Sociology Religion

What do Soul Cycle, gratitude journals, and tech breaks have in common? For ter Kuile, they offer rituals that create the foundation for our modern spiritual lives. Casper ter Kuile, a Harvard Divinity School fellow and cohost of the popular Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, explores how we can nourish our souls by transforming common, everyday practices - yoga, reading, walking the dog - into sacred rituals that can heal our crisis of social isolation and struggle to find purpose.

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.

Finding one's calling is not just about finding something we can do - it is about finding what we can't not do. "Let your life speak" is a time-honored Quaker admonition to live one's life as witness to the deepest truths one knows. But as Parker Palmer explains, those words can also mean "listen to your life, and let it tell you what your truth is."

A moving example of unconditional love in difficult times, the best-selling author of Tattoos on the Heart, Father Gregory Boyle, shares what three decades of working with gangs in Los Angeles has taught him about faith, compassion, and the enduring power of radical kinship.

In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind, into what it means to be human. The book is a master class in living, individually and collectively, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of a teaching faculty. Wisdom emerges through the raw materials of the everyday.

The Theft of America’s Soul is a prophetic wake-up call for all who desire to see our nation thrive, challenging listeners to exchange these 10 lies for truths that will bring peace of mind, harmony, and prosperity back to our country - an invitation to experience the life-giving, peace-filling, wholly-transforming love of God. Phil Robertson, patriarch of A&E’s Duck Dynasty and one of the most recognized voices of conservative Christianity in America, believes that little by little, America has allowed the lines of morality, decency, and virtue to be erased.

In the Muslim world, sex is permissible (or halal) only within the confines of marriage. Outside of wedlock, the act is considered haram, a sin of the faith. Girls are taught to protect their virginity; their mothers, if not forgoing “the talk” altogether, obscure the facts with elliptical language and metaphors.

Colin Dickey is on the trail of America's ghosts. Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes", Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places.

Religious involvement has been declining in the West for decades—and, though men have historically outnumbered women among the disaffiliated in the U.S., a greater share of the young adults leaving religion today are women. A young, secular Kelsey Osgood would have been surprised to hear that she would be among those moving in the opposite direction. And yet, after the conversion to Orthodox Judaism that transformed her life, she began to wonder about the other contemporary women who, like her, had been startled to find a home in organized religion.

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.

Death. It happens to everyone, yet most of us don't want to talk about this final chapter of existence. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde intimately understands this reticence and fear. The son of an undertaker, he hesitated to embrace the legacy of running his family's business. Yet he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones profoundly changed his faith and his perspective on death - and life itself.

This book is for everyone who has a father. And for all those who know what it's like to long for a father's blessing: his approval, affection, and attention. It's for anyone who's ever longed to hear your dad say, "I love you. I'm so proud of you." You may already know what it's like to live in the rays of such a blessing, to flourish in the marvelous light of a father's love. Yet, in this "fatherless generation", it's also likely you've never known the blessing of your earthly dad.

These are crazy times, people. We are more agitated than ever. We’re fighting. Wrestling with big issues. Less connected than ever to one another and to God. It’s a perfect storm: debilitating anxiety, crashing relationships, and forgetting what it feels like to, well, be human. In How to Human, author, speaker, and social-media personality Carlos Whittaker offers a fresh vision for becoming the best versions of ourselves. We can refuse to let disagreements define us. We can say no to becoming upset, rage-filled humans and say yes to fuller, happier lives.

With a scientific eye and an empathetic heart, the authors turn conventional perceptions about atheism on their head. They show that atheism need not be reactionary (against religion and God), but rather that it can offer a clear set of constructive principles to live by, which establish atheism as a positive worldview.

If you caught a glimpse of heaven, would you choose to comeback to life?

Investigative journalist Judy Bachrach has collected accounts of those who died and then returned to life with lucid, vivid memories of what occurred while they were dead, and the conclusions are astonishing. Clinical death - the moment when the heart stops beating and brain stem activity ceases - is not necessarily the end of consciousness, as a number of doctors are now beginning to concede.

R. Andrew Chesnut offers a fascinating portrayal of Santa Muerte, a skeleton saint whose cult has attracted millions of devotees over the past decade. Although condemned by mainstream churches, this folk saint's supernatural powers appeal to millions of Latin Americans and immigrants in the US. Devotees believe the Bony Lady (as she is affectionately called) to be the fastest and most effective miracle worker, and as such, her statuettes and paraphernalia outsell those of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Saint Jude, two other giants of Mexican religiosity.

In March of 1980, college senior Peter Panagore went ice climbing on the world-famous Lower Weeping Wall, along the Ice Fields Parkway in Alberta, Canada. His climbing partner was an experienced ice climber, but Panagore was a novice. On their descent, they became trapped on the side of the mountain. As the sun set, he was overcome by exhaustion and hypothermia. He died on the side of that mountain in 1980. In his minutes on the other side, he experienced hell, forgiveness, and unconditional love.

It's not your imagination: civilized human society is collapsing. Communities no longer work toward a common good; children are no longer our first priority; businesses no longer value hard work; arts and skills have been lost; and gender is decided by the individual, not biology. We cannot reverse national and global trends, says professor Anthony Esolen, but we can build communities that live up to humanity's promise and responsibility.

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.

The religious right taught America to misread the Bible. Christians have misused Scripture to consolidate power, stoke fears, and defend against enemies. But people who have been hurt by the attacks of Christian nationalism can help us rediscover God's vision for faith in public life. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove explores how religious culture wars have misrepresented Christianity at the expense of the poor, and how listening to marginalized communities can help us hear God's call to love and justice in the world.