From one of the most widely-influential Christian writers of all time - German theologian and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer - now the subject of a major motion picture

Famed Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together is a bold and daring look at Christian life, and what cross-centered living can look like for all believers. Renowned for his thoughts on Christianity's role in the secular world, Bonhoeffer, also the author of bestselling The Cost of Discipleship, allows readers to deepen their faith and fellowship through actionable steps towards building lasting and meaningful communities.

In Life Together, Bonhoeffer, famous for his involvement in a plot to overthrow Adolph Hitler, recounts his unique fellowship in an underground seminary during the Nazi years in Germany. Through this one-of-a-kind lived experience, he compassionately yet challengingly defines what living in a community is all about, and the divine importance of it.

In five brief, yet rich, chapters, Bonhoeffer enlightens us on:

- How to build a meaningful community, through both mutual affection for Christ and for each other

- The fundamental elements of community, including prayer, worship, and service, but also listening, comforting, and confessing sins to one another

- How love permeates every aspect of community--love for God, one another, and the beauty of connection

- The role that loneliness and uncertainty play in finding community and answering God's call

Practical yet profound, this book remains the most influential and modern book on the nature and spirit of authentic Christian community. It reveals the communal Christian spirit that inspired Bonhoeffer and his Christian associates to conspire to assassinate Hitler as an act of true Christian love and courage. Life Together is bread for all who are hungry for the real life of Christian fellowship.

Would you endure cruel tortures that take your mind and body to the brink of death and beyond?

Would you watch your children suffering for their faith and urge them to remain faithful to Christ?

Would you endure inhuman tortures and hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering (Hebrews 10:23)?

Would you stand boldly and without shame and confess Christ as your Lord, to your own and to your family's peril?

Two thousand years of martyrs

For nearly two-thousand years, courageous men and women have been tortured and killed because of their confessions of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

The New Foxe's Book of Martyrs tells their stories. Stories of heroic courage and overcoming faith. Stories of love of God and Christ. Stories of the amazing grace of God that enabled men, women, and children to endure persecutions and often horrible deaths.

Foxe's last revision in 1570

Foxe's last revision of his Book of Martyrs was in 1570. In the 18th century others added to his book. But Christians have continued to be persecuted and martyred every year since then. More Christians were martyred in this century alone than in all the past centuries combined.

The New Foxe's Book of Martyrs tells their stories from A.D. 37 to 1997 in modern English, and includes new historical data that clarifies and harmonizes people, places, and times.

The New Foxe's Book of Martyrs is the most up-to-date version of Foxe's book ever published. It is essential reading for the study of Christian persecution in Foxe's day and in ours

For Christians, the Bible is a book inspired by God. Its eternal words are transmitted across the world by fallible human hands. Following Jesus's departing instruction to go out into the world, the Bible has been a book in motion from its very beginnings, and every community it has encountered has read, heard, and seen the Bible through its own language and culture.

In The Bible, Bruce Gordon tells the astounding story of the Bible's journey around the globe and across more than two thousand years, showing how it has shaped and been shaped by changing beliefs and believers' radically different needs. The Bible has been a tool for violence and oppression, and it has expressed hopes for liberation. God speaks with one voice, but the people who receive it are scattered and divided--found in desert monasteries and Chinese house churches, in Byzantine cathedrals and Guatemalan villages.

Breathtakingly global in scope, The Bible tells the story of this sacred book through the stories of its many and diverse human encounters, revealing not a static text but a living, dynamic cultural force.

How, over the course of five centuries, one particular god and one particular Christianity came to dominate late Roman imperial politics and piety

The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities, Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity--or rather, of early Christianities--through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople. It is a story with a sprawling cast of characters: not only theologians, bishops, and emperors, but also gods and demons, angels and magicians, astrologers and ascetics, saints and heretics, aristocratic patrons and millenarian enthusiasts. All played their part in the development of what became and remains an energetically diverse biblical religion.

The New Testament, as we know it, represents only a small selection of the many gospels, letters, acts of apostles, and revelations that circulated before the establishment of the imperial church. It tells how the gospel passed from Jesus, to the apostles, thence to Paul. But by using our peripheral vision, by looking to noncanonical and paracanonical texts, by availing ourselves of information derived from papyri, inscriptions, and archaeology, we can see a different, richer, much less linear story emerging. Fredriksen brings together these many sources to reconstruct the lively interactions of pagans, Jews, and Christians, tracing the conversions of Christianity from an energetic form of Jewish messianism to an arm of the late Roman state.

Scott Hahn was a Presbyterian minister, the top student in his seminary class, a brilliant Scripture scholar, and militantly anti-Catholic ... until he reluctantly began to discover that his enemy had all the right answers. Kimberly, also a top-notch theology student in the seminary, is the daughter of a well-known Protestant minister, and went through a tremendous dark night of the soul after Scott converted to Catholicism.

Their conversion story and love for the Church has captured the hearts and minds of thousands of lukewarm Catholics and brought them back into an active participation in the Church. They have also influenced countless conversions to Catholicism among their friends and others who have heard their powerful testimony.

Written with simplicity, charity, grace and wit, the Hahns' deep love and knowledge of Christ and of Scripture is evident and contagious throughout their story. Their love of truth and of neighbor is equally evident, and their theological focus on the great importance of the family, both biological and spiritual, will be a source of inspiration for all readers.

Since it was first published in 1939, more than four and a half million copies of The Way have been sold in forty-three different languages. This handsome paperback edition will take its place alongside such seminal works as John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, Thomas Kempis's Imitation of Christ, and Teresa of vila's The Interior Castle.

The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. In this powerful new work, theologian James H. Cone explores these symbols and their interconnection in the history and souls of black folk

One of the finest achievements of Western culture is its brilliant heritage of classical music. A Gift of Music looks at the lives of the greatest composers who have given us this heritage, and especially at how their music was shaped by their beliefs.

The result is a remarkable and inspiring book, showing the importance of Christian faith for many composers, and the effect of this upon their music. But it also shows how the lack of faith has brought profound change in the meaning and form of contemporary music.

Thus A Gift of Music seeks to open up a whole new world of music--to encourage listening to the finest compositions with new understanding and pleasure, and to stretch our ears and imaginations. It is a book which will be greatly appreciated by those who already love classical music, and by others who want to explore this delightful world for the first time.

A fresh, modern translation of key works of the apostolic fathers.

The Apostolic Fathers wrote what has become some of the most important literature in the early church-letters and epistolary documents, homilies and theological tracts, documents on church order, and apocalyptic literature. In fact, some texts came close to inclusion in the New Testament canon. These translations by Rick Brannan are perfect for use by students, scholars, and everyday Christians interested in these treasures of the early church.

Lexham Classics are beautifully typeset new editions of classic works. Each book has been carefully transcribed or translated from the original texts, ensuring an accurate representation of the writing as the author intended it to be read.

This volume includes:

• The First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians
• The Second Letter of Clement to the Corinthians
• Ignatius to the Ephesians
• Ignatius to the Magnesians
• Ignatius to the Trallians
• Ignatius to the Romans
• Ignatius to the Philadelphians
• Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans
• Ignatius to Polycarp
• Polycarp to the Philippians
• The Didache (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles)
• Epistle of Barnabas
• The Shepherd of Hermas
• The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp (by the Bishop of Smyrna)
• Epistle to Diognetus

Top Jesus scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan join together to reveal a radical and little-known Jesus. As both authors reacted to and responded to questions about Mel Gibson's blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, they discovered that many Christians are unclear on the details of events during the week leading up to Jesus's crucifixion.

Using the gospel of Mark as their guide, Borg and Crossan present a day-by-day account of Jesus's final week of life. They begin their story on Palm Sunday with two triumphal entries into Jerusalem. The first entry, that of Roman governor Pontius Pilate leading Roman soldiers into the city, symbolized military strength. The second heralded a new kind of moral hero who was praised by the people as he rode in on a humble donkey. The Jesus introduced by Borg and Crossan is this new moral hero, a more dangerous Jesus than the one enshrined in the church's traditional teachings.

The Last Week depicts Jesus giving up his life to protest power without justice and to condemn the rich who lack concern for the poor. In this vein, at the end of the week Jesus marches up Calvary, offering himself as a model for others to do the same when they are confronted by similar issues. Informed, challenged, and inspired, we not only meet the historical Jesus, but meet a new Jesus who engages us and invites us to follow him.

Church historians have long known and appreciated Christianity's global history. Until recently, however, introductory textbooks on the history of Christianity focused almost exclusively on Europe and North America. Robert Bruce Mullins's A Short World History of Christianity, by contrast, offers a panoramic picture of the history of Christianity in its Western and non-Western expressions. It tells the story of the early church in the Greek East as well as the Latin West; of Christianity's spread into Asia as well as Europe during the Middle Ages; and its explosion around the world during the modern period. Mullins's highly readable narrative explores why global perspectives have emerged so strongly in our understanding of the story of Christianity and how they have impacted Christianity's perspective on its place in the world.

This newly revised edition adds information on such global phenomena as early Syriac-speaking Christianity; the growth of Pentecostalism around the world, especially in the southern hemisphere; and recent trends in Christianity, including the elevation of the first pope born in the Americas. A time line of key dates, call-out boxes, and other helpful study materials are also provided. Beginning students will appreciate this memorable introduction to the most important events in the history and development of Christianity.

In the The Misunderstood Jew, scholar Amy-Jill Levine helps Christians and Jews understand the Jewishness of Jesus so that their appreciation of him deepens and a greater interfaith dialogue can take place. Levine's humor and informed truth-telling provokes honest conversation and debate about how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus, the New Testament, and each other.

From Justo L. Gonzalez, author of the acclaimed three-volume History of Christian Thought, The Story of Christianity Volume II: The Reformation to the Present Day is the fully revised and updated second volume of The Story of Christianity. Gonzalez's astute scholarship, lucid prose, and impassioned focus tell the narrative history of Christianity, beginning with the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century and leading all the way up to present day.

With the rise of Trumpism, the American evangelical movement has more political influence than ever--yet at the same time, people are leaving Christianity in record numbers. Why are so many people walking away from the right-wing religion they were raised in, and what are they doing to overcome the past?

Writer and podcaster Blake Chastain is uniquely positioned to understand this phenomenon. Raised evangelical, he went to a Christian college intending to become a pastor--until he found himself unable to reconcile his faith with the prejudice and even abuse he saw being done in God's name. He created the popular hashtag #exvangelical and the hit podcast of the same name, and soon became part of a growing movement of people walking away from toxic religion and using the unique tools of the internet to speak out, find healing, and build new communities.

In Exvangelical and Beyond, Chastain delves into evangelicalism's deep roots in American politics and society, and explains why and how so many Christians--and ex-Christians--are forging a new path online. Blending history, personal narrative, and incisive analysis, this is a must-read for anyone who has left the church, is deconstructing their own faith, or simply wants to understand religious culture in America.

Charles Carroll's life began nearly four decades before the War of Independence and ended while Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was in office. As Fr. Charles Connor explains, Carroll was the last of the signers to die, the wealthiest man in the colonies and the new republic, and clung tenaciously to the faith of his forebearers his entire life.

In this masterfully written biography, which reads like a riveting novel, Fr. Connor brilliantly sets the stage for Carroll's extraordinary life by examining his ancestry, the origins of the United States, and the story of its founding. As you discover this hero's indomitable faith and energy amid shocking challenges and persecutions, you will find:

• The fascinating Irish roots of Carroll's family and the dynamics that led to their choices
• The pursuit of religious liberty in the Maryland colony in the face of marginalization
• How Charley played a crucial role in the events leading up to the American Revolution
• Ways Carroll advocated for moral principles and natural rights as First Citizen
• How Carroll's diplomatic skills and legal acumen aided in his prominence
• Ways Carroll lived out his faith and his connection to the first bishop of the United States

While you learn about the hardships and divisions in the early years of American history, you will be inspired by Carroll's finesse in defending his beliefs while also fostering goodwill and unity. Carroll helped shape our country's foundation, from his participation in the Continental Congress to the drafting of the Constitution to his tenure as senator and decades of service in Maryland. Highlighted in his illustrious legacy are his tireless efforts in promoting human dignity through opposing slavery and standing up for the marginalized through his philanthropy. Above all, Carroll was a spiritual giant whose exemplary faith shines as a beacon for our country today.

The Answer Will Surprise and Amaze You

The Fathers Know Best: Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church is a unique resource that introduces you to the teachings of the first Christians in a way no other work can. It is specially designed to make it easy for you to find the information you want and need. Amazing features in this fact-packed book include:

More than 900 quotations from the writings of the early Church Fathers, as well as from rare and important documents dating back to the dawn of Christian history.

Mini-biographies of nearly 100 Fathers, as well as descriptions of dozens of key early councils and writings.

A concise history of the dramatic spread of Christianity after Jesus told his disciples to evangelize all nations.

Special maps showing you where the Fathers lived, including many little-known and long-vanished locations.

A guide to nearly 30 ancient heresies, many of which have returned to haunt the modern world.

The Fathers' teaching on nearly 50 topics, including modern hot-button issues like abortion, homosexuality, and divorce.

This groundbreaking work presents the teachings of the early Christians in a way unlike any other book. It flings open the doors of the crucial but little-known age covering the birth of Christianity and the triumphant march of the gospel throughout the ancient world.