Church Politics

Joy Unspeakable focuses on the aspects of the Black church that point beyond particular congregational gatherings toward a mystical and communal spirituality not exclusive to any denomination. This mystical aspect of the black church is deeply implicated in the wellbeing of African American people but is not the focus of their intentional reflection. Moreover, its traditions are deeply ensconced within the historical memory of wider society and can be found in Coltrane's riffs, Malcolm's exhortations, the Black Lives Matter Movement and the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.

Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have reported from inside the C Street House, the Fellowship residence known simply by its Washington, D.C., address. The house has lately been the scene of notorious political scandal, but more crucially, it is home to efforts to transform the very fabric of American democracy. And now, after laying bare its tenants' past in The Family, Sharlet reports from deep within fundamentalism in today's world.

Christian theology may not believe in Marxism, and Marxism may think that God is dead, but the two ideologies still have much to say to one another. Thomas Merton, one of the world’s greatest modern Christian intellectuals, was fascinated by the dialogue between Marxists and Christians. Now, by listening to these nine masterful talks, which Merton delivered to the novices at the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1965 and 1966, you can join in these conversations.

In 2016, God raised up Donald Trump to lead America at a pivotal time. Evangelicals who recognized this backed him more than any other presidential candidate in history. Heading into 2020, the stakes in his reelection are even higher. This election, nine months after this book releases, is a new fight for the soul of America. Stephen E. Strang makes the case that God wants America to be great because God has raised up America - beginning with our Founding Fathers - to be a beacon of light and hope for the world.

For decades the accepted wisdom has been that America's mainline Protestant churches are in decline, eclipsed by evangelical mega-churches. Church and religion expert Diana Butler Bass wondered if this was true, and this book is the result of her extensive, three-year study of centrist and progressive churches across the country. Her surprising findings reveal just the opposite - that many of the churches are flourishing, and they are doing so without resorting to mimicking the mega-church, evangelical style. Christianity for the Rest of Us describes this phenomenon....

Gender theorist, performance artist, and author Kate Bornstein is set to change lives with her stunningly original memoir. Wickedly funny and disarmingly honest, this is Bornstein's most intimate book yet, encompassing her early childhood and adolescence, college at Brown, a life in the theater, three marriages and fatherhood, the Scientology hierarchy, transsexual life, LGBTQ politics, and life on the road as a sought-after speaker.

On June 17, 2015, 12 members of the historically black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina welcomed a young white man to their evening Bible study. He arrived with a pistol, 88 bullets, and hopes of starting a race war. Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine innocents during their closing prayer horrified the nation. In Grace Will Lead Us Home, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes provides a definitive account of the tragedy’s aftermath.

In this second volume of the Called Out of Darkness trilogy, Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., draws together some of the best advice given by Catholic spiritual masters across the ages and brings it into harmony with modern scientific research, offering practical ways to live out the gospel in our busy days. It is a road map to a deeper relationship with the Lord and to authentic transformation through the imitation of Christ. Giving evidence that Jesus established just one Church, with Peter as its head, Spitzer shows that the Catholic Church continues to be fertile ground for conversion.

When political division shows up not only on the campaign trail but also at our dinner tables, we wonder: Can we be part of a better way? The Spirit of Our Politics says "yes," offering a distinctly Christian approach to politics that results in healing rather than division, kindness rather than hatred, and hope rather than despair.

Peter Hitchens lost faith as a teenager. But eventually finding atheism barren, he came by a logical process to his current affiliation to an unmodernised belief in Christianity. Hitchens describes his return from the far political left. Familiar with British left-wing politics, it was travelling in the Communist bloc that first undermined and replaced his leftism, a process virtually completed when he became a newspaper's resident Moscow correspondent in 1990, just before the collapse of the Communist Party. He became convinced of certain propositions.

Churches are all around us. Their steeples remain landmarks in our towns, villages and cities, even as their influence and authority has waned. They contain art and architectural wonders - one huge gallery scattered, like a handful of jewels, across these isles. Award-winning writer Peter Ross sets out to tell their stories, and through them a story of Britain. Join him as he visits the unassuming Norfolk church which contains a disturbing secret, and London's mighty cathedrals with their histories of fire and love. Meet cats and bats, monks and druids, angels of oak and steel.

Many Christians feel that they are being opposed at every turn by what seems to be a well-orchestrated political and cultural campaign to de-Christianize every aspect of Western culture. They are right, and it goes even further back than the Obama Administration. In Worshipping the State: How Liberalism Became Our State Religion, Benjamin Wiker argues that it is liberals who seek to establish an official state religion: one of unbelief.

Number-one best-selling author and radio host Glenn Beck exposes the real truth behind the roots of Islamic extremism in Muslim teaching in this sharply insightful audiobook that debunks commonly held assumptions about Islam and the dream of a renewed caliphate.

Based on a wealth of documents long buried in the Vatican archives, Prisoner of the Vatican tells the story of the Church's secret attempt to block the unification of Italy and seize control, not in ancient times, but in the late 19th century. For more than 50 years, the pope was a self-imposed prisoner within the Vatican walls, planning to flee Italy, to return only as the restored ruler of Rome and the Papal States.

In 2016, many Christian leaders opposed candidate Donald Trump. He was a social liberal, and his vulgarity, divorces, affairs, and scandals made it impossible for him to defend Christian values in public life. Or so they thought. Trump nevertheless won an overwhelming majority of the Evangelical vote in 2016, as well as the Catholic vote. And in 2020, the idea that he can’t represent Christians is demonstrably false.

Many people wonder how white Christians could not only support Donald Trump for president but also rush to defend an accused child molester running for the US Senate. In a 2017 online essay that went viral, Miguel A. De La Torre boldly proclaimed the death of Christianity at the hands of white evangelical nationalists. He continues sounding the death knell in this book.

Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), challenges us to grasp the profound political and cultural consequences of a new reality - that America is no longer a majority white Christian nation.

How did the Islamic State attract so many followers and conquer so much land? By being more ruthless, more apocalyptic, and more devoted to state building than its competitors. The shrewd leaders of the Islamic State combined two of the most powerful yet contradictory ideas in Islam - the return of the Islamic Empire and the end of the world - into a mission and a message that shapes its strategy and inspires its army of zealous fighters.

News reports cover the tragic events - the bombings, the massacres, and the suicide attacks. Our newscasters take time to explain who the players are - from Hezbollah to the Iranian Quds, from ISIS to the Palestinian National Authority. But what is behind these events that fuels atrocity after atrocity?

In It's Dangerous to Believe, Mary Eberstadt documents how people of faith - especially Christians who adhere to traditional religious beliefs - face widespread discrimination in today's increasingly secular society. Eberstadt details how recent laws, court decisions, and intimidation on campuses and elsewhere threaten believers who fear losing their jobs, their communities, and their basic freedoms solely because of their convictions.