Sociology Religion

"Forty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next 50 years," writes Sam Harris. "Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this...should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency."

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.

At the core of this book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism's violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism.

At a time in which some within the African American community are questioning the place of the Christian faith in the struggle for justice, New Testament scholar McCaulley argues that reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition is invaluable for connecting with a rich faith history and addressing the urgent issues of our times.

Written in a warm, personal style, Weber presents the characteristics of tender warriors - including learning to speak the language of women, watching out for what lies ahead, and keeping commitments - in an upfront, straightforward style that challenges readers to realize God's plan for men.

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.

What exactly are the weird and the eerie? In this new essay, Mark Fisher argues that some of the most haunting and anomalous fiction of the 20th century belongs to these two modes. The weird and the eerie are closely related but distinct modes, each possessing its own distinct properties. Both have often been associated with horror, yet this emphasis overlooks the aching fascination that such texts can exercise. The weird and the eerie both fundamentally concern the outside and the unknown, which are not intrinsically horrifying, even if they are always unsettling.

Lords of Chaos focuses on the scene surrounding the extreme heavy metal subgenre black metal in Norway in the early 1990s, with a focus on the string of church burnings and murders that occurred in the country around 1993.

Religion is at the heart of man’s societies. ‘For a long time,’ Durkheim writes early on in his book, ‘it has been known that the first systems of representations with which men have pictured to themselves the world and themselves were of religious origin.’ Durkheim decided to examine how and why this phenomenon functioned and evolved - by looking specifically at simple societies and their religions, rather than at religions in more complex or developed societies.

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.

After Phil Robertson quoted Scripture in an interview with a national magazine, his hit show, Duck Dynasty, put him on “indefinite hiatus.” Phil immediately knew what had happened: he had become a target of cancel culture. Since that time, Phil has spoken out against public shaming, strategic campaigns to get Bible-believing employees fired, and other tactics that are wreaking havoc in our society. In a deeply divided country, with so many bent on condemning and silencing others, Phil calls for us to carry out the unifying message of Jesus Christ.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sharing his more than three decades of research into the afterlife and paranormal phenomena, award-winning documentary filmmaker Daniel Drasin shows that the continuity of human consciousness beyond the physical body and after death constitutes a legitimate area of scientific inquiry and that it can be objectively demonstrated. Drasin begins by revealing how our belief in materialism—through its effects on our social norms, taboos, and even language—has deeply constrained our civilization’s understanding of the nature of space, time, life, death, and consciousness.

Is it possible to disagree politically and love unconditionally? The reaction of evangelicals to political and cultural shifts in recent years revealed what they value most. Lurking beneath our Bible-laced rhetoric, faith claims, books, and sermons is a relentless drive to WIN! But the church is not here to win. By every human measure, our Savior lost. On purpose. With a purpose. And we are his body. We are not in it to win anything. We are in it for something else entirely. That something else is what this book is about.

Something unimaginable occurred from 1764 to 1767 in the remote highlands of south-central France. For three years, a real-life monster, or monsters, ravaged the region, slaughtering by some accounts more than 100 people, mostly women and children, and inflicting severe injuries upon many others.

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.