America Religions Religion

Using his unique lens as a critical race theorist and law professor, Khaled A. Beydoun captures the many ways in which law, policy, and official state rhetoric have fueled the frightening resurgence of Islamophobia in the US.

Cyrus Teed was a charismatic and controversial guru who at the age of thirty had been "illuminated" by an angel in his electro-alchemical laboratory. At the turn of the 20th century, surrounded by the marvels of the Second Industrial Revolution, he proclaimed himself a prophet and led 200 people out of Chicago and into a new age. Or so he promised.

Templars in America reveals the story of two leading European Templar families who combined forces to create a new commonwealth in America nearly a century before the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Henry St. Clair of the Orkney Islands, then part of Normandy, and Carlo Zeno, a Venetian trader, made peaceful and mutually beneficial contact with the Mi'kmaq people of what is now Canada. Proof of their travels is carved in stone on both sides of the Atlantic and can be found in documentary evidence borne out by a strong oral tradition that has withstood the test of time.

Constitutional scholar Geoffrey R. Stone traces the evolution of legal and moral codes that have attempted to legislate sexual behavior from the ancient world to America's earliest days to today's fractious political climate. Stone crafts a remarkable narrative in which he shows how agitators, moralists, legislators, and especially the justices of the Supreme Court have historically navigated issues as explosive and divisive as abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and contraception.

The US has been invaded - if many dozens of eyewitnesses are to be believed - by upright, canine creatures that look like traditional werewolves and act as if they own our woods, fields, and highways. Sightings from coast to coast dating back to the 1930s compel us to ask exactly what these beasts are, and what they want. Researcher, author, and newspaper reporter Linda S. Godfrey has been tracking the man-wolf since the early 1990s. In Real Wolfmen, she presents the only large-scale cataloging and investigation of reports of modern sightings of anomalous, upright canids.

In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., isolated himself from the demands of the civil rights movement, rented a house in Jamaica with no telephone, and labored over his final manuscript. In this prophetic work, which was unavailable for more than 10 years, he lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America's future, including the need for better jobs, higher wages, decent housing, and quality education. With a universal message of hope that continues to resonate, King demanded an end to global suffering.

Although Christian believers agreed with one another that the Bible was authoritative and that it should be interpreted through commonsense principles, there was rampant disagreement about what Scripture taught about slavery. Furthermore, most Americans continued to believe that God ruled over the affairs of people and nations, but they were radically divided in their interpretations of what God was doing in and through the war.

The work comprises Villehardouin's "Conquest of Constantinople", which recounts the controversial Fourth Crusade, which descended into an attack on the Eastern Christians of Byzantium. In "Life of Saint Louis", Joinville draws on his friendship with King Louis IX of France to describe the campaigns in the Holy Land.

Brigham Young was a rough-hewn craftsman from New York whose impoverished and obscure life was electrified by the Mormon faith. He trudged around the United States and England to gain converts for Mormonism, spoke in spiritual tongues, married more than 50 women, and eventually transformed a barren desert into his vision of the Kingdom of God. While previous accounts of his life have been distorted by hagiography or polemical exposé, John Turner provides a fully realized portrait of a colossal figure in American religion, politics, and westward expansion.

The Color of Compromise takes listeners on a historical journey: from America's early colonial days through slavery and the Civil War, covering the tragedy of Jim Crow laws and the victories of the Civil Rights era, to today's Black Lives Matter movement. Author Jemar Tisby reveals the obvious - and the far more subtle - ways the American church has compromised what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality.

The true nature of what actually crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 remains classified. Only a select few have ever had access to the truth about what became known as Area 51. But what happened to the remnants of that crash is shrouded in even greater mystery. What began in the high desert of New Mexico ended at Wright-Patterson, an ultra top-secret Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio. The physical evidence of extraterrestrial visitation was buried deep within this nuclear stronghold.

"Candy Jones" was the stage name of Jessica Wilcox who became famous as a model and "pinup girl" in the early 1940s. Her story seems too bizarre to be true. One of America's most famous models, brainwashed by the CIA? Yes, it is another example of truth being stranger than fiction. The story begins with Candy's wedding to Long John Nebel, New York's most successful radio talk-show host. During the wedding, and regularly thereafter, Candy's personality would seem to shift. She would suddenly change from her affable, self-effacing self to a brusque, aggressive "stranger".

This state-of-the-art account gives listeners the tools to understand why antisemitism is such a controversial subject. It acquaints listeners with the ambiguities inherent in the historical relationship between Jews and Christians and shows these ambiguities in play in the unfolding relationship between Jews and Canadians of other religions and ethnicities. It examines present relationships in light of history and considers particularly the influence of antisemitism on the social, religious, and political history of the Canadian Jewish community.

Evangelical Christianity is a paradox. Evangelicals are radically individualist, but devoted to community and family. They believe in the transformative power of a personal relationship with God, but are wary of religious enthusiasm. They are deeply skeptical of secular reason, but eager to find scientific proof that the Bible is true. In this groundbreaking history of modern American evangelicalism, Molly Worthen argues that these contradictions are the products of a crisis of authority that lies at the heart of the faith.

Does America no longer feel like home? Widespread divorce rates, the erosion of traditional marriage, the popular rise of radical ideologies, attacks on faith, and government interference are only a few of the factors contributing to the struggles of families in our culture. But it doesn't have to be this way. Like many of us, Dr. Ben Carson fears we are losing the country we love. In this provocative and ultimately hopeful book, he gives us the facts, inspiration, and theory-to-action answers we need to restore a key foundation of America: the family.

The half century following the American Revolution witnessed the transformation of American Christianity. The passion for equality, says Hatch, brought about a crisis or religious authority in popular culture, introduced new and popular forms of theology, witnessed the rise of minority religious movements, reshaped preaching, singing, and publishing, and became a scriptural foundation for 19th century American individualism.

In 1974, Jim and Tammy Bakker launched their television show, The PTL Club, from a former furniture store in Charlotte, North Carolina, with half a dozen friends. By 1987, they stood at the center of a ministry empire that included their own satellite network, a 2300-acre theme park visited by six million people a year, and millions of adoring fans.

Though the Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion, it does not specify what qualifies as a religion. From its founding in the 1830s, Mormonism, a homegrown American faith, has drawn thousands of converts but far more critics. In A Peculiar People, J. Spencer Fluhman offers a comprehensive history of anti-Mormon thought and the associated passionate debates about religious authenticity in 19th-century America.

Fundamentalism and American Culture has long been considered a classic in religious history, and to this day remains unsurpassed. Now available in a new edition, this highly regarded analysis takes us through the full history of the origin and direction of one of America's most influential religious movements.

When most people hear the word witches, they think of horror films and Halloween, but to the nearly one million Americans who practice Paganism today, it's a nature-worshipping, polytheistic, and very real religion. So Alex Mar discovers when she sets out to film a documentary and finds herself drawn deep into the world of present-day witchcraft. Witches of America follows Mar on her immersive five-year trip into the occult, charting modern paganism.