The Church

Malcolm Muggeridge contends that Christendom is quite different from Christianity.

Christianity is a surprising religion. It has changed the world in remarkable ways throughout history simply through Christians living out their faith. More recently, we've become afraid of a habituated Christianity, thinking that routines will rob our faith of its vitality. The net effect is that we've replaced the habits that surprise the world with habits that mimic the world?and both we and the world suffer for it. Integrating the five habits in the BELLS model? Bless others, Eat together, Listen to the Spirit, Learn Christ, and understand yourself as Sent by God into others' lives?will help you spread the gospel organically, graciously, and surprisingly. Michael Frost, a world-renowned expert on evangelism and discipleship, makes evangelism a lifestyle that is fulfilling, exciting, effective, and easy to live out!

In this deeply personal account of her fist year as a missionary, Elisabeth Elliot shares the challenges she faced as she worked in the jungles of Ecuador to bring the Word of God to a people virtually untouched by the outside world. With fascinating detail, she captures the stark realities of life in the jungle, the diffculties she encountered while developing a written language for the tribe, and her confusion when God didn't 'cooperate' with her efforts to accomplish what she believed was his will. More than just a memoir, Made for the Journey is a beautifully crafted and deeply personal reflection on the important questions of life and a remarkable testimony to authentic Christian obedience to an unfathomable God.

The Catholic Church is on the threshold of a bold new era in its two-thousand-year history. As the curtain comes down on the church defined by the sixteenth-century Counter-Reformation, the curtain is rising on the Evangelical Catholicism of the third millennium: a way of beingCatholic that comes from over a century of Catholic reform; a mission-centered renewal honed by the Second Vatican Council and given compelling expression byBlessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The gospel-centered Evangelical Catholicism of the future will send all the people of the church into mission territory every day-a territory increasingly defined in the West by spiritual boredom and aggressive secularism. Confronting both these cultural challenges and the shadows cast by recent Catholic history, Evangelical Catholicism unapologetically proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ as the truth of the world. It also molds disciples who witness to faith, hope, and love by the quality of their lives and the nobility of their aspirations. Thus theCatholicism of the twenty-first century and beyond will be a culture-forming counterculture, offering all men and women of good will a deeply humane alternative to the soul-stifling self-absorption of postmodernity. Drawing on thirty years of experience throughout the Catholic world, from its humblest parishes to its highest levels of authority, George Weigel proposes a deepening of faith-based and mission-driven Catholic reform that touches every facet of Catholic life-from the episcopate and the papacy to the priesthood and the consecrated life; from the renewal of the lay vocation in the world to there definition of the church's engagement with public life; from the liturgy to the church's intellectual life. Lay Catholics and clergy alike should welcome the challenge of this unique moment in the church's history. Mediocrity is not an option, and all Catholics, no matter what their station in life, are called to live the evangelical vocation into which they were baptized: without compromise but with the joy, courage, and confidence that comes from living this side of the Resurrection.

This volume of short essays and other pieces by C. S. Lewis is part of a larger collection: C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces. In addition to his many books, letters, and poems, C. S. Lewis wrote a great number of essays and shorter pieces on various subjects. He wrote extensively on Christian theology and the defense of faith but also on ethical issues and the nature of literature and storytelling. Within these pages is a treasure trove of Lewis’ reflections on diverse topics. This volume includes the following pieces: Christian Reunion, Priestesses in the Church?, and On Church Music.

New York Times bestselling historian Garry Wills takes on a pressing question in modern religion—will Pope Francis embrace change? Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope and the first from the Americas, offers a challenge to his church. Can he bring about significant change? Should he? Garry Wills argues that changes have been the evidence of life in the Catholic Church. It has often changed, sometimes with bad consequences, more often with good—good enough to make it perdure. In this brilliant and incisive study, he gives seven examples of deep and serious changes that have taken place within the last century. None of them was effected by the pope all by himself. As Wills contends, it is only by examining the history of the church that we can understand the challenges facing both it and Francis, and as history shows, any changes that meet those challenges will have impact only if the church, the people of God, support them. In reading the church’s history, Wills considers the lessons Pope Francis seems to have learned. The challenge that Francis offers the church is its ability to undertake new spiritual adventures, making it a poor church for the poor, after the example of Jesus. “Beautifully conceived and wrought essays that systematically address the wrongheadedness of the Catholic Church over centuries—and the space therein for Francis’ long-needed reforms…A welcome, thoughtful menu for the new pope on how to proceed with reform.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

From a celebrated religious scholar comes a riveting account of the Catholic Church’s failed attempt to crush Martin Luther and his Reformation. In 1521, the Catholic Church was hunting for Martin Luther. Angered by the Christian reformer’s unapologetic criticisms of the Church, the Holy Roman Emperor had called for him “to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic.” Knowing that inquisitors would murder the monk and crush his fragile movement if they caught him, Luther’s followers spirited him away to Wartburg Castle in central Germany. There Luther hid for the next eight months as his fate—and that of the Reformation—hung in the balance. In Luther’s Fortress, acclaimed religious historian James Reston Jr. describes this crucial but little-known episode in Luther’s life. While at Wartburg, Luther translated the Bible, fought his inner demons, and held together his fractious and increasingly radicalized movement from afar. A gripping portrait of the theologian at a transformational moment, Luther’s Fortress reveals how Luther and his Reformation emerged from Wartburg Castle stronger than ever.

The year 2017 is the five-hundredth-year anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany-the event that marked the beginning of the Reformation and the end of unified Christianity. For Catholics it was an unjustified rebellion by the heterodox; for Protestants, the release of true and purified Christianity from centuries-old enslavement to corruption, idolatry, and error. So what is the truth about the Reformation? To mark the five-hundredth anniversary, historian Benjamin Wiker gives us The Reformation 500 Years Later, a straightforward account that rejects the common distortions of Catholic, Protestant, Marxist, Freudian, or secularist retellings of this world-changing event.

Jeffrey Sachs, world-renowned for his work around the globe advising economies in crisis, here draws on his twenty-five years of expertise to offer a uniquely informed vision of the keys to economic success in the world today and the steps that are necessary to achieve prosperity for all.

Has something indeed happened to evangelical theology and to evangelical churches? According to David Wells, the evidence indicates that evangelical pastors have abandoned their traditional role as ministers of the Word to become therapists and "managers of the small enterprises we call churches." Along with their parishioners, they have abandoned genuine Christianity and biblical truth in favor of the sort of inner-directed experiential religion that now pervades Western society.Specifically, Wells explores the wholesale disappearance of theology in the church, the academy, and modern culture. Western culture as a whole, argues Wells, has been transformed by modernity, and the church has simply gone with the flow. The new environment in which we live, with its huge cities, triumphant capitalism, invasive technology, and pervasive amusements, has vanquished and homogenized the entire world. While the modern world has produced astonishing abundance, it has also taken a toll on the human spirit, emptying it of enduring meaning and morality.Seeking respite from the acids of modernity, people today have increasingly turned to religions and therapies centered on the self. And, whether consciously or not, evangelicals have taken the same path, refashioning their faith into a religion of the self. They have been co-opted by modernity, have sold their soul for a mess of pottage. According to Wells, they have lost the truth that God stands outside all human experience, that he still summons sinners to repentance and belief regardless of their self-image, and that he calls his church to stand fast in his truth against the blandishments of a godless world.The first of three volumes meant to encourage renewal in evangelical theology (the other two to be written by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. and Mark Noll), No Place for Truth is a contemporary jeremiad, a clarion call to all evangelicals to note well what a pass they have come to in capitulating to modernity, what a risk they are running by abandoning historic orthodoxy. It is provocative reading for scholars, ministers, seminary students, and all theologically concerned individuals.

In the 2014 New York Times bestseller Jesus on Trial, David Limbaugh made a case for the Gospels as hard evidence of the existence of God, drawing on his own spiritual journey from skeptic to believer. Now Limbaugh looks deeper into the scriptures and discovers that Jesus Christ’s very being reveals itself in a close reading of the sacred texts. The Emmaus Code is a powerful, intimate journey toward an understanding of Christ as man, savior, and son of God.

In the year since he was elected, Pope Francis’ simple message of mercy, service, and renewal has spread to every corner of the world. Through his gentle demeanor, selfless actions, and welcoming call for service to others, he has captured the attention of a world longing for an authentic message of hope—we want to hear what he has to say. Collected from Pope Francis’ speeches, homilies, and papers presented during the first year of his papacy, The Church of Mercy is the first Vatican-authorized book detailing his vision for the Catholic Church. From how to be citizens of the world to answering God’s call for evangelization, Pope Francis’ deep wisdom reminds us that the Church must move beyond its own walls and joyfully take God’s mercy wherever suffering, division, or injustice exists. Named Time magazine’s 2013 “Person of the Year,” Pope Francis is helping the Church continue toward an authentic Christianity that is faithful to the Gospel and resonant with the world’s greatest needs. The Church of Mercy encourages each of us to ignite the flame within to help share the light of Christ and revitalize the Church. “A magnificent book, bursting with profound spiritual insights, from a man who has quickly become one of the greatest spiritual teachers of our time.”—James Martin, SJ, New York Times bestselling author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage

“The Bible is alive,” declared Martin Luther, “it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me.” The Protestant Reformation’s seminal leader possessed a gift for evocative speech, and he was as articulate and outspoken in private as he was in public. Fortunately for posterity, some of Luther’s loyal followers took note of his informal speeches. The Table Talk of Martin Luther consists of excerpts from the great reformer’s conversations with his students and colleagues, in which he comments on life, the church, and the Bible. Collected by Johannes Aurifaber, Anton Lauterbach, and other close associates of Luther, these absorbing anecdotes reveal the speaker’s personality and wisdom. This text is based on the English translation by lawyer and author William Hazlitt, son of the celebrated essayist.

The Kingdom of the Cults has been the authoritative reference work on major cult systems for more than forty years. In an era of rapid cult growth worldwide, Christians today need the information in this book more than ever. It will equip readers from every walk of life to use biblical truth to counter the efforts of cults to masquerade as mainstream Christianity.