Showing titles in Religious Studies

What do you do when divine law and the justice demanded by your conscience clash? Muslims have wrestled with this problem since the earliest caliphates. The mazalim courts, dating back to the eighth century, were the answer: courts where any subject could appeal directly to an Islamic ruler...

You’ve seen them in movies and on TV, but cults are more prevalent than you think - and they’re armed with strategies that can brainwash and persuade even the most unlikely of candidates. But how do individuals get involved with cults in the first place, and what steps can be taken to “deprogram” and heal those who have been drawn into these damaging groups? These questions and more are addressed in Cults Inside Out, written by leading cult expert Rick Alan Ross.

Step into the armour-clad world of one of history’s most iconic and misunderstood brotherhoods—the Knights Templar. In this compelling and richly detailed exploration, Korey Blathewick unpacks the rise, structure, and ultimate fall of an order that straddled the divine and the deadly. From humble origins guarding pilgrims on the treacherous roads to Jerusalem, the Templars swiftly rose to become elite warriors, international bankers, and spiritual exemplars—answerable only to the Pope and feared by kings.

Have you ever felt like you’ve had more questions than answers? Have you ever been troubled by the hard truth that life is equal parts disappointment and hope? New York Times bestselling author Barbara Brown Taylor in Leaving Church shares, “This is not the life I planned, or the life I...

Beginning with the life of Jesus, Robert Louis Wilken narrates the dramatic spread and development of Christianity over the first thousand years of its history. Moving through the formation of early institutions, practices, and beliefs to the transformations of the Roman world after the conversion of Constantine, he sheds new light on the subsequent stories of Christianity in the Latin West, the Byzantine and Slavic East, the Middle East, and Central Asia. 

With a narrative that grips the reader like a detective story, Antonia Fraser brings the characters and events of the Gunpowder Plot to life. Dramatically recreating the conditions and motives that surrounded the fateful night of 5 November 1605, she unravels the tangled web of religion and...

The late great astronomer and astrophysicist describes his personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, Sagan presents his views on a wide range of topics, including the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, creationism and so-called intelligent design.

Day after day we read of the caliphate and the Qur'an, of Sunni and Shi'a, Salafis and Sufis, integration and isolation, radicals and refugees. Almost a quarter of the world's populate is Muslim. It is clear that understanding the modern world requires knowing something about Islam. But while much is said and written about Islam and the global trends and historic events connected to it, little attention is given to placing these phenomena within their greater historical, religious and intellectual context.

Marc Headley provides an insider's view of life as a member of Scientology's "Sea Organization". Marc worked at Scientology's secret desert compound, which houses all Scientology management, for 15 years. The 500-acre property is located deep in the California desert. The local townspeople were told lectures and films were made there. But is that all that was happening? It is the location of a multi-million-dollar home for L. Ron Hubbard, built two decades after his death. It is the home of Scientology's current leader, David Miscavige.

David Baddiel would love there to be a God. He has spent a lot of time fantasising about how much better life would be if there actually was such a thing as a Superhero Dad who chased off Death. Unfortunately for him, there isn’t. Or at least, that is Baddiel’s view in this book, which argues that it is indeed the very intensity of his, and everyone else’s, desire for God to exist that proves His non-existence. Anything so deeply wished-for we will, considers Baddiel, make real.

An inspiring account from one of history’s darkest moments. Marione Ingram grew up in Hamburg, Germany, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She was German. She was Jewish. She was a survivor. This is her story. As a young girl, Marione was aware that people of the Jewish faith were regarded as outsiders, the supposed root of Germany’s many problems. She grew up in an apartment building where neighbors were more than happy to report Jews to the Gestapo.

The selections made in this volume shed light on these esoteric doctrines, revealing intimate conversations between Jesus and his disciples. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene throws new light on his relationship with this favorite disciple. The Gospel of Thomas contains concentrated mini-parables, containing deep inward and symbolic meaning, many of which are not found in the New Testament. The texts chosen are relevant to many of the perplexities of contemporary life and deal with the questions of good and evil, sin and suffering, and the path to salvation.

A New Yorker best book of 2025 'brilliantly inventive'. - Tom Holland 'learned, highly informative and readable'. - Literary Review 'thoughtful, humane and open-minded'. - Kirkus Reviews 'A brilliant book'. - Library Journal 'witty writing'. - The Times 'Hugely accomplished and endlessly...

BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen presents a personal history of the Middle East. Over these 25 programmes, Jeremy reflects on the present and the past of the Middle East, after reporting from the region for more than a quarter of a century. He combines first-hand accounts from the front line...

Throughout history, arguments for and against the existence of God have been largely confined to philosophy and theology, while science has sat on the sidelines. Despite the fact that science has revolutionized every aspect of human life and greatly clarified our understanding of the world, somehow the notion has arisen that it has nothing to say about the possibility of a supreme being, which much of humanity worships as the source of all reality.

WINNER OF A NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD A USA TODAY BESTSELLER "A gifted writer, astonishingly adept at nuance, narration, and the politics of passion."—Toni Morrison Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of...

In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding travelled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a house by a lake. It had been a holiday home for her family, that she had been forced to leave as the Nazis swept to power. As he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived, he realised that this house had witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, had withstood the trauma of a world war and the dividing of a nation.

Today, practicing shamanism doesn't mean you have to live in a rain forest or a desert. Thanks to a modern renaissance of shamanic spirituality, practitioners from all walks of life now use powerful indigenous techniques for healing, insight, and spiritual growth. With Awakening to the Spirit World, teachers Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wesselman bring together a circle of renowned Western shamanic elders - Tom Cowan, Carol Proudfoot-Edgar, Jose Stevens, and Alberto Villoldo - to present a comprehensive manual for making these practices accessible and available in our daily lives.

The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Tolstoy is a philosophical treatise first published in Germany in 1894 after being banned in his home country of Russia. The work is the culmination of 30 years of Tolstoy's thinking, and sets out rules for a new organization of society, based on an interpretation of Christianity which focuses on universal love. In a bold and original way, Tolstoy shows his audiences why violence of any type - even that sanctioned by the state or the church - must be rejected.

An Instant New York Times Bestseller "Truly a Mere Christianity for the 21st century"--World magazine From the host of the Interesting Times podcast Read by the author. Do you ever wish you had more faith? Here is a blueprint for thinking your way from doubt to belief. As a columnist for the New...