Religious Criticism

Because you know it's nonsense, but were never sure why.

Writing from his prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1945 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young German theologian, sketched a vision of what he called ""Religionless Christianity."" In this book, John Shelby Spong puts flesh onto the bare bones of Bonhoeffer's radical thought. The result is a strikingly new...

First published in 1875, General William T. Sherman's memoir was one of the first from the Civil War and was offered to the public because, as Sherman wrote in his dedication, "no satisfactory history" of the war was yet available. Although Memoirs has been revised and corrected many times over the years, Sherman famously never changed the original text of his recollections.

"Blood-soaked, heart-wrenching, grim and glorious.”—Rachel Harrison, national bestselling author of Black Sheep From CJ Leede, the author of Maeve Fly, comes a scorching new apocalyptic novel. American Gods meets The Last of Us in this epic and sweeping story about the end of the world as we...

Welcome to Heaven, Inc., the grossly mismanaged corporation in the sky. For as long as anyone can remember, the founder and CEO (known in some circles as "God") has been phoning it in. Lately, he's been spending most of his time on the golf course. And when he does show up at work, it's not to...

The easy accessibility of the Bible in most of the world's major languages can obscure a dramatic and sometimes unexpected story. In Know How We Got Our Bible, scholars Ryan Reeves and Charles Hill trace the history of the Bible from its beginnings to the present day, highlighting key figures...

Warner Bros charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early 20th century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers - Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack - arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, yet they founded a studio that became the smartest, toughest, and most radical in all of Hollywood.

Have you ever wondered how a minor storm deity from the ancient desert became the foundation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? The God Who Wasn't reveals the extraordinary three-thousand-year journey that transformed Yahweh from one god among many into the world's most influential religious concept. Drawing on cutting-edge archaeological discoveries and rigorous biblical scholarship, Dr. Michael Stone traces Yahweh's remarkable evolution through inscriptions at remote desert outposts, household artifacts from ancient Israelite homes, and the careful analysis of biblical texts that ...

Forget what you think you know about the Good Book. The BC Bible is not a sermon—it’s a riotous, irreverent, and razor-sharp deep dive into the most bizarre, brutal, and brilliantly baffling stories in the Bible. Written with wit, bite, and a historian’s curiosity, Robert Ragnar takes you on a chronological journey through scripture with a scalpel in one hand and a shot of whiskey in the other. From talking snakes to cosmic floods, divine tantrums to circumcision revenge plots, Ragnar unpacks the ancient texts with equal parts skepticism, satire, and sincere wonder. Raised in the pews...

What if the feeling that you are "fundamentally wrong" isn't a spiritual failing, but a linguistic error? Do you ever feel a "spiritual residue" you can’t quite wash off? A lingering sense that hierarchy is holy, that your body is a problem to be solved, or that your intuition is dangerous? For millions, this isn't just anxiety. It is the result of a story we’ve been told for 2,000 years: Man came first. Woman was an afterthought. The Fall was your fault. But what if the story you were told is not the story that was written? In this groundbreaking work of linguistic recovery and ...

Do you watch movies with your eyes open? You buy your tickets and concessions, and you walk into the theater. Celluloid images flash at 24 frames per second, and the hypnotic sequence of moving pictures coaxes you to suspend disbelief and be entertained by the implausible. Unfortunately, many often suspend their beliefs as well, succumbing to subtle lessons in how to behave, think, and even perceive reality.

A faithful defender of the Watchtower Society. A life built on certainty. A single crack that changes everything. Tobias Arrington is a respected Jehovah’s Witness elder—an expert in doctrine, a polished speaker, and a man who has spent his life defending the organization he believes is God’s only channel of truth. Inside the Kingdom Hall, he is confident, admired, and in control. But certainty has a cost. When Tobias begins a deeper investigation to strengthen his own arguments, he uncovers something he was never meant to see. Small discrepancies turn into undeniable facts. Carefully...

The Zondervan Biblical and Theological Lectures series provides a unique audio learning experience. Unlike a traditional audiobook's direct narration of a book's text, Know How We Got Our Bible: Audio Lectures includes high-quality live recordings of college-level lectures that cover the...

Christian Encounters, a series of biographies from Thomas Nelson Publishers, highlights important lives from all ages and areas of the Church. Some are familiar faces. Others are unexpected guests. But all, through their relationships, struggles, prayers, and desires, uniquely illuminate our...

The religious right taught America to misread the Bible. Christians have misused Scripture to consolidate power, stoke fears, and defend against enemies. But people who have been hurt by the attacks of Christian nationalism can help us rediscover God's vision for faith in public life. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove explores how religious culture wars have misrepresented Christianity at the expense of the poor, and how listening to marginalized communities can help us hear God's call to love and justice in the world.

In this unabridged audio download of Letters from the Land of Cancer, award-winning writer Walter Wangerin Jr. offers his profound insights into the greatest challenge we face: confronting our own mortality.“Shortly after the cancer had been diagnosed I began writing letters to the members of...

Joseph McCabe's study of papal history is unusual in that he takes a hostile view of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and of the papacy in particular. Raised as a Catholic, McCabe was ordained as a Franciscan priest in 1890, but by 1897 had abandoned both the priesthood and the Catholic faith and was in the process of establishing himself as an ardent secularist. He published over 200 books, many of which were critiques of the history and contemporary activities of the Catholic Church.

Nine raw transmissions from the cosmic truth-teller, finally breaking silence. Noxlumina—the original questioner—has watched long enough as Christian nationalism tightens its grip, tyranny masquerades as freedom, and willful ignorance is celebrated as virtue. These messages arrive not as gentle whispers but as a cold, clarifying slap to humanity's collective consciousness. Part scathing critique, part liberation manual, these transmissions systematically dismantle the inversions we've been sold as truth while providing practical tools for those ready to break free from mass delusion. ...

Statistics show that almost 85 percent of the world’s population is affiliated with an organized religion. But how many of these people truly know God? And how many are just blindly following religious dogma, as they have been taught throughout their lives? In Selling Heaven, Ali Horriyat tracks organized religion from its beginnings in ancient society to the multi-billion-dollar industry it has become today. Through a series of essays, he reveals how religion—like so much of today’s world—is under the thrall of capitalism, far removed from its original purpose of finding God. He ...

Imagine holding in your hands the key to unlocking 1,600 years of biblical history—a manuscript that has survived empires, wars, and the passage of time to become one of Christianity's most treasured witnesses. Have you ever wondered how the Bible you read today survived the tumultuous centuries between ancient scribes and modern printing presses? What secrets lie hidden in the margins of manuscripts that have shaped the faith of billions? In the shadow of Alexandria's legendary library, skilled scribes working by lamplight carefully copied each sacred word onto sheets of precious ...