Sociology Religion

Here are the devastating revelations that triggered a crisis within the Catholic Church. Here is the truth about the scores of abusive priests who preyed upon innocent children and the cabal of senior church officials who covered up their crimes. Here is the trail of "hush money" that the Catholic Church secretly paid to buy victims' silence - deeds that left millions of the faithful in the US and around the world shocked, angry, and confused.

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.

Americans have been leaving their churches. Some drift away. Some stay home. And some have been searching for—and finding—more authentic ways to find and follow Jesus. This is the story of one such “radical outpost of Jesus followers” dedicated to service, the Sermon on the Mount, and working toward justice for all in this life, not just salvation for some in the next. Part of a little-known yet influential movement at the edge of American evangelicalism, Philadelphia’s Circle of Hope grew for forty years, planted four congregations, and then found itself in crisis.

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.

Past and present civilizations failed and fail for many reasons, but the number-one predictor of a civilization’s survival is its sense of religion—or lack thereof. So argues David Goldman in How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying Too). The strength of a civilization’s religion affects its purpose, its fertility rate, and ultimately, its fate, says Goldman—who then argues that, contrary to popular belief, Islamic countries are in the last throes of death while Christian America is in a position to flourish.

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.

In TechGnosis - a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword - Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah.

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.

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.

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.

How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.

In Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over, the authors craft Lalich’s original and groundbreaking research into an accessible and engaging book. The authors explore fundamental questions about human nature, human development, group dynamics, abuse and control, and triumphs of the human spirit.

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.

Taking America Back for God points to the phenomenon of "Christian nationalism," the belief that the United States is - and should be - a Christian nation. At its heart, Christian nationalism demands that we must preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone - Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women - recognizes their "proper" place in society.

In this magisterial work, leading cultural critic Mary Eberstadt delivers a powerful new theory about the decline of religion in the Western world. The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshalling an impressive array of research, Eberstadt shows that the reverse has also been true: the undermining of the family has further undermined Christianity itself.

As a child, Elias Chacour lived in a small Palestinian village in Galilee. When tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and nearly one million forced into refugee camps in 1948, Elias began a long struggle with how to respond. In Blood Brothers, he blends his riveting life story with historical research to reveal a little-known side of the Arab-Israeli conflict, touching on questions such as: What behind-the-scenes politics touched off the turmoil in the Middle East?

En France, comme dans de nombreuses régions du monde, des adolescentes et des jeunes femmes sont encore contraintes d’accepter pour époux un homme qu’elles n’ont ni choisi, ni parfois même rencontré. Au nom de l’intérêt des parents. Leila avait 21 ans lorsque ses parents l'ont forcée à épouser un homme de quinze ans son aîné. Le mariage est arrangé au Maroc et enregistré légalement en France. Son mari, cet homme qu’elle n’aime pas, va la frapper et tenter de la soumettre. Avec un courage inouï, Leila se bat contre le poids de la tradition, pour conserver sa liberté et sa dignité.

On January 18th, 1989, Don Piper died in a car accident. Ninety minutes later, after a preacher prayed over him, Piper came back to life with an extraordinary story. He'd been to heaven. So began the phenomenon of 90 Minutes in Heaven.

Excessive comparison and competition sap our energy and steal our joy. Our friends become our audience and judges, and our kids become part of our brand. Add social media's constant invitation to post and peruse, and it's no wonder that we're left exhausted, discontented, and lonely. Thankfully there is another way.

In 2012, 38-year-old Ian Thorson's search for spiritual transcendence ended in tragedy on a remote Arizona mountaintop. His wife, a woman anointed as a goddess by an eccentric Buddhist community, held him in her arms as he slowly died from dehydration and dysentery. For Scott Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years, Thorson's death was just the most recent iteration of an unspoken epidemic that connected intensive meditation and mental instability.