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All listeners, atheist, agnostic or theist, will discover much of interest in Steiner's brilliant prose. The influence of Mystery Wisdom on thinkers such as Plato, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras is brought to life as Steiner explains how the initiate of the Mystery temples, such as those at Eleusis, ten miles from Athens, learnt to differentiate between mere knowledge and a wisdom that went beyond the transitory, phenomenal world of appearance to noumenal reality.

The Epistle of Barnabas is commonly categorized among the Apostolic Fathers alongside the writings of St. Clement, St. Ignatius, and St. Polycarp. This epistle can be dated near the end of the first century and was considered important by many of the early church fathers. It was most likely written to new Jewish believers in response to the growing heresy that the Old Law was still necessary for salvation.

Often seen as the author of timeless Christian theology, Paul himself heatedly maintained that he lived and worked in history's closing hours. His letters propel his listeners into two ancient worlds, one Jewish, one pagan. The first was incandescent with apocalyptic hopes, expecting God through his messiah to fulfill his ancient promises of redemption to Israel. The second teemed with ancient actors, not only human but also divine: angry superhuman forces, jealous demons, and hostile cosmic gods.

Embark on an extraordinary journey through time and legend as you delve into the captivating Kebra Nagast, the illustrious Ethiopian text that weaves together the threads of Solomonic bloodline, political power, and spiritual legacy. This is more than a book; it's a portal into a rich tapestry of history, belief, and intrigue.

Embark on a worldwide journey with renowned scholar of comparative religion, Jacob Needleman, as he gathers together ancient texts and writings of the modern practitioners of essential Christianity. Needleman demonstrates that a more effective, contemplative tradition existed in the early church and continues today in the lives of extraordinary people whose stories he retells in the course of his own personal explorations into the realms of the spirit.

For the hermits and communal monks of antiquity, the desert was a place to flee the cacophony of ordinary life in order to hear and contemplate the voice of God. But these monks discovered something surprising in their harsh desert surroundings: far from empty and silent, the desert is richly reverberant. Sonorous Desert shares the stories and sayings of these ancient spiritual seekers, tracing how the ambient sounds of wind, thunder, water, and animals shaped the emergence and development of early Christian monasticism.

This book attempts to explore the military lives of Moses, the Buddha, and Muhammad, and the role their war experiences played in their religious lives.

How should one speak to God? Are our prayers more likely to be heard if we offer them quietly at home or loudly in church? How can we really know if God is listening? From the earliest days, Christians have struggled with these questions. Their varied answers have defined the boundaries of Christian faith and established the language of our most intimate appeals for guidance or forgiveness. MacCulloch shows how Jesus chose to emphasize silence as an essential part of his message and how silence shaped the great medieval monastic communities of Europe.

The most profound characteristic of Western Europe in the Middle Ages was its cultural and religious unity, a unity secured by a common alignment with the Pope in Rome and a common language - Latin - for worship and scholarship. The Reformation shattered that unity, and the consequences are still with us today.

In the history of the Moody Bible Institute, founded in 1886 by shoe salesman turned revivalist Dwight Lyman Moody, Timothy Gloege finds an answer to why Christian ethics seem to go hand in hand with free-market capitalism.

The book that you have found is not just a book. It is a treasure that has been virtually hidden and forgotten for over 100 years. The Welsh revival is one of the most famous and impactful revivals in modern history. However, there has been very little written on it by actual eyewitnesses because of the belief that no person should take any credit for what happened.

American history has profoundly shaped, and been shaped by, Christianity. This engaging introduction provides a brisk and lively yet deeply researched survey of these intertwined forces from the colonial period to the present. Elesha Coffman tells the story of Christianity in the United States by focusing on thirteen key events over four centuries of history. The turning points are as varied as the movements they track, including a naval battle, a revival, a schism, a court case, an outpouring of the Spirit, an act of terrorism, the election of a bishop, and the election of a president.

Trials have a way of changing us, for better or worse. They can humble us or harden us. They can make us run to God or away from him. Perhaps your trials have resulted in a closer walk with him, or maybe he seems far away. Often, God strengthens our faith through the witness of courageous Christians who’ve gone before us.

Only two years after Pope Pius IX’s election in 1846 had triggered great popular enthusiasm across Italy, the pope found himself a virtual prisoner in his own palace. The revolutions that swept through Europe and shook Rome threatened to end the popes’ thousand-year reign over the Papal States, if not the papacy itself. The resulting drama was rife with treachery, tragedy, and international power politics. David Kertzer, one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of Italy and the Vatican, brings this pivotal moment vividly to life.

The half century following the American Revolution witnessed the transformation of American Christianity. The passion for equality, says Hatch, brought about a crisis or religious authority in popular culture, introduced new and popular forms of theology, witnessed the rise of minority religious movements, reshaped preaching, singing, and publishing, and became a scriptural foundation for 19th century American individualism.

Orthodoxy is the dominant form of Christianity in Greece, Russia, parts of Eastern Europe, and the Balkans. Its practices are largely unfamiliar in the West and have remained essentially unchanged since the earliest days of the faith. This lucid introduction outlines the tenets, nature, and holy days of Orthodox belief with the Western listener in mind. It describes the physical church, especially icons, services, and common practices, and it offers advice to visitors on how to conduct themselves so that they are accepted and feel comfortable.

Rabbi Dalin explodes the resurrected, widely accepted, yet bankrupt smearing of Pope Pius XII, whom Jewish survivors of the Holocaust considered "a righteous gentile". With devastating scholarship and unblinking honesty, he sets the record straight in an audiobook that should shame haters of the pope, inspire conservative Christians, and sound a warning about the deep roots of Islamofascism.

Based on Pope Benedict XVI's weekly teaching on the relationship between Christ and the Church, this book tells the drama of Jesus' first disciples—his Apostles and their associates—and how they spread Jesus' message throughout the ancient world. Far from distorting the truth about Jesus of Nazareth, insists Pope Benedict, the early disciples remained faithful to it, even at the cost of their lives.

Perhaps no declaration incites more theological and moral outrage than a human's claim to be divine. Those who make this claim in ancient Jewish and Christian mythology are typically represented as the most hubristic and dangerous tyrants. Their horrible punishments are predictable and still serve as morality tales in religious communities today. But not all self-deifiers are saddled with pride and fated to fall.

With the publication of his two early works, Black Theology & Black Power (1969) and A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), James Cone emerged as one of the most creative and provocative theological voices in North America. His books offered a searing indictment of white theology and society and introduced a radical presentation of the Christian message of our time. Combining the visions of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Cone radically reappraised Christianity from the perspective of the oppressed black community in North America.