Outline : Learning how to live in today's new social and cultural environment will require examination, trial and error, and adaptation over time. But there are ways to live with integrity and follow Christ today, even in a negative world. Since a peak in church attendance in the mid-20th century, Christianity has been on a trajectory of decline in the United States. Once positive toward Christ…
George W. Bush has invited more analysis and controversy over the impact of religion on his presidency than perhaps any chief executive of the modern era. Opinion on Bush's religiosity is intensely divisive, with conservative evangelicals seeing him as a man of deep faith and principles and at the same time many progressives seeing the president as almost dangerously fanatical. This volume is a…
This book aspires to answer a relatively simple question: How did we get from John F. Kennedy’s eloquent speech at the Rice Hotel in Houston on September 12, 1960, in which he urged voters effectively to bracket a candidate’s faith out of their considerations when they entered the voting booth, to George W. Bush’s declaration on the eve of the 2000 Iowa precinct caucuses that Jesus was hi…
"In this masterful, stylish, and authoritative book, Michael Burleigh gives us an epic history of the battles over religion in modern Europe, examining the complex and often lethal ways in which politics and religion have interacted and influenced each other over the last two centuries. From the French Revolution to the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, Earthly Powers is a unique…
By championing the ideals of independence, evangelism, and conservatism, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has grown into the largest Protestant denomination in the country. The Convention's mass democratic form of church government, its influential annual meetings, and its sheer size have made it a barometer for Southern political and cultural shift. Its most recent shift has been starboar…
In contemporary American culture it has become commonplace to hear people on the street, and even politicians, arguing that government should not “legislate morality.”.........
In its heyday during the 1990s, neoliberalism bestrode the world like a colossus. It ate its way into the heart of the former Soviet bloc. It confronted countries of the global South with the new rules and conditions for their economic development. Showing itself to be a remarkably versatile creature, neoliberalism even charmed the post-Mao Chinese Communist Party cadres whose reformed ‘socia…
What has Washington to do with Jerusalem? In the raging debates about the relationship between religion and politics, no one has explored the religious benefits and challenges of public engagement for Christian believers – until now. This ground-breaking book defends and details Christian believers’ engagement in contemporary pluralistic public life, not from the perspective of some neutral…
What happens in a recession? How does money work? Why do we pay taxes? Economics affects every aspect of our lives, from how we get to work to where we spend our money-and big economic ideas continue to shape the world.
Written in plain English, The Economics Book is packed with short, pity explanations that cut through the jargon, step-by-step diagrams that untangle knotty theories, classic…
Sri Aurobindo explores the cycles of human development with an eye toward showing the underlying trend and impulsion in that development. He shows how humanity moves successively through various stages whereby different powers are developed and highlighted towards an ultimate integration and fulfillment of human destiny in an outflowing of our hidden spiritual nature in the diversity and vibran…
In this combative, controversial book, Terry Eagleton takes issue with the prejudice that Marxism is dead and done with. Taking ten of the most common objections to Marxism—that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on—he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx's own thought these assum…
Outline: "Unnoticed by most Westerners," Daniel Pipes wrote in 1995, referring to militant Islam, "war has been unilaterally declared on Europe and the United States." Pipes, director of the Philadelphia-based on Middle East Forum, was one of very few Americans to understand the significance of what to many appeared to be no more than isolated cases of violence. Long before September 11, 2001, …
Outline: A first-hand account of the struggle for power in today's middle east. God Has Ninety-nine Names is a gripping, authoritative account of the epic battle between modernity and militant Islam that is reshaping the Middle East. Judith Miller, a reporter who has covered the Middle East for twenty years, takes us inside the militant Islamic movements in ten countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, S…
Outline: Crescent and Dove delves into the intellectual heritage of Islam to discuss historical examples of addressing conflict of Islam and exploring the practical challenges of contemporary peacemaking in Arab countries, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia. These essays address both theory and practice, presenting possibilities for nonviolent interventions, peacemaking, the implementation o…
Outline: Whether it's terrorists in the Middle East who claim inspiration from Islam and express their hatred for the West, or the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, or the violence done by the religious extremists in the United States, it seems religion too often leads to lethal results. Charles Kimball, the author of When Religion Becomes Evil, builds on his bestselling book …
Outline: As a correspondence for Newsweek and The New York Times, Elaine Sciolino has had more experience covering Iran than any other American reporter. She was abroad the airplane that took Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran in 1979 and was there for the Iranian revolution, the hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq war, the rise of President Khatami, and the riots of the summer of 1999. In Persian…
Outline: Recent events in London, Madrid, and elsewhere all dramatically point to the growing presence of militant Islam in the West. In this timely and incisive analysis, Olivier Roy argues that the revival of Islam among Muslim populations over the last twenty years has been incorrectly perceived as a backlash against Westernization. Islam fundamentalism is not a single-note reaction against…
Overview: The Engaging Culture series is designed to help Christians respond with theological discernment to our contemporary culture. Each volume explores particular cultural expressions, seeking to discover God's presence in the world and to involve readers in sympathetic dialogue and active discipleship. These books encourage neither an uninformed rejection nor an uncritical embrace of cul…
Outline: This book responds to the crisis of American democracy as perceived by such diverse thinkers as Christopher Lasch, Michael Sandel, Mary Ann Glendon, and Robert Putnam. Despite their philosophical differences, these thinkers highlight a common theme: a decline in the institutions of civil society once hold to be the vital center of the American polity. In place of these institutions …
Outline: Interest in political theology has surged in recent years, and this accessible volume provides a focused overview of the field. Many are asking serious questions about religious faith in secular societies, the origin and function of democratic polities, worldwide economic challenges, the shift of Christianity's center of gravity to the global south, and anxieties related to bold and …
Outline: This book is a comprehensive resource for understanding modern political issues in light of Scripture. A virtual source - book for anyone who takes the Bible seriously, it provides a thoughtful, carefully reasoned analysis of over fity specific topics, including the following:
- Protection of life
- Marriage
- Family and children
- Economic issues & taxation
- The Environment
- …
Outline: This book is gripping, authoritative account of the epic battle between modernity and militant Islam that is reshaping the Middle East. The author, a reporter who has covered the Middle East for twenty years, takes us inside the militant Islamic movements in ten countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Iran. She shows that just as ther…
Outline: For too long, the advancement of democracy has been misunderstood as requiring the abandoment or privatization of Christianity and other religions. Religion, however, is not an isolable function that humans can marginalize or emphasize at will. The faiths, including the secular faiths, by which people live direct their lives and not only their modes of worship. Working within an Americ…
Overview: This collection of provocative essays by one of the world's most distinguished theologians deals with topic as diverse as the right to work, nuclear war, the Olympic Games, Lutheran and Reformed political thought, and the "common hope" of Judaism and Christianity - all within the framework of human rights. The author believes that the dignity of the human being is the source for all …
Overview: The author here argues that agapic love of God and neighbor is the perilously neglected civil virtue of our time - and that it must be considered even before justice and liberty in structuring political principles and policies. The author then explores what "political agapape" might look like when applied to such issues as the death penalty, same-sex marriage, and adoption.
Overview: This volume makes a distinctive contribution to our understanding of Mr Lee's legacy because it represents the first time the men and women who worked closely with him have come together to discuss his ideas. This resulting essays shed valuable light on Mr Lee's views on a range of topics including law and politics, society and economics, and governance and foreign affairs.
Overview: In this book, Lee drawns on that wealth of experience and depth of insight to offer his views on today's world and what it might look like in 20 years. This is no dry geopolitical treatise. Nor is it a thematic account of the twists and turns in global affairs. Instead, in this broad-sweep narrative that takes in America, China, Asia and Europe, he parses their society, probes the …