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The Misunderstood God: the Lies Religion Tells Us About God
Hufford, Darin
"A good book is a good read. A great book forces you to actually put it down, go away, and digest what you just read because of how it messed with your heart or head. This is a great book!" (Drew Marshall, host of The Drew Marshall Show, Canada's most-listened-to spiritual talk show )
"Be ready to have your spiritual world rocked. Hufford takes us outside the traditional misunderstandings of God and shows us the Father Jesus constantly spoke about." (Wayne Jacobsen, collaborator on The Shack )
Good Without God: What a Billion Non-Religious People Do Believe
Greg Epstein
"An inspiring and provocative exploration of an alternative to traditional religion by the Humanist chaplain at Harvard University
With the current state of the economy, the ongoing wars that rage across the globe, and the unsettling changes to the earth's climate, questions about the role of God and religion in world affairs have never been more relevant or felt more powerfully. Many of us are searching for a place where we can find not only facts and scientific reason but also hope and the moral courage needed to overcome such challenges. For some, answers to the most challenging questions are found in the divine. For others, including the New Atheists, religion has no place in the world and is, in fact, an enemy.'
"But in Good Without God, Greg Epstein presents another, more balanced and inclusive response: Humanism. With a focus on the positive, he highlights humanity's potential for goodness and the ways in which Humanists lead lives of purpose and compassion. "Humanism can offer the sense of community we want and often need in good times and bad, as we celebrate marriages and the birth of our children, and as we care for those who are elderly or sick. In short, Humanism teaches us that we can lead good and moral lives without supernaturalism, without higher powers . . . without God.
"In this constructive response not only to his fellow atheists Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris but also to contemporary religious leaders such as Rick Warren and Jim Wallis, Epstein makes a bold claim for what nonbelievers do share and believe. At a time when the debate about morality rages more fiercely than ever-and when millions are searching for something they can put their faith in-Humanism offers a comfort and hope that affirms our ability to live ethical lives of personal fulfillment, aspiring together for the greater good of all."
Life After Death: the Evidence
Dinesh, D'Souza
"Unlike many books about the afterlife, Life after Death makes no appeal to religious faith, divine revelation, or sacred texts. Drawing on some of the most powerful theories and trends in physics, evolutionary biology, science, philosophy, and psychology, D Souza shows why the atheist critique of immortality is irrational and draws the striking conclusion that it is reasonable to believe in life after death. He concludes by showing how life after death can give depth and significance to this life, a path to happiness, and reason for hope." Amazon.com
Eternal Life: a New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell
John Shelby Spong
"In this challenging, intellectually rigorous culmination of his body of theological work, retired Episcopal bishop Spong (Jesus for the Non-Religious) provides a lucid historical analysis of the development of human religious thought from the onset of self-conscious awareness to the present, and a compelling argument for the creation of a new religious paradigm. Offering deeply personal reflections on his own Christian journey and priestly career, Spong reviews a lifetime of passionate engagement with biblical study and with questions of faith, charting his growing discomfort with language that seemed limited, falsifying and inadequate. Arguing that modern scientific understanding necessitates dismissing outdated metaphors and assumptions by which faith seeks to calm human anxiety, Spong suggests an understanding of God not as a person, but as the process that calls personhood into being. Spong's examination of the gospel resurrection accounts includes an intriguing interpretation of John's portrayal of Jesus as a being so courageously present that he was open to the ultimate reality of life, love and being. This work, bound to be influential, offers new insights into religion's big questions about life and death, making an invaluable contribution to both religious scholarship and faithful exploration. " Publishers Weekly
The Case for God
Karen Armstrong
"Karen Armstrong, in writing The Case for God, provides the reader with one of the very best theological works of our time. It brings a new understanding to the complex relationship between human existence and the transcendent nature of God. This is a book that is so well researched and so deep with insight and soaring scholarship that only Karen Armstrong could have written it. The Case for God should be required reading for anyone who claims to be a believer, an agnostic or an atheist."
-The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, D.D., Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, D.C.
"No one is better qualified or more needed than Karen Armstrong to enter the hot public debate between believers and non–believers over the existence of God. Her latest book, eagerly awaited and received, rings out with the qualities she brings to all of her work-The Case for God is lucid, learned, provocative, and illuminating. Indeed, Armstrong once again does what she always does best by shining a clear light on the deepest mysteries of the religious imagination."
-Jonathan Kirsch, author of The Harlot by the Side of the Road
"Celebrated religion scholar Armstrong creates more than a history of religion; she effectively demonstrates how the West (broadly speaking) has grappled with the existence of deity and captured the concept in words, art and ideas. . . . A brilliant examination. . . . [An] accessible, intriguing study of how we see God."
-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Good Book: the Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous and Inspiring Thanks I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible
David Plotz
"Like many Jews and Christians, David Plotz long assumed he knew what was in the Bible. He read parts of it as a child in Hebrew school, then at-tended a Christian high school where he studied the Old and New Testaments. Many of the highlights stuck with him-Adam and Eve, Cain versus Abel, Jacob versus Esau, Jonah versus whale, forty days and nights, ten plagues and commandments, twelve tribes and apostles, Red Sea walked under, Galilee walked on, bush into fire, rock into water, water into wine. And, of course, he absorbed from all around him other bits of the Bible-from stories he heard in churches and synagogues, in movies and on television, from his parents and teachers. But it wasn't until he picked up a Bible at a cousin's bat mitzvah-and became engrossed and horrified by a lesser-known story in Genesis-that he couldn't put it down. At a time when wars are fought over scriptural interpretation, when the influence of religion on American politics has never been greater, when many Americans still believe in the Bible's literal truth, it has never been more important to get to know the Bible. Good Book is what happens when a regular guy-an average Job-actually reads the book on which his religion, his culture, and his world are based. Along the way, he grapples with the most profound theological questions: How many commandments do we actually need? Does God prefer obedience or good deeds? And the most unexpected ones: Why are so many women in the Bible prostitutes? Why does God love bald men so much? Is Samson really that stupid? Good Book is an irreverent, enthralling journey through the world's most important work of literature." Book Description, Amazon.com
Conversations With C. S. Lewis: Imaginative Discussions About Life, Christianity and God
Robert Velarde
"Robert Velarde tells of an imaginative journey in which the literature professor mysteriously appears in Thomas Clerk's hospital room. "Call me Jack," Lewis says as he invites Clerk to step into a wardrobe. From there the two embark on a remarkable journey through Lewis's life. They experience pivotal events from Lewis's childhood and meet many of his real and imaginary friends. They visit the Kilns with his brother, Warnie, and spend time in Oxford with fellow writers and Inklings members J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. They also sit with Lewis's dying wife, Joy Davidman, and they even enter the world of Narnia. Along the way, Lewis challenges Clerk's thinking about the existence of God, the truth of Christianity, the problem of pain and suffering, the nature of love and much more. Are human beings a cosmic accident? Can we have morality without God? Was Jesus just a guru? Can we really believe in heaven and hell? Tom and Jack discuss these and many other questions, and they invite you to eavesdrop on their conversations. Prepare yourself for some of the most invigorating discussions you may ever experience this side of heaven." Amazon.com
Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back
Frank Schaeffer
"A brilliant book, a portrait of fundamentalism painted in broad strokes with streaks of nuance, the twinned coming-of-age story of Frank and the Christian right. But this story moves in more than one direction: both coming-of-age narratives are pulled against the current by the tragedy of Francis Schaeffer, a man who let his children, biological and ideological, guide him down a path from which he'd spent his whole life struggling to get off." Jeff Sharlet, New Statesman "Memoir obviously demands introspection, and Schaeffer doesn't hold back...Schaeffer describes a life that was by turns happy, difficult, idyllic, and completely nuts...He's a world-class storyteller...He can make us laugh, make us wince, and make us really think about things, all at the same time." Christianity Today's Books & Culture
On God: An Uncommon Conversation
Norman Mailer
"A towering figure in American literature, Norman Mailer has in recent years reached a new level of accessibility and power. His last novel, The Castle in the Forest, revealed fascinating ideas about faith and the nature of good and evil. Now Mailer offers his concept of the nature of God. His conversations with his friend and literary executor, Michael Lennon, show this writer at his most direct, provocative, and challenging. "I think," writes Mailer, "that piety is oppressive. It takes all the air out of thought." In moving, amusing, probing, and uncommon dialogues conducted over three years but whose topics he has considered for decades, Mailer establishes his own system of belief, one that rejects both organized religion and atheism. He presents instead a view of our world as one created by an artistic God who often succeeds but can also fail in the face of determined opposition by contrary powers in the universe, with whom war is waged for the souls of humans. In turn, we have been given freedom–indeed responsibility–to choose our own paths. Mailer trusts that our individual behavior–always a complex mix of good and evil–will be rewarded or punished with a reincarnation that fits the sum of our lives. Mailer weighs the possibilities of "intelligent design" at the same time avowing that sensual pleasures were bestowed on us by God; he finds fault with the Ten Commandments–because adultery, he avers, may be a lesser evil than others suffered in a bad marriage–and he holds that technology was the Devil's most brilliant creation. In short, Mailer is original and unpredictable in this inspiring verbal journey, a unique vision of the world in which "God needs us as much as we need God." From The Naked and the Dead to The Executioner's Song and beyond, Mailer's major works have engaged such themes as war, politics, culture, and sex. Now, in this small yet important book, Mailer, in a modest, well-spoken style, gives us fresh ways to think about the largest subject of them all." Book Description, Amazon.com
A New Kind of Normal: Hope-Filled Choices When Life Turns Upside Down
Carol Kent
Starred Review. Normal isn't a word that makes sense to Kent, a bestselling author and speaker whose only son murdered his wife's ex-husband in 1999 to protect his stepdaughters from suspected abuse. Kent's previous book, When I Lay My Isaac Down, powerfully recounted her family's dramatic and wrenching story of placing their son's life sentence and their shattered future dreams on God's altar as the biblical Abraham did with his son Isaac. Kent's latest writing continues this harrowing story of rebuilding life where no "normal" exists; where holidays and Sundays are spent in prison visitation lines, and where pleas for leniency go unheard. Kent and her spouse employ dynamic journal entries and soulful personal stories to recount the ongoing, sometimes debilitating, journey to hold fast to God's hope despite dismal circumstances. Kent's inner ache is transparent and her pain raw, yet she delves into trusting God when despair is overwhelming, relief is beyond reach, privacy is no option, and loss overpowers all other emotions. In the midst of the pain-more in spite of it-the Kents choose hope, every day, every hour. This is their message of triumph to all Christians who suffer yet continue to hold fast to God's promised provision.
Dancing Bones: Living Lively in the Valley
Patsy Clairmont
"We all want to live on a peaceful mountaintop where we can look down on the world below without getting hurt. With her trademark humor and style, Patsy Clairmont uses the story of "dancing bones" in Ezekiel to remind us that life in the valley can be pretty breathtaking, too. It's often in the valley that we learn and love the most. Rather than running from our troubles, Patsy says true "valley girls" find grace, freedom, and a sense of humor in the midst of turmoil. " Book Description, Amazon.com
A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization
Jonathan Kirsch
"The question of how and when the world will end has captivated thinkers for centuries. Wars, natural disasters, social upheaval and personal suffering often send believers back to the writings of their prophets and seers, whose gift is to bring satisfying answers to such questions. The book most studied in the Western tradition is Revelation, the last entry in the Christian canon. Kirsch, an attorney and book columnist for the Los Angeles Times, takes the reader on a delightful 2,000-year journey as he explores a text he describes as "a romantic tale, full of intrigue and suspense" and shows how churches, philosophers, clergy and armchair interpreters have promoted their political, social and religious agendas based on their belief that the end was imminent. Some of this history can be quite sobering, as the powerful have waged wars and built societies based on their varying perceptions of Revelation's message. However, consistent with Kirsch's earlier literary efforts, in particular The Harlot by the Side of the Road, the author exercises great care while treating his material with both sobriety and a healthy sense of the ironic. Written clearly and for a general audience, this is a fine book that merits wide readership." Publishers Weekly
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