Showing titles in History

Do you know the whole story of the House of Borgia—from their rise from obscurity to the highest echelons of European society? The family produced two popes and a saint, but they are more known for stories of murder, debauchery, and incest. What is accurate, and what is just slander? Were the Borgias worse than any other powerful family of the time? Was Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI, a monster? Was his son Cesare a psychopath? Was his daughter Lucrezia a murderous temptress?

At the start of the 21st century, America was awash in a sea of evangelical talk. The Purpose Driven Life. Joel Osteen. The Left Behind novels. George W. Bush. Evangelicalism had become so powerful and pervasive that political scientist Alan Wolfe wrote of "a sense in which we are all evangelicals now." Steven P. Miller offers a dramatically different perspective: The Bush years, he argues, did not mark the pinnacle of evangelical influence, but rather the beginning of its decline. The Age of Evangelicalism chronicles the place and meaning of evangelical Christianity in America since 1970.

All listeners, atheist, agnostic or theist, will discover much of interest in Steiner's brilliant prose. The influence of Mystery Wisdom on thinkers such as Plato, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras is brought to life as Steiner explains how the initiate of the Mystery temples, such as those at Eleusis, ten miles from Athens, learnt to differentiate between mere knowledge and a wisdom that went beyond the transitory, phenomenal world of appearance to noumenal reality.

“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind". So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism’s most respected historians. Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship.

Taught by experts in the field of Christian history, Church History in Plain Language Video Lectures brings the story of global Christianity into the twenty-first century and provides a complete introductory guide to Christian history with compelling narrative and intellectual substance.

Explore the interwoven lives of King Herod and Mary, Mother of Jesus as New York Times bestselling author Kathie Lee Gifford brings these biblical figures into a new light. Follow Herod from boyhood as he strives and fails throughout his life to become a beloved king. Walk in the steps of Mary of Nazareth as she navigates the repercussions of Herod's deadly obsession.

The findings here—in this strange volume—bring the listener into a large inland sea, cut off from the traffic and the tempest that have sprung up in the West, and untouched by the crosscurrents of dogmas and presumptions that have cluttered historic centuries. Here is the virgin water that gushes, troubled by abysmal forces only, out of the very Earth itself.

The Christian church of the early centuries spread throughout much of Asia, Africa, and Europe, spoke many languages, was situated within diverse cultural settings, and had varied worship practices; yet it maintained a vital unity on core teachings. In The Global Church - The First Eight Centuries: From Pentecost through the Rise of Islam, author Donald Fairbairn helps listeners understand both the diversity and unity of the church in this pivotal era.

From one of the leading historians of Christianity comes this sweeping reassessment of religious freedom, from the church fathers to John Locke. In the ancient world, Christian apologists wrote in defense of their right to practice their faith in the cities of the Roman Empire. They argued that religious faith is an inward disposition of the mind and heart and cannot be coerced by external force, laying a foundation on which later generations would build.

For decades the accepted wisdom has been that America's mainline Protestant churches are in decline, eclipsed by evangelical mega-churches. Church and religion expert Diana Butler Bass wondered if this was true, and this book is the result of her extensive, three-year study of centrist and progressive churches across the country. Her surprising findings reveal just the opposite - that many of the churches are flourishing, and they are doing so without resorting to mimicking the mega-church, evangelical style. Christianity for the Rest of Us describes this phenomenon....

Spurgeon and the Poor is a fascinating study into the life and ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, exploring his understanding of the place of benevolence in the ministry of the local church. Alex DiPrima examines the way Spurgeon's belief that gospel preaching and soul-winning formed the church's mission informed his view of social concern as a compelling argument for its power.

The first Christians were weird. Just how weird is often lost on today's believers. Within Roman society, the earliest Christians stood out for the oddness of their beliefs and practices. They believed unusual things, worshiped God in strange ways, and lived a unique lifestyle. They practiced a whole new way of thinking about and doing religion that would have been seen as bizarre and dangerous when compared to Roman religion and most other religions of the ancient world.

Nothing is new or original in Christianity. That is the important thesis demonstrated in Christianity Before Christ. The least important features, as well as the most important components, were all well developed in cultures that flourished before the time that Christ is alleged to have walked the parched paths of Roman Palestine.

In this book, Miles Smith offers a fresh historical recollection of America’s status as a Christian nation in the Early Republic era.

Cuáles fueron los verdaderos motivos que desataron la Reforma de Lutero? ¿Cómo reaccionaron el Papa y el Imperio frente al desafío luterano? ¿Cuál fue la auténtica primera reforma de la Iglesia? ¿Existieron, realmente, las iglesias reformadas como tal? ¿Llegó tarde el Concilio de Trento? ¿Qué supuso la mal llamada "contrarreforma" en nuestra historia? ¿En qué consistió, en realidad, la tan renombrada Pax Catholica? ¿El movimiento reformista se adueñó del relato que ha llegado a nuestros días?

Download this audiobook to learn more about Christian History!

In this rich and definitive study, renowned scholar Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks explores the history of women and the Reformations in full for the first time. Wiesner-Hanks travels the globe, examining well-known figures like Teresa of Avila, Elizabeth I, and Anne Hutchinson, as well as women whose stories are only now emerging.

Mary, mother of Jesus, is the best known—and least known—woman in history. Revered and worshipped by countless millions, she remains a figment of the imagination, the ethereal subject of Raphaels and Botticellis, bathed in heavenly light, too virginal and pure to move among us. But what about the real Mary? In The Lost Mary, James D. Tabor corrects the record, laying out the results of his intensive textual and archaeological sleuthing over the past three decades.

The Quartodecimans were early Christians who maintained the tradition derived from Judaism, and observed Pascha at the same time that the Jews observed Passover.

This audiobook takes a look at the full history of Christianity, from its earliest days as a persecuted sect, to its acceptance and formalization at the Council of Nicaea, to the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and the subsequent modern age.