Showing titles in Sociology

After September 11, Ranya Idliby, an American Muslim of Palestinian descent, faced constant questions about Islam, God, and death from her children, the only Muslims in their classrooms. Inspired by a story about Muhammad, Ranya reached out to two other mothers to write an interfaith children's book that would highlight the connections between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

A clear-sighted revelation, a deep penetration into the world of Scientology by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, the now-classic study of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Based on more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—both famous and less well known—and years of archival research, Lawrence Wright uses his extraordinary investigative ability to uncover for us the inner workings of the Church of Scientology.

Seen as godless by the religious and weak by the atheists, secularism mostly has been misunderstood. In How to Be Secular, Berlinerblau argues for a return to America’s hard-won secular tradition; the best way to protect religious diversity and freedom lies in keeping an eye on the encroachment of each into the other. Berlinerblau passionately defends the virtues of secularism, reminds us what it is and what it can protect, and urges us to mobilize around its cause, which is for all Americans to continue to enjoy freedom for - and from - religion.

Nuzi, Women's Rights and Hurrian Ethnicity And Other Academic Essays is the first book in the Hermit Kingdom Studies in Identity and Society series. The academic research publication series seeks to examine the question of identity and its relation to society. The research publication project promotes creative new approaches to thinking about identity as well as a combination of traditional academic methodologies.

Raised on Charles Baudelaire, A Clockwork Orange, and fine Bordeaux in 1970s Lebanon, Darina Al-Joundi was encouraged by her unconventional father to defy all taboos. As the bombs fell, she lived an adolescence of excess and transgression, defying death in nightclubs. The more oppressive the country became, the more drugs and anonymous sex she had, fueling the resentment by day of the same men who would spend the night with her. As the war dies down, she begins to incur the consequences of her lifestyle. On his deathbed, her father's last wish is for his favorite song, "Sinnerman" by Nina Simone, to be played at his funeral.

Acts of Faith is a remarkable account of growing up Muslim in America and coming to believe in religious pluralism, from one of the most prominent faith leaders in the United States. Eboo Patel's story is a hopeful and moving testament to the power and passion of young people - and of the world-changing potential of an interfaith youth movement.

In 2009, the Good News Club came to the public elementary school where journalist Katherine Stewart sent her children. The Club, which is sponsored by the Child Evangelism Fellowship, bills itself as an after-school program of "Bible study." But Stewart soon discovered that the Club's real mission is to convert children to fundamentalist Christianity and encourage them to proselytize to their "unchurched" peers, all the while promoting the natural but false impression among the children that its activities are endorsed by the school.

The idea of the United States as a Christian nation is a powerful, seductive, and potentially destructive theme in American life, culture, and politics. Many fundamentalist and evangelical leaders routinely promote this notion, and millions of Americans simply assume the Christian character of the United States.

The Child Catchers is a shocking exposé of what the adoption industry has become and how it got there, told through deep investigative reporting and the heartbreaking stories of individuals who became collateral damage in a market driven by profit and, now, pulpit command. Anyone who seeks to adopt - of whatever faith or no faith, and however well-meaning - is affected by the evangelical adoption movement, whether they know it or not. Joyce reveals with great sensitivity and empathy why, if we truly care for children, we need to see more clearly.

In 2005 a Chinook helicopter carrying 16 Special Ops soldiers crashed during a rescue mission in a remote part of Afghanistan, killing everyone on board. In that instant, machine gunner Caleb Daniels lost his best friend, Kip Jacoby, and seven members of his unit. Back in the U.S., Caleb begins to see them everywhere - dead Kip, with his Alice in Wonderland tattoos, and the rest of them, their burned bodies watching him. But there is something else haunting Caleb, too - a presence he calls the Black Thing, or the Destroyer.

Beneath our culture's obsession with wealth and power, status and celebrity, millions of Americans are quietly engaged in a deeply religious struggle to free themselves from petty selfishness and to embrace a life of benevolence and compassion. Drawing on an extensive random survey of 1,200 men and women across the United States, Matthew Lee, Margaret Poloma, and Stephen Post here shed new light on how Americans wake up to the reality of divine love and how that transformative experience expresses itself in concrete acts of benevolence.

The current controversy over teaching evolution in the public schools has grabbed front-page headlines and topped news broadcasts all across the United States. In the Beginning investigates the movement that has ignited debate in state legislatures and at school board meetings. Reaching back to the origins of antievolutionism in the 1920s, and continuing to the promotion of intelligent design today, Michael Lienesch skillfully analyzes one of the most formidable political movements of the 20th century.

On his popular science blog, Pharyngula, PZ Myers has entertained millions of fans with his infectious love of evolutionary science and his equally infectious disdain for creationism, biblical literalism, intelligent design theory, and other products of godly illogic. This funny and fearless book collects and expands on some of his most popular writings, giving the religious fanaticism of our times the gleeful disrespect it deserves by skewering the apocalyptic fantasies, magical thinking, hypocrisies, and pseudoscientific theories advanced by religious fundamentalists of all stripes.

Drawing inspiration from philosophy, history, and literature, Martha C. Nussbaum takes us to task for our religious intolerance, identifies the fear behind it, and offers a way past fear toward a more equitable, imaginative, and free society, through the consistent application of universal principles of respect for conscience.

Coming out as an atheist is a powerful, liberating act. It makes life better for you, for other atheists, and for the world. But telling people you're an atheist can be risky. What are the best ways to do it? And how can we help each other take this step? In this compassionate, friendly, down-to-earth how-to guide, popular author of Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless and blogger Greta Christina, offers concrete strategies and guiding philosophies for coming out as an atheist.

In this provocative book one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious "histories" offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’s misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history.

How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.

Westboro Baptist Church has earned an unforgettable reputation for virulently anti-gay pickets. Westboro has even stooped to picketing funerals to spread their hateful message. Most people respond to this hate with more hate of their own, but through poetry, this book calls us to respond with understanding instead. This work strives to challenge common reactions and to stimulate new thoughtful dialogue.

It's the end of Christianity as we know it. But it's not a catastrophe - it's an opportunity. Thousands are walking away from the church. Christians are grappling with their faith. And both believers and nonbelievers wondering-what's coming next? Fearless and provocative, spiritual trailblazer Christian Piatt offers a roadmap to the future of faith with an unflinching examination of the church today. What's left? Pairing the best "virtues" and worst "scandals" of Christianity, Piatt invites us to abandon institutional religion for deeper, truer faith.

>In Got Religion?, veteran journalist Naomi Schaefer Riley sets out to identify and meet with religious leaders across America who are successfully engaging and growing the number of young members in their congregation. In interviews with clergy, academics, and (most importantly) the young men and women themselves, she uncovers a series of practical cross-denominational solutions that leaders of all faiths can employ in their own communities.