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The Vicar of Christ by Walter F. Murphy


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Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again


Rachel Held Evans - 2018
    What she discovered changed her—and it will change you too.Drawing on the best in recent scholarship and using her well-honed literary expertise, Evans examines some of our favorite Bible stories and possible interpretations, retelling them through memoir, original poetry, short stories, soliloquies, and even a short screenplay. Undaunted by the Bible’s most difficult passages, Evans wrestles through the process of doubting, imagining, and debating Scripture’s mysteries. The Bible, she discovers, is not a static work but is a living, breathing, captivating, and confounding book that is able to equip us to join God’s loving and redemptive work in the world.

A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey


Brian D. McLaren - 2001
    This stirring fable captures a new spirit of Christianity--where personal, daily interaction with God is more important than institutional church structures, where faith is more about a way of life than a system of belief, where being authentically good is more important than being doctrinally "right," and where one's direction is more important than one's present location. Brian McLaren's delightful account offers a wise and wondrous approach for revitalizing Christian spiritual life and Christian congregations.If you are interested in joining a discussion group devoted to a A New Kind of Christian please visit groups.yahoo.com/group/NKOC.

The Anti-Christ


Friedrich Nietzsche - 1895
    Nietzsche's basic claim is that Christianity is a poisoner of western culture and perversion of the words of and practice of Jesus. Throughout the text, Nietzsche is very critical of institutionalized religion and its priest class, from which he himself was descended. The majority of the book is a systematic attack upon the interpretations of Christ's words by St. Paul and those who followed him. Nietzsche claimed in the Foreword to have written the book for a very limited readership. In order to understand the book, he asserted that the reader "... must be honest in intellectual matters to the point of hardness to so much as endure my seriousness, my passion." The reader should be above politics and nationalism. Also, the usefulness or harmfulness of truth should not be a concern. Characteristics such as "Strength which prefers questions for which no one today is sufficiently daring; courage for the forbidden" are also needed. He disdained all other readers.

The Greatest Miracle in the World


Og Mandino - 1975
    A great inspirational writer tells his story - a narrative that will hold you spellbound as it reveals exciting new secrets for your personal happiness and success.

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah


Richard Bach - 1977
    For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders...until he meets Donald Shimoda — former mechanic and self-described messiah who can make wrenches fly and Richard's imagination soar....In Illusions, Richard Bach takes to the air to discover the ageless truths that give our souls wings: that people don't need airplanes to soar...that even the darkest clouds have meaning once we lift ourselves above them... and that messiahs can be found in the unlikeliest places — like hay fields, one-traffic-light midwestern towns, and most of all, deep within ourselves.

The Great Dune Trilogy


Frank Herbert - 1979
    This volume includes the titles Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

The Shack


William Paul Young - 2007
    Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant The Shack wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!

Siddhartha


Hermann Hesse - 1922
    In this story of a wealthy Indian Brahmin who casts off a life of privilege to seek spiritual fulfillment. Hesse synthesizes disparate philosophies--Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism--into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man's search for true meaning.

The Basic Kafka


Franz Kafka - 1979
    Published together for the first time are selections from all Kafka's writings: The Metamorphosis, Josephine The Singer, plus his short stories, parables, and his personal diaries and letters.

A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul


Leo Tolstoy - 1906
    Widely read in prerevolutionary Russia, banned and forgotten under Communism; and recently rediscovered to great excitement, A Calendar of Wisdom is a day-by-day guide that illuminates the path of a life worth living with a brightness undimmed by time. Unjustly censored for nearly a century, it deserves to be placed with the few books in our history that will never cease teaching us the essence of what is important in this world.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten


Robert Fulghum - 1988
    The little seed in the Styrofoam cup offers a reminder about our own mortality and the delicate nature of life . . . a spider who catches (and loses) a full-grown woman in its web one fine morning teaches us about surviving catastrophe . . . the love story of Jean-Francois Pilatre and his hot-air balloon reminds us to be brave and unafraid to “fly” . . . life lessons hidden in the laundry pile . . . magical qualities found in a box of crayons . . . hide-and-seek vs. sardines—and how these games relate to the nature of God. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is brimming with the very stuff of life and the significance found in the smallest details.

The Righteous


Michael Wallace - 2011
    Jacob must solve the murder while protecting his young sister Eliza from marriage to one of three old men jostling for power within the church hierarchy.Jacob discovers that the murdered woman has been killed in accordance with secret blood oaths taken within the polygamist temple. Together with his sister, he uncovers a plot to overthrow the church leadership, with murders that reach beyond the community and into the "gentile" world. The Righteous is a heart-pounding suspense-thriller with a depth that will haunt the reader long after the last page is turned."Deeply engrossing! Michael Wallace delivers the thinking man's thriller while establishing one of the freshest male leads in crime fiction--Jacob Christianson, an aspiring doctor and cult elder's favored son. Jacob's analytic nature has him questioning everything, including the nature of God and the sexist politics of polygamy. It also makes him a perfect fit to track down a killer whose grisly crimes threaten Jacob's community, family, and soon, his very life."-- Lisa Gardner, New York Times bestselling author of LIVE TO TELL."Wallace authoritatively and unsparingly tears open the veil shrouding a Utah polygamist community and its secret oaths of blood atonement, temple sacrifice, and angels with drawn swords. Inside we find a riveting thriller that recaptures everything lost from the original American religion." -- Jeffrey Anderson, National bestselling, International Thriller Award nominated author of SLEEPER CELL.

There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves


James Kavanaugh - 1970
    THERE ARE MEN TOO GENTLE TO LIVE AMONG WOLVES contains poetry by James Kavanaugh who has brought hope and joy, laughter and courage to millions of loyal, enthusiastic readers with moving collections of poetic reflections about life.

Saint Francis


Nikos Kazantzakis - 1956
    He was the author of poetry, plays, articles and novels, including The Last Temptation of Christ, Zorba the Greek and The Greek Passion.

The White Hotel


D.M. Thomas - 1981
    It is a horrifying yet restrained narrative of the Holocaust. It is a searing vision of the wounds of our century, and an attempt to heal them. Interweaving poetry and case history, fantasy and historical truth-telling, The White Hotel is a modern classic of enduring emotional power that attempts nothing less than to reconcile the notion of individual destiny with that of historical fate.