Furlong’s journey of faith is a fascinating, if sad, story of his ordeal confronting the power of the church establishment. But he is in a noble company of those who know that orthodoxy, understood as “right or correct belief,” is not necessarily the truth once delivered to the saints and is in the vanguard of those seeking to develop a new paradigm of the Christian tradition.
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Parishioners today look to their congregations to feed their spiritual hunger. But many members and clergy are not sure how the words “congregation” and “spirituality” fit together. Author Celia Hahn interviewed 30 lay people and clergy from five Episcopal congregations to discover their stories of congregational spirituality and to help them identify the congregation’s gifts for spiritual development. Foreword by Tilden Edwards, executive director of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Direction. Study guide available for this book.
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This is the first of a three-volume history of American liberal theology. The second volume will deal with the social gospel and its Niebuhrian heyday, rightly describing Niebuhr’s view as a chastened species of liberal theology, and …
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Offers a strategy for thoughtful evangelism that welcomes people just as they are.
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A charming and genuinely suspensful biography of the perhaps the greatest — certainly the most notorious — progressive Christain minister in American history, the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher.
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In Beyond Belief, renowned religion scholar Elaine Pagels continues her groundbreaking examination of the earliest Christian texts, arguing for an ongoing assessment of faith and a questioning of religious orthodoxy. Spurred on by personal tragedy and new scholarship …
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The Phoenix Affirmations, named for the town in which they were created and the mythological bird adopted by ancient Christians as a symbol of resurrection, offers disillusioned and spiritually homeless Christians, and others, a sense of hope …
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Randall Balmer’s new book on the ascendancy of the religious right in America.
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Top Jesus scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan join together to reveal a radical and little-known Jesus. As both authors reacted to and responded to questions about Mel Gibson’s blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, …
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Speaking from experience—where things can go wrong and wrongs can remain unrighted—the five modern thinkers in this collection offer ways to maintain a spiritual life outside of a strictly religious context. Based on the acknowledgement that religious …
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Christianity will not be a viable belief system for honest people in the contemporary world, writes John Shelby Spong, until it drops a few outmoded ideas–for instance, belief in a supernatural God who reveals Himself from outside creation.
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“In the pulpit, Robin Meyers is the new generation’s Harry Emerson Fosdick, George Buttrick, and Martin Luther King. In these pages, you will find a stirring message for our times, from a man who believes that God’s love is universal, that the great Jewish prophets are as relevant now as in ancient times, and that the Jesus who drove the money changers from the Temple may yet inspire us to embrace justice and compassion as the soul of democracy. This is not a book for narrow sectarian minds; read it, and you will want to change the world.” —Bill Moyers
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Based on a series of sermons, “Think Again” makes the argument that certain aspects of fundamentalism are negative forces within Christianity not because of the fundamental beliefs themselves, but because of the judgment that often accompanies them. …
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Over 20 years of research went into this book that represents a life-long concern to understand and counter Christianity’s continued reliance on sin, fear, and guilt. By using the lenses of imagination and eucharistic imagery, I present …
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Traditional doctrines of sin and salvation center primarily on the moral agency of the sinner. Andrew Sung Park addresses the relational consequence of sin–the pervasive reality of victims’ suffering and the scar from the sins of others who have wronged them.
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