Religious Theology

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most influential spiritual texts of ancient India. In Perennial Psychology of the Bhagavad Gita, Swami Rama makes this classic scripture accessible to all students by vividly drawing out the psychological concepts found within. The teachings in this book are based on the understanding that the outside world can be mastered only when one’s inner potentials are systematically explored and realized.

In 1975, two centuries after her birth, Pope Paul VI canonized Elizabeth Ann Seton, making her the first saint to be a native-born citizen of the US in the Roman Catholic Church. Hers was an exemplary early American life of struggle, ambition, questioning, and faith, and in this flowing biography, Catherine O'Donnell has given Seton her due.

In contrast to the oppressive Roman military occupation of the first century, Crossan examines the meaning of the non-violent Kingdom of God prophesized by Jesus and the equality advocated by Paul to the early Christian churches. Crossan contrasts these messages of peace with the misinterpreted apocalyptic vision from the Book of Revelation, which has been misrepresented by modern right-wing theologians and televangelists to justify US military actions in the Middle East.

In March 2015, millions worldwide were captivated by news reports of the dramatic rescue of an 18-month-old girl, Lily Groesbeck, who'd somehow survived 14 hours in an overturned car partially submerged in an icy-cold Utah river after her mother apparently lost control of the vehicle. A voice the four responding officers assumed was the child's mother still trapped inside spurred them on: "Help me, help me." Yet once the two victims were recovered, it was clear that the voice could not have come from Lily's mother: She'd been killed on impact.

For decades, Kathie Lee has had deep conversations about her faith with anyone who is interested in talking about it. What she discovered early on is most people are very willing to talk about Jesus: atheists, agnostics, Scientologists, Jews, broken-hearted Catholics, confused Baptists, Pentecostals, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Hindus alike. While some of the people Kathie Lee has spoken with do not share her belief that Jesus is the Messiah - as prophesied for centuries by prophets in the Hebrew scriptures - they nonetheless have a universal fascination with him.

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.

Origen (c. 185-c. 253) was the most influential Christian theologian before Augustine, the founder of Biblical study as a serious discipline in the Christian tradition, and a figure with immense influence on the development of Christian spirituality. This volume presents a comprehensive and accessible insight into Origen's life and writings, written and compiled by Joseph W. Trigg, a leading Origen authority. An introduction analyzes the principal influences that formed him as a Christian and as a thinker.

Most of us take it for granted. We just do it—whether it's trusting that the sun will come up tomorrow, that the lunch we are about to eat is not poisoned or that our religious beliefs are not ill-founded. But why should we believe any of these things? Why should anyone believe anything at all? With insight and humor, James W. Sire examines the reasons people give for believing what they do and suggests what are truly satisfying and compelling reasons for belief. He then turns to the question of a specific belief—namely, belief that the Christian faith is true.

Author David K. Bernard discusses the interpretation of scripture, addressing questions such as the following: How can we interpret the Bible properly? Is there a distinctive Apostolic Pentecostal approach to reading scripture? How should the Bible be used in preaching, teaching, and personal study? How do we apply the Bible's message to our lives?

Dan Brown's immensely popular New York Times best-selling The Da Vinci Code is one of the most successful books of recent history. It has captivated millions the world over with its enthralling suspense and its provocative questions about the true nature of Jesus' life.

In the courtroom, lawyers depend on rules of evidence to make their arguments. A case is made by establishing certain facts from which proof can be determined. But what happens when the truth seems to be a matter of faith? Can the legal mind discern the validity of one's belief or unbelief? Nationally recognized trial lawyer Mark Lanier turns his analytical mind to the arguments for atheism and agnosticism.

What does Plato have to do with the Christian faith? Quite a bit, it turns out. In ways that might surprise us, Christians throughout the history of the church and even today have inherited aspects of the ancient Greek philosophy of Plato, who was both Socrates's student and Aristotle's teacher. To help us understand the influence of Platonic thought on the Christian faith, Louis Markos offers careful readings of some of Plato's best-known texts and then traces the ways that his work shaped the faith of some of Christianity's most beloved theologians.

A dazzling and uplifting biography of the great Saint Francis of Assisi who gained the world by giving up worldly goods to be be independent of all. Less is more at the highest level. Told in a remarkably astute, nuanced, optimistic, uplifting biography by G. K. Chesterton, known as the Prince of Paradox.

Why has Christianity, a religion premised upon neighborly love, failed in its attempts to heal social divisions? In this ambitious and wide-ranging work, Willie James Jennings delves deep into the late medieval soil in which the modern Christian imagination grew, to reveal how Christianity's highly refined process of socialization has inadvertently created and maintained segregated societies.

On November 22, 1963, three great men died within a few hours of each other: C. S. Lewis, John F. Kennedy, and Aldous Huxley. All three believed, in different ways, that death is not the end of human life. Suppose they were right, and suppose they met after death. How might the conversation go? Peter Kreeft imagines their discussion as a part of The Great Conversation that has been going on for centuries. Does human life have meaning? Is it possible to know about life after death? What if one could prove that Jesus was God?

Raised in a militant atheist family, Sy Garte fell in love with the factual world of science. He became a respected research biochemist with an anti-theistic worldview to bolster his work—and he had no intention of seeking a God he didn't believe in. That is, until the very science he loved led him to question the validity of an atheistic worldview.

In 2010, using a specialized robotic camera, authors Tabor and Jacobovici, working with archaeologists, geologists, and forensic anthropologists, explored a previously unexcavated tomb in Jerusalem from around the time of Jesus. They made a remarkable discovery. The tomb contained several ossuaries, or bone boxes, two of which were carved with an iconic image and a Greek inscription. Taken together, the image and the inscription constitute the earliest archaeological evidence of faith in Jesus’ resurrection.

In this accessible and engaging book, Ralph Wood shows us that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece is a deeply Christian work because it does not blink back the horrors of our terrible times but confronts them with startling honesty.

Discover a holistic, biblical vision of sex and gender that honors God and offers good news to the world.

In western post-Christian society, humans are thought of less like precious image bearers and more like commodities. The canary in the coal mine of this ideological shift is often women and children, which manifests itself in the seemingly built-in disdain towards motherhood and children for their lack of production of economically valuable goods. However, the risk of this utilitarian approach to human life is not just outside the church, but within those spaces as well.