Church Politics

In How to Liberate the World In 30 Days, Gordon Klingenschmitt equips you with 30 powerful political tools in a 30-day devotional. His 15 inspiring true stories of political victory prove the effectiveness of these methods. You don't even need to get elected to take back your government! By becoming the media, gathering petitions, building an army, and prayerfully fighting the right enemy, you can reverse bad laws and help establish the kingdom of God right now. And you just might get elected too.

In Essay 63, with characteristic wit and acuity, Don Watson takes us on a journey into the heart of the United States in the year 2016. Plunging into the apparent chaos of the presidential campaign and tracing America's recent past, he puts Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders in a larger frame. He considers the irresistible pull - for Americans - of American exceptionalism, and asks whether this creed is reaching its limit.

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?

We bring together these two books on Covid to look at it in a realistic way. Does it make sense to shut down the entire world for Covid? We don't think so! In the first book, we will attempt to answer some earnest questions which have arisen over the past year and a half during the Coronavirus "Pandemic".

In this short book, we will attempt to answer some earnest questions which have arisen over the past year and a half during the Coronavirus pandemic.

When conflicts become entrenched over generations, the language of war infiltrates everyday life, concealing destruction and hardening positions. Nowhere is this truer than in the Middle East. Award-winning author Raja Shehadeh explores the politics of language and the language of politics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, reflecting on the walls that they create - legal and cultural - that confine today's Palestinians just like the borders, checkpoints and so-called "Separation Barrier".

Success in life is not measured by the absence of difficulty. Success in life is overcoming the difficulties you face with dignity, and emerging with you integrity intact.

John Kasich calls it like he sees it. A former long-time U.S. congressman, a respected author, and popular television host, Kasich has been around the neighborhood a few times. In his first book, Courage Is Contagious, he celebrated the under-the-radar accomplishments of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to change America. Now, in Stand for Something, he tackles head-on the erosion of long-standing, hard-earned values upon which our nation is built.

Starting with the birth of Jesus Christ and ending with the Eastern Orthodox/Roman Catholic split, Catholicism: Nine Events That Shaped the Early Catholic Church takes a vast subject and breaks it down into easy-to-understand pieces that form a whole. By focusing on just nine events, we are able to dive deeply into relevant history and politics while still bringing you a short history that covers the major occurrences in the early period of an important institution.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

The Christian Church has no shortage of revered figures and saints, but it is difficult to find one that had a more decisive impact on the course of the Church's history than Augustine of Hippo. Augustine was a bishop of Hippo Regius in Africa, but his works, sermons and writings helped hold the Church together even as the Western Roman Empire was in its death throes, to the extent that every major branch of Christianity recognizes him today.

Are you interested in preserving the constitutional principle of church-state separation? Do you think a secular system is the only way to ensure freedom of religion and conscience for all? Do you want creationism out of classrooms, religious dogma out of health care, sectarian prayers out of government meetings, and taxpayer funding out of "faith-based" initiatives and programs that promote religious indoctrination? Think there's not much you can do about it? If so, as secular writer and activist Dan Arel demonstrates in word and deed, think again.

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.

The book is a personal memoir that contains candid and powerful chapters reflecting the plight of the 21st-century church throughout the African Diaspora. It also reflects testimonies of God's grace and redemption in the midst of holy confusion. The book is a collection of essays that examine the African American community from a religious, historical, cultural, and socioeconomic paradigm. It contains opinions and suggestions for dealing with church hurt and church fellowship, as well as a prophetic critique of church leadership.

Chaplains of the Militia is the extraordinary story of those priests accused of complicity in genocide. Chris McGreal takes us from Rwanda in 1994, where he stood among the bodies at one of the many massacres in churches, to modern day France in pursuit of a priest notorious during the genocide for wearing a gun and selecting victims for the machete-waving militia.

We are living in a dynamic moment. For most of history, Rip Van Winkle could take his 20-year nap and not miss much. But that is not true today. Can you imagine showing up for work tomorrow after a 20-year absence?

Being Black in America is not an easy task. Black people in America are faced with the task of surviving in a system predicated on the notion that Black people were less than human, policed and enforced by a system that is rooted in slavery and racism. All while trying to succeed in a capitalist society where we are discriminated against.

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.

The Book of Revelation was written by Jesus himself, through the Apostle John, in approximately 90-95 AD. John wrote down notes and detailed world events that would happen in his future. Many of those events, including the Beast in Revelation 13, have already come to pass, and much of it is upon us today.

Many Americans call themselves Christians, and say that America is a Christian nation. This book takes the Christian's own text - the Bible - and turns it against them, showing U.S. Christians that if America were indeed a "Christian nation," the evidence isn't there. Steve Dustcircle attacks the theocratic mentality point by point, using everything from the early Jewish civilization to the early Church, and uses that as a mirror against the ways America acts and thinks politically, spiritually, and intellectually.