Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues

Josh Chatraw

Karen Swallow Prior

Zondervan Academic

Product Description 
"I'm deconstructing."\nYet another social-media post announces departure from the Christian faith. The cause could be sex, race, politics, social justice, science, hellor all of the above. For many, Christianity is becoming implausible, even impossible to believe. 
 While it might be tempting to leave the church in order to find answers, Before You Lose Your Faith argues that church should be the best place to deal with doubts. Featuring contributors such as Claude Atcho, Rachel Gilson, Jay Y. Kim, Brett McCracken, Karen Swallow Prior, Derek Rishmawy, and Jared C. Wilson, this book shows deconstructing need not end in unbelief. In fact, deconstructing can be the road toward reconstructingbuilding up a more mature, robust faith that grapples honestly with the deepest questions of life. 
 Review 
"Over the years I've met many younger Christians who aren't sure they can or even should bother any longer with this ancient faith. Some end up leaving the church with a sense of liberation. Others feel as though they're falling with no one to catch them. The church ought to be the place where they feel safe asking hard questions and sharing honest doubts. The distinguished contributors to 
Before You Lose Your Faith write with sympathy and understanding. They can help anxious readers reconstruct a stronger, lasting faith in our trustworthy Savior." 
 -- 
Collin Hansen, vice president of content and editor in chief of The Gospel Coalition and host of the Gospelbound podcast 
 About the Author 
Ivan Mesa (ThM, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is books editor at The Gospel Coalition. He and his wife, Sarah, have three children and live in eastern Georgia.

Before You Lose Your Faith: Deconstructing Doubt in the Church

Religion & Spirituality

Brett McCracken

Samuel James

Rachel Gilson

Hunter Beaumont

Jared C. Wilson

Thaddeus Williams

Trevin Wax

Ian Harber

Claude Atcho

Jay Y. Kim

Keith Plummer

Joshua Ryan Butler

Jeremy Linneman

Derek Rishmawy

Christian Books & Bibles

The Gospel Coalition

With a foreword by Eric Metaxas, bestselling author of Bonhoeffer and Amazing Grace
The enthralling biography of the woman writer who helped end the slave trade, changed Britain's upper classes, and taught a nation how to read.
The history-changing reforms of Hannah More affected every level of 18th-century British society. A woman without connections or status, More took the world of British letters by storm when she arrived in London from Bristol, becoming a bestselling author and playwright and quickly befriending the author Samuel Johnson, the politician Horace Walpole, and the actor David Garrick. She was also a leader in the Evangelical movement, using her cultural position and her pen to support the growth of education for the poor, the reform of morals and manners, and the abolition of Britain's slave trade.
Fierce Convictions weaves together world and personal history into a stirring story of a life that intersected with Wesley and Whitefield's Great Awakening, the rise of Evangelicalism, and convulsive effects of the French Revolution. A woman of exceptional intellectual gifts and literary talent, Hannah More was above all a person whose faith compelled her both to engage her culture and to transform it.

Fierce Convictions

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Thomas Nelson on Brilliance Audio

Christianity Today 2024 Book Award Finalist (Culture and the Arts)\n"Provides plenty of fodder for those wishing to explore what evangelicalism is and reimagine what it might become. It's an eye-opener."--Publishers Weekly\n"Akin to enjoying a lively conversation over a cheering yet bracing cup of tea."--Christianity Today (5-star review)\n"A breathtaking reminder of just how powerful the evangelical imagination has been and how much is lost when we forfeit it."--The Gospel Coalition\nContemporary American evangelicalism is suffering from an identity crisis--and a lot of bad press.\nIn this book, acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior examines evangelical history, both good and bad. By analyzing the literature, art, and popular culture that has surrounded evangelicalism, she unpacks some of the movement's most deeply held concepts, ideas, values, and practices to consider what is Christian rather than merely cultural. The result is a clearer path forward for evangelicals amid their current identity crisis--and insight for others who want a deeper understanding of what the term "evangelical" means today.\nBrought to life with color illustrations, images, and paintings, this book explores ideas including conversion, domesticity, empire, sentimentality, and more. In the end, it goes beyond evangelicalism to show us how we might be influenced by images, stories, and metaphors in ways we cannot always see.

The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis

History

World

Brazos Press

★ Publishers Weekly starred review 
A Best Book of 2018 in Religion, Publishers Weekly\nReading great literature well has the power to cultivate virtue, says acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior. In this book, she takes readers on a guided tour through works of great literature both ancient and modern, exploring twelve virtues that philosophers and theologians throughout history have identified as most essential for good character and the good life.\nCovering authors from Henry Fielding to Cormac McCarthy, Jane Austen to George Saunders, and Flannery O'Connor to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Prior explores some of the most compelling universal themes found in the pages of classic books, helping readers learn to love life, literature, and God through their encounters with great writing. The book includes end-of-chapter reflection questions geared toward book club discussions, original artwork throughout, and a foreword by Leland Ryken. The hardcover edition was named a Best Book of 2018 in Religion by Publishers Weekly.\n"[A] lively treatise on building character through books.'"--Publishers Weekly (starred review)\nFrom the Back Cover\nRead Well. Live Well. 
A Best Book of 2018 in Religion, Publishers Weekly\nAcclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior takes us on a guided tour through works of great literature, helping us learn to love life, literature, and God through our encounters with great writing.\n"Karen Swallow Prior has written several critically acclaimed books, but in my book, her book on books is her best yet. On Reading Well is both a love letter to literature and a handbook on virtue, wisdom, and the good life. Bound to be a classic, itis an engrossing work that will appeal to book nerds and casual readers alike. Read it now, and you'll never take books for granted again." 
--Jonathan Merritt, contributor to The Atlantic and author of Learning to Speak God from Scratch\n"On Reading Well is an exploration of the formative power of stories and an excavation of the life well lived, and we could scarcely have a better guide than Karen Swallow Prior. She is a person who loves (and has been shaped by) great books and who loves (and has been shaped by) the richness of Scripture, a scholar whose writing exudes both warmth and conviction. This story-saturated engagement with the virtues is pragmatic enough to touch the nitty-gritty of our lives and imaginative enough to inspire." 
--Tish Harrison Warren, priest in the Anglican Church of North America; author of Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life\n"It sure seems like virtue is needed now more than ever. And what a treasure trove we have for encountering virtue in literature! Prior is a lovely and wise guide. Take this resplendent tour--read this book! Your life will be better for it." 
--Kathryn Jean Lopez, senior fellow and director of the Center for Religion, Culture, and Civil Society, National Review Institute; editor-at-large, National Review\n"You might not think yourself to be the kind of person to read a book about reading books. If you are trying to love people, to work well, to find meaning in your life, this book is for you. Prior guides us through the big questions from great books with wisdom, insight, creativity, and compassion. A significant and powerful work that will refocus discussion on the meaning of reading for spiritual formation." 
--Russell Moore, public theologian at Christianity Today and director of Christianity Today's Public Theology Project\n"[A] lively treatise on building character through books. . . . With exquisite writing, [Prior] demonstrates how 'reading literature, more than informing us, forms us.'"--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

On Reading Well

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

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Books by Karen Swallow Prior