American Religion

Africa has played a decisive role in the formation of Christian culture from its infancy. Some of the most decisive intellectual achievements of Christianity were explored and understood in Africa before they were in Europe. If this is so, why is Christianity so often perceived in Africa as a Western colonial import? How can Christians in Northern and sub-Saharan Africa, indeed, how can Christians throughout the world, rediscover and learn from this ancient heritage?

In spontaneous, intimate terms, Archbishop Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, covers topics as wide-ranging as his childhood, family life, and the importance of his first job, to discovering his calling and his early days in the seminary. Through his own words, we come to know a man whose actions and words reflect his deeply-rooted humility. The audiobook concludes with the Pope’s own writings and reflections, full of wisdom and inspiration.

With the rise of Trumpism, the American evangelical movement has more political influence than ever—yet at the same time, people are leaving Christianity in record numbers. Why are so many people walking away from the right-wing religion they were raised in, and what are they doing to overcome the past? Writer and podcaster Blake Chastain is uniquely positioned to understand this phenomenon. Raised evangelical, he went to a Christian college intending to become a pastor—until he found himself unable to reconcile his faith with the prejudice and even abuse he saw being done in God’s name.

¡Descubre por qué la Biblia es el libro más vendido en la historia del mundo! El Nuevo Testamento de la NBLA es la forma perfecta de explorar la mayor obra literaria jamás escrita. Millones de vidas han sido cambiadas y toda nuestra sociedad ha sido afectada por este asombroso libro.

Most Americans were shocked by the violence they witnessed at the nation's Capital on January 6th, 2021. And many were bewildered by the images displayed by the insurrectionists: a wooden cross and wooden gallows; "Jesus saves" and "Don't Tread on Me;" Christian flags and Confederate Flags; even a prayer in Jesus's name after storming the Senate chamber. Where some saw a confusing jumble, Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry saw a familiar ideology: white Christian nationalism.

Forged during the tumultuous but triumphant postwar years when America came of age as a world power, The Irony of American History is more relevant now than ever before. Cited by politicians as diverse as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Niebuhr's masterpiece on the incongruity between personal ideals and political reality is both an indictment of American moral complacency and a warning against the arrogance of virtue.

The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life shares Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel's "Big Ten" fundamentals for success: Attitude, Discipline, Faith, Handling Adversity & Success, Excellence, Love, Toughness, Responsibility, Team, and Hope. Peppered with personal stories from Tressel's storied coaching career, the book shares the fundamental lessons that he has been imparting to his players for the past 20 years.

The inspiring story of evangelicals in Cincinnati struggling to bridge racial divides in their own church, their community, and across the nation.

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country's traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country's secular liberalelites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course.

Beginning in January 1692, Salem Village in colonial Massachusetts witnessed the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in early America. Villagers - mainly young women - suffered from unseen torments that caused them to writhe, shriek, and contort their bodies, complaining of pins stuck into their flesh and of being haunted by specters. Believing that they suffered from assaults by an invisible spirit, the community began a hunt to track down those responsible for the demonic work.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was not trying to start a movement. She was simply tired of the social injustice. Yet her simple act of courage started a chain of events that forever shaped the landscape of American race relations. Now, decades after her quiet defiance inspired the modern civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks' own words tell of her courageous life, her passion for freedom and equality, and her strong faith.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the English poet William Blake consists of a series of texts written in the style of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own beliefs. Composed between 1790 and 1793, the book makes reference to Milton and Swedenborg, and adopts a device from Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost: a visit to hell. Blake expresses a deliberately depolarized and unified vision of the cosmos in which the material world and physical desire are both part of the divine order.

No industry has been as influential at shaping the popular notion of what it means to be a witch quite as much as Hollywood. This book traces the fascinating history of witchcraft and witches in American film and television. From Joan the Woman and The Wizard of Oz to Carrie and Charmed, author and film scholar Heather Greene explores how these films helped influence the public image of the witch and profoundly influenced how women negotiate their power in a patriarchal society.

Beginning with a sweetly funny, moving account of her arranged marriage, the author undercuts stereotypes and offers the refreshing view of an American life through Muslim eyes. In chapters leavened with humor, hope, and insight, she recounts an immigrant's daily struggles balancing assimilation with preserving heritage, overcoming religious barriers from within and distortions of Islam from without, and confronting issues of raising her children as Muslims - while they lobby for a Christmas tree!

The religious right taught America to misread the Bible. Christians have misused Scripture to consolidate power, stoke fears, and defend against enemies. But people who have been hurt by the attacks of Christian nationalism can help us rediscover God's vision for faith in public life. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove explores how religious culture wars have misrepresented Christianity at the expense of the poor, and how listening to marginalized communities can help us hear God's call to love and justice in the world.

The author assembles a vast array of anecdotes, facts, stories, legends, archaeological discoveries, language comparisons, and speculation from a large collection of different sources to support the claim that the American Indians are descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.

Orthodoxy, first published 1908, is Chesterton's spiritual autobiography. Subtitled, 'The romance of faith', Chesterton declares that people need a life of 'practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.'

In 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was lynched. That remains an undisputed fact of the case that ignited a flame within the Civil Rights Movement that has yet to be extinguished. Yet the rest of the details surrounding the event remain distorted by time and too many tellings. What does justice mean in the resolution of a cold case spanning nearly seven decades?

Jealousy, envy, and pure hateration. Maybe you've been there? Maybe you know someone that's going through it? Whatever the case you know when things get rough you can always count on your Sister Girls to be there for you. Take a look inside the lives of Crystal, Susan, Jewell, and Elsie. Their lives are laced with love, lust, and loyalty. Crystal must deal with a past she can't escape. Susan is in denial and needs to get real. Jewell is looking for a "good man." And Elsie is confused about her sexuality. When their issues explode, each woman is forced to confront her life and herself.

Power. Fear. Violence. These three idols of Christian nationalism are corrupting American Christianity. Andrew Whitehead is a leading scholar on Christian nationalism in America and speaks widely on its effects within Christian communities. In this book, he shares his journey and reveals how Christian nationalism threatens the spiritual lives of American Christians and the church.