Come check out the New Titles Available in the Library. Our new books display area is located on the 4th floor of the LRC next to the west elevator.
Below you can see some of the featured titles among new books, and you can find more in the catalog.
Jesus the Spirit Baptizer by This new book by globally recognized Pentecostal scholar Frank Macchia brings an incarnational and a Spirit Christology together in fresh ways. Macchia begins his Christology with John the Baptist's announcement that Christ will baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire. That announcement points to Christological fulfillment in Pentecost and sets up Christology throughout the New Testament. Drawing from classical and contemporary sources, Jesus the Spirit Baptizer probes the fundamental connection between the person of Christ and the Holy Spirit. From that perspective, Macchia argues that Christology explicates Jesus as the one who bears the Spirit so as to impart the Spirit on all flesh.
Always Near by God is both everywhere and always near, yet we often miss Him. In our ever-on, busy world, it requires intentionality to encounter God and learn to enjoy Him. In a fast-paced, perpetually distracted society, we often feel alone, outmatched by trouble, and overwhelmed by life. Bestselling author and pastor Robert J. Morgan recognizes that the very core of personal spirituality is knowing Him in whose presence we travel and in whose light we continually dwell. Learning to train our souls to awaken to the simple pleasure of being present with our Savior relieves what all-to-often overwhelms us. In Always Near, Morgan provides 10 ways we can cultivate the blessings of God's presence, including: Discovering special places Focusing on things unseen Abiding in Scripture Highlighting special times Trusting God in difficulty Serving God in ways large and small It is time to nurture a sense of the abiding nearness of Him who is closer than a brother so that you'll know more of His joy, strength, and comfort. Experience a relationship with the God who made you, who loves you, and desires for you to enjoy His presence. Seek the Lord and soon discover He was, is, and always will be Always Near.
Jesus by Two billion people today identify as Christians, with the implication that Jesus is the focus of their relationship with God, and their way of living in the world. Such followers of Jesus are now more numerous and make up a greater proportion of the world's population than ever before. Despiteits decline in the West, Christianity is rapidly increasing in areas such as Africa and China.Richard Bauckham explores the historical figure of Jesus, evaluating the sources and concluding that they provide us with good historical evidence for his life and teaching. In order to place Jesus in his proper historical context, as a Jew from Galilee in the early first century of our era,Bauckham looks at Jewish religion and society in the land of Israel under Roman rule. He explores Jesus' symbolic practices as well as his teachings, looks at his public career and emphasises how his actions, such as healing and his association with notorious sinners, were just as important as hiswords.Bauckham shows that Jesus was devoted to the God of Israel, with a special focus on God's fatherly love and compassion, and like every Jewish teacher he expounded the Torah, but did so in his own distinctive way. With a discussion about the way Jesus understood himself and what finally led to hisdeath as a criminal on a Roman cross, he concludes by considering the significance Jesus has come to have for Christian faith worldwide.
Christobiography by Demonstrates the reliability of the canonical gospels by exploring the genre of ancient biography The canonical gospels are ancient biographies, narratives of Jesus's life. The authors of these gospels were intentional in how they handled historical information and sources. Building on recent work in the study of ancient biographies, Craig Keener argues that the writers of the canonical gospels followed the literary practices of other biographers in their day. In Christobiography he explores the character of ancient biography and urges students and scholars to appreciate the gospel writers' method and degree of accuracy in recounting the ministry of Jesus. Keener's Christobiography has far-reaching implications for the study of the canonical gospels and historical-Jesus research. Table of Contents: Introduction Part 1. Biographies about Jesus 2. Not a Novel Proposal 3. Examples and Development of Ancient Biography 4. What Sort of Biographies Are the Gospels? 5. What Did First-Century Audiences Expect of Biographies? Part 2 Biographies and History 6. Biographies and Historical Information 7. What Historical Interests Meant in Antiquity 8. Luke-Acts as Biohistory 9. Sources Close to the Events Part 3. Testing the Range of Deviation 10. Case Studies: Biographies of Recent Characters Use Prior Information 11. Flex Room: Literary Techniques in Ancient Biographies Part 4. Two Objections to Gospels as Historical Biographies 12. What about Miracles? 13. What about John? Part 5. Memories about Jesus: Memories before Memoirs 14. Memory Studies 15. Jesus Was a Teacher 16. Oral Tradition, Oral History 17. The Implications of This Study
Studying Congregations by This handbook for seminarians and clergy professionals places the congregation itself, rather than individual scholarly disciplines, at the center of congregational analysis. Using a comprehensive systems approach to congregations, this volume enables readers to analyze the ministries, stories, and processes that are at work in congregations. It provides techniques for studying the congregation as well as a framework for understanding the nature of the congregation.
The Fractured Republic by A National Review Best Book of the Year Americans today are anxious--about the economy, about politics, about our government. The institutions that once dominated our culture have become smaller, more diverse, and personalized. Individualism has come at the cost of dwindling solidarity. No wonder, then, that voters and politicians alike are nostalgic for a time of social cohesion and economic success. But the policies of the past are inadequate to the America of today. Both parties are stuck presenting old solutions to new problems. In The Fractured Republic, Yuval Levin details his innovative answers to the dysfunctions of our fragmented national life. By embracing subsidiarity and diversity and rejecting extremism and nostalgia, he believes we can revive the middle layers of society and enable an American revival. Updated with a new epilogue, Levin helps us navigate our fraught political waters.
This America by A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Selection One of President Bill Clinton's "Best Things I've Read This Year" From the acclaimed historian and New Yorker writer comes this urgent manifesto on the dilemma of nationalism and the erosion of liberalism in the twenty-first century. At a time of much despair over the future of liberal democracy, Jill Lepore makes a stirring case for the nation in This America, a follow-up to her much-celebrated history of the United States, These Truths. With dangerous forms of nationalism on the rise, Lepore, a Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, repudiates nationalism here by explaining its long history--and the history of the idea of the nation itself--while calling for a "new Americanism": a generous patriotism that requires an honest reckoning with America's past. Lepore begins her argument with a primer on the origins of nations, explaining how liberalism, the nation-state, and liberal nationalism, developed together. Illiberal nationalism, however, emerged in the United States after the Civil War--resulting in the failure of Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, and the restriction of immigration. Much of American history, Lepore argues, has been a battle between these two forms of nationalism, liberal and illiberal, all the way down to the nation's latest, bitter struggles over immigration. Defending liberalism, as This America demonstrates, requires making the case for the nation. But American historians largely abandoned that defense in the 1960s when they stopped writing national history. By the 1980s they'd stopped studying the nation-state altogether and embraced globalism instead. "When serious historians abandon the study of the nation," Lepore tellingly writes, "nationalism doesn't die. Instead, it eats liberalism." But liberalism is still in there, Lepore affirms, and This America is an attempt to pull it out. "In a world made up of nations, there is no more powerful way to fight the forces of prejudice, intolerance, and injustice than by a dedication to equality, citizenship, and equal rights, as guaranteed by a nation of laws." A manifesto for a better nation, and a call for a "new Americanism," This America reclaims the nation's future by reclaiming its past.
Debunking Howard Zinn by Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States has sold over 2.5 million copies and is still required reading in some high school and college classrooms. But its polemic rewriting of American history as a story of oppression is an agenda-driven fairy tale that has no place in academia. In Fake History, Mary Grabar debunks Howard Zinn's lies and traces the damage his mega-bestseller has done to American education, culture, and politics. 
Burdens of Freedom by Burdens of Freedom presents a new and radical interpretation of America and its challenges. The United States is an individualist society where most people seek to realize personal goals and values out in the world. This unusual, inner-driven culture was the chief reason why first Europe, then Britain, and finally America came to lead the world. But today, our deepest problems derive from groups and nations that reflect the more passive, deferential temperament of the non-West. The long-term poor and many immigrants have difficulties assimilating in America mainly because they are less inner-driven than the norm. Abroad, the United States faces challenges from Asia, which is collective-minded, and also from many poorly-governed countries in the developing world. The chief threat to American leadership is no longer foreign rivals like China but the decay of individualism within our own society. The great divide is between the individualist West, for which life is a project, and the rest of the world, in which most people seek to survive rather than achieve. This difference, although clear in research on world cultures, has been ignored in virtually all previous scholarship on American power and public policy, both at home and abroad. Burdens of Freedom is the first book to recognize that difference. It casts new light on America's greatest struggles. It re-evaluates the entire Western tradition, which took individualism for granted. How to respond to cultural difference is the greatest test of our times.
Intention by Inspiring and exploring creativity opens pathways for students to use creative expression to demonstrate content knowledge, critical thinking, and the problem solving that will serve them best no matter what their futures may bring. Intention offers a collection of ideas, activities, and reasons for bringing creativity to every lesson.
Reality and Illusion in New Testament Scholarship by 
The Treacherous World of the 16th Century & How the Pilgrims Escaped It by Discover the facts you've been missing from the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving story! Did freedom of religion & conscience exist in 16th century Europe? How did kings of Spain, France & England, & Turkish Sultans, dominate people's lives? What was the first empire "on which the sun never set"? How did its Invincible Armada sink? Globalist Kings sought world empires. How miraculous was it for the Pilgrims to escape? Did the Pilgrims experiment with communism? How did the Dutch invention of "joint-stock companies" & the "stock exchange" fuel international trade? How devastating were the Ottoman sieges of Constantinople, Malta & Vienna? Did you know Pilgrims were terrorized by Muslim Barbary pirates? Did you know our "calendar" was developed in the 16th century? Who was Squanto & how did his amazing life rescue the fledgling Pilgrim community? If you like speaking your views, participating in politics & sharing your faith without fear of government persecution, you will be fascinated by the compelling Pilgrim experience told from an amazing world perspective! -- Other chapters include: -Age of Discovery -Reformation -Henry VIII -Queen Elizabeth -Role of the Printing Press -Protestant Ripple Effect -Suleiman the Magnificent -Catherine de Medici -Sir Francis Drake -Sir Walter Raleigh -The Lost Colony -King James I -The English Bible -Puritan Religious Uniformity -Jewish Influence on Pilgrims
The Madness of Crowds by The challenging and brilliantly-argued new book from the bestselling author ofThe Strange Death of Europe. In his devastating new bookThe Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray examines the twenty-first century's most divisive issues: sexuality, gender, technology and race. He reveals the astonishing new culture wars playing out in our workplaces, universities, schools and homes in the names of social justice, identity politics and intersectionality. We are living through a postmodern era in which the grand narratives of religion and political ideology have collapsed. In their place have emerged a crusading desire to right perceived wrongs and a weaponization of identity, both accelerated by the new forms of social and news media. Narrow sets of interests now dominate the agenda as society becomes more and more tribal--and, as Murray shows, the casualties are mounting. Readers of all political persuasions cannot afford to ignore Murray's masterfully argued and fiercely provocative book, in which he seeks to inject some sense into the discussion around this generation's most complicated issues. He ends with an impassioned call for free speech, shared common values and sanity in an age of mass hysteria.
American Contempt for Liberty by Throughout history, personal liberty, free markets, and peaceable, voluntary exchanges have been roundly denounced by tyrants and often greeted with suspicion by the general public. Unfortunately, Americans have increasingly accepted the tyrannical ideas of reduced private property rights and reduced rights to profits, and have become enamored with restrictions on personal liberty and control by government. In this latest collection of essays selected from his syndicated newspaper columns, Walter E. Williams takes on a range of controversial issues surrounding race, education, the environment, the Constitution, health care, foreign policy, and more. Skewering the self-righteous and self-important forces throughout society, he makes the case for what he calls the "the moral superiority of personal liberty and its main ingredient--limited government." With his usual straightforward insights and honesty, Williams reveals the loss of liberty in nearly every important aspect of our lives, the massive decline in our values, and the moral tragedy that has befallen Americans today: our belief that it is acceptable for the government to forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another.
The Solzhenitsyn Reader After spending time in the Soviet gulag and pursuing the life of an underground writer, the Russian writer and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was catapulted to international fame with the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1962. This reader provides a representative selection of Solzhenitsyn's voluminous works.
Quoting Corinthians by Imagine reading a letter where the writer is engaged in a heated debate with someone and repeatedly cites their positions, but never uses quotation marks to indicate that he is quoting them. This is precisely what we find in 1 Corinthians! Paul frequently quotes certain factions within the church and then proceeds to correct their faulty thinking; but he rarely explicitly tells us that he is quoting them. This poses a significant challenge for interpreters of this letter. How do we know when Paul is stating his own position rather than quoting a Corinthian position that he actually rejects? Quoting Corinthians sets forth a step-by-step process for evaluating potential quotations in the New Testament and then applies that process to eleven passages in 1 Corinthians where quotations may occur. As the first book-length attempt to establish more objective criteria for identifying quotations, Quoting Corinthians is a valuable resource for students and scholars alike who are seeking to rightly interpret the New Testament. ""Modern interpreters recognize that Paul cites the Corinthians' own words in trying to conform their thinking and behavior to the wisdom of the cross, but no consensus exists about which texts repeat Corinthian slogans. Watson and Culy develop and apply a clear set of criteria to help modern readers identify these quotations and to read the text as the Corinthians would have understood it . . . This slender volume is brimming with insights and serves as an excellent introduction to the entire letter."" --David Garland, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University ""Watson and Culy have written a very interesting and timely volume on 1 Corinthians that advances our understanding of both how quotations were indicated and functioned in the ancient world and how Paul and the Corinthians were dealing with issues of ancient and contemporary relevance. This is a volume that will be attractive to New Testament scholars and to those simply interested in the issues discussed."" --Stanley E. Porter, President, Dean, and Professor of New Testament, McMaster Divinity College Edward W. Watson serves as Professor of Biblical Literature at Oral Roberts University. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the New Testament for the Modern English Version Bible (MEV), and the author of Paul, His Roman Audience, and the Adopted People of God as well as numerous articles. Martin M. Culy is Director of Cypress Hills Ministries and former Professor of New Testament and Greek at Briercrest Seminary. He is founding editor of the Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament (BHGNT), and the author or co-author of eight books, including Echoes of Friendship in the Gospel of John, The Book of Revelation: The Rest of the Story, and the volumes on Luke, Acts, and 1, 2, 3 John in the BHGNT series.
The Household and the War for the Cosmos by Your household is not just a shelter from a war zone; it is the command center from where you launch your attacks. It's this vision of the world, with the Christian family at the heart, that modern parents desperately need to recover.
Primal Screams by Who am I? The question today haunts every society in the Western world. Legions of people--especially the young--have become unmoored from a firm sense of self. To compensate, they join the ranks of ideological tribes spawned by identity politics and react with frenzy against any perceived threat to their group. As identitarians track and expose the ideologically impure, other citizens face the consequences of their rancor: a litany of "isms" run amok across all levels of cultural life; the free marketplace of ideas muted by agendas shouted through megaphones; and a spirit of general goodwill warped into a state of perpetual outrage. How did we get here? Why have we divided against one another so bitterly? In Primal Screams, acclaimed cultural critic Mary Eberstadt presents the most provocative and original theory to come along in recent years. The rise of identity politics, she argues, is a direct result of the fallout of the sexual revolution, especially the collapse and shrinkage of the family. As Eberstadt illustrates, humans from time immemorial have forged their identities within the structure of kinship. The extended family, in a real sense, is the first tribe and first teacher. But with its unprecedented decline across a variety of measures, generations of people have been set adrift and can no longer answer the question Who am I? with reference to primordial ties. Desperate for solidarity and connection, they claim membership in politicized groups whose displays of frantic irrationalism amount to primal screams for familial and communal loss. Written in her impeccable style and with empathy rarely encountered in today's divisive discourse, Eberstadt's theory holds immense explanatory power that no serious citizen can afford to ignore. The book concludes with three incisive essays by Rod Dreher, Mark Lilla, and Peter Thiel, each sharing their perspective on the author's formidable argument. 
American Religion by Most Americans say they believe in God, and more than a third say they attend religious services every week. Yet studies show that people do not really go to church as often as they claim, and it is not always clear what they mean when they tell pollsters they believe in God or pray. American Religion presents the best and most up-to-date information about religious trends in the United States, in a succinct and accessible manner. This sourcebook provides essential information about key developments in American religion since 1972, and is the first major resource of its kind to appear in more than two decades. Mark Chaves looks at trends in diversity, belief, involvement, congregational life, leadership, liberal Protestant decline, and polarization. He draws on two important surveys: the General Social Survey, an ongoing survey of Americans' changing attitudes and behaviors, begun in 1972; and the National Congregations Study, a survey of American religious congregations across the religious spectrum. Chaves finds that American religious life has seen much continuity in recent decades, but also much change. He challenges the popular notion that religion is witnessing a resurgence in the United States--in fact, traditional belief and practice is either stable or declining. Chaves examines why the decline in liberal Protestant denominations has been accompanied by the spread of liberal Protestant attitudes about religious and social tolerance, how confidence in religious institutions has declined more than confidence in secular institutions, and a host of other crucial trends.
