Showing titles in History

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 in the so-called "burned-over district" of upstate New York, which was producing seers and prophets daily. Most of the new creeds flamed out; Smith's would endure, becoming the most significant homegrown religion in American history. In American Zion Benjamin E. Park presents a fresh, sweeping account of the Latter-day Saints.

With dizzying social transformations in everything from gender to social justice, it may seem like there's never been a more tumultuous period in history. But a single year in the late 18th century saw a number of influential transformations—or even revolutions—that changed the social trajectory of the Western world. By understanding how those events influenced today's cultural landscape, Christians can more effectively bear witness to God's truth in a post-Christian age.

Many Christians today long to become reacquainted with their ancient ancestors in the faith. They see a deeper worship and devotion in the prayers and hymns of the early church. And they believe that the writings of the early church can shed new light on their understanding of Scripture. But where and how do we begin? Our first encounter with the writings of the church fathers may seem like visiting a far country where the language, assumptions, concerns, and conclusions are completely unfamiliar to us. Author Christopher Hall helps us through this cultural confusion.

The true history of science and religion is a human one. It’s about the role of religion in inspiring, and strangling, science before the scientific revolution. It’s about the sincere but eccentric faith and the quiet, creeping doubts of the most brilliant scientists in history–Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein. Above all it’s about the question of what it means to be human and who gets to say–a question that is more urgent in the twenty-first century than ever before.

The Great Physician has provided all believers with the ultimate prescription for excellent health.

How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee? —Jeremiah 4:14 Our minds are constantly flooded with unwelcome ideas in this age of information and entertainment. In The Vanity of Thoughts, Thomas Goodwin challenges us to fight these frivolous and sinful mental companions. This timely...

The understandable, deeply authoritative and bestselling book on the Orthodox Church, in a fully updated and revised Third Edition.

Few matters produce more public interest and public anxiety than sex and religion. Much of the political contention and division in societies across the world centres on sexual topics, and one-third of the global population is Christian in background or outlook. The issue goes to the heart of present-day religion. This book seeks to calm fears and encourage understanding through telling a three-thousand-year-long tale of Christians encountering sex, gender and the family, with noises off from their sacred texts.

Is the world better off without Christianity? Combining narrative with keen critique of contemporary debates, author and historian John Dickson gives an honest account of 2,000 years of Christian history that helps us understand what Christianity is and what it's meant to be. To say that the...

In a time of division and discord, Christians have come to be seen not as bearers of good news and love but of judgement and intolerance. How did we get here? And what can we do about it? With a reporter's eye and a compassionate heart, Philip Yancey—bestselling author of What's So Amazing...

What is Catholicism? A two-thousand-year-old living tradition? A worldview? A way of life? A relationship? A mystery? In Catholicism, Bishop Robert Barron examines all these questions and more, seeking to capture the body, heart, and mind of the Catholic faith. Starting from the essential foundation of Jesus Christ’s Incarnation, life, and teaching, Bishop Barron moves through the defining elements of Catholicism.

A New York Times Notable Book A deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history that examines two of the greatest minds of European history—Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther—whose heated rivalry gave rise to two enduring, fundamental, and often colliding traditions of...

Effortlessly blending biography, philosophy and humour, Chesterton recounts with great imaginative depth the renowned Italian priest and theologist, Thomas Aquinas. Known as the ‘Angelic Doctor’, Aquinas was not just a scholar, but a passionate intellectual who was deeply in love with truth and natural theology.

For perspective on our own times and how we got here, it helps to listen to wise guides from other eras. In An Infinite Fountain of Light, the renowned American historian George Marsden illuminates the landscape with wisdom from one such mentor: Jonathan Edwards. Drawing on his deep expertise on Edwards and American culture, Marsden explains where Edwards stood within his historical context and sets forth key points of his complex thought.

There has never been a nation like the United States of America. Its impact on the world is unprecedented in all of human history. After two and a half centuries of existence, it is difficult to imagine what the world would be like without it. But how did it come into existence? Who has really done justice to this astonishing story? Innumerable books have been written about the American Revolution, but the definitive treatment of the full story simply does not exist—certainly not in our generation.

This timeless work is applicable to everyone who has experienced the struggle between good and evil in his own soul. St. Augustine, born in Tagaste, Numidia, in North Africa (now Constantine) in 354, was raised by a devout Christian mother. He abandoned the Christianity in which he had been...

In 1979 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith withdrew Hans KUng's missio canonica. Pope Paul VI approved the censure saying, "We are obligated to declare that in his writings he fell short of integrity and the truth of the Catholic faith." Through a 1980 agreement with the...

For many Christians, our understanding of the history of the church universal jumps straight from what we read in the New Testament to a basic understanding of the Reformation. We're missing more than a millennium! And it was a busy, fascinating, tumultuous thousand-or-so years during which Christianity spread across three continents. In places as distant and different from each other as China, Sudan, and Britain, the gospel was spreading, the church was growing, and believers were expressing their faith in myriad ways.

If you put aside what you think you know about Jesus and approach the Gospels as though for the first time, something remarkable happens: Jesus emerges as a teacher of the transformation of consciousness. Cynthia Bourgeault is a masterful guide to Jesus' vision and to the traditional contemplative practices you can use to experience the heart of his teachings for yourself.

We learn who we are as we walk together in the way of Jesus. So I want to invite you on a pilgrimage. Rwanda is often held up as a model of evangelization in Africa. Yet in 1994, beginning on the Thursday of Easter week, Christians killed other Christians, often in the same churches where they...