape.In this surprisingly funny and forgiving memoir, Ian reminds us that no matter how different the pieces may be, in the end we are all cut from the same cloth, stitched by faith into an exquisite quilt of grace.

Just Thinking: About the State


Darrell Harrison - 2021
    

Ambling Into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush


Frank Bruni - 2002
    Bush.As the principal New York Times reporter assigned to cover George W. Bush's presidential campaign from its earliest stages – and then as a White House correspondent – Frank Bruni has spent as much time around Bush over the last two years as any other reporter.In Ambling Into History, Bruni paints the most thorough, balanced, eloquent and lively portrait yet of a man in many ways ill–suited to the office he sought and won, focusing on small moments that often escaped the news media's notice. From the author's initial introduction to Bush through a nutty election night and Bush's first months in office, Bruni captures the president's familiar and less familiar oddities and takes readers on an often funny, usually irreverent, journey into the strange, closed universe – or bubble – of campaign life.The result is an original take on the political process and a detailed study of George W. Bush as most people have never seen him.

Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House


Tom Lobianco - 2019
    The seasoned political reporter was at the first campaign rally governor Pence held in his hometown of Columbus, Indiana. He was there when Pence returned to Washington as Donald Trump’s vice president. Drawing on his deep ties both within the Beltway and in Indiana state politics, as well as reams of research and deep access to the vice president and his staff, LoBianco offers a revealing portrait of the devout Christian who shocked many of his closest followers when he joined the campaign and became one of the strongest champions of Donald Trump. He also explores the rumors—much debated inside the Beltway and among pundits in the media—surrounding the Vice President’s ambitions to succeed and even "overthrow" Trump.LoBianco dissects Pence’s entire political life, from his detours in the ’90s, to his rapid ascension through the first decade of the twenty-first century, to the White House, and provides an inside account of how Pence nearly crashed and burned his career while governor, only to miraculously rise from the ashes thanks to the unlikely election of Trump. He also gives a rare look inside the "shadow government" Pence has built—a conservative machine at Trump’s call for now, but one that could just as easily step in if Trump is removed from office.Piety & Power cuts to the core of the nation’s most enigmatic politician, and unearths new, important, and fascinating anecdotes about Pence’s faith, his marriage to Karen Pence, his bizarre, obsequious relationship with Trump, his deeply buried personality, his ascent to power under John Boehner, and his presidential aspirations and plans for America’s future.From the explosive revelations of the Russia investigation to the sea change affecting the Republican party and its direction under Trump, it is vital that Americans know more about the man who could ascend to the Oval Office. Piety & Power provides insights and answers as it sheds light on this ambitious Midwestern politician, his past, and his possible future.

Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God


Noël Piper - 2005
    NoEl Piper holds up their lives and deeds as examples of what it means to be truly faithful. Learning about these women will challenge readers to make a difference for Christ in their families, in the church, and throughout the world.

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War that Changed American History


Brian Kilmeade - 2015
    Like their acclaimed bestseller George Washington's Secret Six, Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates sheds new light on a vitally important episode that has been forgotten by most Americans.   Only weeks after President Jefferson's inauguration in 1801, he decided to confront the Tripoli pirates who had been kidnapping American ships and sailors, among other outrageous acts. Though inclined toward diplomacy, Jefferson sent warships to blockade Tripoli and protect American shipping, and then escalated to all-out war against the Barbary states.   The tiny American flotilla—with three frigates representing half of the U.S. Navy’s top-of-the-line ships—had some success in blockading the Barbary coast. But that success came to an end when the USS Philadelphia ran aground in Tripoli harbor and was captured. Kilmeade and Yaeger recount the dramatic story of a young American sailor, Stephen Decatur, who snuck into the harbor, boarded the Philadelphia, and set her on fire before escaping amid a torrent of enemy gunfire.   Another amazing story is that of William Eaton’s daring attack on the port city of Derna. He led a detachment of Marines on a 500-mile trek across the desert to surprise the port. His strategy worked, and an American flag was raised in victory on foreign soil for the first time.     Few remember Decatur and Eaton today, but their legacy inspired the opening of the Marine Corps Hymn: “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we fight our country’s battles in the air, on land, and sea.” Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates tells a dramatic story of bravery, diplomacy, and battle on the high seas, and honors some of America’s forgotten heroes.

The Lincoln Assassination


John Butler Ford - 2015
    But there is far more to the story, including the bizarre scheme that Booth first concocted to kidnap Lincoln and trade him for Confederate soldiers held in Northern prisons. Here is the full story of the plot, the bumbling plotters that Booth recruited, Lincoln's lingering death, the manhunt for the assassin, and the trial of the conspirators. It is essential knowledge of a tragedy that shaped America for a century to come.

The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor


Amy Hollingsworth - 2005
    He didn't need to." Eight years before his death, Fred Rogers met author, educator, and speaker Amy Hollingsworth. What started as a television interview turned into a wonderful friendship spanning dozens of letters detailing the driving force behind this gentle man of extraordinary influence. Educator? Philosopher? Psychologist? Minister? Here is an intimate portrait of the real Mister Rogers. The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers focuses on Mr. Rogers' spiritual legacy, but it is much more than that. It shows us a man who, to paraphrase the words of St. Francis of Assisi, "preached the gospel at all times; when necessary he used words."

Francis: Pope of a New World


Andrea Tornielli - 2013
    Francis of Assisi heard the call of Christ. It is also how Jorge Mario Bergoglio, at the age of 76, and a Jesuit, seems to have accepted his election to the papacy with the choice of a name that no other pope has ever chosen.Who is Pope Francis, elected in one of the shortest conclaves in history? Who is the man chosen to be the first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit pope?How does he see the world and his ministry? How does he understand his call to serve Christ, his Church, and the world? In short, what is the mind and heart of this new pope of a new world--of the Americas and the rest of the world of the 21st Century?In the words, the ideas, and the personal recollections of Pope Francis--including material up to the final hours before his election--the most highly regarded Vatican observer on the international scene reveals the personality of this man of God, gentle and humble. The son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, he made radically following Christ and the way of non-violence the pillars of his pastoral ministry in a country, continually tormented by social and economic inequities.This complete biography offers the keys to understanding the man who was a surprise choice, even a kind of revolutionary choice, for pope. It is the story of the humble pastor of one of the world's largest archdioceses; a cardinal who takes the bus, talks with common folk, and lives simply. It is the story of why the cardinal electors of the Catholic Church set aside political and diplomatic calculations to elect a pope to lead the renewal and purification of the worldwide Church of our time.

I Can Only Imagine: A Memoir


Bart Millard - 2018
    But few know about the pain, redemption, and healing that inspired it. Now Bart Millard, award-winning recording artist and lead singer of MercyMe, shares how his dad’s transformation from abusive father to man of God sparked a divine moment in music history. Go behind the scenes of Bart’s life—and the movie based on it—to discover how God repaired a broken family, prepared Bart for ministry through music, and wrote the words on his heart that would change his life forever. I Can Only Imagine is a front-row seat to witnessing God’s presence throughout Bart’s life. Whether falling in love with his childhood sweetheart or mourning his father’s death, founding MercyMe or flailing in the midst of its success, Bart continues to place his trust in God’s plans—plans that continue to surprise and surpass what Bart could have ever imagined.