Religion United States

Over the course of 14 novels, millions have fallen in love with the faith, encouragement, and wisdom that are at the very heart of Jan Karon's Mitford series. Now, for the first time, listeners will have the chance to walk with Father Tim through a collection of prayers, sermons, and inspirational passages that incorporates material from each of the novels. In addition, fans will get to hear directly from author Jan Karon, in a brand-new essay about her own personal journey in faith and the ways that the Mitford novels have impacted her.

“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind". So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism’s most respected historians. Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship.

They immigrated to America from Germany in the nineteenth century with names like Loeb, Sachs, Seligman, Lehman, Guggenheim, and Goldman. From tenements on the Lower East Side to Park Avenue mansions, this handful of Jewish families turned small businesses into imposing enterprises and amassed spectacular fortunes. But despite possessing breathtaking wealth that rivaled the Astors and Rockefellers, they were barred by the gentile establishment from the lofty realm of "the 400," a register of New York's most elite, because of their religion and humble backgrounds.

Did a race of giant humans once roam the Biblical lands, Europe and North America? Over 300 historical accounts of giant human skeletons are presented for the first time. Massive human skeletal remains, burial mound types, symbolism, etymology, numerology and ceremonial centers are compared in the Biblical Levant, the British Isles and the Ohio Valley with stunning similarities.

Here is the compelling narrative of the founding of America, told from a perspective that few people have ever heard. That perspective is the Sermon on the Mount. America's currency declares, "in God we trust". But did the American colonists truly trust in God in the founding of the United States? The product of nine years of research, this new work challenges much of what most of us learned in school about the founding of America and the American Revolution. Bercot's well-documented findings will surprise many people.

"Candy Jones" was the stage name of Jessica Wilcox who became famous as a model and "pinup girl" in the early 1940s. Her story seems too bizarre to be true. One of America's most famous models, brainwashed by the CIA? Yes, it is another example of truth being stranger than fiction. The story begins with Candy's wedding to Long John Nebel, New York's most successful radio talk-show host. During the wedding, and regularly thereafter, Candy's personality would seem to shift. She would suddenly change from her affable, self-effacing self to a brusque, aggressive "stranger".

Beginning in January 1692, Salem Village in colonial Massachusetts witnessed the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in early America. Villagers - mainly young women - suffered from unseen torments that caused them to writhe, shriek, and contort their bodies, complaining of pins stuck into their flesh and of being haunted by specters. Believing that they suffered from assaults by an invisible spirit, the community began a hunt to track down those responsible for the demonic work.

In the middle of the Ozzie and Harriet 1950s, the birth control pill became available and a maverick psychoanalytic institute, the Sullivan Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis, opened its doors in New York City. Its founders wanted to start a revolution, one grounded in ideals of creative expression, sexual liberation, and freedom from societal norms, and the revolution needed to begin at home.

Did Columbus believe that God called him west to undiscovered lands? Does American democracy owe its inception to the handful of Pilgrims that settled at Plymouth? If, indeed, there was a specific, divine call upon this nation, is it still valid today?

Willie Johnson. Granddaughter of a slave. Rejected by her father. Sold by her mother. Abused by her husband. How did a biracial woman become accepted to preach revivals in the Deep South and coast to coast during segregation and the Civil Rights movement. Listen to Through the Waters and learn how to rise above your obstacles from the inspiring life and ministry of Willie Johnson.

Sixty-six years among Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians on the 1883-1949 Winder River Reservation.

In Christian Slavery, Katharine Gerbner contends that religion was fundamental to the development of both slavery and race in the Protestant Atlantic world.

In 1765, 11 years before composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson bought a Qur'an. This marked only the beginning of his lifelong interest in Islam, and he would go on to acquire numerous books on Middle Eastern languages, history, and travel, taking extensive notes on Islam as it relates to English common law. Jefferson sought to understand Islam notwithstanding his personal disdain for the faith, a sentiment prevalent among his Protestant contemporaries in England and America.

Bible Nation tells the story of the Greens' rapid acquisition of an unparalleled collection of biblical antiquities; their creation of a closely controlled group of scholars to study and promote their collection; their efforts to place a Bible curriculum in public schools; and their construction of a $500 million Museum of the Bible near the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Bible Nation reveals how these seemingly disparate initiatives promote a very particular set of beliefs about the Bible - and raise serious ethical questions.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was not trying to start a movement. She was simply tired of the social injustice. Yet her simple act of courage started a chain of events that forever shaped the landscape of American race relations. Now, decades after her quiet defiance inspired the modern civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks' own words tell of her courageous life, her passion for freedom and equality, and her strong faith.

The history of the United States displays an uncanny pattern: At moments of crisis, when the odds against success seem overwhelming and disaster looks imminent, fate intervenes to provide deliverance and progress. Historians may categorize these incidents as happy accidents, callous crimes, or the products of brilliant leadership, but the most notable leaders of the past 400 years have identified this good fortune as something else - a reflection of divine providence.

Dr. John Dee and his polymath protégé Sir Francis Bacon were the most influential men in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, part of an elite group with invisible control throughout Europe. And, as Steven Sora reveals, not only were they key members of the Rosicrucians, they were the driving force behind England’s colonization of the New World and the eventual establishment of the United States. From Avalon in Newfoundland to New England to Pennsylvania and Virginia, Sora shows how Bacon and Dee’s Rosicrucian impact is felt throughout North America.

The Color of Compromise takes listeners on a historical journey: from America's early colonial days through slavery and the Civil War, covering the tragedy of Jim Crow laws and the victories of the Civil Rights era, to today's Black Lives Matter movement. Author Jemar Tisby reveals the obvious - and the far more subtle - ways the American church has compromised what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality.

The majority of Jewish immigrants who made their way to the United States between 1820 and 1924 arrived nearly penniless; yet today their descendants stand out as exceptionally successful. How can we explain their dramatic economic ascent? Have Jews been successful because of cultural factors distinct to them as a group, or because of the particular circumstances that they encountered in America?

Pastor Mike Mather arrived in Indianapolis thinking that he was going to serve the poor. But after his church’s community lost nine young men to violence in a few short months, Mather came to see that the poor didn’t need his help - he needed theirs. This is the story of how one church found abundance in a community of material poverty. Viewing people - not programs, finances, or service models - as their most valuable resource moved church members beyond their own walls and out into the streets, where they discovered folks rich in strength, talents, determination, and love.