How The West Really Lost God

Author : Mary Eberstadt
Publisher : Templeton Foundation Press
ISBN 13 : 1599474298
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How the West Really Lost God written by Mary Eberstadt and published by Templeton Foundation Press. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this magisterial work, leading cultural critic Mary Eberstadt delivers a powerful new theory about the decline of religion in the Western world. The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshalling an impressive array of research, from fascinating historical data on family decline in pre-Revolutionary France to contemporary popular culture both in the United States and Europe, Eberstadt shows that the reverse has also been true: the undermining of the family has further undermined Christianity itself. Drawing on sociology, history, demography, theology, literature, and many other sources, Eberstadt shows that family decline and religious decline have gone hand in hand in the Western world in a way that has not been understood before—that they are, as she puts it in a striking new image summarizing the book’s thesis, “the double helix of society, each dependent on the strength of the other for successful reproduction.” In sobering final chapters, Eberstadt then lays out the enormous ramifications of the mutual demise of family and faith in the West. While it is fashionable in some circles to applaud the decline both of religion and the nuclear family, there are, as Eberstadt reveals, enormous social, economic, civic, and other costs attendant on both declines. Her conclusion considers this tantalizing question: whether the economic and demographic crisis now roiling Europe and spreading to America will have the inadvertent result of reviving the family as the most viable alternative to the failed welfare state—fallout that could also lay the groundwork for a religious revival as well. How the West Really Lost God is both a startlingly original account of how secularization happens and a sweeping brief about why everyone should care. A book written for agnostics as well as believers, atheists as well as “none of the above,” it will permanently change the way every reader understands the two institutions that have hitherto undergirded Western civilization as we know it—family and faith—and the real nature of the relationship between those two pillars of history.

Author : Steve Bruce
Publisher : Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN 13 : 9780631232742
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book God is Dead written by Steve Bruce and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2002-05-07 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on an international range of examples, Steve Bruce offers a comprehensive and up-to-date defence of the secularisation debate.

Author : Tom Wright
Publisher : SPCK
ISBN 13 : 0281068909
Total Pages : 178 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How God Became King written by Tom Wright and published by SPCK. This book was released on 2012-04-12 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'It has been slowly dawning on me over many years that there is a fundamental problem deep at the heart of Christian faith and practice as I have known them . . . we have all forgotten what the four Gospels are about.' With that surprising assertion, Tom Wright launches this ground-breaking work in which he helps us to see the gospel story in radically a new light, and to acknowledge that, for many generations, the Church has been avoiding its full impact and holding back from proclaiming its full meaning. 'Classic Wright: clear, accessible, robust, engaging and challenging.' Paula Gooder in Third Way 'Scholarly, accessible, insightful and provocative.' Christianity 'Wright argues compellingly that the twin themes of kingdom and cross are inseparably linked. . . This is a much-needed reorientation. The book makes its case for 'rethinking' cogently and deserves widespread attention.' Theology

Author : Mary Eberstadt
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 006245403X
Total Pages : 159 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book It's Dangerous to Believe written by Mary Eberstadt and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-06-21 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary Eberstadt, “one of the most acute and creative social observers of our time,” (Francis Fukuyama) shines a much-needed spotlight on a disturbing trend in American society: discrimination against traditional religious belief and believers, who are being aggressively pushed out of public life by the concerted efforts of militant secularists. In It’s Dangerous to Believe, Mary Eberstadt documents how people of faith—especially Christians who adhere to traditional religious beliefs—face widespread discrimination in today’s increasingly secular society. Eberstadt details how recent laws, court decisions, and intimidation on campuses and elsewhere threaten believers who fear losing their jobs, their communities, and their basic freedoms solely because of their convictions. They fear that their religious universities and colleges will capitulate to aggressive secularist demands. They fear that they and their families will be ostracized or will have to lose their religion because of mounting social and financial penalties for believing. They fear they won’t be able to maintain charitable operations that help the sick and feed the hungry. Is this what we want for our country? Religious freedom is a fundamental right, enshrined in the First Amendment. With It’s Dangerous to Believe Eberstadt calls attention to this growing bigotry and seeks to open the minds of secular liberals whose otherwise good intentions are transforming them into modern inquisitors. Not until these progressives live up to their own standards of tolerance and diversity, she reminds us, can we build the inclusive society America was meant to be.

Author : Andrew Farley
Publisher : Baker Books
ISBN 13 : 9781441232120
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book God without Religion written by Andrew Farley and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Farley's experience as a Christian was first characterized by self-effort as he tried to please God at any cost. His ruthless religion resulted in spiritual burnout and disillusionment with church. Only then did he discover what relaxing in Jesus means and how enjoying God's intimate presence can transform everyday life. Using a unique story-driven format, God without Religion dismantles common religious misconceptions, revealing the true meaning of being filled with the Spirit the facts about judgment, rewards, and God's discipline the simple truth behind predestination and the divisions it causes the problem with the popular challenge to "live radical" Pulling no punches, Farley shows how the truth about these controversial issues can liberate and unify believers as we discover how to rest in the unconditional love of God.

Author : Karen Armstrong
Publisher : Knopf Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307372952
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Case for God written by Karen Armstrong and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2009-09-22 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of A History of God and The Great Transformation comes a balanced, nuanced understanding of the role religion plays in human life and the trajectory of faith in modern times. Why has God become incredible? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors? Moving from the Paleolithic Age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the lengths to which humankind has gone to experience a sacred reality that it called God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. She examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. With her trademark depth of knowledge and profound insight, Armstrong elucidates how the changing world has necessarily altered the importance of religion at both societal and individual levels. And she makes a powerful, convincing argument for structuring a faith that speaks to the needs of our dangerously polarized age.

Author : Eugene Webb
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
ISBN 13 : 0826273076
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book In Search of the Triune God written by Eugene Webb and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the broad umbrella of the Christian religion, there exists a great divide between two fundamentally different ways of thinking about key aspects of the Christian faith. Eugene Webb explores the sources of that divide, looking at how the Eastern and Western Christian worlds drifted apart due both to the different ways they interpreted their symbols and to the different roles political power played in their histories. Previous studies have focused on historical events or on the history of theological ideas. In Search of the Triune God delves deeper by exploring how the Christian East and the Christian West have conceived the relation between symbol and experience. Webb demonstrates that whereas for Western Christianity discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity has tended toward speculation about the internal structure of the Godhead, in the Eastern tradition the symbolism of the Triune God has always been closely connected to religious experience. In their approaches to theology, Western Christianity has tended toward a speculative theology, and Eastern Christianity toward a mystical theology. This difference of focus has led to a large range of fundamental differences in many areas not only of theology but also of religious life. Webb traces the history of the pertinent symbols (God as Father, Son of God, Spirit of God, Messiah, King, etc.) from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament through patristic thinkers and the councils that eventually defined orthodoxy. In addition, he shows how the symbols, interpreted through the different cultural lenses of the East and the West, gradually took on meanings that became the material of very different worldviews, especially as the respective histories of the Eastern and Western Christian worlds led them into different kinds of entanglement with ambition and power. Through this incisive exploration, Webb offers a dramatic and provocative new picture of the history of Christianity.

Author : Raymond Carver
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 1101970588
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.84/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love written by Raymond Carver and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-05-25 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his second collection, including the iconic and much-referenced title story featured in the Academy Award-winning film Birdman, Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated short-story writers in American literature—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark.

Author : David L. Block
Publisher : Crossway
ISBN 13 : 1433562928
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book God and Galileo written by David L. Block and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A devastating attack upon the dominance of atheism in science today." Giovanni Fazio, Senior Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics The debate over the ultimate source of truth in our world often pits science against faith. In fact, some high-profile scientists today would have us abandon God entirely as a source of truth about the universe. In this book, two professional astronomers push back against this notion, arguing that the science of today is not in a position to pronounce on the existence of God—rather, our notion of truth must include both the physical and spiritual domains. Incorporating excerpts from a letter written in 1615 by famed astronomer Galileo Galilei, the authors explore the relationship between science and faith, critiquing atheistic and secular understandings of science while reminding believers that science is an important source of truth about the physical world that God created.

Author : Tim LaHaye
Publisher : HarperChristian + ORM
ISBN 13 : 0310862000
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Finding the Will of God in a Crazy, Mixed-Up World written by Tim LaHaye and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2011-04-19 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day it seems increasingly difficult for us to make decisions that reflect God's will. God hasn't changed, but our world has radically changed. Over the years, Dr. Tim LaHaye has heard the cries for help. Finding the Will of God in a Crazy, Mixed-Up World offers us practical ways to answer some of life's toughest questions and find the will of God for our lives. Finding God’s will in this crazy, mixed-up world of ours is like landing an airplane in the fog. Since you are unable to see the future, you must trust the signs. Learn how to follow Dr. LaHaye's eight road signs for decision making: Surrender to God's Word Pray diligently and consistently Allow the Holy Spirit's indwelling in your heart Pay attention to the circumstances of Divine Providence Expect God's supernatural peace in your heart Accept the godly desires God gives you Listen to godly advice from dedicated Christians Read the Word to make God-guided decisions