Religious Biographies

Join Candace as she reflects on the self-discovery that came through leaping out of her comfort zone. Go behind the scenes and experience the highs and lows, the roadblocks, and the personal victories. Hear straight from her heart on tough lessons learned about grace, rejection, perfectionism, disappointment, accountability, dealing with criticism, and more. Through God’s strength, and with the help of endless support from her family and friends, see how Candace stayed true to herself and publicly lived out her faith in Christ all the way to the finale.

At one time, Corrie ten Boom would have laughed at the idea that she had a story to tell. For the first 50 years of her life, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to her. She was a spinster watchmaker living contentedly with her sister and their elderly father in the tiny house over their shop in Haarlem. Their uneventful days, as regulated as their own watches, revolved around their abiding love for one another. But with the Nazi invasion and occupation of Holland, everything changed....

Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles—a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.” A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.

The Apostle Paul was kind of a jerk. He was arrogant and stubborn. He called his opponents derogatory, racist names. He legitimized slavery and silenced women. He was a moralistic, homophobic killjoy who imposed his narrow religious views on others. Or was he? Randolph Richards and Brandon O'Brien explore the complicated persona and teachings of the Apostle Paul. Unpacking his personal history and cultural context, they show how Paul both offended Roman perspectives and scandalized Jewish sensibilities.

The revealing and inspiring memoir of a woman forced into polygamous marriage in FLDS Church and her brave struggle to protect others from the same fate. Rebecca Musser grew up in fear, concealing her family's polygamous lifestyle from the "dangerous" outside world. Covered head-to-toe in strict, modest clothing, she received a rigorous education at Alta Academy, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' school headed by Warren Jeffs.

Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status...and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader.

When she was 18 years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger - a man 32 years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn's heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church.

In this searing memoir of survival in the spirit of Stolen Innocence, the daughter of Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the FLDS Church, takes you deep inside the secretive polygamist Mormon fundamentalist cult run by her family and how she escaped it. Born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Rachel Jeffs was raised in a strict patriarchal culture defined by subordinate sister wives and men they must obey.

Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse—masked as godly discipline and divine love—and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.

What happens when one of America’s most beloved biographers writes his own biography? For five-time New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas, the answer is Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life - a soaring, lyrical, and often mischievous account of his early years, in which the astute Queens-born son of Greek and German immigrants struggles to make sense of a world in which he never quite seems to fit.

David Limbaugh has examined Jesus Christ's life, his divinity, and the prophecies that preceded him in the Old Testament. Now, the best-selling author picks up after the Gospels in a captivating study of Jesus Christ's legacy in the early church and the work of Saint Paul.

Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith.

Benedict XVI: A Life offers insight into the young life and rise through the Church’s ranks of a man who would become a hero and a lightning rod for Catholics the world over. Based on countless hours of interviews in Rome with Benedict himself, this two-volume biography is the definitive record of the life of Joseph Ratzinger and the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI. This first volume follows his early life, from his days growing up in Germany and his conscription into the Hitler Youth during WWII to his career as an academic theologian and eventual archbishop of Munich.

These hilarious essays on life inside and outside a Zen monastery make up the spiritual memoir of Shozan Jack Haubner, a Zen monk who didn’t really start out to be one. Raised in a conservative Catholic family, Shozan went on to study philosophy (becoming de-Catholicized in the process) and to pursue a career as a screenwriter and stand-up comic in the clubs of L.A. How he went from life in the fast lane to life on the stationary meditation cushion is the subject of this laugh-out-loud funny account of his experiences.

Billy Graham was born on a dairy farm in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1918 just days after the signing of the armistice that ended World War I. At the age of 16, Graham came to Christ during a Christian revival meeting, and it wasn't long before he felt the call to preach. With the help of his wife, Ruth, and many other friends and colleagues, Billy Graham set out to preach to the world. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was founded, and since that day, Graham preached to more than 80 million people in more than 185 countries.

This is the work that introduced Mother Teresa of Calcutta to the Western world. Malcolm Muggeridge paints a profound and moving portrait of a lady whose love for Christ and the needy has deeply impacted many a life - including the author’s. “For me,” says Muggeridge, "Mother Teresa of Calcutta embodies Christian love in action. Her face shines with the love of Christ on which her whole life is centered, and her words carry that message to a world which never needed it so much."

In this powerful book, the renowned exorcist of Rome tells of his many experiences in his ministry as an exorcist doing battle with Satan to relieve the great suffering of people in the grip of evil. The importance of the ministry to "expel demons" is clearly seen in the Gospels, from the actions of the Apostles, and from Church history. Fr. Amorth allows the listener to witness the activities of the exorcist, to experience what an exorcist sees and does.

From Harvard psychology professor Richard Alpert to psychedelic and spiritual icon, Ram Dass tells here, for the first time, the full arc of his remarkable life. Populated by a cast of luminaries, this intimate memoir chronicles Ram Dass’ life across nine decades of cultural and spiritual transformation that resonate with us to this day.

Prodigy Akiane Kramarik shares her artwork, poetry, and the fascinating story surrounding her talent. Growing up in a home with an atheistic mother and a non-participating Catholic father did not stop four-year-old Akiane Kramarik from finding God. This girl's dreams began a conversation in the home that has eventually brought them all to Christianity and the world's attention. Akiane: Her Life, Her Art, Her Poetry is a collection of the best of Akiane's full-color paintings and poetry created from ages 4 to 10.

Born into the factious world of war-torn Arabia, Muhammad's life is a gripping and inspiring story of one man's tireless fight for unity and peace. In a world where greed and injustice ruled, Muhammad created change by affecting hearts and minds. Just as the story of Jesus embodies the message of Christianity, Muhammad's life reveals the core of Islam. Deepak Chopra shares the life of Muhammad as never before, putting his teachings in a new light.