In this heart-rending true account, LeeAnn Taylor opens with an urgent prayer for death. With unrelenting honesty, she describes her harrowing battles raising three children with Fragile X syndrome and autism, the frightening episodes with her disabled sons, and the anguish of mothering these fragile children. When her ordeal escalates, she turns to death as her only escape. LeeAnn's story takes the reader deep into the heart of the human spirit. It is the luminous account of one woman's tragic descent into the darkness, and, ultimately, her triumphant emergence into the light of redeeming love. Chronicled by her own journal entries, The Fragile Face of God is a celebration of humanity-both the fragile and the sublime-and an intimate view into what makes our journey here one of purpose and eternal significance. Can our darkest hour give rise to miracles? Can departed loved ones intervene on our behalf? And can the most fragile among us light the way?
On a 2001 trip to the cathedrals of Europe, anthropologist John Rush and his wife entered St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice and encountered a mosaic depicting Jesus surrounded by mushrooms with an Amanita muscaria cap in his hand. Examining the space with new eyes, they discovered images of mushrooms and mind-altering plants all over the Basilica. Intrigued, Dr. Rush spent seven years researching and reflecting on the profound effects hallucinogens had on the founding of all three major Western religions. He concluded that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are political constructions evolving out of the use of not only Amanita muscaria, but a plethora of mind-altering substances.Failed God: Fractured Myth in a Fragile World re-examines the scriptural stories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as told in the Bible and Qur’an and reveals them as “concocted mythical charters stemming from drug-induced romps with the super-natural.” Rush shows how mind-altering substances played an instrumental role in the birth and development of Western religions and explains how they contributed to reports of “prophetic” experiences, including angry and disturbing messages from the divine. With chapters on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Rush fully addresses the effects of mind-altering substances on each tradition, convincingly discrediting the idea that they stem from actual human interaction with the divine. He also shows how an intoxicated and over-zealous Apostle Paul corrupted Jesus’s simple message of human decency, forming an oppressive religious system based on fear. In a thought-provoking conclusion, Rush asks how we can continue to attribute authority to traditions that were so clearly irrationally founded and incompatible with today’s world.
Oliver's study is rigorous and detailed but contemplative in its approach, examining the larger meanings of mankind's first adventures in "the heavens."
If you asked a millennial or younger person in your church, "What do I need to believe to be a Christian?" what would they say? At a time when "truth" is up for grabs, a journalist-turned-pastor wants to help believers understand what they believe. How? By using the simple lyrics "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." In this winsome book, bestselling author John S. Dickerson clearly and faithfully explains essential Christian beliefs, using simple stories that have resonated with his congregation of thousands. He guides readers into these basic beliefs, and most importantly, he illustrates why these beliefs matter. The result is an easy-to-read primer, designed for a time when Christianity is questioned and challenged. It is a great study for young adults, new believers, and long-time believers who want to reclaim the essentials. For anyone who wants their small group, church, or loved ones to embrace the authority of Scripture and the nonnegotiable doctrines of Christianity. "What does it mean to be a genuine Jesus follower in an age when most people, including many self-described Christians, believe that God is well-pleased with a life lived in alignment with a 'designer faith' of their own making? In Jesus Loves Me, John Dickerson answers that question with a deep dive into the simple but profound gospel that Jesus taught as the only kind of faith the Heavenly Father would be well-pleased with. As Dickerson points out, we can't be true Jesus followers if we don't know who He is or what He said and never bother to actually live like He told us to live. Whether you are a brand-new Jesus follower or a longtime veteran, this book will help you nail down the basics of what it means to genuinely know and follow Jesus."--Larry Osborne, author and pastor, North Coast Church "Most Christians would tell you they believe the Bible to be God's Word. And yet many of those same Christians could not even articulate what the core beliefs are to the Christian faith. In Jesus Loves Me, John Dickerson does a great job of helping believers understand the basic teachings of Scripture. This is a great resource for any Christian who needs to build a stronger foundation to their faith."--Steve Poe, lead pastor of Northview Church, Carmel, Indiana
One of the signal features of our era is the re-emergence of the ‘sacred’ in all its different guises, from New Age paganism to the emerging religious sensitivity within cultural and political theory. The wager of Žižek’s The Fragile Absolute – published here with a new preface by the author – is that Christianity and Marxism can fight together against the contemporary onslought of vapid spiritualism. The revolutionary core of the Christian legacy is too precious to be left to the fundamentalists.
"The question of why God would allow pain and suffering in the world has vexed believers and nonbelievers forever. In Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Timothy Keller takes on this enduring issue and shows that there is meaning and reason behind pain and suffering, making a forceful and groundbreaking case that this essential part of the human experience can be overcome only by understanding our relationship with God. Using biblical wisdom and personal stories of overcoming adversity, Keller brings a much-needed, fresh viewpoint to this important issue."--Back cover
Combines professional insights along with the author's own experience and insights to speculate on how believers can make sense of their Christian faith when confronted with tragedy and suffering.
The first full-length feminist dialogue with Holocaust theory, theology and social history. Considers women's reactions to the holy in the camps at Auschwitz.
Does accepting the doctrine of biblical inspiration necessitate belief in biblical inerrancy? The Bible has always functioned authoritatively in the life of the church, but what exactly should that mean? Must it mean the Bible is without error in all historical details and ethical teachings? What should thoughtful Christians do with texts that propose God is pleased by human sacrifice or that God commanded Israel to commit acts of genocide? What about texts that contain historical errors or predictions that have gone unfulfilled long beyond their expiration dates? In The Human Faces of God, Thom Stark moves beyond notions of inerrancy in order to confront such problematic texts and open up a conversation about new ways they can be used in service of the church and its moral witness today. Readers looking for an academically informed yet accessible discussion of the Bible's thorniest texts will find a thought-provoking and indispensible resource in The Human Faces of God.
A New York Times Notable Book A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012 A bold approach to understanding the American evangelical experience from an anthropological and psychological perspective by one of the country's most prominent anthropologists. Through a series of intimate, illuminating interviews with various members of the Vineyard, an evangelical church with hundreds of congregations across the country, Tanya Luhrmann leaps into the heart of evangelical faith. Combined with scientific research that studies the effect that intensely practiced prayer can have on the mind, When God Talks Back examines how normal, sensible people—from college students to accountants to housewives, all functioning perfectly well within our society—can attest to having the signs and wonders of the supernatural become as quotidian and as ordinary as laundry. Astute, sensitive, and extraordinarily measured in its approach to the interface between science and religion, Luhrmann's book is sure to generate as much conversation as it will praise.
