Religious Ethics

Contemporary culture trivializes the "seven deadly sins," or vices, as if they have no serious moral or spiritual implications. Glittering Vices clears this misconception by exploring the traditional meanings of gluttony, sloth, lust, and others. It offers a brief history of how the vices were compiled and an eye-opening explication of how each sin manifests itself in various destructive behaviors. Listeners gain practical understanding of how the vices shape our culture today and how to correctly identify and eliminate the...patterns of sin in their own lives.

In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding. His starting point is moral intuition - the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right.

Can business activity in itself be morally good and pleasing to God? Sometimes business can seem so shady-manipulating the "bottom line", deceiving the consumer, or gaining promotions because of whom you know. But Wayne Grudem introduces a novel concept: business itself glorifies God when it is conducted in a way that imitates God's character and creation. He shows that all aspects of business,including ownership, profit, money, competition, and borrowing and lending, glorify God because they are reflective of God's nature.

In this explosive new book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a "moral landscape".

"If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?" And what of the suffering of animals, who neither deserve pain nor can be improved by it? The greatest Christian thinker of our time sets out to disentangle this knotty issue. With his signature wealth of compassion and insight, C. S. Lewis offers answers to these crucial questions and shares his hope and wisdom to help heal a world hungering for a true understanding of human nature.

Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends — yet no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of the self.

According to the establishment media, the intelligentsia, and our political chattering class, the greatest threat to American freedom lies in right-wing authoritarianism. We’ve heard that some 75 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump represent the rise of American fascism; that conservatives have allowed authoritarianism to bloom in their midst, creating a grave danger for the republic.

Western countries are ignorant of true Islamic values, says Nonie Darwish. Darwish is an Egyptian American, former Muslim human rights activist who is frustrated with mainstream America's talk of tolerance and assimilation. In Wholly Different, Darwish sets non-Muslims straight about tenets of Islam that are incompatible with free society.

Vaughan Roberts surveys the Christian worldview and seeks to apply these principles to the many complex questions surrounding assisted dying. This short book gives an overview and a starting point for constructive discussion as we seek to live in a world with different values and love, serve, and engage with the questions surrounding euthanasia.

Changing Our Mind has helped thousands of families and congregations carefully and compassionately rethink traditional religious teachings about full LGBTQ inclusion. With growing scientific evidence, our wider society has taken big steps, but too many religious families and communities have not kept up. Dr. David Gushee offers a powerful, inspiring message of hope and healing by helping Christians to return to Bible study, prayer, and reflection in a way that creates a vision for a more inclusive church.

What will the year 2084 hold for you - for your friends, for your family, and for our society? Are we doomed to the grim dystopia imagined in George Orwell's 1984? In 2084, scientist and philosopher John Lennox will introduce you to a kaleidoscope of ideas: the key developments in technological enhancement, bioengineering, and, in particular, artificial intelligence. You will discover the current capacity of AI, its advantages and disadvantages, the facts and the fiction, as well as potential future implications.

Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day powerful and fascinating. Weber's highly accessible style is just one of many reasons for his continuing popularity. The book contends that the Protestant ethic made possible and encouraged the development of capitalism in the West.

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success was a phenomenon that touched millions of lives. Its author, Deepak Chopra, received thousands of letters from parents who expressed the desire to convey the principles they had learned to their children, along with questions about how to do so.

Turning the other cheek does not mean standing by while the enemies of God dismantle Christian civilization and brainwash our children. Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle. An attenuated and unbiblical “faith” based on what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” has sapped the spiritual vitality of millions of Americans. Paying lip service to an insipid “evangelism,” they shrink from combating the evils of our time. Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity.

The great fourth-century church father Basil of Caesarea once observed that, in his time, most Christians believed that hell was not everlasting, and that all would eventually attain salvation. But today, this view is no longer prevalent within Christian communities. In this momentous book, David Bentley Hart makes the case that nearly two millennia of dogmatic tradition have misled readers on the crucial matter of universal salvation.

Christianity is more than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is also a worldview that answers life's basic questions and shows us how we should live as a result of those answers. How Now Shall We Live? equips Christians to confront false worldviews and live redemptively in contemporary culture.

Throughout the twentieth century, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was regarded as an important sociological and economic text, continuing into the twenty-first century, when extreme capitalism has continued to come under fire. Weber's work provided a history, from where the profit motive could be ethically justified. Max Weber combined his interests in sociology, political economy and history to give perspective to his analysis. Concentrating principally on the experience of the West, he returned to the time when religion, its concepts and practice, dominated society.

In this timely and important audiobook, one of the most trusted and admired writers on the world of faith examines the meaning of Scripture. The sacred texts have been co-opted by fundamentalists, who insist that they must be taken literally, and by others who interpret Scripture to bolster their own prejudices. These texts are seen to prescribe ethical norms and codes of behavior that are divinely ordained: They are believed to contain eternal truths. But as Karen Armstrong shows, such a narrow, peculiar reading of Scripture is a relatively recent, modern phenomenon.

All Christians read the Bible differently, pray differently, value their traditions differently, and give different weight to individual and corporate judgment. These differences are the basis of conflict. The question Christian ethics must answer, then, is, "What does the good life look like in the context of conflict?"

Julian Barnes' new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on morality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and homage to the French writer Jules Renard. Though he warns us that 'this is not my autobiography', the result is a tour of the mind of one of our most brilliant writers.