Whats God Got to Do with It

Robert Ingersoll (1833—1899) is one of the great lost figures in United States history, all but forgotten at just the time America needs him most. An outspoken and unapologetic agnostic, fervent champion of the separation of church and state, and tireless advocate of the rights of women and African Americans, he drew enormous audiences in the late nineteenth century with his lectures on “freethought.” His admirers included Mark Twain and Thomas A. Edison, who said Ingersoll had “all the attributes of a perfect man” and went so far as to make an early recording of Ingersoll’s voice. The publication of What’s God Got to Do with It? will return Robert Ingersoll and his ideas to American political discourse. Edited and with a biographical introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Page, this new popular collection of Ingersoll’s thought – distilled from the twelve-volume set of his works, his copious letters, and various newspaper interviews – promises to put Ingersoll back where he belongs, in the forefront of independent American thought.

More than two hundred years have passed since the Constitution was written, yet Americans still cannot make up their minds whether religion is primarily private, public, or a combination of the two. This collection of essays explores the unsettled—and often unsettling—question of organized religion's role in contemporary public life. Richard N. Ostling reviews religious belief and practice in the United States in a survey of the ever-changing religious landscape, while Robert J. Blendon and others compare the political, moral, and religious values of the 1960s with those of the 1990s. Patrick Glynn and Alan Wolfe examine different religious responses to the recent presidential scandal, and James Q. Wilson, John J. DiIulio Jr., and Ram Cnaan examine the rise of faith-based social programs, including the shift of private funds to social service providers, the role of black churches in the inner city, and social and community work by urban religious congregations. Additional contributors include Taylor Branch, Kurt Schmoke, Cal Thomas, and Peter Wehner.

This book ‘What’s God got to do with it’? is expansive and visionary in its scope; and, it examines issues like ‘creation’, sexuality, gender, population, war, money, and so on. It is part academic, journalistic, descriptive, and prescriptive, even if personal. Some chapters are short, while others are long. This book poses some very searching questions, and provides some startling, and revolutionary answers to these important religious problems using the full range of religious, psychological, linguistic, and scientific tools to do so. These questions, for example, are: Why are we here? Where are we going? Is there a God, or not? If there is a ‘good’ God, why is there suffering, and death? So this monograph, seeks to address these questions, and other deep ones about existence, and human behaviours. So I invite you to come along with me on this journey of discovery towards Genesis: New Beginnings.

Menopause is a journey every woman takes. Much is written about the physical and emotional struggles of this season, but what about the spiritual? In this book filled with personal stories laced with humor, Carolyn Herbert helps you ... Understand the little discussed spiritual symptoms experienced in menopause...and their causes Establish a new purpose for getting out of bed each morning Relinquish yesterday and lean into your new tomorrow. "I endorse Dr Carolyn Herbert's wonderful new book. She offers a treasure trove of God's wisdom and fruit from her own journey through this difficult mid-life transition for women ... Her much needed work is a beautiful gift for women." JoAnn Ford Watson, PhD, Professor of Christian Theology and Spiritual Formation, Ashland Theological Seminary

This book is one-year devotional excursion in search of God's kingdom. Using Scripture, true stories, and pertinent thoughts, it deals with four central areas of your life.

From the bestselling author of A History of God and The Great Transformation comes a balanced, nuanced understanding of the role religion plays in human life and the trajectory of faith in modern times. Why has God become incredible? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors? Moving from the Paleolithic Age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the lengths to which humankind has gone to experience a sacred reality that it called God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. She examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. With her trademark depth of knowledge and profound insight, Armstrong elucidates how the changing world has necessarily altered the importance of religion at both societal and individual levels. And she makes a powerful, convincing argument for structuring a faith that speaks to the needs of our dangerously polarized age.

Relationships, Thomas will take you on an honest reflection of your thinking and beliefs so that you will discover what love has got to do with your own life. Book jacket.

You have a calling to fulfill. Are you ready to take the risk of moving past your past to fulfill it? Christine Caine faced hurdles that seemed insurmountable--abuse, abandonment, and the loss of a child. Yet she decided to answer God's call on her life no matter where it would lead her. Many times, the only thing that kept her going was knowing that she was God's beloved. She was God's chosen. Secure in those truths, she moved beyond her pain so she could live the adventure of bringing God's light and love to others around the world. In Undaunted, Christine challenges you to embrace the reality of God's love so you can speak it to others as you live out your own unique calling. As Christine writes, "Love like Christ's can lift you out of betrayal and hurt. It can deliver you from any mess. Love like that can release you from every prison of fear and confusion. And love like God's can fill you up till it spills out of you, and you have to speak about it, share it, spread it around." You already have all you need to bring hope to others. With additional biblical teaching, new stories, and a new epilogue, this revised edition of Undaunted will awaken you to how God wants to work through you and in you as you dare to become who God created you to be.

When a mild mannered preacher returns from Las Vegas with a jackpot and a new wife, odds are there is much more to the story! Trevor's mission of mercy goes awry when he drops a quarter into a slot and wins more than he bargained for. Has he fallen from grace? What happened in those lost hours? How can any of this possibly be God's plan?

Much writing about complementary roles in marriage treats the subject theoretically. But how does this actually work in the give-and-take of real marriages, with flawed husbands and flawed wives? What about marriages where the wife out-earns the husband, or has a powerful position outside the home? Scripture says that wives are to respect their husbands. When does “submission” cross the line into destructive co-dependency? Drawing from in-depth interviews, as well as Scripture and her own story, author and speaker Cindy Easley takes a candid, sometimes humorous, and always helpful look at what it means to submit in 21st-century marriages.

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.

'Nations under God: The Geopolitics of Faith in the Twenty-First Century' is a timely contribution to the on-going discussion on religion and politics. The volume brings together over thirty leading scholars from a variety of disciplines such as political science, international relations theory, sociology, theology, anthropology, and geography. Utilising case studies, empirical investigations, and theoretical examinations, this book focuses on the complex roles that religions play in world affairs. It seeks to move beyond the simplistic narratives and overly impassioned polemics which swamp the discourse on the subject in the media, on the internet, and in popular nonfiction, by acting as a vessel for scholarly research on religion. The book presents a balanced analysis of the multifaceted roles taken on by religions, and religious actors, in global politics. Contributors: Stephen Dawson, Jodok Troy, Gertjan Dijkink, John A. Rees, Mark S. Cladis, Fabio Petito, Linda Woodhead, Jonathan Fox, Brendan Sweetman, Don Handelman, Scott W. Hibbard, Ruy Llera Blanes, Fang-long Shih, Kaarina Aitamurto, Mona Kanwal Sheikh, Lee Marsden, Shireen T. Hunter, Nilay Saiya, Dan G. Cox, Pauline Kollontai, Franc ois Foret, James L. Guth, Brent F. Nelsen, Paul S. Rowe, J. Paul Martin, Allen D. Hertzke, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Jonathan Benthall, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Timothy Fitzgerald."

Presents interviews with eight distinguished thinkers and religious leaders as well as the writings of Americans from colonial times to the present that reflect on the history of faith in American life