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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 …

In a sweeping examination of the sexual rules of the Bible, Carr asserts that Biblical “family values” are a far cry from anything promoted as such in contemporary politics. He concludes that passionate love–our preoccupaton therewith and pursuit thereof–is the primary human vocation, that eros is in fact the flavoring of life.

Based on a true story, The Priest’s Madonna tells the tale of the love relationship between Bérenger Saunière, a priest in the tiny French village of Rennes-le-Château, and his housekeeper and longtime companion, Marie Dénarnaud.

Anyone who is thinking about going to seminary; anyone that is thinking about leaving the church; anyone who is wondering why church has become so difficult; anyone who is wondering why good clergy are becoming more difficult to find; anyone who cares about the postmodern church; anyone who is trying to find a way to re-conceptualize their Christian faith so that it matches the reality of the twenty-first century-anyone interested in any of these things should read this book.

Distill the great spiritual teachings from around the world down to their most basic principles, and one thread emerges to unite them all: kindness. In The Force of Kindness, Sharon Salzberg, one of the nation’s most respected Buddhist authors and meditation teachers, offers practical instruction on how we can cultivate this essential trait within ourselves.

Written with David Paul. Souls in the Hands of a Tender God follows the path of healing and the way of companionship to build communities of caring that welcome and include our most fragile and troubled neighbors. With gentleness and grace, solid knowledge and wisdom, Rennebohm lays down the foundations of healing communities in which all may have a home, safely rest, and be well.

Get an inside look at heaven through the eyes of Dr. Reece Manley, and see for yourself how lovable and loved you really are! See that you can become whole now, get beyond your nemesis now, be all that you were meant to be in the Spirit–NOW. I highly recommend the Spirit Thinking workbook for anyone who desires real and lasting change from the inside out.” …Freda Chaney, D.D.

The Earth Heroes books feature the youth, careers and lasting contributions of some of the world’s greatest naturalists and environmentalists. This is the first in a series of meticulously researched books that introduces influential people involved in the preservation of wild places to upper elementary and middle school children.

“Is God a Delusion?” addresses the philosophical underpinnings of the recent proliferation of popular books attacking religious beliefs. Focuses primarily on charges leveled by recent critics that belief in God is irrational and that its nature ferments violence Balances philosophical rigor and scholarly care with an engaging, accessible style Offers a direct response to the crop of recent anti-religion bestsellers currently generating considerable public discussion.

The Bible and the Church have become more or less irrelevant to the contemporary world. Sadly the message of Jesus, totally relevant to all times, has been ignored and lost because it is seen as being part of the Church that is now rejected with nothing important to say to present-day life.  This book deals with the need to move away from structures of traditional beliefs, creeds and doctrines that are outmoded in our contemporary world. It encourages a move into a Church-based environment, living by a set of Jesus values that include compassion, sacrifice and acceptance of difference without having to believe the unbelievable and the unscientific.

Based upon the author’s twenty years of classroom and clinical study, Slaves of Faith explores and explains the emotionally laden dynamic at work in the fundamentalist mind. As Dr. Mercer posits, the fundamentalist is fundamentally driven by anxiety layered over a fragile sense of self-identity constructed upon a system of beliefs that is both logically inconsistent and highly suspect in light of modern science. As a result, the fundamentalist completely rejects modernity while battling mightily in the arena of national politics and culture to bring about a world that aligns more closely with the fundamentalist worldview.

That is what this book is about. The ordinary, everyday God. The ‘God’ that comes instinctively to most of us. If we’ve had a religious education, from schools or parents, we may need to drop a lot of stuff that has been drilled into us. If what we think we know about God doesn’t feel right, or doesn’t feel true, then it probably isn’t right and isn’t true. Like love, this is a subject where we do better to trust our gut feelings.

Raymond J. Lawrence Jr.  This is powerful book if you want to get an overview of the Christian influence on today’s sexual ethics and sexuality. Sexual Liberation is mostly an account of how wrong Christianity has been about sex over the centuries. Raymond Lawrence is the Director of Pastoral Care at New York Presbyterian Hospital at the Columbia University Medical Center. He brings years of scholarly and life experience to his writing.

In these perilous times when the very survival of the human species is at stake, there is a desperate need for wisdom to provide guidance. The sacred literature of the world’s major religious traditions is a source for such wisdom, but it has largely been misinterpreted and misunderstood, and, thus, instead of being a source for wisdom, it has been a source for confusion and conflict. The ancient scriptures, for the most part, were written in a language which is quite different from ordinary language. It is a mythological language, which is symbolic, and therefore its meaning is hidden. In the Bible, for example, there are many narratives that appear to be historical, but they are history that has been mythologized, and therefore their surface meaning is not their real meaning. Clyde Edward Brown clearly illustrates that the correct interpretation of the world’s religious texts would lead to a different concept of religion. Instead of belief in the literal truth of texts that have been misinterpreted, the emphasis would be on having those religious values, such as social and economic justice, which are common to all religions.

It is time to challenge traditional understandings of God in order to create a twenty-first century faith. We have to say goodbye to the Sunday school God and find new ways of thinking about God.
This is not an exercise in theory, but an effort to take the practice of life seriously. In fact, a twenty-first century faith is an open, dynamic and courageous attitude toward life. It presumes that God is found not in the sky, but in the midst of life. It begins with experience, our shared experience. While experience is not everything, it is a good starting point. It is what we know.

Author Schaeffer (Keeping Faith) adopts a feisty tone in this essay about evangelical Christianity and aggressive atheism. In the first half of the book, he rebuts justifications from both sides, taking aim at the ideas of such celebrity atheists as Richard Dawkins as well as religious leaders like Rick Warren. Schaeffer asks each side to allow for an evolving religion in which allegory takes precedence over literalism. In the second half, he gives space for his own memories, recalling moments that led him to a middle path of “hopeful uncertainty.”

In Paul Among the People, Sarah Ruden explores the meanings of his words and shows how they might have affected readers in his own time and culture. She describes as well how his writings represented the new church as an alternative to old ways of thinking, feeling, and living.