Monday, July 1, 2019

New Book Release: Valiant or Virtuous?

Valiant or Virtuous? Gender Bias in Bible Translation by Suzanne McCarthy


This book explores a systematic bias in translating the Bible and in interpreting its teachings, which suggests that men are inherently suited to be leaders in the home, church, and community, while it is God’s plan for women to submit to men’s leadership. This erroneous understanding of the Bible has been promoted by certain influential evangelical Christian leaders in order to push back the growing influence of feminist attitudes, the expansion of women’s leadership roles, and the increase in egalitarian relationships among evangelicals in English-speaking North America. 

Written in a down-to-earth, engaging way, this book will appeal to young women searching the Bible for guidance on women’s roles in relationships and in the church. It highlights the dynamic roles played by women in the narratives of Old and New Testament and in the work of Bible translation. Built on a solid framework of biblical and linguistic scholarship, this book will also be of interest to Bible scholars and to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of what the Bible actually says in its original languages. 

New Book Release: The Call of the Mourning Dove

The Call of the Mourning Dove: How Sacred Sound Awakens Mystical Unity by Stephanie Rutt

Spiritual seekers across faith traditions share a fierce yearning for mystical unity with their God. While beliefs and practices differ, what ignites the human heart to quest for the mystical, the unknowable, the holy just beyond understanding, is the same. The Call of the Mourning Dove: How Sacred Sound Awakens Mystical Unity offers a new paradigm, the Sonic Trilogy of Love, that details how sacred sound, embedded in the ancient canons across faith traditions, creates just such a portal into this unmitigated experience of God. Because the experience is ubiquitous across faith traditions, it does not matter whether a seeker has embarked on an eclectic quest for God or remains deeply committed to questing within one particular faith tradition. All seekers, known as Lovers within the Trilogy, discover that by intoning the sacred sounds, the Love embedded in the ancient languages, the conditions are set to experience unity with God, the BelovedThis unity occurs in unforeseen moments, as love, the core organizing principle of the Trilogy, circles in on itself, dissolving all distinctions, leaving the Lover filled with only the silent wonder of God. And, graciously, nothing is the same. 

New Book Release: The Rage Against the Light

The Rage Against the Light: Why Christopher Hitchens was Wrong by Peter Harris

Christopher Hitchens was the most eloquent of the New Atheists. With great rhetorical polish and an encyclopedic mind for historical facts and literary quotations, he presents the case of anti-theism very effectively. Though now deceased, Hitchens’ arguments continue to reverberate through his best-selling books and online presence. God, asserts Hitchens, would be, if he existed, the greatest of dictators. Religion, according to Hitchens, is morally bankrupt and madly irrational. The world is better off without them! But is this true? It is the purpose of this book to identify Hitchens’ worldview in order to subject it to a critique that will powerfully expose its many flaws. Rather than a dictator, God will be shown to be a God of love. Christianity too will be revealed as a faith that ought to resist tyranny, provides the best foundation for intrinsic human value, and is a rational belief-system. In so doing, this book appeals to all who have been influenced or convinced by Hitchens’ arguments to reconsider their position and refuse to rage against the light. 

New Book Release: Viktor Frankl and the Book of Job

Viktor Frankl and the Book of Job: A Search for Meaning by Marshall Lewis


This book accomplishes two distinct tasks. First, it develops the psychological theory of Dr. Viktor E. Frankl as a literary hermeneutic. Second, it applies the hermeneutic by reading the book of Job. 

Key issues emerge through three movements. The first movement addresses Frankl’s concept of the feeling of meaninglessness and his rejection of reductionism and nihilism. The second movement addresses the dual nature of meaning; an association is revealed between Frankl’s understanding of meaning and the Joban understanding of wisdom. The third movement involves an exploration of Frankl’s ideas of ultimate meaning and self-transcendence.

As a Holocaust survivor, Frankl had a personal stake in the effectiveness of his approach. He lived the suffering about which he wrote. Because of this, reading the book of Job with a hermeneutic based on Frankl’s ideas will present readers with opportunities to discover unique meanings and serve to clarify their attitudes toward pain, guilt, and death. As meaning is discovered through participation with the text, we will see that Job’s final response can become a site for transcending suffering.

New Book Release: Extracted

Extracted: Unmasking Rampant Antisemitism in America's Higher Education by Perry Brickman

On a late summer day in 2006, Brickman and his wife attended an exhibit on the history of Jewish life at Emory University and were astonished to come face-to-face with documents that strongly suggested that Brickman and many others had been failed out of Emory’s dental school because they were Jewish. They decided to embark on an uncharted path to uncover the truth. With no initial allies and plenty of resistance, Brickman awoke each morning determined to continue extracting evidence hidden in deep and previously unmined archives. While the overt discrimination was displayed in charts and graphs, the names of the victims were scrupulously withheld.

The ability of the perpetrators to silence all opposition and the willingness of the Jewish community to submit to the establishment were deeply troubling as Brickman continued to dig deeper into the issue. Extracted brings to light the human element of the rampant antisemitism that affected the dental profession in twentieth-century America—the personal tragedies, the faces, and the individual stories of shame and humiliation. After five years of identifying, interviewing, and recording the victims, Brickman was finally permitted to present his documentary to Emory officials and ask for redemption for the stain she had made.

New Book Release: Cover-Ups & Secrets

Cover-Ups & Secrets: The Complete Guide to Government Conspiracies, Manipulations & Deceptions by Nick Redfern

Fake news, alternative facts, outright lies, fears of nuclear war, widespread surveillance of the population, mass shootings, the rise of a totalitarian state and more have led millions of us to distrust the word of government. And with good reason, too. There are countless conspiracy theories in circulation that suggest the world as we see it is not as it really is. Disinformation campaigns try to tell us that up is down and right is wrong.

More and more people are beginning to realize that we are being manipulated and lied to. We are denied access to secrets that shouldn’t be secrets. Our politicians obfuscate, deny, and outright lie. No one knows whom to trust. The nightly news is being replaced by carefully orchestrated propaganda. Our iPhones are monitored as are our laptops and our landlines. As for social media, that too is ripe for spying by men in black suits. No wonder, then, that the last few years have seen an incredible rise in conspiracy theories about deceptions and cover-ups. They range from the controversial to the shocking and from the nightmarish to the downright terrifying. And you can find all of them in the pages of Cover-Ups & Secrets: The Complete Guide to Government Conspiracies, Manipulations & Deceptions.
From the dark agendas to restrict our access to the Internet and even ban books to suppressing cancer cures to ensure the pharmaceutical industry continues to reap gigantic profits and the murder of politicians, scientists, world leaders, and even Princess Diana in the name of national security. Cover-Ups & Secrets reveals dozens of nefarious conspiracies, plots, hidden agendas, and betrayals, including…
  • Amazon’s Alexa, the secret spy in the home
  • NASA misdirections
  • The classified Pentagon program on alien life
  • Clandestine plans for nuclear and bacteriological warfare
  • NSA’s penetration of cell-phones, email, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype messages
  • Suspicious deaths
  • The Bilderbergers, the Illuminati, and the Bohemian Club
  • Secrets of the Philadelphia Experiment
  • Reptilian Aliens and the British Royal Family
  • The Patriot Act and the government’s monitoring of reading habits
  • And much, much more!!!