American Religion

The First Amendment to the US Constitution codified the principle that the government should play no role in favoring or supporting any religion, while allowing free exercise of all religions (including unbelief). More than two centuries later, the results from this experiment are overwhelming: The separation of church and state has shielded the government from religious factionalism, and the United States boasts a diverse religious culture unmatched anywhere in the world.

In The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn, Stuart M. Blumin and Glenn C. Altschuler tell the story of 19th-century Brooklyn's domination by upper- and middle-class Protestants with roots in Puritan New England. This lively history describes the unraveling of the control they wielded as more ethnically diverse groups moved into the "City of Churches" during the 20th century.

This is a comprehensive and well-researched paper that should encourage those working to preserve marriage as an institution that strengthens our society. The paper on marriage written by Alan Wisdom titled, "Is Marriage Worth Defending," has been on my own interest-screen since January, 2011. This likeable and readable paper of some note and considerable interest on the subject of traditional marriage, with a section on Gay Marriage, was originally produced in 2009 by Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Intimate and honest essays on motherhood, marriage, love, and acceptance. Brown White Black is a portrait of Nishta J. Mehra's family: her wife, who is White; her adopted child, Shiv, who is Black; and their experiences dealing with America's rigid ideas of race, gender, and sexuality. Her clear-eyed and incisive writing on her family's daily struggle to make space for themselves amid racial intolerance and stereotypes personalizes some of America's most fraught issues.

When Ronald Reagan warned that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction, was he pointing to Generation Z? Today’s young adults have been indoctrinated since preschool in the lie that America is fundamentally unjust. They have watched their parents hand over their freedom to big government, and they themselves are captivated by a deceptive ideology of unprecedented radicalism.

For the majority of Southern Catholics, religion and politics were not a point of tension. Devout Catholics were also devoted Confederates, including nuns who served as nurses; their deep involvement in the Confederate cause as medics confirms the all-encompassing nature of Catholic involvement in the Confederacy, a fact greatly underplayed by scholars of Civil war religion and American Catholicism.

Long before he was considered a top prospective presidential candidate for 2012, Governor Tim Pawlenty had already earned legendary status in conservative circles. In his hard-left-leaning home state of Minnesota, the man known as "T-Paw" somehow erased a $4.8-billion budget deficit while simultaneously reforming health care, creating jobs, improving education, and supporting renewable energy reform—all without raising taxes. In Courage to Stand, Pawlenty reveals for the first time how he found the resolve to get the job done.

The struggle within American Christianity, Garry Wills argues, now and throughout our country's history, is between the head and the heart: between reason and emotion, Enlightenment and Evangelism. Why has this been so? How has the tension between the two poles played out, and with what consequences, over the past 400 years? How "Christian" is America, after all? Wills brings a lifetime's worth of thought about these questions to bear on a magnificent historical reckoning.

At last - some good news for all of you. God is everywhere! God cannot be confined to any building, group, country or region. God is here now,always has been and always will be. Contrary to current belief - you don't have to wait for God to come back. You don't have to be reborn, to know God. You don't have to put on your Sunday finest to reach out to him. God is part of everything and is available constantly for you to communicate with at any time of day or night.

Since men and women in battle not only face the prospect of their own deaths but also must fashion a moral rationale for killing, the battlefield is often a place of tremendous religious transformation. Do men and women at war revert to the faith of their youth or do they gravitate to the spirituality around them? Do they lose all faith in the face of horror, or do they piece together an informal faith that simply gets them through the fight?

African American Magick infuses ancient techniques, rituals, and methods from around the world to use each season's inherent energies to supplement the health and well-being of body, mind, and soul.

Caregiving is a core value in the African American culture. And African American women of faith often fill that role—for elderly parents, sick children, and other members of their community. Yet no one is fully prepared for the reality of disrupted schedules, unpredictable needs, and many sleepless nights that come with caregiving. Jeanne Porter King shares 90 devotions written from her own experience as a caregiver for her mother to encourage you to take time to care for your whole self.

The Evangelical Church in the United States and other parts of the world, in general, is in a crisis of identity and stuck at a pivotal crossroads of history, conflicted about its God-given role and direction. This paralysis has been exposed and magnified by a renewed and raging debate about the role and relevance of Christianity in the governance and destiny of nations.

Elizabeth Green Townsend has a current novel: My King Jesus which involves her life's story and, the work God has called her to do. Elizabeth maintains it was ordained by God for her to proclaim, the good news of the gospel of her Lord in Savior Jesus Christ, to all mankind in the earth. Having been exposed to the hurting and suffering in our world and nation, she continues to write novels that will inspire and warn of the coming events before the return of Jesus.

The New American Standard Bible is one of the most accurate translations of the Scriptures. In the New Testament gospels you will discover the virgin birth, ministry, crucifixion, and bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ written from four different yet perfectly harmonized vantage points. Historical and life-altering Biblical truths are proclaimed from the birth of the early church to the spread of the Gospel through Paul, Peter, John, and others in the epistles.

This is a story of power, set against Puritan America and the English Civil War. Williams's interactions with King James, Francis Bacon, Oliver Cromwell, and his mentor Edward Coke set his course, but his fundamental ideas came to fruition in America, as Williams, though a Puritan, collided with John Winthrop's vision of his "City upon a Hill."

The United States is in the middle of an unprecedented spiritual, technological, demographic, political and social transformation—moving from an older, mostly white, mostly Protestant, religion-friendly society to a younger diverse, multiethnic, pluralistic culture, where no one faith group will have the advantage. At the same time, millions of Americans are abandoning organized religion altogether in favor of disorganized disbelief. Reorganized Religion is an in-depth and critical look at why people are leaving American churches and what we lose as a society as it continues.

Professor and former missionary Matthew Bennett inspects the American evangelical home. Perhaps, like him, you love evangelical doctrine, love the community in which you’ve been spiritually nurtured, and want to see it again become a thriving, hospitable environment for guests. But perhaps, also like Bennett, you think the home needs some touching up before this can be true. In this book, with insights from Lesslie Newbigin, Bennett helps listeners inspect the American evangelical house through the eyes of a missionary.

Barbara Kreiger's intriguing narrative presents the account of Clorinda Minor, a charismatic American Christian woman whose belief in the second coming prompted her to leave a comfortable life in Philadelphia in 1851 and take up agriculture in Palestine.

This book draws on case material from Yale Professor, Sister Janet Ruffing's experience with directees and students for many years as well as postmodern understandings of the narrative-creating self.