The story of Jonah is sacred to all three Abrahamic faiths and remains a recognizable legend even in the most secularized corners of the West. And yet the maritime prophet's story has been trivialized as a quaint children's tale, his character has been blasted by unsympathetic commentators, and even his alleged tomb has now been destroyed by Islamic State militants who, in 2014, took the city of Mosul on the Nineveh Plains. Now that Nineveh is once again in the grip of tyrannical violence ...

David Benjamin Blower's first book was devised as 100-odd pages of liner notes accompanying his latest musical output. But what he and musical comrades the Army of the Broken Hearted have been communicating for years, on stages and in alleyways throughout Birmingham and the UK, found new, vociferous life as it spilled into the written word. Kingdom vs. Empire emerged as an explosive manifesto for politicised faith in 21st Century Britain.The book reads with the boiled-down intensit...

Envisioning a future in which the Christian church plays a viable and transformative role in shaping society, Gretta Vosper argues that if the church is to survive at all, the heart of faith must undergo a radical change. Vosper, founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity and a minister in Toronto, believes that what will save the church is an emphasis on just and compassionate living -- a new and wholly humanistic approach to religion. Without this reform, the church as w...

For many people, prayer is an essential part of daily life, connecting them with God, a force or the universe, bringing them, among other things, assistance and protection. Others cannot imagine being so dependent upon a concept they can neither justify nor comprehend.In Amen, Gretta Vosper, United Church minister and author of the controversial bestseller With or Without God, offers us her deeply felt examination of worship beyond conventional prayer, and a call ...

Is it still possible in an age of religious and cultural pluralism to engage in Christian apologetics? How can one urge one's faith on others when such a gesture is typically regarded with suspicion if not outright resentment? In Humble Apologetics John G. Stackhouse brings his wide experience as a historian philosopher journalist and theologian to these important questions and offers surprising--and reassuring--answers. Stackhouse begins by acknowledging the real impediments to Christian ...

2023 Christian Book Award® Winner (Christian Living)Christianity Today 2023 Book Award Finalist (Christian Living & Spiritual Formation)The Spiritual Significance of TimeMany Christians live a faith that is "nowhen." They are disconnected from the past or imagine they are somehow "above" the flux of history, as if every generation starts with a clean state. They lack an awareness of time and...

On forming people who form communionTheological education has always been about formation: first of people, then of communities, then of the world. If we continue to promote whiteness and its related ideas of masculinity and individualism in our educational work, it will remain diseased and thwart our efforts to heal the church and the world. But if theological education aims to form people who can gather others together through border-crossing pluralism and God-drenched c...

‘As we contemplate the coming months, not knowing when we can breathe again, it’s worth thinking about how already the foundations have been laid for whatever new opportunities God has for us on the far side of this crisis.’Rowan Williams offers these words of wisdom and many more in Candles in the Dark. This powerful and timely book brings together the 26 weekly Christian meditations originally posted online from March to September 2020, during lockdown i...

In Bed with the Word addresses questions such as: When people want to pray, to worship, to marry or bury, why do they reach for a book? What is it about reading that feels like a spiritual posture? What kinds of reading go beyond being private entertainment to produce personal and social change? A work of informal literary essays on the relations between spirituality, reading, and living in the public, social world, In Bed with the Word is a timely project that calls attention to the incre...

12th Annual Outreach Resource of the Year Recommendation (Missional Church)2014 Best Book of Missional Theology, from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds BookstoreThe story of Christianity is a story of incarnation—God taking on flesh and dwelling among the people he created. God appointing and sending people as his body, his hands and feet. Disciples of Jesus bearing the good news even as they bear the marks of his passion. Whatever Christianity is, it i...

A true story about searching for one's authentic self in the company of the Living God. Rachel Mann has died many 'deaths' in the process, not the least of which was a change of sex, as well as coming to terms with chronic illness and disability. This passionate and nuanced book brings together poetry, feminist theology, and philosophy, and explores them through one person's hunger for wholeness, self-knowledge and God.