Religious Study Guides

You’ve felt the feeling before - the one where you feel lost in the world, where you believe that everyone else has a place but yourself. The truth is we all experience moments when we feel uncertain about the future, and uncertain about ourselves. To cope with this, ancient civilizations used specialized tools that are still present today. One of them is numerology, which has been around since the sixth century BC and has been used throughout the ages to reveal the secrets of your personality, purpose, and relationships.

Summon. Scry. Spin, spiral, and sweep. Learn how to bend time, draw down the moon's energy, and use mirror magick. Whether novice or adept, a Witch's world is filled with wonder and magick. It's also filled with the hard work and dedication to learning that are part of living the Craft every day. Silver RavenWolf presents a fascinating introduction to the Craft in To Ride a Silver Broomstick. This indispensable guide presents tried-and-true Witch wisdom, dished out with Silver's down-to-earth warmth and humor.

Black American Faith: Exploring the AME Zion Church and Moorish Science Temple Unlock the rich tapestry of Black American spiritual history with this compelling 2-in-1 volume. Black American Faith brings together two profound journeys of faith and empowerment, offering an accessible and inspiring look at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Moorish Science Temple of America. Discover a Legacy of Freedom and Faith Dive into the remarkable story of the AME Zion Church, the "Freedom Church," which stood at the heart of abolitionist movements and civil rights struggles. Explore ...

Why You Think the Way You Do traces the development of the worldviews that underpin the Western world. Professor and historian Glenn S. Sunshine demonstrates the decisive impact that the growth of Christianity had in transforming the outlook of pagan Roman culture into one that—based on biblical concepts of humanity and its relationship with God—established virtually all the positive aspects of Western civilization.

Many young African Americans are disinterested in Christianity and others are leaving the church in search of what these false religious ideas appear to offer, a spirituality more indigenous to their history and ethnicity. Edited by Dr. Eric Mason and featuring a top-notch lineup of contributors, Urban Apologetics is the first book focused entirely on cults, religious groups, and ethnocentric ideologies prevalent in the black community.

Dr. Elisa Medhus never believed in life after death. As an accomplished physi­cian, she placed her faith in science. All of that changed after her son Erik took his own life and then reached out from the other side. Intimate, heartbreaking, and illuminating, this audiobook takes listeners on an incredible journey from grief and skepticism to healing and belief. Based on Medhus's wildly popular blog, Channeling Erik, My Son and the Afterlife provides answers to the most universal questions of being human.

The word karma has made it into the mainstream. But not everyone knows what it really means or how to deal with it. This insightful audiobook will help you come to grips with karmic connections from past lives that have helped create the circumstances of your life today. You’ll discover how your actions in past lives - good and bad - affect which family you’re born into, who you’re attracted to, and why some people put you on edge. Most of all, you’ll find out how to turn your karmic encounters into grand opportunities to shape the future you want.

Dana Sawyer skillfully synthesizes insights from spiritual luminaries like Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, and Ram Dass with contemporary thinkers, offering practical tools for personal growth and a deeper understanding of timeless 'perennial' wisdom. This fresh examination speaks to all who pursue self-realization, offering an illuminating guide for navigating the depths of consciousness.

The most widely-used text of the last 25 years in its discipline, Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem has been thoroughly revised and expanded for the first time while retaining the features that have made it the standard in its field: Clear explanations, an emphasis on each doctrine’s scriptural basis, and practical applications to daily life. Volume 1 of 2.

For the Spirit, being somewhat forgotten is an occupational hazard. The Holy Spirit is so actively involved in our lives that we can take his presence for granted. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt. Just as we take breathing for granted, we can take the Holy Spirit for granted simply because we constantly depend on him. Like the cane that soon feels like an extension of the blind man's own body, we too easily begin to think of the Holy Spirit as an extension of ourselves.

Ben Connelly guides us through the intricacies of Yogacara and the richness of the "Thirty Verses." His warm and wise voice contextualizes its wisdom, showing us how we can apply its ancient insights to our own modern lives, to create a life of engaged peace, harmony, compassion, and joy. Vasubandhu's "Thirty Verses" lay out a path of practice that integrates the most powerful of Buddhism's psychological and mystical possibilities. The "Thirty Verses" goes to the heart of the matter—how do we alleviate suffering through shedding our emotional knots and our sense of alienation?

Professor, pastor, and well-known counselor Jay E. Adams bases his whole approach on Scripture. This book provides an unparalleled opportunity to see how he discovers and applies biblical principles as well as the way in which Scripture functions as the basis for his counseling approach.

This translation of the life and teachings of Jesus creates an image of not only a great spiritual teacher, but of a real person. Eminent author and translator Stephen Mitchell's approach to the Gospels has been widely praised for its depth, clarity, and radiance. This is a stunning work for believers and non-believers alike.

Does science discredit the Bible, God, religious faith? Absolutely not, says Dr. Michael Guillen, former Harvard physics instructor and Emmy-winning ABC News science editor. In Amazing Truths, he uses his entertaining, down-to-earth storytelling skills to reveal 10 astonishing truths affirmed by both ancient Scripture and modern science.

Evolution—or the broader topic of origins—has enormous relevance to how we understand the Christian faith and how we interpret Scripture. Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design presents the current "state of the conversation" about origins among evangelicals representing four key positions.

The Color of Compromise takes listeners on a historical journey: from America's early colonial days through slavery and the Civil War, covering the tragedy of Jim Crow laws and the victories of the Civil Rights era, to today's Black Lives Matter movement. Author Jemar Tisby reveals the obvious - and the far more subtle - ways the American church has compromised what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality.

The boring debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers is finally moved on by Alain de Botton's inspiring new book, which boldly argues that the supernatural claims of religion are of course entirely false - and yet that religions still have important things to teach the secular world.

Eve Tibbs offers a comprehensive, yet very accessible, introduction to the beliefs and practices of the Eastern Orthodox Church for Western listeners. Tibbs has devoted her career to translating the Orthodox faith to an evangelical audience, and she has over 20 years of experience teaching this material to students. Assuming no prior knowledge of Orthodox theology, this survey covers the basic ideas of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, from its origins at Pentecost to the present day.

The co-editors of Gnosis magazine explore the many esoteric traditions that Western culture has to offer. While terms from Eastern spiritual practices such as Zen, mantra, and karma have become part of our daily lexicon, the traditions of Western spirituality have been largely unexplored by people searching for non-mainstream routes to spiritual experience. But for those who identify with Western culture, Western religious traditions have their own wisdom teachings that are more suitable to their needs and expectations.

Christians have long differed with one another on both the meaning and the practice of water baptism. Using the classic Counterpoints forum of presentation-critique-response, this insightful book explores four prominent views of baptism held by different branches of Protestantism: Baptist, Christian Church/Church of Christ, Lutheran, and Reformed.