Showing results by narrator "Adam Barr" in All Categories

Belief and Cult argues that belief isn't uniquely Christian but was central to ancient Roman religion. Drawing on cognitive theory, Jacob Mackey shows that despite having nothing to do with salvation or faith, belief underlay every aspect of Roman religious practices—emotions, individual and collective cult action, ritual norms, social reality, and social power. In doing so, he also offers a thorough argument for the importance of belief to other non-Christian religions.

The United States spends enormous sums on helping people—$3.8 trillion on healthcare, $182 billion on prisons, and $604 billion on higher education—and yet these systems routinely fail us. When we seek to improve how they function, our efforts focus on policy debates, technical solutions, funding, and data. But if these systems are to truly improve, we have to start with the human values behind them. Broken explores the deeply human dimensions we must consider if we want to rebuild the policies, technologies, processes, and most importantly, the heart we use to serve people.

The idea that Christianity and science are inextricably in conflict is a relatively recent conception. However, with each new scientific discovery and scriptural insight, it's an idea that's being proved to be insupportable. Sy Garte has immersed himself in both science and faith and knows they work beautifully together to sing of the greatness of God. Now this respected scientist shares how God's world (nature and science) and God's word (made flesh in Christ) are bound together in loving harmony. In Science and Faith in Harmony,

It is 1979, and the Cold War tensions between the the United States and Soviet Union have risen to a peak of intensity that makes MAD—mutually assured destruction—seem inevitable. But the nuclear arsenals are not the true weaponry. Spiritual forces, powers of darkness and light, are gathering to battle for the soul and future of the world. Off the coast of Brazil, Brady, a young man who has received a beautiful and terrible gift from the Blessed Virgin, begins the dance of death, delivering long overdue vengeance on a Nazi war criminal.

Brady, the young man who talks with angels and who can call on the Light of the Blessed Virgin to both heal and destroy, retreats to a sanctuary, far off the grid, to protect his wife and unborn child. But there is a prophecy on his destiny, passed to him through his grandfather and great grandfather, which will not allow him to dwell in peace and safety. Brady is a warrior, chosen by God and sealed by his relentless courage and obedience. With his brothers at his side, he has wreaked death and devastation on Satan’s plans to create a new world order.

Drawing on archeological and ethno-historical evidence, Irving Rouse sketches a picture of the Tainos-the first people Columbus encountered when he arrived in the Americas-as they existed during the time of Columbus, contrasting their customs with those of their neighbors. He then moves backward in time to the ancestors of the Tainos-two successive groups who settled the West Indies and who are known to archeologists as the Saladoid peoples and the Ostionoid peoples.

In The Storied Life, veteran author Jared C. Wilson explores the ins and outs of writers and writing, exploring the myriad ways the craft is more about transformation than simply communication. From decades of experience and with his signature wit, Wilson brings well-earned insight, autobiographical reflections, and meaningful meditations to the topic of writing as a way of life and as a way of worship, showing how the concept of Story—our personal stories and God's grand story of redemption—shapes fiction and non-fiction writers alike.

The vivid, behind-the-scenes story of perhaps the most consequential political moment in American history—Abraham Lincoln’s history-changing nomination to lead the Republican Party in the 1860 presidential election.

Dennis Carlyle Darling has photographed and interviewed hundreds of Holocaust survivors who spent time at the German transit camp and ghetto at Terezin, a former eighteenth-century military garrison located north of Prague. Many of the prisoners were kept there until they could be transported to Auschwitz or other camps, but unlike German captives elsewhere, they were allowed to participate in creative activities that the Nazis used for propaganda purposes to show the world how well they were treating Jews.

The Monastery of the Holy Face, nicknamed "Hard Cider Abbey" for the brew its monks produce from their own orchard, sits on an Appalachian mountaintop in West Virginia, just outside the old mining town of Skerritville. Brother Odo, just 20 years old and mute from childhood trauma, transfers into the abbey from a dissolved monastery in Quebec, and almost immediately comes upon the body of the abbey librarian, Father Lucian.

Soldier Keith Nightingale has conducted terrain walks in Normandy for over forty years with veterans, active-duty military, and local French civilians. Over the decades Nightingale conducted dozens of formal interviews and informal conversations with many of the principals of the day, including Generals Bradley, Collins, Gavin, Ridgway, and Hill. Added to this rare new primary material from the top brass are numerous conversations with lower-ranking vets who did the heavy lifting.

Cheated is a gripping story of single-minded politicians, uncompromising Indian Affairs officials, grasping government appointees, and well-connected Liberal speculators, set against a backdrop of politics, power, patronage, and profit. The Laurier government's settlement of western Canada can never be looked at the same way again.

Like sharks to blood in the water, the mob arrived in Hollywood greedy and ready to tear away huge chunks of cash. Opportunistic mobsters saw labor unions as the means for muscling into the movie industry and extorting millions of dollars from studio bosses. Control the unions to which projectionists, art directors, cinematographers, electricians, scene designers, stagehands, extras belong, and you control the whole industry.

When FBI agent Jack Shannon arrives in Corpus Christi, Texas, he is focused on one thing: finding the man who has been selling encrypted government secrets to the Chinese through online birding chat rooms. But when a senator is shot during a hunting trip and the woman he was with is abducted, Jack agrees to join the search - especially when he discovers that the kidnapping victim is Aubrey Grayson, a woman he was once in love with. As the search continues, it becomes clear the senator may not have been the intended victim....

Will progressives and moderates feud while America burns? Or will these natural allies take advantage of the greatest opportunity since the New Deal Era to strengthen American democracy, foster social justice, and turn back the threats of the Trump Era? In Code Red, award-winning journalist E. J. Dionne, Jr., calls for a shared commitment to decency and a politics focused on freedom, fairness, and the future, encouraging progressives and moderates to explore common ground and expand the unity that brought about Democrat victories in the 2018 elections.

Mason Gray, a former cop, has a knack for solving puzzles, but the corpse on his living room floor is a piece that doesn’t fit. As the number one suspect, Gray races to find the killer before the cops can pin it on him. But the cops aren’t the only ones out to get him. Those responsible for the murder want him dead and will use any means necessary to put him in the ground including vampire hit-men. To survive, Gray must choose to go through the looking glass; wrestle with demons, both figurative and literal; and put the bad guys in the ground first.

They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans is the previously untold story of perhaps the oldest outsider settlement in America, an invisible community on the annually flooded shores of the Mississippi River. This community exists in the place between the normal high and low water line of the Mississippi River, a zone known in Louisiana as the batture. Until now, the stories of this way of life have existed only in the memories of those who have lived here.

Tim O’Connor is paid to be violent. He plays for the El Paso Storm in the West Texas Hockey League. People call him Oak. He’s been an enforcer for longer than his hip or shoulder or back have been able to hold together. He is a broken machine of gristle and rage. And he has been away from home for too long. He’s called back to Boston by his mother’s death. There he confronts a life he failed to live, a daughter he doesn’t know, and a body that is quickly breaking down.

Lieutenant Devlin Collins, an Irish American flier in the Royal Flying Corps, expecting to fly on the Western Front, instead finds himself flying antiquated two-seater bomber and photo reconnaissance missions over the Egyptian desert against the forces of the Central Powers that are trying to capture the Suez Canal.

A French teacher on the verge of retirement is invited to a glittering opening that showcases the artwork of his former student, who has since become a celebrated painter. This unexpected encounter leads to the older man posing for his portrait, possibly in the nude. Such personal exposure at close range entails a strange and troubling pact between artist and sitter that prompts both to reevaluate their lives.