This book by Jamie Smith is a small field guide to Taylor's genealogy of the secular, making it accessible to a wide array of readers. Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is also, however, a philosophical guidebook for practitioners a kind of how-to manual that ultimately offers guidance on how to live in a secular age. It's an adventure in self-understanding and a way to get our bearings in postmodernity. Whether one is proclaiming faith to the secularized or is puzzled that there continue to be people of faith in this day and age, this is a philosophical story meant to help us locate where we are and what's at stake.

    This new expanded edition of Nine Marks of a Healthy Church is not an instruction manual for church growth. It is a pastor's recommendation of how to assess the health of your church using nine crucial qualities that are neglected by many of today's churches.Whether you're a church leader or an involved member of your congregation, you can help cultivate these elements in your church, bringing it new life and health for God's glory.

    As the youngest-ever op-ed columnist for The New York Times and the author of the critically acclaimed books Privilege and Grand New Party, Ross Douthat has emerged as one of the most provocative and influential voices of his generation. Now he offers a masterful and hard-hitting account of how American Christianity has gone off the rails — and why it threatens to take American society with it.In a story that moves from the 1950s to the age of Obama, Douthat brilliantly charts traditional Christianity’s decline from a vigorous, mainstream, and bipartisan faith — which acted as a “vital center” and the moral force behind the Civil Rights movement — through the culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s down to the polarizing debates of the present day. He argues that Christianity’s place in American life has increasingly been taken over, not by atheism, but by heresy: Debased versions of Christian faith that breed hubris, greed, and self-absorption. Ranging from Glenn Beck to Eat Pray Love, Joel Osteen to The Da Vinci Code, Oprah Winfrey to Sarah Palin, Douthat explores how the prosperity gospel’s mantra of “pray and grow rich”; a cult of self-esteem that reduces God to a life coach; and the warring political religions of left and right have crippled the country’s ability to confront our most pressing challenges, and accelerated American decline.His urgent call for a revival of traditional Christianity is sure to generate controversy, and it will be vital reading for all those concerned about the imperiled American future.

    Boyd adds another counterintuitive and provocative thesis to his corpus. While conservative scholars and pastors have struggled for years to show that the Bible is without errors, Boyd considers this a fool's errand. Instead, he says, we should embrace the mistakes and contradictions in Scripture, for they show that God chose to use fallible humans to communicate timeless truths. Just as God ultimately came to save humanity in the form of a human, God chose to impart truth through the imperfect medium of human writing. Instead of the Bible's imperfections being a reason to attack its veracity, these "problems" actually support the trustworthiness of Christian Scripture. Inspired Imperfection is required reading for anyone who's questioned the Bible because of its contradictions.

    He seeks nothing less than to account for the spread of secularism and decline of faith in the last 500 years. Now a remarkable roster of writers—including Carl Trueman, Michael Horton, and Jen Pollock Michel—considers Taylor’s insights for the church’s life and mission, covering everything from healthcare to liturgy to pop culture and politics. Nothing is easy about faith today. But endurance produces character, and character produces hope, even in our secular age.

    Until now...My name is Landon Hamilton, and I’m what the Divine call a diuscrucis - a perfect balance of angel, demon, and human. It means I have a gift.And a destiny.Heaven and Hell have been at war for thousands of years, locked in a secret battle for the souls of humankind. And for thousands of years, humankind has had no one to fight for them. No one to maintain the equilibrium between good and evil. No one who remembers what it means to be human with the power to stand against the supernatural.Until now.So I’ve got to fight. To keep the balance. To prevent Armageddon. To do whatever it takes. My side is humanity’s side, Heaven be damned and Hell be blessed. I didn’t make the rules and I never asked for this job, but I’m the only one who can do it.Game on.Includes all seven books in the Divine series:1. Balance2. Betrayal3. Broken4. Bound5. Evolution6. Execution7. Extinction

    No one was ever charged.Now:After leaving her long term partner, Libby moves into a new apartment in Canal House. To begin with everything seems fine, she is effectively avoiding all communications with her cheating ex Gary. Her new landlord Tim seems pleasant and she regularly pours her heart out to her sister Olly. Soon the cracks begin to widen, her job pressures build to an unmanageable level, Gary is becoming increasingly persistent with his texts and calls and her allusive neighbour Mr Bull is regularly causing disturbances amongst the block. On top of everything, the father of missing woman Bettina who once lived in her flat arrives and seeks her help in finding his daughter.Slowly, the stresses of her new life begin to perpetuate the darker aspects of her personality. Her depressive side slowly takes over and her delicate state of mind is carefully played by a dark mysterious personality. Can she come out of it with her life and sanity?Not for the easily scared............

    'What have I done?... What have I bloody well done?' Alistair Craig asks himself, as his dream of a million dollars and a new life is shattered upon the shocking discovery of the identity of his passenger. Thrust at the heart of a terrorist kidnap plot, Craig will need to expertly navigate a heart stopping 1,000-mile flight to the Champagne Princess, a luxury yacht anchored in the Atlantic, as he battles to thwart ISIS & the IRA s plans. Political intrigue, violent action, torture and a fraught romance are masterfully woven together in Dennis Kenyon's first, breath-taking thriller, 'Dangerous Appointment'.

    Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing.It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford - a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine and also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

    His gentle story is more of a puzzle where readers are asked to look at the evidence shared throughout the book and find the killer before their identity is revealed. June 2014. Oliver Cole graduates from Hendon Police College as a Detective Constable and heads off to his choice of posting to Northumbria Police in the North East of England. Cole is a shy but highly regarded new recruit with a talent for puzzle solving; from his first day he comes under the instructional wing of long-serving Detective Chief Inspector Jack Collier and his education really begins. Within weeks the body of a young girl is found neatly laid out on a gravestone in a local churchyard with an unusual addition of a noose around her neck. Cole is instructed to work with DCI Collier to find the killer but soon another body is found in identical circumstances and a picture begins to unfold of a serial killer.

    Your chance to own the books readers call thrilling and engrossing. Run A decades old mystery and a deadly game of cat and mouse will change Charlotte Marshall forever. Charlotte has a good life: friends, family, a successful career. Her perfect life is destroyed when research for a book and a connection from her past plunges her into the middle of her worst nightmare. On the run, with no one to trust, Charlotte begins to unravel the work of a sadistic murderer. Afraid and alone, she will learn the meaning of trust and just when to run. Stand Charlotte Marshall survived a nightmare. But moving forward past the trauma is a daily battle. Self-defense training, a high security home, and a trusted circle of family and friends help her improve. But fear still lives. Charlotte can’t lean on ritual and routine forever. She must stand on her own. Desperate to move on Charlotte finds hope in volunteering with FindMe, an organization dedicated to finding people who are missing and helping their families. Her first case ends up being more than she bargained for and Charlotte soon learns that a little hope can be a dangerous thing. She is strong. She is smart. But new threats come. A new danger lurks. Someone evil wants to destroy her. The FBI has no answers. A man is missing. His family deserves the truth. But Charlotte is not alone in this new quest. Her sparring partner, Skeet, is far more complicated than he appears. Together they search for a missing man and discover that death is never far away. Death haunts, the truth taunts, and answers are just out of reach. Charlotte will have to choose to stand and fight or to give in to the fear that waits for her. Redemption Charlotte Marshall’s life changed dramatically when she uncovered a serial killer and narrowly escaped alive. With Lawrence Pheares gone, relationships more validated and trusted than ever, and a new book just aching to be written, careless bliss should have been just around the corner. But when her car is bombed and her worst intuitions realized, a dangerous game of revenge begins to unravel, and for the elusive killer with dark secrets, this time its personal. With all she loves threatened and time running out, Charlotte must outwit her deadliest adversary yet before evil can destroy all she holds dear. A fast-paced, suspenseful, cat-and-mouse story with shocking twists around ever page turn, Redemption keeps the heart pounding and intrigue building for both experienced Charlotte Marshall fans and those new to the series alike.

    Only one can come out on top. Dave Carter is king of the East End, but someone has their eye on his crown. Martin Morton is determined to make his mark and take down Dave Carter while he’s at it. If anyone stands in his way, he’ll wipe them out. But has Martin bitten off more than he can chew? When his own family start to turn against him, Martin realises there is trouble brewing in the East End in more ways than one.

    

    You may have carefully reviewed boxes of personality profiles, stories, and videos, but does that qualify as a relationship?What about your relationship with God?Reframe challenges you to reframe yourself, God and the relationship that connects you--and, from there, to embrace irreversible spiritual change. You are created in God's image; you have His DNA embedded into your very core. The world and your life are engineered so that they will not work without Him. Come and be ruined for anything else but a life-giving collaborative adventure with the Almighty God.

    We try to fill the void or change our circumstances so we no longer feel the pain. But what if our pangs of loneliness are meant to point us to something greater?Looking at various aspects of loneliness, Lydia Brownback reminds us of God's power to redeem our loneliness and use it in our lives to draw us to himself. Ultimately, she helps us see that even when we feel misunderstood, forsaken, or abandoned, we're never really alone. God is always with us, and only he can meet all of our needs in Christ Jesus.