Church Politics

In Believers, Thinkers, and Founders: How We Came to Be One Nation Under God, Kevin Seamus Hasson - founder and president emeritus of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty - offers a refreshing resolution to a familiar conundrum: If there is real religious freedom in America, how is it that our government keeps invoking God? He's everywhere, from our currency to the Pledge of Allegiance. Isn't that all entirely too religious? And just whose God are we talking about, anyway?

This is my story of how I became a Right Wing Fundamentalist Roman Catholic and of course a Republican. I eventually became politically incorrect, and finally at peace with my church and my politics.

John Locke's theory of toleration is generally seen as advocating the privatization of religion. This interpretation has become conventional wisdom: secularization is widely understood as entailing the privatization of religion, and the separation of religion from power. This audiobook turns that conventional wisdom on its head and argues that Locke secularizes religion, that is, makes it worldly, public, and political. In the name of diverse citizenship, Locke reconstructs religion as persuasion, speech, and fashion.

For most of American history, the conventional wisdom was that religion was too private a matter to ask a political candidate about. But in a political landscape in which we will see Muslims, atheists, Mormons, Buddhists, and Christians of all stripes running for high office, we cannot afford to avoid religious questions. It's within American voters' rights to know what their candidates believe about God and religion, because those beliefs shape policy and thus action.

For much of American history, evangelicalism was aligned with progressive political causes: nineteenth-century evangelicals fought for the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, and public education. But contemporary conservative activists have defaulted on this majestic legacy, embracing instead an agenda virtually indistinguishable from the Republican Party platform.

Armies know all about killing. It is what they do, and ours does it more effectively than most. We are painfully coming to realize, however, that we are also especially good at killing our own ''from the inside out,'' silently, invisibly. In every major war since Korea, more of our veterans have taken their lives than have lost them in combat. The latest research, rooted in veteran testimony, reveals that the most severe and intractable PTSD - fraught with shame, despair, and suicide - stems from "moral injury".

Is there really a God? Or does God exist only in our heads? Is the Bible truly God's Word? Or is it a jumble of fanciful myths? Atheist Universe details why God is unnecessary to explain the universe's diversity, organization, and beauty. Using simple, straightforward logic, this audiobook rebuts every argument that claims to "prove" God's existence.

In this comprehensive biography, David Willey explores the religious and personal background of the inspirational Pope Francis, his stunning impact on the Catholic Church, the hopes he has raised, and the legacy he will leave behind.

In feisty prose Donohue explores our nation where a college student is threatened with expulsion because she prayed on campus, a civil rights organization protests a statue of Jesus found on the ocean floor and a housewife sues a school district to stop the singing of Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer at a school choral production. These are just a few examples cited that demonstrate a culture descending into madness.

David Headley, the American Pakistani also known as Daood Gilani, lived a double life. One day he would stroll through Central Park in his tailored Armani suit as a true New Yorker, and the next he would browse in the bazaar in Lahore wearing traditional Pakistani clothes. One day he would drink champagne at the most extravagant clubs; on another he would prostrate himself in prayer in remote Pakistan and pledge fidelity to Allah.

This provocative audiobook addresses one of the most enduring puzzles in political philosophy and constitutional theory - why is religion singled out for preferential treatment in both law and public discourse? Why, for example, can a religious soup kitchen get an exemption from zoning laws in order to expand its facilities to better serve the needy, while a secular soup kitchen with the same goal cannot?

An inspired and original compilation for the 2016 election year, God Is in the House is a collection of essays by members of Congress who reflect on their deep faith and how it guides them as legislators. Compiled by Representative Virginia Foxx, who personally asked for contributions from congressional colleagues and coworkers, God Is in the House features essays from 18 members of Congress from both political parties, representing 11 faiths and denominations.

The Obama administration’s overreaching and pervasive secularist policies represent the greatest government-directed assault on religious freedom in American history. So argues conservative movement leader Phyllis Schlafly and journalist George Neumayr. In No Higher Power, Schlafly and Neumayr show how Obama is waging war on our religious liberties and actively working to create one nation under him rather than one nation under God.

In 2009, the Good News Club came to the public elementary school where journalist Katherine Stewart sent her children. The Club, which is sponsored by the Child Evangelism Fellowship, bills itself as an after-school program of "Bible study." But Stewart soon discovered that the Club's real mission is to convert children to fundamentalist Christianity and encourage them to proselytize to their "unchurched" peers, all the while promoting the natural but false impression among the children that its activities are endorsed by the school.

In The Liberty Threat, James Tonkowich explores the history of Christian philosophy from the Church's infancy through the birth of America and how it influenced religious liberty. With powerful examples fresh from today's courts, Tonkowich illustrates just how the rigid separation of Church and state has created a world that is hostile to true faith. The Liberty Threat is both a chilling wake-up call and a clear call to action for Christians everywhere.

An eye-opening and hard-hitting work, When Religion is an Addiction not only puts the political activities of the right-wing in a new perspective, but explains how liberal responses have often enabled religious addiction to thrive. Dr. Minor applies contemporary understandings of addictions to the extreme Christian right-wing in the United States and concludes that for them religion is functioning as a process addiction. Crucial to the addictiveness of such religion is its obsession with human depravity, the ultimate expression of low self-worth.

Before September 11, 2001, one terrorist group had killed more Americans than any other: Hezbollah, the “Party of God.” Today it remains potentially more dangerous than even al Qaeda. Yet little has been known about its inner workings, past successes, and future plans–until now.

In Stop the Islamization of America, the renowned activist Pamela Geller lays bare the chilling details of the Muslim Brotherhood's strategy of steady subversion and erosion of our freedoms, while offering a practical guide for how to fight back.

The recent powerful wave of Middle East uprisings has fueled both hope and trepidation in the region and around the world as the ultimate fate - and fallout - of the Arab Spring continue to hang in the balance. Born and raised as a Muslim in Egypt and now living in the United States, Nonie Darwish brings an informed perspective to this carefully considered assessment of the potential outcome of the revolutions in the Middle East. This thought-provoking book will add to the ongoing debate on what the future holds.

Writing in an engaging, accessible style, philosopher and lawyer Ronald A. Lindsay develops a tightly crafted argument for secularism - specifically, that in a religiously pluralistic society, a robust, thoroughgoing secularism is the only reliable means of preserving meaningful democracy and rights of conscience.