Professor Charles Haycock is dead from a hearty dose of his own heart medication. The mystery is not why Haycock was murdered—very few could stomach the woman-hating prof—but who did the deed. Estelle "Woody" Woodhaven, a private investigator hired to find the killer, naturally enlists the help of that indefatigable amateur sleuth, Kate Fansler. Together, they start to pull at the loose ends of the very tangled Clifton College English Department. The list of suspects is longer than the freshman survey reading list. And as the women defuse the host of literary landmines set out for them, Woody suspects they're only scratching the surface of a very large and sinister plot. . . .
The Victorian crisis of faith has dominated discussions of religion and the Victorians. Stories are frequently told of prominent Victorians such as George Eliot losing their faith. This crisis is presented as demonstrating the intellectual weakness of Christianity as it was assaulted by new lines of thought such as Darwinism and biblical criticism. This study serves as a corrective to that narrative. It focuses on freethinking and Secularist leaders who came to faith. As sceptics, they had imbibed all the latest ideas that seemed to undermine faith; nevertheless, they went on to experience a crisis of doubt, and then to defend in their writings and lectures the intellectual cogency of Christianity. The Victorian crisis of doubt was surprisingly large. Telling this story serves to restore its true proportion and to reveal the intellectual strength of faith in the nineteenth century.
Despite the prevalence of religious belief in the United States (nearly 200 million Americans belong to 350,000 congregations), a growing minority (14 percent) of U.S. adults identify with no religion whatsoever. Journalist James A. Haught addresses the secular segment of American society in this interesting collection of incisive essays that give voice to honest doubts about religious beliefs. Taken together, Haught''s essays endorse the idea that freedom of religion must include freedom to doubt as well as to believe. Individually, the articles present many different reasons to doubt: - Intellectual integrity demands that we express doubts about beliefs for which there is no scientific evidence.- The historical record, past and present, shows that religion is often the cause of evils, from the Inquisition and the burning of witches to current terrorist violence committed in the name of religion.- Natural evils, such as the 2004 Asian tsunami and devastating diseases, should make any thoughtful person question whether an all-powerful and all-merciful God governs the universe.- The sheer number and diversity of often-conflicting belief systems raise serious doubts about the philosophical coherence of religion as an approach to finding the truth.- Scandals among the clergy undermine the credibility of religion as a sound basis for morality.Written in a straightforward conversational style that makes clear the many scientific, philosophical, and ethical difficulties that plague religion, Haught''s thought-provoking essays will appeal to atheists, agnostics, and anyone with questions about religion.
On first publication in the 1960s, "Honest to God" did more than instigate a passionate debate about the nature of Christian belief in a secular revolution. It epitomised the revolutionary mood of the era and articulated the anxieties of a generation.
Discover the heart of a Calvinist "seeker" and the surprising result of his quest for truth in this true-to-life dialogue based on years of actual accounts and reasoning from the Scriptures.
This is a thought-provoking book that deals with practical issues of the Christian faith. It illuminates a number of misconceptions based on social customs or traditions regarding grace, faith, salvation, judgment, and other basics of the Christian religion.
Is there a way to walk faithfully through doubt and come out the other side with a deeper love for Jesus, the church, and its tradition? Can we question our faith without losing it? Award-winning author, pastor, and professor A. J. Swoboda has witnessed many young people wrestle with their core Christian beliefs. Too often, what begins as a set of critical and important questions turns to resentment and faith abandonment. Unfortunately, the church has largely ignored its task of serving people along their journey of questioning. The local church must walk alongside those who are deconstructing their faith and show them how to reconstruct it. Drawing on his own experience of deconstruction, Swoboda offers tools to help emerging adults navigate their faith in a hostile landscape. Doubt is a part of our natural spiritual journey, says Swoboda, and deconstruction is a legitimate space to encounter the living God. After Doubt offers a hopeful, practical vision of spiritual formation for those in the process of faith deconstruction and those who serve them. Foreword by pastor and author John Mark Comer.
