Social Issues
Showing 1151–1200 of 1211 results
-
Victims And Sinners
$40.00Add to cartMore than one million Americans participate in nearly 50,000 Alcoholics Anonymous groups in America. Addiction recovery groups such as A.A. often rely on religious themes in their work, offering a form of spirituality as a way to deal with life’s problems. Many recovery groups borrow selectively from theology because the full Christian doctrine of sin can be alienating for those in recovery. Linda Mercadante offers a theological critique of addiction recovery programs and proposes an alternate view of addiction that avoids both excessive blame and excessive victimization. This book is for pastoral counselors, clergy, laypersons, and recovery group members wanting to reassess addiction recovery from a theological perspective. It offers a wake-up call to the church to take seriously the need to establish recovery groups and to construct a language for better dialogue.
-
Why America Needs Religion A Print On Demand Title
$23.99Add to cartThis is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable.
What is wrong with America? It has often called itself a Christian nation, yet its social and moral problems are legion. The increasing rates of crime, juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy, sexual promiscuity, and divorce are frequently linked to the declining importance of religious belief. But is there more than a presumed link between the strength of personal religiousness and moral behavior? Yes, says Guenter Lewy, and the large quantity of empirical data in existence which establishes that link ought to move people – Christians and non-Christians alike – to sit up and take note.
In this trenchant analysis of the moral decline of modern America, Lewy describes the moral crisis caused by secular modernity and points to the role of religiousness – especially Christian religiousness – as a necessary bulwark against today’s social ills. This work is all the more intriguing in that Lewy is an agnostic who has nonetheless concluded that a society that cuts itself off from the religious roots of its moral heritage is doomed to decline.
Lewy traces the rise of secularism in Western society, focusing particularly on the cult of individualism, and describes the social consequences of the weakened role of religion. He demonstrates that the crisis of the family and the rise of the underclass in our inner cities are linked to the decline of traditional values and shows, on the basis of surveys and other empirical data, that genuine religiousness can ward off some of the corrosive effects of modernity. Lewy concludes by calling on Christians, adherents of other faiths, and true humanists to join forces in the struggle to reverse the current ethos of radical individualism that threatens the moral integrity of our society.
-
Coming Out As Parents
$28.00Add to cartHow do parents respond to the knowledge that their child is gay or lesbian? David Switzer, in a complete revision of his best-selling “Parents of the Homosexual”, helps parents understand their feelings and reactions to that knowledge and clarifies what it means to be a homosexual. He explores recent scientific, social, and biblical information about homosexuality, emphasizes the need for reconciliation, and deals with common parental responses to child’s disclosure. He also provides a listing of addtional resources for further assistance. This book is for parents of gay or lesbian children as well as for pastoral counselors and clergy engaged in family outreach. Children, too, can benefit as well, from understanding their parents’ struggles with this issue.
-
Christianity And Civil Society
$68.00Add to cartIn this book, well-known author Robert Wuthnow considers three aspects of the relationship between Christianity and civil society:
*whether civil society is in jeopardy and what effects Christianity’s declining influence has on civil society
*whether Christians can be civil in the face of conflicts that have arisen among religious groups in the public arena and the so-called culture wars that many in the media have been discussing
*growing multiculturalism in the United States, how Christians are responding to this new diversity, and how Christianity can regain a critical voice for itself in these debates -
Deliver Us From Evil
$21.00Add to cartComprehend and confront the devastation of societal evil. From a slave woman in 19th-century America to a female patient of Freud, Poling explores the history of resistance to racial and gender oppression. Identifying Jesus as a model for the marginalized, he calls for prophetic acts of solidarity toward healing and justice.
-
Tough Love : Now Parents Can Deal With Drug Abuse (Revised)
$15.99Add to cart1. Choices
2. But Does It Work?
3. The Family That Had Everything Under Control
4. The Family That Didn’t Give Up
5. The Family That Didn’t Have To Suffer
6. The Mother Who Never Made Waves
7. The Mother Who Learned From Pain
8. The Family That Was Determined To Be Perfect
9. The Father Who Knew What Was Right
10. The Dope Fiend Who Got Straight
11. Straight Talk From A PDAP Counselor
12. The Twelve Steps Of PDAP
13. The Twelve Steps Of Alcoholics Anonymous
14. The Twelve Steps
15. The FutureAdditional Info
TOUGH LOVETough Love is hope. It is help. It is a way of recovery for drug abusers, and a positive, supportive program for their families.
Tough Love is a gift of love and a gift of life for those who practice its plan. It is a book for all parents, especially those whose children are now on drugs or are exposed to those who use drugs.
Pauline Neff has gathered enthralling, real-life accounts of young drug users who needed help and of their parents’ role in seeing that they received it. Eight families describe, in very graphic, heartrending terms, how their children successfully beat the drug habit through the Palmer Drug Abuse Program.
PDAP is a privately financed twelve-step program, similar to the steps of AA. Ms. Neff explains each step to show how families can interpret and work through these steps in their own lives. Thousands of young people have found help through this method. Families have been reunited, and parents’ own lives have been changed drastically in the process.
If you are a parent of a young person in America today, tough love may be the most important book you will ever read. It may save your life.
-
7 Deadly Lawsuits
$25.99Add to cartDuring the last two decades, American law has undergone some startling developments that will affect all church leaders and religious organizations, regardless of denomination. Reacting to events allegedly occurring in the church counseling office or board room, the American public is suing its religious leaders and organizations at an unprecedented rate.
7 Deadly Lawsuits is about preventing lawsuits against clergy, religious professionals, churches, and religious organizations. The book, however, is not about “how to fight back.” Thomas Taylor leaves this to the lawyers, once the alleged damage is done. Instead, this book is about how clergy, religious professionals, and religious organizations can be educated about the kinds of lawsuits that are typically levied against them. Taylor then shows how to avoid such costly legal involvement. The final chapter discusses “responding to lawsuits.”
-
Primer On Postmodernism
$24.99Add to cartPostmodernism is an emerging force in contemporary Western culture. But what is it and how should Christians proclaim the gospel to a postmodern generation? In this scholarly yet accessible overview, Grenz introduces you to thinkers such as Derrida and Foucault, and helps you understand the impact of this cultural shift on art, philosophy, literature, and the media.
-
You Have Stept Out Of Your Place
$58.00Add to cartThis book fills an important gap in American women’s history. The author manages to discuss four centuries of women’s experience in the United States clearly, inclusively, and with both a sensitivity to feminist issues and a faithfullness to women’s own experience that ensures this book will have a wide readership. This book spans a broad range of geographic, ethnic, racial and denominational range of American women’s religious experiences and contributions and attempts to preverse the intregrity and diversity of their voices. In the absense of strong counterevidence, the author has assumed that American women were basically telling the truth about who they were, what they did, and why they did it.
-
Christian Social Ethics In A Global Era
$21.99Add to cartIn this challenging book, four highly respected think discuss the need for a renewal of Christian ethical reflection in a dramatically changed world and articulate their distinctive point of view on how this can responsibly be done. Christian Social Ethics in a Global Era is thus both a call for renewal in our thinking and acting, and an introduction to the issues that must be addressed by any meaningful response to our new global situation.
-
Sacramental Cocoa : And Other Stories From The Parish Of The Poor
$24.00Add to cartThere will always be those among us who are unable to fully provide for themselves. In Sacramental Cocoa, Lynn Perry writes of her experiences with the marginalized and disenfranchised, who, not unlike their more prosperous counterparts, long for connection with others and with God. Sacramental Cocoa is a love story. The vignettes affirm the connectedness of all people and our place in God’s world.
-
Not My Own A Print On Demand Title
$20.99Add to cartThis is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable.
This timely, tough-minded work examines the implications of the church’s distinctive characteristics in relation to the most heated moral crisis of our age. Writing from an ecumenical perspective, the authors explore the traditional “marks” of the church – the Word and the sacraments – and ask what difference the church can and should make in the lives of human beings affected by abortion. No other book has approached the issue of abortion from this perspective; no other book offers such sound practical help.
-
I Am A Palestinian Christian
$23.00Add to cartA personal testimony of God and politics in the Holy Land. Mitri Raheb is a Palestinian Arab Lutheran Christian pastor who ministers in his hometown of Bethlehem. For many American Christians this combination of identities is incomprehensible. They assume that Palestinian Arabs are Muslims, not Christians, much less Lutherans. Raheb writes as a cultural mediator to the Western Christian world and as a local theologian for the Palestinian community. He grapples with how Palestinian Christians can develop a local theology that can be both truthful and helpful in mediating the conflicts between Israel and Palestine and among Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Both are conflicts in which religion, politics, and collective identity intertwine.
-
Welfare In America A Print On Demand Title
$53.99Add to cartThis is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable.
Between 1992 and 1995, the Center for Public Justice, a Christian civic-education and public-policy think tank undertook an extended project named the Welfare Responsibility Inquiry. In May 1994, the project hosted a conference in Washington, DC, on “Public Justice and Welfare Reform.” The project involved, at its center, a group of scholars who met periodically to discuss the issues involved. Those scholars then wrote the papers which are collected in Welfare in America.
“Welfare in America,” James Skillen writes, “argues that assistance to the needy does not, and should not, come primarily from government. Government, whether at federal or state levels, should help hold people accountable to their various institutional and personal responsibilities rather than fill in for every failure.” The range of topics addressed in Welfare in America is extensive. Though no reader will agree with everything here, those whose calling requires them to think through this issue with care will be wise to include Welfare in America in their list of books to be read.
-
Reimagining God : The Case For Scriptural Diversity
$30.00Add to cartCan believers talk about God and to God in a way that is not exclusively male and is biblically responsible? Johanna van Wijk-Bos asks this question as she examines alternatives to the dominant male language associated with God in the Bible. Focusing primarily on the Hebrew Bible, van Wijk-Bos mines a rich source of God-imagery. Along the way, she also discusses alternative language associated with God that transcends the narrow confines of male/female imagery.
-
God Beyond Gender
$24.00Add to cart144 Pages
Additional Info
God Beyond Gender is a feminist critique of the traditional language used for God and in the church. Can masculine pronouns for God be retained on the basis of bibical usage? Can Trinitarian language be gender inclusive? What should be the Christain understanding of the devine name of God (YHWH) in the Old Testament? What are the possibilities and what are the hazards of using human images (“judge,” “shepherd,” “father,” “mother,” “Sophia”) for God? Is all human language and possibly all human thought necessarily metaphorical? -
Morality And Beyond
$27.00Add to cartThis work confronts the age-old question of how the moral is related to the religious. In particular, Tillich addresses the conflict between reason-determined ethics and faith-determined ethics and shows that neither is dependent on the other but that each alone is inadequate. Instead, Tillich reveals to us the gift that came with the arrival of Christ: a new reality that offers a power of being in which we can participate and out of which true thought and right action are possible. Paul Tillich (1886-1965) taught at several German universities before emigrating to the United States. In the United States, Tillich taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Harvard Divinity School, and the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.
-
Childs Song
$38.00Add to cartThis book is about reconciliation and the healing of the child self–“the mutilated soul”–that all adults carry within themselves. Using the biblical image of the Garden, the author draws from the same biblical tradition that has contributed to the physical and emotional abuse of children to envision and initiate the healing process.
-
Ending Auschwitz : The Future Of Jewish And Christian Life
$32.00Add to cartThis book begins with Marc Ellis’s own journey to Auschwitz in 1992 and reflects back on his past, which includes his childhood experience as a Jew and his university years studying under Holocaust theologian Richard Rubenstein. Marc Ellis has taught and traveled among third-world peoples and has been outspoken on Middle Eastern issues. Based on this experience, Ellis has come to see that both Judaism and Christianity are locked in a static position. He shows that there is a continuity between the era of Christendom, exemplified by 1492, and Auschwitz and provides evidence to show that they are intimately linked. He sees the possibility of Jews and third-world Christians joining in a solidarity characterized by suffering and hope. He advocates what he calls “the ultimate religious act of contemporary Judaism and Christianity” to end Auschwitz and 1492 and to begin anew to create a world where all people can claim their own freedom and history.
-
Vanishing Boundaries : The Religion Of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers
$45.00Add to cartThis in-depth survey provides a vivid overview of the religious world of the Baby Boomers. The authors worked with a national sample of persons confirmed in the Presbyterian Church, examining the religious faith of the Baby Boomers and exploring the reasons they gave for leaving or staying in the church. The authors identify eight types of young adults-half of them churched and the other half unchurched. Their findings provide some unexpected results.
-
Fall Of The Prison A Print On Demand Title
$29.99Add to cartEven as America’s prison system is expanding at an unprecedented rate, Lee Griffith makes a startling proposal in this book: abolish prisons. To make his case, Griffith thoroughly examines prisons from the perspectives of sociology, theology, history, and biblical exegesis. Bolstered with extensive documentation as well as lively anecdotal evidence, this compelling, radical book is bound to stir up serious discussion.
-
Using Gods Resources Wisely
$17.00Add to cartNew and different readings of biblical texts are one consequence of a growing awareness of the environmental crisis and how it relates to social relations, especially in urban settings. Walter Brueggemann explores readings from Isaiah and how they relate to the environment and urban crisis. He approaches the readings as an artistic-theological history of the city of Jerusalem–a case study of urban environmental crisis that resulted from a lost sense of covenantal neighborliness. Reflecting on Jerusalem, its failure, demise, and prospect, Brueggemann uncovers some alarming parallels in today’s urban cities, and offers a demanding but hopeful challenge to faith.
-
Beyond Charity : Reformation Initiatives For The Poor
$22.00Add to cartThe common stereotype is that the Reformers separate public and private morality and were indifferent to the ethical import of social structures and institutions. Beyond Charity calls this understanding into question by providing an analysis of the historical situation and translationof primary documents. The medieval point of view, formed by piety of achievement, idealized poverty — either as voluntary renunciation or as almsgiving. In either case the material effects on actual poverty were slight, and the religious endorsement of poverty precluded urban efforts to address this growing problem. The Reformers impelledby their theology, developed and passed new legislative structures for addressing social welfare needs. The key to their undertakings was the conviction that social ethics is the continuation of community worship. In the first half, this book sets forth the medieval context, details Luther’s critique of the profit economy of his day, and analyzes the actual social welfare programs that issued from his theology. The second half provides translations of selected legislative programs from the church orders of the Reformation.
-
Islam And War
$30.00Add to cartThis book explores questions regarding the justice of war and addresses the lack of comparative perspectives on the ethics of war, particularly with respect to Islam. John Kelsay begins with the war in the Persian Gulf, focusing on the role of Islamic symbols in the rhetoric of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He provides an overview of the Islamic tradition in regards to war and peace, and then focuses on the notion of religion as a just cause for war.
-
Depleted Self : Sin In A Narcissistic Age
$29.00Add to cartDon Capps challenges the church, its theologians, and its pastors to address seriously-and without moralism – the malaise that afflicts us, the mood of “wrongness” and incompleteness of self, of victimization, hunger, alienation, bitterness, the melancholic form that sin takes so prevailing in our day. This book is an effective example of the postive mirroring, more empathy, or acceptance, that Capps recommends as the means of empowering the depleted self.
-
Christianity And The Social Crisis
$55.00Add to cartWalter Rauschenbusch was the primary architect of the Social Gospel, a movement that responded to the changing social and industrial conditions in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He presents, in this book, his path-breaking and prophetic interpretation of Jesus and the kingdom, and his understanding of troubling conditions that call the church to faithful witness and work toward meaningful political and economic reforms.
-
Abuse Of Power
$27.99Add to cartChapter Titles Are:
1. Hearing The Silenced Voices
2. Power And Abuse Of Power
3. “Karen”: Survivor Of Sexual Violence
4. Stories Of Recovering Perpetrators
5. The Schreber Case: Methods Of Analysis
6. The Search For Self
7. The Search For Community
8. The Search For God
9. Ministry Practice And Practical TheologyAdditional Info
Pastoral care instruction and observation from a therapist of survivors of sexual abuse.“The Abuse of Power is ‘must’ reading for clergy and denominational officials…. Weaving case stories with theory, Poling demonstrates that sexual abuse of children is not a private matter, but very much a matter for society and church–a question of structure and ideology, not just of individual character. He is not afraid to tackle the tough question: Does the image of God sacrificing Jesus on the cross contribute to abusive parent-child relationships?…If pastors and church officials read this book the church will change.” –Karen Lebacqz, Pacific School of Religion
“For the exploitation of women and children to stop, men must be willing to break ranks with all forms of privilege that sanction male dominance. James Poling does so by deconstructing his own sense of male entitlement, by refusing to distance himself from perpetrators, by allowing survivors of sexual and domestic violence to speak with their own voices, by giving us profound words of hope, and by articulating a powerfully healing theology wrought through the depths of his own struggle with one of the worst evils in our society. His courageous and compassionate work reveals the love and hope that is born of solidarity across the boundaries of gender, sexual orientation, race, and economics….The psychological, political, spiritual, and theological power of this book is such that all educators, ministers, therapists, and Christians must read it.” –Rita Nakashima Brock, Hamline University
-
Loving Nature : Ecological Integrity And Christian Responsibility
$31.99Add to cartThe ecological crisis is a serious challenge to Christian theology and ethics because the crisis is rooted partly in flawed convictions about the rights and powers of humankind in relation to the rest of the natural world. James A. Nash argues that Christianity can draw on a rich theological and ethical tradition with which to confront this challenge.
-
Witness For Peace
$45.00Add to cartIn this graphic, thought-provoking book, Ed Griffin-Nolan depicts the experiences of Witness for Peace (WFP), a group of Americans who bore witness to the war in Nicaragua–an event that resulted in the killing and wounding of many innocent Central American civilians. Griffin-Nolan explains how WFP participants spent weeks in the war zones in order to understand the impact of U.S. policy on simple people living, as one member of the group phrased it, “at the end of a gun barrel.” He describes how WFP participants labored to bring stories of war back to the United States, and how many of them lost their jobs and even their marriages in the process. He concludes by showing that the efforts of WFP saved lives and possibly prevented “another Vietnam” from developing in Central America.
-
City Of God City Of Satan
$26.99Add to cartWhy is the city a battleground of hostile principalities and powers? What is the mission of the church in the city? How can the church be supported in accomplishing that mission? These are the questions that Robert Linthicum treats in his comprehensive and probing biblical theology of the city. In the Bible the city is depicted both as a dwelling place of God and his people and as a center of power for Satan and his minions. The city is one primary stage on which the drama of salvation is played out. And that is no less the case at the end of this pivotal century as megacities become the focal point of most human activity and aspirations around the world. This is a timely theology of the city that weaves the theological images of the Bible and the social realities of the contemporary world into a revealing tapestry of truths about the urban experience. Its purpose is to define clearly the mission of the church in the midst of the urban realities and to support well the work of the church in the urban world.
-
Social Ministry (Revised)
$45.00Add to cartThis work challenges pastors, seminarians, and active members of the laity to rethink the social character of their ministry. Dieter Hessel calls on parish communities to “meet human need with good Samaritan love while acting for justice with prophetic boldness.” In this updated edition, Hessel assesses major new developments that have occurred in both church and society since the first publication of Social Ministry. He gives special attention to the uncertainty that churches face today in regard to their public role.
-
Good News To The Poor
$27.99Add to cartThis provocative volume illuminates a dimension of John Wesley’s theology that has received insufficient attention: his deep and abiding commitment to the poor. By focusing on the radical nature of Wesley’s “evangelical economics,” Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., provides an important corrective to the view that Wesley was concerned with the salvation of souls only, and not also with the social conditions of human beings.
-
Church With Aids
$40.00Add to cartThis book looks at the experiences of people with AIDS as a means of examining the way Christianity views the problem and deals with it on both personal and community levels. This book begins by sharing the experience and ministry of those living with AIDS. Also presented is a series of theological reflections on what living with AIDS means for the renewal of the church. Russell also asks how the traditional church might be seen differently by those struggling with AIDS. The final section, is designed as a tool for study and discussion groups.
-
Social Ethics : An Examination Of American Moral Traditions
$39.00Add to cartRodger Betsworth introduces ethics by focusing on the cultural narratives that shape American images of self and world: the biblical story American gospel of success, the idea of well-being, and the global mission of America.
-
Keep It Simple
$18.95Add to cartThese daily meditations are for people in recovery who are either beginning a Twelve Step program or looking for renewal in the basic principles of recovery. Keep It Simple shows how prayer, meditation, and action can bring sobriety and peace to one’s life. Suggested daily activities help readers integrate these concepts into their daily lives. Keep It Simple presents the basics of recovery in terms that allow any reader the chance to enjoy the gifts of sobriety and serenity.
