Religion Social

Passed down through generations, the Slavic practice of magic, witchcraft, and sorcery is still alive and well in Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus, as well as the Balkans and the Baltic states. There are still witches who whisper upon tied knots to curse or heal, sorceresses who shapeshift into animals or household objects, magicians who cast spells for love or good fortune, and common folk who seek their aid for daily problems big and small. Natasha Helvin explores in detail the folk history and practice of Russian sorcery and Eastern Slavic magical rites.

For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy.

Viktor Frankl is known to millions of listeners as a psychotherapist who has transcended his field in his search for answers to the ultimate questions of life, death, and suffering. Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning explores the sometimes unconscious basic human desire for inspiration or revelation and illustrates how life can offer profound meaning at every turn.

This world has declared war on our children. Every day, on a multitude of battlefronts, Satan is deploying weapons of mass corruption against our children. Modern culture has been systematically designed with an agenda that is anti-God, anti-Christ, and anti-Scripture, intended to corrupt young and impressionable hearts and minds. Christian parents cannot simply float passively along with the drift of our culture. As God’s people, we need to teach our children God’s Word; give them wise and biblical guidance; and above all, show them our extravagant love.

What is the way forward for the church? Tragically, in recent years, Christians have gotten used to revelations of abuses of many kinds in our most respected churches―from Willow Creek to Harvest, from Southern Baptist pastors to Sovereign Grace churches. Respected author and theologian Scot McKnight and former Willow Creek member Laura Barringer wrote this book to paint a pathway forward for the church.

Alisa Childers never thought she would question her Christian faith. She was raised in a Christian home, where she had seen her mom and dad feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, and love the outcast. She had witnessed God at work and then had dedicated her own life to leading worship as part of the popular Christian band ZOEgirl. All that was deeply challenged when she met a progressive pastor who called himself a hopeful agnostic. Another Gospel? describes the intellectual journey Alisa took over several years as she wrestled with a series of questions.

En este libro el doctor Hawkins nos describe los estados emocionales del ser humano y explica el camino de ascenso desde la depresión y la ira hasta los estados de paz y alegría. Es el trabajo lúicido y genial de un hombre que ha sabido aunar la ciencia, era médico psiquiatra, con la conciencia, realizando una síntesis única que resulta muy aclaratoria para quienes entender el camino del desarrollo humano y el crecimiento personal. El doctor Hawkins es un hombre muy respetado en los círculos especializados y su trabajo recibió elogios de Madre Teresa de Calcuta.

In Happiness, Matthieu Ricard demonstrated that true happiness is not tied to fleeting moments or sensations, but is an enduring state of soul rooted in mindfulness and compassion for others. Now he turns his lens from the personal to the global, with a rousing argument that altruism - genuine concern for the well-being of others - could be the saving grace of the 21st century. It is, he believes, the vital thread that can answer the main challenges of our time.

Lies about marriage are rampant in our culture and the church. They’re killing marriages. But the corresponding truths can strengthen marriages and even save the most troubled relationships. In this audiobook, marriage experts Greg Smalley and Robert Paul identify the lies, explain how they work to destroy marriages, and reveal the truths that not only can improve marriages, but rescue those that are floundering.

Until now, we have been like sailors at sea without a compass to keep us on track in our journey toward truth and enlightenment. So we sometimes make mistakes when deciding which spiritual texts to live by, which political leaders have the most integrity, and which job, house, or even vitamins are for our highest good.

This is a highly comprehensive introduction to the Talmud, the age-old storehouse of Jewish wisdom. Bokser covers the long history of the Talmud, from its origin in the Babylonian exile, its growth through the five centuries after the Roman destruction of the Temple, and the later persecution of the Talmud. The book covers a number of high-level topics, including social ethics and personal morality, with numerous examples from the Talmud. Ben Zion Bokser was one of the major Conservative rabbis of America.

The church in the West is at a critical moment. While the Gospel is exploding throughout the global South, Western civilization faces militant assaults from aggressive secularism and radical Islam. Will the church resist the seductive shaping power of advanced modernity? More than ever Christians must resist the negative cultural forces of our day with fortitude and winsomeness. What is needed is followers of Christ who are willing to face reality without flinching and respond with a faithfulness that is unwavering.

Every Christian man is born into a sexual war. The enemy attacks the young, hoping to scar them permanently and leave them ruined. But your past is not enough to keep you from the enduringly clean life you want and deserve. Clean is a priceless, no-nonsense resource for every husband, father, brother, son, friend, pastor, and Christian leader on the front lines of this war. It is a soldier’s handbook for those ready to reclaim their homes, churches, and nations for the God who has built them to succeed.

Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the 16th century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces listeners to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.

This incisive history upends the complacency that confines anti-Judaism to the ideological extremes in the Western tradition. With deep learning and elegance, David Nirenberg shows how foundational anti-Judaism is to the history of the West. Questions of how we are Jewish and, more critically, how and why we are not have been churning within the Western imagination throughout its history. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; Christians and Muslims of every period; even the secularists of modernity have used Judaism in constructing their visions of the world.

In the late ’60s, a small group of elite American women convinced an overwhelming majority of the country that destroying the most fundamental of relationships - mother and child - was necessary for women to have productive and happy lives. The decay of the entire family, and almost overnight, our once pro-life culture became pro-lifestyle, embracing everything that felt good. Sixty million abortions later, women aren’t showing signs of health, happiness, and fulfillment.

Why You Think the Way You Do traces the development of the worldviews that underpin the Western world. Professor and historian Glenn S. Sunshine demonstrates the decisive impact that the growth of Christianity had in transforming the outlook of pagan Roman culture into one that—based on biblical concepts of humanity and its relationship with God—established virtually all the positive aspects of Western civilization.

Can God handle our hardest questions, biggest struggles, and secret doubts? We instinctively assume he cannot. We figure giving voice to those things will bring shame, rejection, and distance from him. But what if our hard questions don't need to function as an off-ramp from Christianity but can lead us closer to his heart? What if he is not afraid of our doubts but instead reveals himself in them? In Can I Say That?, Brenna Blain brings her voice to those who feel unsafe or unwelcome in the church, acknowledging the incongruity between the church's actions and believers' lived experiences.

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.

Written for those who were bewildered by the conflict between religion and scientific and philosophic ideas, The Guide for the Perplexed is concerned with finding a concord between the text of the Old Testament and its commentaries, and Aristotelian philosophy. After analyzing the ideas of the Old Testament, Maimonides examines other reconciliations of religion and philosophy like the Moslem rationalists and then offers his own resolution with Aristotelianism.