Religion Social

In 1979, a fiery preacher named Jane Whaley attracted a small group of followers with a promise that she could turn their lives around. In the years since, Whaley’s following has expanded to include thousands of congregants across three continents. Based on hundreds of interviews, secretly recorded conversations, and thousands of pages of documents, Pulitzer Prize winner Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr’s Broken Faith is a terrifying portrait life inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, and the harrowing account of one family who escaped after two decades.

Consciousness creates all material reality. Biological processes do not create consciousness. This conceptual breakthrough turns traditional scientific thinking upside down. In An End to Upside Down Thinking, Mark Gober traces his journey. He explores compelling scientific evidence from a diverse set of disciplines, ranging from psychic phenomena to near-death experiences to quantum physics and beyond.

As a teenager and young man, Justin Lee felt deeply torn. Nicknamed "God Boy" by his peers, he knew that he was called to a life in the evangelical Christian ministry. But Lee harbored a secret: He also knew that he was gay. In this groundbreaking book, Lee recalls the events - his coming out to his parents, his experiences with the "ex-gay" movement, and his in-depth study of the Bible - that led him, eventually, to self-acceptance. But more than just a memoir, Torn provides insightful, practical guidance for all committed Christians who wonder how to relate to gay friends or family members - or who struggle with their own sexuality.

This book is a three-part journey into the rabbit hole we call the nature of reality. Its ultimate destination is a plausible, living validation of transcendence. Each of its three parts is like a turn of a spiral, exploring recurring ideas through the prisms of religious myth, truth, and belief, respectively. With each turn, the book seeks to convey a more nuanced and complete understanding of the many facets of transcendence.

Drawing on the expertise of twenty-four renowned practitioners, this book features contemporary folk traditions from all over North America. Diverse as the landscapes they thrive on, these authentic practices will expand your worldview and inspire you to enrich your own spirituality. Explore the history, tools, and spiritual beliefs of many different paths of folk magic from Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

What exactly are the weird and the eerie? In this new essay, Mark Fisher argues that some of the most haunting and anomalous fiction of the 20th century belongs to these two modes. The weird and the eerie are closely related but distinct modes, each possessing its own distinct properties. Both have often been associated with horror, yet this emphasis overlooks the aching fascination that such texts can exercise. The weird and the eerie both fundamentally concern the outside and the unknown, which are not intrinsically horrifying, even if they are always unsettling.

In Love Your Lady Landscape, Lisa Lister takes us on a revelatory journey through the terrain of what it is to be a woman. It will move you into a fiercely loving and healing relationship with your body and teach you how to use its cycles and signs to create a life of vitality and fulfillment.

The religious turn to their faith to find meaning. But what about the many people who lead secular lives and are also hungry for meaning? What guides, what approaches are available to them? Distinguished philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly explain that a secular life charged with meaning is indeed within reach.

Dr. M. Scott Peck has inspired millions by combining the deepest insights of psychiatry with those of religion. In this second of a three volume audio series based on his best-selling book People of the Lie, Dr. Peck once again integrates religious teaching with the science of psychology as he offers hope for healing one of society's most persistent failings: human evil.

In 2013, just two years after the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military ousted the country's first democratically elected president - Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood - and subsequently led a brutal repression of the Islamist group. These bloody events echoed an older political rift: the splitting of nationalists and Islamists during the rule of Egyptian president and Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Fawaz Gerges, one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East, tells how the clash between pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism has shaped the history of the region.

Ramayana must rank as one of the most loved and revered books of all time. A part of India's ancient Vedas, it is a beautiful story of romance and adventure. It recounts the history of Rama, said be an incarnation of the Godhead, and his divine consort Sita. Filled with magic and mysticism, it entrances the listener and stirs deeply moving emotions. At the same time its profound spiritual messages leave one feeling uplifted and enriched. This is a novelization of the classic. It contains all the essential narrative of the original Sanskrit poem.

Overwhelmed. Do you wake up in the morning already feeling behind? Does the pressure of keeping it all together make you feel anxious and irritable? Tanya Dalton, CEO and productivity expert, offers you a liberating shift in perspective: Feeling overwhelmed isn't the result of having too much to do - it's from not knowing where to start. Doing less might seem counterintuitive, but doing less is more productive, because you’re concentrating on the work you actually want to be doing.

From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, this book traces the political intrigue and inner workings of the Catholic Church. Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this audiobook is about the church's accumulation of wealth and its byzantine entanglements with financial markets across the world.

This first new translation of Kierkegaard's masterwork in a generation brings an essential work of modern philosophy to vivid life. While the majority of Kierkegaard's work leading up to The Concept of Anxiety dealt with the intersection of faith and knowledge, here the renowned Danish philosopher turns to the perennial question of sin and guilt. First published in 1844, this concise treatise identified - long before Freud - anxiety as a deep-seated human state, one that embodies the endless struggle with our own spiritual identities.

To meet God, some of us must first walk with the devil. This brutally honest series of events is based on a real-life spiritual awakening of a living man. Listener beware. This book is full of shocking sexual situations, illicit drug use, and Jesus. "Fire and Ice: The Meth Bible" is the authority on the "ice game."

Tomorrow's God says, point blank, that humanity will soon recreate its experience of God in such a way that our experience of one another will be healed at last. You may agree or disagree with the contents of this audiobook, but you will never forget it.

For all the thousands of books that have been written about religion, few until this one have attempted to examine it scientifically: to ask why - and how - it has shaped so many lives so strongly. Is religion a product of blind evolutionary instinct or rational choice? Is it truly the best way to live a moral life? Ranging through biology, history, and psychology, Daniel C. Dennett charts religion’s evolution from “wild” folk belief to “domesticated” dogma.

This is the perfect introductory text for listeners who wonder what the works—rather than the myth—of Aleister Crowley are all about. Author Lon Milo DuQuette begins by dispatching some of the myths that have surrounded Crowley’s life and legend. He then explores the practice of rituals themselves, unpacking Crowley’s often opaque writing and offering his own commentary. Step by step, and in plain English, he presents a course of study with examples of rituals and explanations of their significance.

Italian folk magic is a beautiful, powerful, and effective magical tradition that is accessible to anyone who wants to learn it, including Italians who want to regain their magical heritage. Containing magical and religious rituals and prayers, this book explores divination techniques, crafting, blessing rituals, witchcraft, and, of course, the evil eye.

To the early Christians, hospitality was central to the gospel mission. This hospitality did not consist of entertaining neighbors, but welcoming the stranger, especially those who could not return the favor. Yet despite urgent need, hospitality has fallen by the wayside. Christine Pohl’s classic work, Making Room, first spoke to this issue in 1999. And it is just as relevant today, with the refugee crisis, the rise in homelessness, and growing loneliness and isolation.