Bill Christman had always been an affectionate and confident child, but when he entered first grade he began to be plagued with anxieties and fears. From the moment he awoke, his mind was filled with a single thought: Something bad is going to happen. Over time, he found release in rage and became a serious behavioral problem. By high school, he was getting drunk, fighting all the time, in trouble with the law and, eventually, homeless. He began to seriously consider ending his life.

The Sermon on the Mount offers a rousing call to political solidarity—if only we have ears to hear it.Being a Christian and being a socialist go together for Phil Christman. He explains why in this stirring manifesto, which is part testimony of his own journey out of conservatism, part entertaining introduction to the American left, and part impassioned call to his fellow believers to take a fresh look at their own politics. Christman speaks particularly to Christi...

"A combination of history, memoir, reportage, and lit-crit that taught me a lot about a region I've reported on. . . . Check it out." ―James Fallows, The AtlanticA Commonweal Notable Book of 2020Finalist, Midwest Independent Book AwardWinner, Independent Publisher Awards Bronze MedalWhat does the future hold for the Midwest? A vast stretch of fertile farmland bordering one of the largest concentrations of fr...

Instant New York Times bestseller“Howard Zinn on acid or some bullsh*t like that.” —Tim HeideckerThe creators of the cult-hit podcast Chapo Trap House deliver a manifesto for everyone who feels orphaned and alienated—politically, culturally, and economically—by modern America with the lanyard-wearing Wall Street centrism of the left and the lizard-brained atavism of the right: there is a better way, the Chapo Way.In...

"He took the blind man by the hand . . . and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, 'Do you see anything?' He said, 'I see men, but they look like trees, walking.' Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and he saw everything clearly." Mark's account of a blind man needing two healing touches from Jesus graphically depicts the stubborn blindness of his disciples. Peter epitomized this blindness when he was tempted by the popular view that Jesus was the Ro...

The first of the Eternal series, a nanopunk novella detailing the lives of Calvin, an amnesiac drifter, and his best friend, a golden retriever named Hobbes.Calvin wants to do something great with his life, but there is just something holding him back. It is more than his frivolous sense of humor or the fact that most of his conversations are with a dog, but he just can't remember...When he tries to be a good Samaritan and stops a crime in progress, he sets in motion a seri...

Soren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century poetic philosopher, wrote about the encounter with the gospel in a way unmatched in the modern era. He perceived “the possibility of offense” in Jesus’ invitation: “The Halt—Come here now, all you who labor and are burdened, if you suffer most miserably, to be helped into even greater misery!” So, the burdened disciples come to Jesus as the Savior of their nation only to encounter his command to “take up their own Roman cross to follow him...

Walt Whitman's New York: From Manhattan to Montauk, edited by Henry M. Christman, is a captivating exploration of the vibrant New York that inspired one of America's greatest poets. Through Whitman's writings and observations, this book offers a unique perspective on the city and its surroundings during the 19th century, capturing its energy, diversity, and the transformative spirit that fueled his poetic vision. Christman curates an impressive selection of Whitman's prose and poetry, draw...

Geology is the study of the history of the earth as recorded in its rocks. This study explains why certain types of rocks and minerals occur at one place and not another, why the forms of the land differ from one region to another, and why particular animal and plant remains are sometimes preserved as fossils in certain kinds of rocks. The professional geologist makes these studies his business; the amateur finds these studies a fascinating hobby; but the uninitiated person misses much of ...

In this Kierkegaardian reading of Mark's Gospel two of the most creative and passionate witnesses of Christ's gospel are brought together to mutually inform its superlative wonder. Both writers winsomely revealed the nature of human existence in sin, and the new life Jesus lived and made possible for all, as the paradoxical "God-man." They highlighted "the single individual" against the frenzied crowd "in untruth"--driven by despair whether conscious or unconscious--and vulnerable to entic...

C. S. Lewis famously penned the phrase "God in the Dock" and proposed that there was a "great divide" between ancient and modern humans, in that our ancestors would have rightly seen themselves "in the dock" before God, while we moderns have placed God there before us. But what if what God's love most desires for us, the gospel or "good news" of the only way of life for humanity, has been "in the dock" before us from the time of Adam and Eve? And what if it is also the case that the gospel...

This accessible book is invaluable to anyone coming to social and political philosophy for the first time. It provides a broad survey of key social and political questions in modern society, as well as clear discussions of the philosophical issues central to those questions and to political thought more generally. Unique among books of this kind, it includes a sustained treatment specifically of social philosophy, including coverage of topics like race and racism, gender, marriage, and the...