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  The Faith of Barack Obama

 
The Faith of Barack Obama under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $19.99
Sale: $9.25
 
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Stephen Mansfield
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Dewey Decimal Number: 328.73092
Publication Date: 2008-08-05
Reading Level: 192
 
Description: Get inside the mind and soul of Barack Obama

In The Faith of Barack Obama, New York Times bestselling author Stephen Mansfield takes readers inside the mind, heart, and soul of presidential hopeful Barack Obama—as a person of faith, as a man, as an American, and possibly as our future commander in chief.

America faces looming inflation, climate change, a national credit crisis, war in the Middle East, threats to security and liberty at home, and skyrocketing oil and gas prices.

With all of these threats to our security, prosperity and freedom on the horizon, it has never been more important to choose the right leader for America.

“If a man’s faith is sincere, it is the most important thing about him, and it is impossible to understand who he is and how he will lead without first understanding the religious vision that informs his life,” writes Mansfield.

In The Faith of Barack Obama, Mansfield holds back nothing to share that vision and explain its roots, including:

• Obama’s upbringing in a non-Christian home
• the influence on his life from his agnostic mother and Muslim father
• his remarkable turn to Christianity after working in the inner cities of Chicago
• his years at the controversial Trinity United Church of Christ
• his association to the radical teachings of Rev. Jeremiah Wright
• the source of Obama’s relentless optimism and hope for America

Every American voter concerned to know more about Obama’s beliefs, both religious and political, and how the two intertwine should read this book, as should every thinking person who continues to shape and evolve his or her religious beliefs.

Barack Obama, according to Mansfield, is “raising the banner of what he hopes will be the faith-based politics of a new generation . . . and he will carry that banner to whatever heights of power his God and the American people allow.”

“You must read this perceptive and well written book. Then you will know why Barack Obama has such a passion for justice and equity, such a gift for filling people of different generations with a newfound hope that things can and will change for the better.”

—ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU


 

  Christ and Culture Revisited

 
Christ and Culture Revisited under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $24.00
Sale: $8.17
 
Manufacturer: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: D. A. Carson
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Dewey Decimal Number: 261
Publication Date: 2008-04
Reading Level: 243
 
Description: Called to live in the world, but not to be of it, Christians must maintain a balancing act that becomes more precarious the further our culture departs from its Judeo-Christian roots. How should members of the church interact with such a culture, especially as deeply enmeshed as most of us have become?

D. A. Carson applies his masterful touch to this problem. He begins by exploring the classic typology of H. Richard Niebuhr and his five options for understanding culture. Carson proposes that these disparate options are in reality one still larger vision. Using the Bible's own story line and the categories of biblical theology, he attempts to work out what that unifying vision is. Carson acknowledges the helpfulness of Niebuhr's grid and other similar matrices but warns against giving them canonical force.

More than just theoretical, Christ and Culture Revisited is also designed practically to help Christians untangle current messy debates on living in the world. Carson emphasizes that the relation between Christ and culture is not limited to an either/or cultural paradigm -- Christ against culture or Christ transforming culture. Instead Carson offers his own paradigm in which all the categories of biblical theology must be kept in mind simultaneously to inform the Christian worldview.

Though several other books on culture interact with Niebuhr, none of them takes anything like the biblical-theological approach adopted here. Ground-breaking and challenging, Christ and Culture Revisited is a tour de force.


 

  The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church

 
The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $14.99
Sale: $5.98
 
Manufacturer: Zondervan
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Gregory A. Boyd
Publisher: Zondervan
Dewey Decimal Number: 322
Publication Date: 2007-05-01
Reading Level: 224
 
Description: Arguing from Scripture and history, Dr. Boyd makes a compelling case that whenever the church gets too close to any political or national ideology, it is disastrous for the church and harmful to society. Dr. Boyd contends that the American Evangelical Church has allowed itself to be co-opted by the political right (and some by the political left) and exposes how this is harming the church’s unique calling to build the kingdom of God. In the course of his argument, Dr. Boyd challenges some of the most deeply held convictions of evangelical Christians in America – for example, that America is, or ever was, “a Christian nation” or that Christians ought to be trying to “take America back for God.”

 

  God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It

 
God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $14.95
Sale: $6.58
 
Manufacturer: HarperOne
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Jim Wallis
Publisher: HarperOne
Dewey Decimal Number: 261.70973
Publication Date: 2006-09-01
Reading Level: 432
 
Description: Secular liberals and religious conservatives will find things to both comfort and alarm them in Jim Wallis's God's Politics. That combination is actually reason enough to recommend the book in a time when the national political and theological discourse is dominated by blanket descriptions and shortsightedness. But Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine, offers more than just a book that's hard to categorize. What Wallis sees as the true mission of Christianity--righting social ills, working for peace--is in tune with the values of liberals who so often run screaming from the idea of religion. Meanwhile, in his estimation, religious vocabulary is co-opted by conservatives who use it to polarize. Wallis proposes a new sort of politics, the name of which serves as the title of the book, wherein these disparities are reconciled and progressive causes are paired with spiritual guidance for the betterment of society. Wallis is at his most compelling when he puts this theory into action himself, letting his own beliefs guide him through stinging criticisms of the war in Iraq. In his view, George W. Bush's flaw lies in the assumption that the United States was an unprecedented force of goodness in a fight against enemies characterized as "evil." Indeed, although both the right and left are criticized here, the idea is that the liberals, if they would get religion, are the more redeemable lot. Wallis's line between religion and public policy may be drawn a little differently than most liberals might feel comfortable with, and while he pays some lip service to other faiths most of his prescription for America seems to come from the Bible. Still, for a party having just lost a presidential election where "moral issues" are said to have factored heavily, God's Politics is a sermon worth listening to. --John Moe

 

  America's Secular Challenge: The Rise of a New National Religion (Brief Encounters)

 
America's Secular Challenge: The Rise of a New National Religion (Brief Encounters) under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $18.00
Sale: $9.00
 
Manufacturer: Encounter Books
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Herbert London
Publisher: Encounter Books
Dewey Decimal Number: 200.9730905
Publication Date: 2008-08-25
Reading Level: 100
 
Description: In this timely and wide-ranging book, one of America's leading public intellectuals explores the rise of radical secular humanism as a religious experience. London shows that while secular humanism has it's saints, sinners, and even its quasi-religious rituals, it is too anemic and self-centered a philosophy of life to serve America and the West in its battle against the threat of radical Islam.

 

  The Mind of Jihad

 
The Mind of Jihad under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $24.99
Sale: $16.45
 
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Laurent Murawiec
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Edition: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 322.42088297
Publication Date: 2008-08-11
Reading Level: 352
 
Description: This book examines contemporary jihad as a cult of violence and power. All jihadi groups, whether Shiite or Sunni, Arab or not, are characterized by a similar bloodlust. Murawiec characterizes this belief structure as identical to that of Europe's medieval millenarians and apocalyptics, arguing that both jihadis and their European cousins shared in a Gnostic ideology: a God-given mission endowed the Elect with supernatural powers and placed them above the common law of mankind. Although the ideology of jihad is essentially Islamic, Murawiec traces the political technologies used by modern jihad to the Bolsheviks. Their doctrines of terror as a system of rule were appropriated by radical Islam through multiple lines of communication. This book brings history, anthropology, and theology to bear to understand the mind of jihad that has declared war on the West and the world.

 

  Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics

 
Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $21.95
Sale: $9.70
 
Manufacturer: Abingdon Press
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Adam Hamilton
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 261.0973
Publication Date: 2008-04-01
Reading Level: 192
 
Description: Everyone agrees that America is polarized, with ever-hardening positions held by people less and less willing to listen to one another. No one agrees on what to do about it. One solution that hasn't yet been tried, say Adam Hamilton, is for thinking persons of faith to model for the rest of the country a richer, more thoughtful conversation on the political, moral, and religious issues that divide us.

Hamilton writes: I don't expect you to agree with everything I've written. I expect that in the future even I won't agree with everything I've written here. The point is not to get you to agree with me, but to encourage you to think about what you believe. In the end I will be inviting those of you who find this book resonates with what you feel is true, to join the movement to pursue a middle way between the left and the right --to make your voices heard-- and to model for our nation and for the church, how we can listen, learn, see truth as multi-sided, and love those with whom we disagree.

Newsweek:
How Would Jesus Choose?
By Lisa Miller April 14, 2008

Adam Hamilton does not call himself pro-choice. He prefers pro-life with a heavy heart. What that means, as he explains in his new book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White, is that he believes abortion should be available and legal, that there are instances in which it might be necessary and that those instances should be very rare. Further, he says, the abortion debate has been too hot for too long, and that, as a Christian minister, his job is to try to support people no matter what decision they make. As an evangelical megachurch pastor in Kansas, a man educated at Oral Roberts University, Hamilton speaks carefully, aware that he's staking out a controversial position.

Or maybe not. About a third of white evangelicals say that abortion should sometimes or always be legal, according to the Pew Research Center a number that hasn't changed in a decade. In recent election seasons, however, these moderate voices have been drowned out by hard-line shouting on both sides. In the past, an evangelical who might condone abortion in the case of his ailing wife or 14-year-old daughter would never say so in public. Now, the abortion rhetoric has faded somewhat as evangelicals turn their attention to other things: AIDS, the environment, Darfur. In 2004, megapastor Rick Warren announced that abortion was a nonnegotiable for evangelical voters. This year, he's been silent. What's new, then, is not that a pastor like Hamilton would take a softer approach to abortion, but that he would feel comfortable enough to say so from the pulpit and in print.

Hamilton wants pro-choice and pro-life advocates to join forces to reduce the number of abortions and he enumerates seven areas where they could find common ground. Let both sides agree that adequate information about birth control can help prevent pregnancy, he says. And let both sides agree that the longer a pregnancy progresses, the more morally problematic an abortion becomes.

As for his heavy heart, Hamilton comes by it honestly. Seven years ago he received a letter from a parishioner describing her own teenage pregnancy in the years before Roe, the pressure from her parents to abort and her refusal to do so in spite of the cost. That letter was from his mother.

 

  Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism

 
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $17.00
Sale: $8.99
 
Manufacturer: Holt Paperbacks
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Susan Jacoby
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Dewey Decimal Number: 211.4097
Publication Date: 2005-01-07
Reading Level: 448
 
Description: "Jacoby accomplishes her task with clarity, thoroughness, and an engaging passion."
-Los Angeles Times Book Review

At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason. In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby traces more than two hundred years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution. Moving from nineteenth-century abolitionism and suffragism through the twentieth century's civil liberties, civil rights, and feminist movements, Freethinkers illuminates the neglected achievements of secularists who, allied with tolerant believers, have led the battle for reform in the past and today.

Rich with such iconic figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, and the once-famous Robert Green Ingersoll, Freethinkers restores to history the passionate humanists who struggled against those who would undermine the combination of secular government and religious liberty that is the glory of the American system.

 

  The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (Vintage)

 
The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (Vintage) under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $14.95
Sale: $8.82
 
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Paperback
Author: Mark Lilla
Publisher: Vintage
Edition: Reprint
Dewey Decimal Number: 201.72
Publication Date: 2008-09-23
Reading Level: 352
 
Description: A brilliant account of religion's role in the political thinking of the West, from the Enlightenment to the close of World War II.

The wish to bring political life under God's authority is nothing new, and it's clear that today religious passions are again driving world politics, confounding expectations of a secular future. In this major book, Mark Lilla reveals the sources of this age-old quest-and its surprising role in shaping Western thought. Making us look deeper into our beliefs about religion, politics, and the fate of civilizations, Lilla reminds us of the modern West's unique trajectory and how to remain on it. Illuminating and challenging, The Stillborn God is a watershed in the history of ideas.

 

  Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics

 
Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics under Church & State in The Books Store
Price: $19.99
Sale: $4.04
 
Manufacturer: Regal Books
Number of Items: 1
 
 
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Tony Campolo
Publisher: Regal Books
Dewey Decimal Number: 277.3083
Publication Date: 2008-02-01
Reading Level: 256
 
Description: In today s political environment, who speaks for whom is not always clear. Over the past couple of decades, evangelical Christians have tended to be associated with the religious right and the most conservative positions of the Republican Party. Rebelling against this designation are those who prefer to be called Red Letter Christians, desiring to live out the red letters of Jesus words in the New Testament. Believing that Jesus is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, Red Letter Christians want to jumpstart a religious movement that will transcend partisan politics and concentrate on issues such as fighting poverty, caring for the environment, advancing peace, promoting strong families, and supporting a consistent ethic of life, all viewed as critical moral and biblical values. Into this arena of thought steps Tony Campolo, the powerful evangelist known for his passionate and prophetic sharing of the radical message of Jesus. In this book, Campolo examines many of the hot-button issues facing evangelicals from the perspective of Jesus red-letter words in the Bible. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, Campolo will make you think and pray and act.

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