Showing titles in History

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.

Thoroughly researched with beautifully linked arguments, biographies, context and discussions, Needham provides a riveting text: balancing fact and understanding in the wisdom of experience. The book offers a wealth of knowledge for pastors, missionaries, students and professors as they pursue their own education into the response of Christians during the 18th century towards these shifts in the tides of the affairs of men.

For perspective on our own times and how we got here, it helps to listen to wise guides from other eras. In An Infinite Fountain of Light, the renowned American historian George Marsden illuminates the landscape with wisdom from one such mentor: Jonathan Edwards. Drawing on his deep expertise on Edwards and American culture, Marsden explains where Edwards stood within his historical context and sets forth key points of his complex thought.

The Apostolic Fathers is an important collection of writings revered by early Christians but not included in the final canon of the New Testament. Here a leading expert on these texts offers an authoritative contemporary translation, in the tradition of the magisterial Lightfoot version but thoroughly up-to-date.

Over 40,000 Frenchmen were executed for holding fast to the Catholic Faith and objecting to the worst excesses of the Committee of Public Safety. The bloodlust of the time staggers the imagination, and the campaign against the Church was as diabolical as it was cruel. Carroll captures the brutality of the period, but also the action of grace in the heroism of the Church, the saintliness of her martyrs and the dramatic conversion of Danton—an erstwhile leader of the uprising who landed in a death-battle with the forces he helped put in motion.

When Augustine handed over the leadership of his church in AD 426, his successor was so overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy that he declared, "The swan is silent", fearing the spiritual giant's voice would be lost in time. But for 1,600 years Augustine has not been silent - and neither have the men who faithfully trumpeted the cause of Christ after him. Their lives have inspired every generation of believers and should compel us to a greater passion for God.

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.

There's a Sheep in My Bathtub chronicles the adventures of the Hogan family as they try to follow God's leading into one of the world's most remote and mysterious enclaves. Disarmingly honest and charmingly humorous, their tale will thrill you and bring tears to your eyes. An intensely personal memoir, this book still manages to pack a powerful dose of missionary insight and biblical principles for seeing the Church explode into life among peoples that have never even heard of Jesus.

Many Christians today tend to view the story of medieval faith as a cautionary tale. Too often, they dismiss the Middle Ages as a period of corruption and decay in the church. They seem to assume that the church apostatized from true Christianity after it gained cultural influence in the time of Constantine, and that the faith was only later recovered by the 16th-century Reformers or even the 18th-century revivalists. As a result, the riches and wisdom of the medieval period have remained largely inaccessible to modern Protestants.

Garrison Keillor and Dan Johnson both grew up in the bosom of fundamentalism. Their shared love of the Bible and its stories led to this collaboration, which blends details from all the gospels into a single book-length story.

Over 500 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg and launched the Protestant Reformation. At least, that's what the legend says. In A World Ablaze, Craig Harline introduces us to the flesh-and-blood Martin Luther. Harline tells the riveting story of the first crucial years of the accidental crusade. Luther was a sometimes-cranky friar and professor who worried endlessly about the fate of his eternal soul. He sought answers in the Bible and the Church fathers, and what he found distressed him even more - the way many in the Church had come to understand salvation was profoundly wrong, thought Luther....

Christianity, its rise, progress, and influence on the human race must cause the deepest interest among thinking men.

“The Roman Church...[says] that the heretics they persecute are the church of wolves. But this is absurd, for the wolves have always pursued and killed the sheep, and today it would have to be the other way around for the sheep to be so mad as to bite, pursue, and kill the wolves, and for the wolves to be so patient as to let the sheep devour them!” – Excerpt from the alleged writings of the Cathars. Carcassonne today is the capital of the Aude department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France, about 58 miles from Toulouse. It lies by the “eastward bend” of the glittering cobalt waters of the River Aude, which serves as a barrier between the two towns of the city: the Cité and the Ville Basse. It is the old Cité that attracts most of Carcassonne's visitors (3 million of them each year), for it houses the historic fortress that looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale and supposedly became the muse behind the captivating castles featured in Walt Disney's acclaimed 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty. But this breathtaking town is so much more than just the perfect spot for wedding shoots and social media narcissism, for it is a place that oozes medieval history.

Buried around 340 AD, unearthed in 1945 and translated into English in 1959, this text has been studied, debated and analyzed by dozens of scholars and historians searching for clues about the meaning of these cryptic sayings of Jesus. In The Quantum Sayings of Jesus, author Keith Giles offers a look at the text from the perspective of non-duality and divine oneness. If true, these sayings may unlock the key to solving humanity’s greatest challenges and reveal the startling truth that all of us are connected in surprising ways.

Listen to the stories, histories, and legends of medieval knights and the groups to which they belonged. Some are more well known than others, although all of them played a role in history.

This study is a profound blessing for listeners seeking to understand the fascinating intersections between Kabbalah and Christianity. Triggered by a statement from Gershom Scholem regarding the prophetic revelations of Abraham Ben Samuel Abulafia, we delve into a world where unintentional similarities with Christian doctrine caused confusion among Abulafia's pupils, some of whom even accepted baptism.

Capitol Hill Baptist Church, located just blocks away from the center of American power, has a rich 150-year history. Its members have participated in significant world events, advocated for religious freedoms, and spoken out against the moral failings of the times. There's no doubt this church has had a unique impact on evangelicalism from a significant location. But these lively characters and their unique experiences only tell part of this engaging narrative.

The first major account of the American Civil War to give full weight to the central role played by religion, reframing the conflict through Abraham Lincoln’s contentious appeals to faith-based nationalism How did slavery figure in God’s plan? Was it the providential role of government to...

Spurgeon and the Poor is a fascinating study into the life and ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, exploring his understanding of the place of benevolence in the ministry of the local church. Alex DiPrima examines the way Spurgeon's belief that gospel preaching and soul-winning formed the church's mission informed his view of social concern as a compelling argument for its power.

How do we come by our worldviews and philosophies? What impact did Christianity have on the worldviews that are common to Western civilization? Why You Think the Way You Do traces the development of the worldviews that underpin the Western world. Professor and historian Glenn S. Sunshine...