Download or read book The Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion written by Martin Thielen and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2014-01-17 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you think the only logical response to bad Christianity is to leave Christianity completely, this book is for you. In an effort to help those who’ve been hurt by or turned off by negative religion, Martin Thielen explains that there is an alternative to abandoning religion: good religion. Thielen uses personal stories to illustrate the dangers of religion that is judgmental, anti-intellectual, and legalistic. While addressing the growth of the new atheism movement and the “Nones” (people that have no religious affiliation), this book argues that leaving religion is not practical, not helpful, and not necessary. Thielen provides counterparts to the characteristics of bad religion, explaining that good religion is grace-filled, promotes love and forgiveness, and is inclusive and hope-filled. This study is perfect for individual, group, or congregational study.

Download or read book The Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion Leader s Guide written by Martin Thielen and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2014-01-17 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfect for group study, the leader's guide provides everything needed to facilitate sessions and provide options based on the time and style of each group. If you think the only logical response to bad Christianity is to leave Christianity completely, this book is for you. In an effort to help those who’ve been hurt by or turned off by negative religion, Martin Thielen explains that there is an alternative to abandoning religion: good religion. Thielen uses personal stories to illustrate the dangers of religion that is judgmental, anti-intellectual, and legalistic. While addressing the growth of the new atheism movement and the “Nones” (people that have no religious affiliation), this book argues that leaving religion is not practical, not helpful, and not necessary. Thielen provides counterparts to the characteristics of bad religion, explaining that good religion is grace-filled, promotes love and forgiveness, and is inclusive and hope-filled. This study is perfect for individual, group, or congregational study.

Download or read book The Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion Worship and Outreach Kit written by Martin Thielen and published by . This book was released on 2014-02-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you think the only logical response to bad Christianity is to leave Christianity completely, this book is for you. In an effort to help those who've been hurt by or turned off by negative religion, Martin Thielen explains that there is an alternative to abandoning religion: good religion. Thielen uses personal stories to illustrate the dangers of religion that is judgmental, anti­intellectual, and legalistic. While addressing the growth of the new atheism movement and the "Nones" (people that have no religious affiliation), this book argues that leaving religion is not practical, not helpful, and not necessary. Thielen provides counterparts to the characteristics of bad religion, explaining that good religion is grace­filled, promotes love and forgiveness, and is inclusive and hope­filled. Perfect for individual, group, or congregational study, a Leader's Guide and a Worship and Outreach Kit are also available to further the discussion and increase community involvement.

Download or read book Bad Religion written by Ross Douthat and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the decline of Christianity in America since the 1950s, posing controversial arguments about the role of heresy in the nation's downfall while calling for a revival of traditional Christian practices.

Download or read book Give Me an Answer written by Cliffe Knechtle and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 1986-03-31 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cliffe Knechtle offers clear, reasoned and compassionate responses to the tough questions skeptics ask.

Download or read book The Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion Leader s Guide written by Martin Thielen and published by Presbyterian Publishing Corp. This book was released on 2014-02-19 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an effort to help those who've been hurt by or turned off by negative religion, Martin Thielen explains that there is an alternative to abandoning religion: good religion. Perfect for group study, the leader's guide provides everything needed to facilitate sessions and provide options based on the time and style of each group.

Download or read book Is Belief in God Good Bad or Irrelevant written by Preston Jones and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2010-09-28 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preston Jones (a Christian history professor and music fan) and Greg Graffin (a punk rocker with a Ph.D. in zoology) conversed via e-mail about knowledge, evil, biology, evolution, religion, God, destiny and the nature of reality. While they find some places to agree, neither one convinces the other of his perspective. Which worldview is more plausible? You decide.

Download or read book God Is Not Great written by Christopher Hitchens and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2008-11-19 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

Download or read book The Dawkins Delusion written by Alister McGrath and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2011-05-18 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath present a reliable assessment of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, famed atheist and scientist, and the many questions this book raises--including, above all, the relevance of faith and the quest for meaning.

Download or read book What s the Least I Can Believe and Still be a Christian written by Martin Thielen and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A national worship and preaching consultant offers a provocative look at the core elements of Christian faith, articulating centrist, mainline Christianity in a way that is fresh and easy to understand. Original.

Download or read book Concentricity and Continuity written by Robert H. O'Connell and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph explores the structure and rhetoric of the book of Isaiah. Its thesis is twofold. First, the book of Isaiah best manifests its structural unity, thematic choherence and rhetorical emphasis when read as an exemplar of prophetic covenant disputation. Second, the principal arrangement of the book comprises seven asymmetrical concentric sections, each made up of complex (triadic and quadratic) framing patterns. They are: an exordium (1.1, 2-5), two threats of judgment (2.6-21; 3.1-4.1), two programmes for the punishment and restoration of Zion and the nations (4.2-11.16; 13.1-39.8), an exoneration of Yahweh (40.1-54.17), and an appeal for covenant reconciliation (55.1-66.24).

Download or read book Searching for Happiness written by Martin Thielen and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The key to happiness is being rich, successful, and beautiful…right? Martin Thielen, best-selling author of What's the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?, insists that this is far from the truth. Happiness, Thielen argues, does not come from external factors like getting a job promotion or finally reaching your goal weight. Rather, happiness is an inside job. In brief, easy-to-read chapters, Thielen offers ten traits of happy and fulfilled people. Using psychological research, personal anecdotes, and Scripture, Thielen begins the path to contentment by showing how life circumstances—including income, health, physical appearance, and marital status—only account for about 10 percent of a person's overall life satisfaction. From there, he offers alternatives to the frequent methods we use to make ourselves happy. Instead of aiming to make more money, Thielen contends that expressing gratitude and cultivating optimism are surer paths to joy. Rather than focusing on constant advancement in our careers, let's practice our ability to forgive, to be generous, and to use trials as growth opportunities. These lessons, and much more, help readers who may be dissatisfied in their lives see that authentic contentment is closer than they ever imagined. The book features a guide for group or individual study, which includes questions for reflection and a challenge for each individual to reflect on during the week.

Download or read book Rulers Religion and Riches written by Jared Rubin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to explain the political and religious factors leading to the economic reversal of fortunes between Europe and the Middle East.

Download or read book Faith No More written by Phil Zuckerman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faith No More seeks to understand how and why people lose their faith, sever their ties with religious organizations, and experience a secularizing transformation in their own personal lives. Based on in-depth interviews with 75 individuals from a variety of backgrounds and religious traditions, this book offers a rich and colorful exploration of the human journey from religiosity to secularity.

Download or read book Bad News Religion written by Greg Albrecht and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2004-07-10 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From any non-Christian point of view, the gospel does not make sense. Grace doesn't make sense. Grace doesn't add up. Why would Jesus come to be one of us, to pay a debt He did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay? Why would He do that? Free? No strings? What was in it for Him? Since the church first began, Christians have had trouble accepting God's grace. We have substituted holiness, discipleship, order, regulation, and a long list of things to avoid in place of God's free gift. The result is a "Bad News Religion" that drains the joy and life out of believers. Bad News Religion is a convicting, liberating exploration of how we, in the name of religion, have shifted the focus from the work of God to our ability to become worthy of salvation. The result is bondage and defeat. The key to success in the Christian life is not what we do, but who we know. Knowing God and knowing the fullness of His grace is a liberating experience. Most of us don't realize how we have robbed ourselves of experiencing the richness of God's grace.

Download or read book Rethinking Religion written by Barbara O'Brien and published by . This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does religion have something positive to offer the 21st century (and beyond)? Or is it a vestige of the Iron Age that ought to be contained in museums, preferably under bell jars? More critically, is it even possible to be religious and also be a rational and entirely modern participant in 21st-century civilization? Is it possible to live a devotional, religious life today without denying science or otherwise being assimilated by some religious-authoritarian Borg? Rethinking Religion argues that today's clown-shoes religiosity is an infantile caricature of religion that the great theologians, scholars, saints and sages of the past wouldn't recognize as religion at all. Religion may be salvageable, and may even be beneficial, but only if we can rediscover what it is and how to make use of it. Rethinking Religion is a proposal for how we might do that. This book is not written from any one sectarian position. The author was raised Christian in the Bible Belt, but she has been a formal student of Soto Zen Buddhism for many years and is currently the expert on Buddhism for the reference website About.com. The perspectives in Rethinking Religion apply to all the world's religious great religious traditions - Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and the rest of them. The author also is supportive of atheism and does not think everyone has to be religious. Along the way, the author explains why Christian megachurches turn Christ into McJesus; why being "spiritual but not religious" may not be a good idea; why Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Burma (Myanmar) are turning violent; and why people join cults and believe ridiculous things. This book also challenges assumptions - why "faith" is not the same as "belief"; why some atheists aren't nearly skeptical enough; why "reality" may not be what you think it is; why morality doesn't have to be tied to religion; and why there may be a God, but if so, God isn't God - or at least, any God you can imagine. Today, most of the ongoing violent conflicts around the globe have a connection to religion. Recent studies reveal that religion-based violence is on the rise, in fact. In many ways religion has become a millstone around humanity's neck, holding us back from our potential to live in peace and harmony and enjoy the blessings of science. Rethinking Religion will show you that it doesn't have to be this way, and argues that enlightened religion is the most effective weapon against oppressive and stupid religion.

Download or read book Do What You Want written by Bad Religion and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From their beginnings as teenagers experimenting in a San Fernando Valley garage dubbed "The Hell Hole" to headlining major music festivals around the world, discover the whole story of Bad Religion's forty-year career in irreverent style. Do What You Want's principal storytellers are the four voices that define Bad Religion: Greg Graffin, a Wisconsin kid who sang in the choir and became an L.A. punk rock icon while he was still a teenager; Brett Gurewitz, a high school dropout who founded the independent punk label Epitaph Records and went on to become a record mogul; Jay Bentley, a surfer and skater who gained recognition as much for his bass skills as for his antics on and off the stage; and Brian Baker, a founding member of Minor Threat who joined the band in 1994 and brings a fresh perspective as an intimate outsider. With a unique blend of melodic hardcore and thought-provoking lyrics, Bad Religion paved the way for the punk rock explosion of the 1990s, opening the door for bands like NOFX, The Offspring, Rancid, Green Day, and Blink-182 to reach wider audiences. They showed the world what punk could be, and they continue to spread their message one song, one show, one tour at a time.