Religiøs fundamentalisme

In Racing Toward Armageddon, Michael Baigent, the New York Times bestselling author of The Jesus Papers and Holy Blood, Holy Grail, exposes the conspiracy of religious extremists in the Holy Land and their efforts to bring about the end of the world in our lifetime. Baigent expose the many diverse, public, and clandestine figures who are driving this perilous messianic message forward, and poses a pressing question: can we really afford to remain oblivious much longer?

"The Evangelical Catechism" is a valuable resource for pastors, new church members, and confirmation classes, and is widely used by United Church of Christ congregations. Originally authorized by the Evangelical Synod of North America (which brought the catechism into the twentieth century) it focuses on the following essentials: the Ten Commandments; the Attributes of God; the Apostles' Creed; prayer; the sacrament of Holy Baptism; and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. This revised edition has been refreshed with a more modern approach for United Church of Christ congregations in the twenty-first century.

Will current generations live to see Armageddon? Are there really sinister forces at work, encouraging its imminent arrival? If so, who exactly are they? In his latest investigative book Michael Baigent takes us to the assembly hall of the UN, the boardrooms of major businesses and powerful lobbying groups, the cabinet meetings of world leaders, the ranches of cattle breeders, the churches of the faithful, and the narrow winding streets of modern Jerusalem, revealing to us the many diverse, public, and clandestine figures behind a perilous messianic agenda. By unveiling truly bizarre alliances, revisiting centuries-old ghostly events still haunting the birthplaces of religion, unraveling complex threads of history to discern the difference between myth and prophecy, and providing a thorough explication of the religious texts underlying all of this madness in the context of the times in which they were written, Baigent presents a very different view of the past, present, and future than that perpetuated by many loose interpretations of scripture. What are faith force multipliers? Which members of the U.S. military top brass have fought to employ them? Which world leader belongs to a secret messianic society called the Hojjatieh? What is the Chalcedon Foundation? And what is the correlation between its tenets, those of sharia law, and the fulfillment of end-time prophecies? The answers to these questions and others will intrigue, mystify, and enrage you, whether you're a person of faith or a staunch secularist. But the author's goal is not simply to shock the reader?it is to help diffuse the time bomb that has been set by the hard-liners of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the end, Baigent asks these questions to deliver an urgent message: that spiritual yearning is actually a deep and personal issue of awareness, one that can bring hope and tolerance to the world, rather than the self-superiority and control that are born of fear and conflict.

Michelle Goldberg, a senior political reporter for Salon.com, has been covering the intersection of politics and ideology for years. Before the 2004 election, and during the ensuing months when many Americans were trying to understand how an administration marked by cronyism, disregard for the national budget, and poorly disguised self-interest had been reinstated, Goldberg traveled through the heartland of a country in the grips of a fevered religious radicalism: the America of our time. From the classroom to the mega-church to the federal court, she saw how the growing influence of dominionism-the doctrine that Christians have the right to rule nonbelievers-is threatening the foundations of democracy.In Kingdom Coming, Goldberg demonstrates how an increasingly bellicose fundamentalism is gaining traction throughout our national life, taking us on a tour of the parallel right-wing evangelical culture that is buoyed by Republican political patronage. Deep within the red zones of a divided America, we meet military retirees pledging to seize the nation in Christ's name, perfidious congressmen courting the confidence of neo-confederates and proponents of theocracy, and leaders of federally funded programs offering Jesus as the solution to the country's social problems.With her trenchant interviews and the telling testimonies of the people behind this movement, Goldberg gains access into the hearts and minds of citizens who are striving to remake the secular Republic bequeathed by our founders into a Christian nation run according to their interpretation of scripture. In her examination of the ever-widening divide between believers and nonbelievers, Goldberg illustrates the subversive effect of this conservative stranglehold nationwide. In an age when faith rather than reason is heralded and the values of the Enlightenment are threatened by a mystical nationalism claiming divine sanction, Kingdom Coming brings us face to face with the irrational forces that are remaking much of America.

In the past twenty-five years, liberation theology has emerged as one of the most influential, challenging, and controversial movements in modern theology. Whether in its Asian, African, Latin American, or African-American forms, liberation theology has undertaken to reexamine the dimensions of Christian faith from the perspective of the marginalized and oppressed.Here, at last, is a collection of readings from a cross-section of the world's leading exponents of liberation theology, designed to offer an overview of liberation theology and its central themes. Topics included are methodology, christology, ecclesiology, and spirituality. Each chapter includes a helpful introduction and questions for discussion, making this an ideal introductory text for students, as well as scholars and other general readers.Contributors:Maria Pilar AquinoTissa BalasuriyaDominique BarbeClodovis BoffLeonardo BoffErnesto CardenalChung Hyun KyungJames H. ConeJean-Marc ElaIvone GebaraGustavo GutierrezMary HuntSallie McFagueMary John MananzanCarlos MestersAnne Nasimiyu-WasikeSun Ai ParkJon SobrinoCharles Villa-VicencioYong Ting Jin

"Prinsessens døtre" giver et interessant indblik i dens samtid, men bogen vidner også om en barsk virkelighed, som stadig eksisterer, og den rummer et nødråb til Vestens civilisation fra en modig kvinde skjult bag slør.Prinsesse Sultana fortæller igen om sit liv i dette andet bind af Prinsesse-serien gennem sin amerikanske veninde, forfatteren Jean Sasson. Sultana er dybt splittet over den virkelighed, hun lever i i Saudi Arabiens overklasse. På den ene side er hun loyal over for kongehuset og islam. På den anden side oprøres hun over den brutale undertrykkelse, kvinderne i Saudi-Arabien stadig udsættes for.Undertrykkelsen findes også i kongehuset, hvor enhver prinsesse er andenrangs i forhold til en prins. Sultanas to døtre har begge gjort oprør på hver deres måde. Den ene gennem et utilladeligt forhold til en veninde. Den anden ved en skræmmende form for religionsvanvid. Kun sønnen giver håb for fremtiden i et samfund, hvor et enevældigt styre og det frygtede religiøse politi, mutawa, kontrollerer alt og alle.Den amerikanske forfatter Jean Sasson (f. 1950) har skrevet en lang række anmelderroste bøger om saudiarabisk kultur og kvindeliv. Da hun i en årrække arbejdede på et hospital i Riyadh, kom hun tæt ind på livet af en prinsesse fra den saudiarabiske kongefamilie. Det er denne prinsesses historie, Jean Sasson beretter om i den populære serie af bøger om prinsesse Sultana og kvinderne bag slør i Saudi-Arabiens ypperste elite.