Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Religious Studies

Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.

The untold story of an Israeli spy’s epic journey to bring the notorious Butcher of Latvia to justice - a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis.

In The Holocaust by Bullets, Father Patrick Desbois documented for the first time the murder of 1.5 million Jews in Ukraine during World War II, based on wartime documents, interviews with locals, and the application of modern forensic practices on long-hidden gravesites. Nearly a decade of further work by his team, drawing on interviews with 5,000 neighbors of the Jews, has resulted in stunning new findings about the extent and nature of the genocide.

For more than a decade, New York University president John Sexton has used baseball to illustrate the elements of a spiritual life in a wildly popular course at NYU. Using great works of baseball literature as well as the actual game’s fantastic moments, its legendary characters, and its routine rituals - from the long-sought triumph of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers to the heroic achievements of players like the saintly Christy Mathewson and the sinful Ty Cobb to the loving intimacy of a game of catch between a father and son - Sexton teaches that through the game we can touch the spiritual dimensions of life.

The United States stands as the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the face of the earth. But now, in the midst of skyrocketing federal debt, severe economic troubles, political uncertainty, declining morality, a weak church, growing spiritual apathy and apostasy, historic natural disasters, and a myriad of other daunting challenges, many wonder if America’s best days are behind her. Will history’s greatest democracy stage a miraculous comeback, returning to the forefront of the world’s economic and spiritual stage?

They immigrated to America from Germany in the nineteenth century with names like Loeb, Sachs, Seligman, Lehman, Guggenheim, and Goldman. From tenements on the Lower East Side to Park Avenue mansions, this handful of Jewish families turned small businesses into imposing enterprises and amassed spectacular fortunes. But despite possessing breathtaking wealth that rivaled the Astors and Rockefellers, they were barred by the gentile establishment from the lofty realm of "the 400," a register of New York's most elite, because of their religion and humble backgrounds.

The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the "old country" to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined.

This memoir is a tale of heartache and humor, of love and loss, of marriage and motherhood, and of learning to put one foot in front of the other by turning page after page. Ilana Kurshan takes us on a deeply accessible and personal guided tour of the Talmud, shedding new light on its stories and offering insights into its arguments - both for those already familiar with the text and for those who have never encountered it. For people of the book - both Jewish and non-Jewish - If All the Seas Were Ink is a celebration of learning how to fall in love once again.

In the early 1980s on a remote part of the Sudanese coast, a new luxury holiday resort opened for business. Catering for divers, it attracted guests from around the world. Little did the holidaymakers know that the staff were undercover spies, working for the Mossad - the Israeli secret service. Providing a front for covert night-time activities, the holiday village allowed the agents to carry out an operation unlike any seen before. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help, turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews....

In this classic book, Madeleine L’Engle addresses the questions, What makes art Christian? What does it mean to be a Christian artist? What is the relationship between faith and art? Through L’Engle’s beautiful and insightful essay, listeners will find themselves called to what the author views as the prime tasks of an artist: to listen, to remain aware, and to respond to creation through one’s own art.

In this original and groundbreaking book, Andrew Newberg, M.D., and Mark Robert Waldman turn their attention to the pinnacle of the human experience: enlightenment. Through his brain-scan studies on Brazilian psychic mediums, Sufi mystics, Buddhist meditators, Franciscan nuns, Pentecostals, and participants in secular spirituality rituals, Newberg has discovered the specific neurological mechanisms associated with the enlightenment experience - and how we might activate those circuits in our own brains.

In 1978, when Jamiyla was two years old, her mother, Ummi, quit her job, converted to Islam with her husband, and moved into an exclusive Muslim society in Brooklyn. Once inside the Community, the family was separated by its powerful and charismatic leader, Dwight York, who was hiding behind the name Imam Isa. Instead of the devotional refuge they’d imagined, the Community was a nightmare of controlled abuse and unspeakable secrets. Forty years later, Jamiyla was ready to excavate and understand a past buried in bad dreams, disturbing memories, and inexplicable rage.

Despite protests and warnings from friends and family, author Madeleine L’Engle, at the age of seventy-four, embarked on a rafting trip to Antarctica. Her journey through the startling beauty of the continent led her to write Penguins and Golden Calves, a captivating discussion of how opening oneself up to icons, or everyday “windows to God,” leads to the development of a rich and deeply spiritual faith.

For more than fifty years, Madeleine L'Engle has delighted and inspired readers/listeners with her warm, eloquent prose and inspirational poetry. She continues this tradition with Miracle on 10th Street, a collection of poignant writings and reflections that give listeners a glimpse of how the wonder of Christmas resonates in her personal life, which deeply involves her family and faith: "I think back to that Christmas when my husband and I did not know whether our little girl would live to grow up," she writes.

For years, L’Engle has been delighting and inspiring fans with her warm, eloquent prose, and inspirational poetry. She continues this tradition with a personal reflection of the mystery and majesty of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Bright Evening Star provides a glimpse into the life stories of this prolific author and her encounters with God. With a foreword by John Tesh, L’Engle invites us on a spiritual adventure that leads to hope, joy, and a closer relationship with Jesus.

It's not just hype or hope or a spiritual cliche. It's a scientific fact: Prayer heals. Recent medical and psychological studies claim that prayer can relieve stress, improve attitudes, and mend bodies. Prayer generates peace, power, and health - a triple preventative that guards against anxiety and disease. It's a simple act that heals.

In 2016, many Christian leaders opposed candidate Donald Trump. He was a social liberal, and his vulgarity, divorces, affairs, and scandals made it impossible for him to defend Christian values in public life. Or so they thought. Trump nevertheless won an overwhelming majority of the Evangelical vote in 2016, as well as the Catholic vote. And in 2020, the idea that he can’t represent Christians is demonstrably false.

This book is written by two of the leading terrorist experts in the world. Hacking ISIS will explain in graphic detail how ISIS produces religious cultism, recruits vulnerable young people of all religions and nationalities and disseminates their brutal social media to the world. More, the book will map out the cyberspace-level tactics on how ISIS spreads its terrifying content, how it distributes tens of thousands of pieces of propaganda daily and is winning the battle in cyberspace and how to stop it in its tracks.

“What is the relevancy of the Cross of Jesus Christ? What does it matter that Christ died on a Cross and rose from the dead over 2,000 years ago? How does His Cross add any value to my life and to who I am and to who I want to be?” Perhaps it’s a question you’ve asked yourself or someone else and never received an answer that you considered to be satisfactory. If that’s the case, T. D. Jakes will answer your question once and for all, but not in the way you might be expecting.

In Sweet Freedom, Sarah Palin invites you to draw strength and inspiration from 260 meditations based on guiding Biblical verses. You are not alone in your doubts and anxieties - we all bear the burdens of everyday stresses, and for most of us, our concerns spread beyond our selves to our families, communities, and country. But Palin shows that with abiding faith, and by opening ourselves to the truths that have saved mankind for generations, we can thrive - and experience true freedom.