This book is the thundering voice of the martyrs of our time. Though mostly overlooked, the harrowing stories of hundreds of thousands of fellow Christians from around the world who gave their lives for the Faith in recent years -- including in full-scale genocides of Christians in several countries -- are a part of our history crying out to be told.

Here is that history.

Robert Royal chronicles the heartrending stories of heroic priests, religious, and laypeople who are being brutally persecuted, tortured, and martyred today by various groups, including Islamists, criminal gangs, political extremists, and satanic cults. He reveals how thousands more are right now living courageously under oppressive regimes facing similar threats and dangers daily.

These are our brothers and sisters in the Faith, the saints in our midst! You will learn about them, the role spiritual combat plays in their persecution, and how you can help alleviate their suffering. While doing so you will also discover:

• How the early Christian martyrs provided one of the first books of spirituality
• The true definition of a Christian martyr and five criteria to be considered a martyr
• Teachings of recent popes on the new martyrdom, including oblatio vitae
• How blasphemy laws are misconstrued to accuse and condemn Christians unjustly
• The most dangerous place to be a Catholic priest (You will be shocked!)
• The country where nine out of ten Christians martyrs worldwide are killed
• The tremendous sufferings of white martyrs and red martyrs

In these gripping pages, you will also see how even Christians who aren't martyrs by definition continue to be powerful witnesses amid the most dire circumstances, proclaiming the true Faith and radiating God's light in the face of the most diabolical cruelty.

This watershed work gives Tertullian's famous words the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church an entirely new meaning.

If you truly love Allah, you will die for him. Your death will mean much reward for you and your family in heaven. Only death will prove your love.

It was the final test. A chance to win not only the love of Allah, but the love of her father―something she had never been able to earn. Esther took a deep breath and raised her hand in the air. At the age of eighteen, she had just volunteered to become a suicide bomber.

Defying Jihad is the true story of a girl growing up in Pakistan under radical Islamic rule, trained to believe her ultimate purpose was to serve Allah by dying as a jihadist. But two nights before she was to leave forever, she had a dream . . . one that would change the course of her destiny.

Against all odds, Esther became a follower of Jesus―even though leaving Islam meant her death sentence. But rather than kill her immediately, Esther's furious father challenged her to a series of public debates with Muslim scholars: the Bible versus the Quran. If Esther won, she might yet survive. But if the Muslim clerics won, Esther must renounce her Christian faith. For an entire month―if she lived that long―Esther would be brought before the mob daily to defend her newfound faith. Would God give her the words to argue against Muslim leaders, former friends, and even her own family?

This unforgettable memoir features:

• A harrowing account of persecution, redemption, and courage
• A Q&A with the author
• Discussion questions for book clubs

Defying Jihad is an amazing story of a woman prepared to surrender all for Jesus―and whose life transformed from terror to overwhelming love.

Developing a Practical Theology of Risk

In a world where danger and uncertainty loom large, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure about how to tread wisely in ministry. Yet, imagine having a comprehensive guide to aid in discerning, reshaping, and skillfully handling the risks that come your way.

 

Facing Danger: A Guide through Risk is that resource. Against the rich backdrop of her family's own sojourn in perilous places, Anna Hampton presents a treasure trove of practical tools and profound insights to help you thrive in an increasingly hazardous world. With deep spiritual contemplation and meticulous research, she offers a unique viewpoint on cross-cultural service and the art of making sacrifices.

 

Missionaries, pastors, and those yearning to embrace a life of unyielding faith will find Facing Danger to be an indispensable resource. It includes a trauma recovery recipe, sixteen risk myths, a hermeneutical methodology, and risk assessment and management training. Facing Danger equips you to create a systematic action plan to faithfully traverse dangerous landscapes. Hampton empowers readers serving Christ to decipher and adeptly handle risk with wisdom and hope.

In Rules for Reformers, Douglas Wilson poaches the political craft of radical progressives and applies it to Christian efforts in the current culture war. The result is a spicy blend of combat manual and cultural manifesto. Rules for Reformers is a little bit proclamation of grace, a little bit Art of War, and a little bit analysis of past embarrassments and current cowardice, all mixed together with a bunch of advanced knife-fighting techniques. As motivating as it is provocative, Rules for Reformers is just plain good to read.

Thanks to Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals -- a book well-beloved by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many others -- for much of the shrewd advice, and for none of the worldview.

Shortly after Tamara and her husband moved to the city of Isfara, Tajikistan, a delegation of Muslim women paid her a visit. After welcoming the women into her home, Tamara realized their visit was not a friendly one. The women knew she and her husband were sharing the gospel and declared the two needed to leave the city. Christians--especially those who would share their faith with Muslims--were not welcome. While Tamara heard their message, she did not fully understand the danger she and her husband were in. Tamara is one of twelve courageous women you will meet in this follow-up to Hearts of Fire. From the Colombian evangelist on the run for witnessing to guerrilla fighters, to the American woman who publicly forgave the Islamic extremists who gunned down her husband on the streets of Benghazi, Libya, these women's lives were turned upside down when they obeyed the words of Christ. However, each embraced the hope found only in the unshakeable eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ our Lord. In addition to these twelve stories, you will also read the testimonies of eleven women who share how God strengthened them and provided for them when their earthly kingdom was shaken as they served Him. For more than 50 years, The Voice of the Martyrs has shared the stories of courageous Christians in the world's most difficult and dangerous places to follow Christ. This new volume brings you true stories of courageous women, heroes of the faith, who represent countless others facing similar trials today. These role models of faith and obedience will inspire you to pursue Christ with heart aflame, no matter the cost!

Behind a gruesome ISIS beheading video lies the untold story of the men in orange and the faith community that formed these unlikely modern-day saints and heroes.

In a carefully choreographed propaganda video released in February 2015, ISIS militants behead twenty-one orange-clad Christian men on a Libyan beach.

In the West, daily reports of new atrocities may have displaced the memory of this particularly vile event. But not in the world from which the murdered came. All but one were young Coptic Christian migrant workers from Egypt. Acclaimed literary writer Martin Mosebach traveled to the Egyptian village of El-Aour to meet their families and better understand the faith and culture that shaped such conviction.

He finds himself welcomed into simple concrete homes through which swallows dart. Portraits of Jesus and Mary hang on the walls along with roughhewn shrines to now-famous loved ones. Mosebach is amazed time and again as, surrounded by children and goats, the bereaved replay the cruel propaganda video on an iPad. There is never any talk of revenge, but only the pride of having a martyr in the family, a saint in heaven. The 21 appear on icons crowned like kings, celebrated even as their community grieves. A skeptical Westerner, Mosebach finds himself a stranger in this world in which everything is the reflection or fulfillment of biblical events, and facing persecution with courage is part of daily life.

In twenty-one symbolic chapters, each preceded by a picture, Mosebach offers a travelogue of his encounter with a foreign culture and a church that has preserved the faith and liturgy of early Christianity - the Church of the Martyrs. As a religious minority in Muslim Egypt, the Copts find themselves caught in a clash of civilizations. This book, then, is also an account of the spiritual life of an Arab country stretched between extremism and pluralism, between a rich biblical past and the shopping centers of New Cairo.

Developing an Anti-Fragile Faith

Violence against Christ-followers is increasing globally. The lived reality for many Christians involves daily threats, risks, and persecution. When evil casts its shadow on us, and we're tempted to despair, it is vital to develop anti-fragile faith and the guts to endure in hard places.

Facing Fear is a practical guide for believers who long to have bold, mature courage. Cultivating this courage is necessary to endure wisely for Christ's sake. Anna Hampton integrates exegesis and psychology to explain how humans respond to fear and how the Holy Spirit enables us to make a different choice than our normal. Learning to face our fears, name them, and manage them requires learning specific steps to reduce their impact on us.

This book is a pastoral and practical resource for those working to advance the gospel in the world's most dangerous places. You'll gain valuable skills to become shrewd as a serpent and stand with unshakable faith in unsafe situations. Risk can be an offering of worship. Jesus is worthy of whatever pain you go through, whatever loss you experience, and whatever fears you have.

Healing Religious Hurts: Stories & Tips to Find Love and Peace by Elizabeth Ann Atkins & Joanie Lindenmeyer offers a compassionate guide for those who have endured the pain of being shamed, guilted, rejected, or scorned by religion or its people.

Delving into the complexities of spirituality and the quest for inner peace, the book courageously explores questions and past experiences relating to religion, spirituality, and the pursuit of personal fulfillment.

Elizabeth and Joanie collaborated on this book because they've both individually chronicled their unique religious and spiritual journeys in their best-selling memoirs.

Now they present Healing Religious Hurts-with its focus on finding spiritual nourishment and embracing individuality-to provide valuable insights on how to navigate the path to healing and self-acceptance. From understanding the difference between religion and spirituality, to finding a faith community that celebrates diversity and inclusivity, the book quips readers with the tools to forge their own spiritual journey and connect with others who share similar experiences.

Healing Religious Hurts features a special chapter dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community, highlighting stories of resilience and self-discovery as individuals reclaim their spirituality after facing rejection, heartache and disconnection from religious institutions.

With contributions from people across America, the book serves as a beacon of hope and solidarity, offering a supportive space for readers to explore their spiritual beliefs and find solace in shared experiences.

Ultimately, Healing Religious Hurts is a testament to the transformative power of forgiveness, acceptance, and the pursuit of spiritual peace, offering readers the guidance and inspiration they need to embark on a journey of healing and rediscovery.

Have you experienced a rift with religion, and now you're seeking the love, comfort, and peace of spiritual connection?

Do you feel disconnected from traditional religion that may have caused a chasm with your family?

Are you on a spiritual quest to find meaning and solace that may have taken you on many paths, but not leading to the idyllic place that your heart and soul desire?

Welcome to Healing Religious Hurts, a safe space to explore new ideas and learn how others have healed past pains and found peace and love with God, Spirit, or their own beliefs.

Welcome to Healing Religious Hurts: Stories & Tips to Find Love and Peace by Elizabeth Ann Atkins & Joanie Lindenmeyer. This book frees you to express your most authentic self, just as you are, and to feel the divine love and joy without restrictive rules, fear of rejection, or devastating labels.

This book can guide your spiritual journey and show that you have the power to define your own beliefs, and to create a daily practice that nourishes your heart and soul.

This book is for everyone-young or older, LGBTQ+ or straight. Race, ethnicity, national origin, culture, and other divisive labels are irrelevant here.

God is love. Our hearts yearn for love, peace, and connection to each other and to the magnificent spiritual powers of the universe.

So let this book help you explore, learn, and celebrate the wondrous powers of Healing Religious Hurts, so you can enjoy peace and love as never before.

The world today is filled with angry voices, voices that often call for isolation and even violence against those who differ from us by race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or lifestyle. At the same time there are many voices that call for us to change, to make peace, to open ourselves up to others and hear what they're saying. Most of these voices bring religious arguments to bear on the issue.

Rev. Janice Springer goes a step, indeed several steps, further. She tells us how to reach out, how to pray, to interact, and indeed to change ourselves. This book provides a powerful approach to creating new, peaceful relationships and learning to live together while celebrating our differences and growing from them.

The book includes guides to study, exercises, and activities, and a sample program for a retreat. It is written from the perspective of the author's Christian ministry, but it is inviting and useful to those of other faith traditions as well.

Who will you invite to join you at the table?

It is probably easier to be Christian in any other area of life than it is in the area of race. Here the practice of the Christian religion seems to break down most completely.

These words of prophetic judgment ground Mays's attempt to set down a Christian basis for the elimination of prejudice and discrimination. Reflecting on both the Old and New Testaments, Mays reads in the plain sense of scripture a call for us to live together in harmony and justice. He also draws from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to emphasize the broader context of the work.

In the twenty-first century, humanity faces both unprecedented existential threats and remarkable possibilities for development. While no one knows how things will unfold by century's end, it is increasingly clear that religion will play a major role in shaping the outcomes, for better or worse. In Better Religion, philosopher and religion scholar John Barton explores how grassroots interreligious peacebuilding can help ensure the better.

More specifically, the book argues that for religion's better to be realized, interreligious peacebuilding must honor and directly engage religious differences. This challenges a common assumption that religious differences inevitably lead to hostilities and must therefore be minimized or functionally neutralized for collaborative peacebuilding to be possible. Better Religion explains why such assumptions are misguided and charts a more realistic and hopeful way forward. Using a blend of data analysis, theoretical models, and real-life anecdotes, the book makes sense of global religious diversity and projects the possibilities of peacebuilding across even the most irreconcilable of differences.

Written for academic and professional audiences, this conceptual primer will equip readers to understand religion in the twenty-first century and pursue constructive collaborations for human flourishing, all for the sake of the world we currently share and the world we want our grandchildren to inherit.

This revised and supplemented second edition features some of the author's most probing essays and speeches on antisemitism, published here for the first time.

A 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Finalist in the Religion Category

With clarity and penetrating insight, Alex Ryvchin unravels the mystery of antisemitism... Mandatory reading for anyone concerned with the ethical fate of the human race.

― Isaac Herzog, President of the State of Israel

The 7 Deadly Myths traces antisemitism from its earliest origins to the present day and uncovers the dangerous conspiracy theories that have corrupted reasoning and led people and nations to diabolical acts. Exploring some of the most significant events in history and uncovering little-known villains, this book answers the questions of how antisemitism takes hold, how it is transmitted and how it inspires violence to the present day. Written in a clear and compelling style, this book is essential to understanding why this ancient hatred continues to plague society, inspiring pop stars, athletes and demagogues alike. It is a crucial resource for policy makers, students and the reading public seeking to understand racism and how it can be stopped.

In parallel stories set in 15th century Portugal and the 1990's, two women explore their identities. Set against historical events, The Blind Eye creates a sweeping narrative about a family expelled from Spain connecting forward across tine to a modern woman of Cuban descent.

How and why have anti-Zionism and antisemitism become so radical and widespread? This timely and important volume argues convincingly that today's inflamed rhetoric exceeds the boundaries of legitimate criticism of the policies and actions of the state of Israel and conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. The contributors give the dynamics of this process full theoretical, political, legal, and educational treatment and demonstrate how these forces operate in formal and informal political spheres as well as domestic and transnational spaces. They offer significant historical and global perspectives of the problem, including how Holocaust memory and meaning have been reconfigured and how a singular and distinct project of delegitimization of the Jewish state and its people has solidified. This intensive but extraordinarily rich contribution to the study of antisemitism stands out for its comprehensive overview of an issue that is very much in the public eye.

Behind a gruesome ISIS beheading video lies the untold story of the men in orange and the faith community that formed these unlikely modern-day saints and heroes.

In a carefully choreographed propaganda video released in February 2015, ISIS militants behead twenty-one orange-clad Christian men on a Libyan beach.

In the West, daily reports of new atrocities may have displaced the memory of this particularly vile event. But not in the world from which the murdered came. All but one were young Coptic Christian migrant workers from Egypt. Acclaimed literary writer Martin Mosebach traveled to the Egyptian village of El-Aour to meet their families and better understand the faith and culture that shaped such conviction.

He finds himself welcomed into simple concrete homes through which swallows dart. Portraits of Jesus and Mary hang on the walls along with roughhewn shrines to now-famous loved ones. Mosebach is amazed time and again as, surrounded by children and goats, the bereaved replay the cruel propaganda video on an iPad. There is never any talk of revenge, but only the pride of having a martyr in the family, a saint in heaven. The 21 appear on icons crowned like kings, celebrated even as their community grieves. A skeptical Westerner, Mosebach finds himself a stranger in this world in which everything is the reflection or fulfillment of biblical events, and facing persecution with courage is part of daily life.

In twenty-one symbolic chapters, each preceded by a picture, Mosebach offers a travelogue of his encounter with a foreign culture and a church that has preserved the faith and liturgy of early Christianity - the Church of the Martyrs. As a religious minority in Muslim Egypt, the Copts find themselves caught in a clash of civilizations. This book, then, is also an account of the spiritual life of an Arab country stretched between extremism and pluralism, between a rich biblical past and the shopping centers of New Cairo.

In this powerful, illustrated and well-documented book, Dr. Sloane-through extensive research-has undertaken the task of setting the record straight against Replacement Theology, which is a History of the Church's Dark and Shameful Treatment of the Jews. Also known as Covenant Theology, it wrongly teaches that the Church has replaced the Jews as God's Chosen People, alleging that it was the Jews who were responsible for the death of Christ and, therefore, God has supposedly turned His back on them. This fabrication of the Church has no basis in Scripture. In the first century, the debate was, How can a Gentile become a Christian? In the second century onward, the debate became, How can a Jew become a Christian? In addition to the Bible, God placed certain signs in the heavens, which are tied directly to the events surrounding Israel, And God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; AND LET THEM BE FOR SIGNS, and for seasons, and for days, and years' (Genesis 1:14, emphasis added). Such heavenly signs include the Blood Moons which have accompanied major events surrounding the children of Israel, up to and including this very day. Discover the roots of Supersessionism (Replacement Theology) which has resulted in the horrific wholesale hatred and slaughter of millions of Jews throughout the Christian era. It is time for the Church to repent and come alongside their Jewish brothers and sisters and be a blessing to them as God ordained when He promised Abraham, I will bless them who bless thee and curse them who curse thee (Genesis 12:3). This book will expose the atrocities done against the Jews in the name of Jesus and show the overwhelming, biblical evidence against Replacement Theology. This makes a wonderful textbook especially for Church groups and young adult Sunday school. CAUTION SOME DISTURBING PHOTOS USE DISCRETION FOR CHILDREN UNDER 16.

Investigating the
diabolical conspiracy theories behind antisemitism and uncovering the villains
who created them, The 7 Deadly Myths reveals where antisemitism comes from, how
it is used, and how it can be defeated.

This book reveals the damage that antisemitism does to the identity of Jewish students, staff, and faculty. It details the challenges we face, then proposes specific ways to meet them.

The persecution of Christians is on the increase worldwide. In Nigeria, persecution has had an immense impact on the religious, economic, and social life of Nigerians, especially in northern Nigeria. Many Christians are concerned about how to properly respond to such oppression. This book meticulously examines contemporary responses to persecution alongside biblical and historical experience using the theoretical framework of Fight, Flight, and Fortitude. The writer is convinced that if Christians respond to persecution properly the gospel witness will be strengthened and bridges for peaceful interrelationship will be built in communities experiencing religious and cultural diversity.