Defending Identity


Natan Sharansky - 2008
    Better to have hostile identities framed by democracy than democrats indifferent to identity.In a vigorous, insightful challenge to the left and right alike, Natan Sharansky, as he has proved repeatedly, is at the leading edge of the issues that frame our times.

After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory


Alasdair MacIntyre - 1982
    Newsweek called it “a stunning new study of ethics by one of the foremost moral philosophers in the English-speaking world.” Since that time, the book has been translated into more than fifteen foreign languages and has sold over one hundred thousand copies. Now, twenty-five years later, the University of Notre Dame Press is pleased to release the third edition of After Virtue, which includes a new prologue “After Virtue after a Quarter of a Century.” In this classic work, Alasdair MacIntyre examines the historical and conceptual roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in personal and public life, and offers a tentative proposal for its recovery. While the individual chapters are wide-ranging, once pieced together they comprise a penetrating and focused argument about the price of modernity. In the Third Edition prologue, MacIntyre revisits the central theses of the book and concludes that although he has learned a great deal and has supplemented and refined his theses and arguments in other works, he has “as yet found no reason for abandoning the major contentions” of this book. While he recognizes that his conception of human beings as virtuous or vicious needed not only a metaphysical but also a biological grounding, ultimately he remains “committed to the thesis that it is only from the standpoint of a very different tradition, one whose beliefs and presuppositions were articulated in their classical form by Aristotle, that we can understand both the genesis and the predicament of moral modernity.”

A Faith for All Seasons


Ted M. Dorman - 1995
    Dorman revises his textbook, which introduces and explains the classic doctrines of the historic Christian faith. While systematic in organization, the book remains written for students, aiming to bring them to an understanding of the central doctrines of the Christian church including the doctrines of Scripture, God, creation, humanity, atonement, salvation, and eschatology.

The Bad Habits of Jesus: Showing Us the Way to Live Right in a World Gone Wrong


Leonard Sweet - 2016
    Len Sweet uncovers and presents to us the offensive and scandalous Jesus described in the Bible.Did he disappear when people needed him most? Yes. Did he refuse to answer questions directly? Yes. Did Jesus offend the people of his day? Absolutely, yes.Popular author and speaker Len Sweet examines the words and actions of Jesus and places them in context. We need to understand who Jesus really is if we are to follow him wholeheartedly. That is why it is so crucial to see the "rebellious rabbi" for who he is and not for who we may imagine him to be.The Bad Habits of Jesus will help you see the untamed Jesus, who isn't sanitized for our culture. That Jesus just might transform how you live out your life.

Modern Fascism: The Threat to the Judeo-Christian View


Gene Edward Veith Jr. - 1993
    Through a skillful combination of historical narrative, cultural criticism and theological analysis, the author demonstrates how fascism, perhaps unknowingly, affects our thinking. The author also offers guidance and hope for those shaken by ideological crosscurrents as he convincingly demonstrates that Christian theology does not stifle the truth.

Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving through Deep Difference


John D. Inazu - 2016
    This fissure is evident across the nation in conflict over LGBTQ rights; in challenges to religious liberty; in clashes over abortion; in tensions between law enforcement and minority communities. With all of this physical and emotional violence enacted by our legal system and such seemingly irresolvable differences in beliefs, values, and identities across the country, we are forced to ask—how can the people of this nation ever live in peace together? In Confident Pluralism, John D. Inazu analyzes the current state of the country, orients the contemporary United States within its broader history, and explores the ways that Americans can—and must—live together peaceably in the future despite these deeply engrained differences. Pluralism is one of the founding creeds of the United States—yet America’s society and legal system continues to face deep, unsolved structural problems in dealing with differing cultural anxieties, and minority viewpoints.  Inazu not only argues that it is possible to cohabitate peacefully in this country, but he also lays out realistic guidelines for our society and legal system to achieve the new American dream through civic practices that value toleration over protest, humility over defensiveness, and persuasion over coercion. An essential clarion call during one of the most troubled times in US history, Confident Pluralism offers a refreshing argument for how the legal system can protect peoples’ personal beliefs and inherent right to differ and shows how we can build towards a healthier future of tolerance, patience, and empathy.

Is There a Meaning in This Text?: The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge


Kevin J. Vanhoozer - 1998
    Kevin Vanhoozer contends that the postmodern crisis in hermeneutics - "incredulity towards meaning, " a deep-set skepticism concerning the possibility of correct interpretationis fundamentally a crisis in theology provoked by an inadequate view of God and by the announcement of God's "death."

Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate


Terry Eagleton - 2009
    On the one hand, Eagleton demolishes what he calls the “superstitious” view of God held by most atheists and agnostics and offers in its place a revolutionary account of the Christian Gospel. On the other hand, he launches a stinging assault on the betrayal of this revolution by institutional Christianity.There is little joy here, then, either for the anti-God brigade—Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens in particular—nor for many conventional believers. Instead, Eagleton offers his own vibrant account of religion and politics in a book that ranges from the Holy Spirit to the recent history of the Middle East, from Thomas Aquinas to the Twin Towers.

The Politics and The Constitution of Athens


Aristotle
    In addition to a revised and extended introduction, this expanded Cambridge Texts edition contains an extensive guide to further reading and an index of names with biographical notes. Presentation of The Politics and The Constitution of Athens in a single volume will make this the most attractive and convenient student edition of these seminal works currently available.

Simply Jesus: Why he was, what he did, why it matters


Tom Wright - 2011
    Modern critical biblical scholarship often points out how the church's teachings about Jesus have become encrusted with tradition so that it is hard to see what the core documents--the New Testament--really say about him. Now, with the insight of 200 years of modern critical scholarship and assuming an audience that includes both the well-churched and the non-churched, how should the church present the story and identity of the central personality of their faith, Jesus of Nazareth? Many people will be surprised at the story they hear.

Jesus and the Disinherited


Howard Thurman - 1949
    Jesus is a partner in the pain of the oppressed and the example of His life offers a solution to ending the descent into moral nihilism. Hatred does not empower—it decays. Only through self-love and love of one another can God's justice prevail.

The Institutes of Biblical Law, Volume 1 of 3


Rousas John Rushdoony - 1973
    J.) Rushdoony (1916-2001) was a well-known American scholar, writer, and author of over thirty books. He held B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California and received his theological training at the Pacific School of Religion. An ordained minister, he worked as a missionary among Paiute and Shoshone Indians as well as a pastor to two California churches. He founded the Chalcedon Foundation, an educational organization devoted to research, publishing, and cogent communication of a distinctively Christian scholarship to the world-at-large. His writing in the Chalcedon Report and his numerous books spawned a generation of believers active in reconstructing the world to the glory of Jesus Christ. Until his death, he resided in Vallecito, California, where he engaged in research, lecturing, and assisting others in developing programs to put the Christian Faith into action.

How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization


Thomas E. Woods Jr. - 2005
    But what is the ultimate source of these gifts? Bestselling author and professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. provides the long neglected answer: the Catholic Church. Woods’s story goes far beyond the familiar tale of monks copying manuscripts and preserving the wisdom of classical antiquity. In How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, you’ll learn: · Why modern science was born in the Catholic Church · How Catholic priests developed the idea of free-market economics five hundred years before Adam Smith · How the Catholic Church invented the university · Why what you know about the Galileo affair is wrong · How Western law grew out of Church canon law · How the Church humanized the West by insisting on the sacredness of all human life No institution has done more to shape Western civilization than the two-thousand-year-old Catholic Church—and in ways that many of us have forgotten or never known. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is essential reading for recovering this lost truth.

Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies


David T. Koyzis - 2003
    In fact, the collapse of communism has created a vacuum quickly being filled by various alternative visions, ranging from ethnic nationalism to individualistic liberalism. But political ideologies are not merely a matter of governmental efficacy. Rather, political ideologies are intrinsically and inescapably religious--each carries certain assumptions about the nature of reality, individuals and society, as well as a particular vision for the common good. These fundamental beliefs transcend the political sphere, and the astute Christian observer should thus discern the subtle ways in which ideologies are rooted in idolatrous worldviews. In this comprehensive study, political scientist David Koyzis surveys the key political ideologies of our era, including liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, democracy and socialism. Each philosophy is given careful analysis and fair critique, unpacking the worldview issues inherent to each and pointing out essential strengths and weaknesses. Koyzis concludes by proposing alternative models that flow out of Christianity's historic engagement with the public square, retrieving approaches that hold promise for the complex political realities of the twenty-first century. Writing with broad, international perspective and keen analytical insight, Koyzis offers a sound guide for Christians working in the public square, culture watchers, political pundits and all students of modern political thought.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism


Max Weber - 1904
    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.