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The evangelical movement began in the revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, known in America as the Great Awakenings. A populist rebellion against the established churches, it became the dominant religious force in the country. During the nineteenth century, white evangelicals split apart dramatically, first North versus South, and then at the end of the century, modernist versus fundamentalist. After World War II, Billy Graham, the...
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On Monday morning, October 2, 2006, a gunman entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. In front of twenty-five horrified pupils, thirty-two-year-old Charles Roberts ordered the boys and the teacher to leave. After tying the legs of the ten remaining girls, Roberts prepared to shoot them execution with an automatic rifle and four hundred rounds of ammunition that he brought for the task. The oldest hostage, a thirteen-year-old,...
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Founder of the lifestyle website TheChicSite.com and CEO of her own media company, Rachel Hollis has created an online fan base by sharing tips for living a better life while fearlessly revealing the messiness of her own. Each chapter begins with a specific lie Hollis once believed that left her feeling overwhelmed, unworthy, or ready to give up. As a working mother, a former foster parent, and a woman who has dealt with insecurities about her body...
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Very short introductions volume 14
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This Very Short Introduction looks at the importance accorded to the Bible by different communities and cultures and attempts to explain why it has generated such a rich variety of uses and interpretations. It explores how the Bible was written, the development of the canon, the role of Biblical criticism, the appropriation of the Bible in high and popular culture, and its use for political ends.
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From one of the 20th century's best-loved Christian writers comes this extraordinary spiritual testament. Thomas Merton was a man who experienced life to its fullest in the world before entering a Trappist monastery. In this memoir, he recounts his spiritual quest, one that led to his conversion to Catholicism.
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Very short introductions volume 201
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Paul Foster offers a clear and concise account of the apocryphal gospels. Exploring their origins, discovery and interpretation, and examining controversies and case-studies, this title shows how the texts can offer us an important window on the vibrant and multi-faceted face of early Christianity.
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Very short introductions volume 229
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As ancient literature and a cornerstone of the Christian faith, the New Testament has exerted a powerful religious and cultural impact. But how much do we really know about its origins?
In this concise, engaging book, noted New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson takes listeners on a journey back to the time of the early Roman Empire, when the New Testament was written in ordinary Greek (koine) by the first Christians. The author explains how...
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Very short introductions volume 168
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The words, phrases, and stories of the New Testament permeate the English language. Indeed, this relatively small group of twenty-seven works, written during the height of the Roman Empire, not only helped create and sustain a vast world religion, but also have been integral to the larger cultural dynamics of the West, above and beyond particular religious expressions.
Unique among books that examine the Bible as literature, this brilliantly compact...
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Chronicling six years of Thomas Merton's life in a Trappist monastery, The Sign of Jonas takes us through his day-to-day experiences at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, where he lived in silence and prayer for much of his life.
Concluding with the account of Merton's ordination as a priest, this diary documents his growing acceptance of his vocation-and the greater meaning he found within his private world of contemplation.
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Very short introductions volume 42
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Missionary, theologian, and religious genius, Paul is one of the most powerful human personalities in the history of the Church. E. P. Sanders, an influential Pauline scholar, analyzes the fundamental beliefs and vigorous contradictions in Paul's thought, discovering a philosophy that is less of a monolithic system than the apostle's convictions would seem to suggest.
This volume offers an incisive summation of Paul's career, as well as his role...
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To many in the West, Orthodoxy remains shrouded in mystery, an exotic and foreign religion that survived in the East following the Great Schism of 1054 that split the Christian world into two camps-Catholic and Orthodox. However, as the second largest Christian denomination, Orthodox Christianity is anything but foreign to the nearly 300 million worshippers who practice it. For them, Orthodoxy is a living, breathing reality; a way of being Christian...
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Very short introductions volume 686
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The Virgin Mary - a Jewish mother - is central to Christianity, a revered woman in Islam, and a person of persistent fascination for centuries. Marian worship and theology has inspired countless appearances in art, as well as religious philosophy and doctrine, while the concept of the Virgin herself has been involved in controversial discussions over the Virginal body, race, anti-Semitism, and globalism. This Very Short Introduction describes the...
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Very short introductions volume 725
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The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), or Vatican II, is arguably the most significant event in the life of the Catholic Church since the Reformation. The Council initiated, intentionally or not, profound changes not simply within Catholic theology, but in the religious, social, and moral lives of the world's billion Catholics. It also reconfigured, intellectually and practically, the Church's engagements with those outside of it-most obviously with...