Showing results by publisher "Highbridge Audio" in Religious Studies

Despite considerable press coverage and a lengthy trial, the full story of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints has remained largely untold. Only one man can reveal the whole, astounding truth: Sam Brower, the private investigator who devoted years of his life to breaking open the secret practices of the FLDS and bringing Warren Jeffs and his inner circle to justice.

We know a great deal about Muhammad—or so it seems. Islamic tradition contains an astonishing wealth of information about the founding figure of the Islamic faith, and most historians take for granted that this material is generally reliable. In his latest book, historian and Islamic scholar Robert Spencer shows that there is no agreement in the earliest Islamic sources about the most fundamental details of this towering figure's life. Muhammad takes a detailed look at the Islamic traditions regarding Muhammad and lays bare their contradictions, inconsistencies, and incoherence.

The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. In this powerful work, theologian James H. Cone explores these symbols and their interconnection in the history and souls of black folk.

The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities, Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity—or rather, of early Christianities—through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople.

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.

Long ago, on a spring morning in Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate passed judgment on a mysterious preacher. Jesus of Nazareth was nailed to a cross shortly after and died in agony. The effects of this verdict have reverberated throughout the world and have shaped two millennia of history. Even so, the trial remains shrouded in mystery to this day. Killing the Messiah determines why and how Pilate deemed Jesus guilty of criminal behavior and the roles played by various people in ensuring Jesus' crucifixion.

In his reflections on God, Jesus, suffering, and liberation, James H. Cone relates the gospel message to the experience of the Black community. But a wider theme of the book is the role that social and historical context plays in framing the questions we address to God as well as the mode of the answers provided.

August 25, 1943. A lone bicyclist transports a cache of explosives, hidden in a beer crate, to a Copenhagen hall being readied to house German troops. In a violent blast, the would-be barracks is reduced to rubble. It's the boldest act yet of Holger Danske and the growing Danish resistance combating the oppressiveness of Hitler's Reich. In 1940, on its way to conquering Western Europe, Germany coerced the Danish government into a "cooperative" agreement that lasted three long years until the increasing brazenness of the Resistance movement prompted a crackdown.

One of the most influential Roman perspectives on religion came from a nonreligious belief system that is finding new adherents even today: Stoicism. How did the Stoics think about religion? In How to Think About God, Philip Freeman presents vivid new translations of Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods and The Dream of Scipio. In these brief works, Cicero offers a Stoic view of belief, divinity, and human immortality, giving eloquent expression to the religious ideas of one of the most popular schools of Roman and Greek philosophy.

Daniel M. Jones founded the Church of Jediism in 2007 following the Jedi Census phenomenon of 2001; it now has over 500,000 members around the world. This is the book his fans have been waiting for. In it, Daniel outlines the Jedi perspective and provides practical tools for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of how to use the Force in everyday life.

Martin Luther was a controversial figure during his lifetime, eliciting strong emotions in friends and enemies alike, and his outsized persona has left an indelible mark on the world today. Living I Was Your Plague explores how Luther carefully crafted his own image and how he has been portrayed in his own times and ours, painting a unique portrait of the man who set in motion a revolution that sundered Western Christendom.

Judaism has survived for 3,500 years by embracing a few, some arguably paradoxical ideas: Life is hard. It also has the potential to be joyous. Every single human has a spark of something extraordinary in them. And every one of us should try to do 1 percent better. In The Jewish Way to a Good Life, straight-shooting Rabbi Shira Stutman distills thousands of years of Jewish wisdom into practical, time-tested strategies for living a more meaningful life. She reminds us: You don't have to be Jewish to do Jewish. And she tells us how.

Historian Philip Jenkins draws out the complex relationship between religion and climate change. He asserts that the religious movements and ideas that emerge from climate shocks often last for many decades, and even become a familiar part of the religious landscape. By stirring conflicts and provoking persecutions that defined themselves in religious terms, changes in climate have redrawn the world's religious maps, and created the global concentrations of believers as we know them today.

On July 2, 1822, Denmark Vesey, a formerly enslaved man, was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina. He was convicted of plotting what might have been the largest insurrection against slaveholders in US history. Witnesses claimed that Vesey appealed to numerous biblical texts to promote and justify the revolt.

Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the role that White Christian Nationalism plays in American society. As White Christian Nationalism has become a major force, and as racial and religious attitudes become increasingly aligned among whites-for example, the more likely you are to say that the decline of white people as a share of the population is "bad for society," the more likely you are to believe the government should support religious values-it has become reasonable to wonder which of the adjectives in the phrase "White Christian Nationalism" takes precedence.

For much of American history, evangelicalism was aligned with progressive political causes. nineteenth-century evangelicals fought for the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, and public education. But contemporary conservative activists have defaulted on this majestic legacy, embracing instead an agenda virtually indistinguishable from the Republican Party platform.

Racial Justice and the Catholic Church examines the presence of racism in America from its early history through the Civil Rights Movement and the election of Barack Obama. It also explores how Catholic social teaching has been used - and not used - to promote reconciliation and justice.

Before Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King was identified with Moses, African Americans identified those who challenged racial oppression in America with Samson. In Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper tell the story of how this biblical character became an icon of African American literature.

Though the Torah prohibits eating pig meat, it is not singled out more than other food prohibitions. The pig has become a symbol for people to signal their Jewishness, non-Jewishness, or rebellion from Judaism. Starting with the Hebrew Bible, Jordan D. Rosenblum historicizes the emergence of the pig as a key symbol of Jewish identity, from the Roman persecution of ancient rabbis, to the Spanish Inquisition, to Shakespeare's writings, to modern memoirs of those leaving Orthodox Judaism.

During the mid-seventeenth century, Anglo-American Protestants described Native American ceremonies as savage devilry, Islamic teaching as violent chicanery, and Catholicism as repugnant superstition. By the mid-eighteenth century, they would describe amicable debates between evangelical missionaries and Algonquian religious leaders about the moral appeal of Christianity, recount learned conversations between English merchants and Muslim scholars, and tell of encounters with hospitable and sincere priests in Catholic Canada and Europe. What explains this poignant shift?