The award-winning author of A History of God shares practical recommendations for promoting world peace by cultivating one's intrinsic tendencies for compassion, outlining a program for achieving mindfulness and engaging in acts of kindness. Reprint.

From the renowned and best-selling author of A History of God, a sweeping exploration of religion and the history of human violence. For the first time, religious self-identification is on the decline in American. Some analysts have cited as cause a post-9/11perception: that faith in general is a source of aggression, intolerance, and divisiveness—something bad for society. But how accurate is that view? With deep learning and sympathetic understanding, Karen Armstrong sets out to discover the truth about religion and violence in each of the world’s great traditions, taking us on an astonishing journey from prehistoric times to the present. While many historians have looked at violence in connection with particular religious manifestations (jihad in Islam or Christianity’s Crusades), Armstrong looks at each faith—not only Christianity and Islam, but also Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Judaism—in its totality over time. As she describes, each arose in an agrarian society with plenty powerful landowners brutalizing peasants while also warring among themselves over land, then the only real source of wealth. In this world, religion was not the discrete and personal matter it would become for us but rather something that permeated all aspects of society. And so it was that agrarian aggression, and the warrior ethos it begot, became bound up with observances of the sacred. In each tradition, however, a counterbalance to the warrior code also developed. Around sages, prophets, and mystics there grew up communities protesting the injustice and bloodshed endemic to agrarian society, the violence to which religion had become heir. And so by the time the great confessional faiths came of age, all understood themselves as ultimately devoted to peace, equality, and reconciliation, whatever the acts of violence perpetrated in their name. Industrialization and modernity have ushered in an epoch of spectacular and unexampled violence, although, as Armstrong explains, relatively little of it can be ascribed directly to religion. Nevertheless, she shows us how and in what measure religions, in their relative maturity, came to absorb modern belligerence—and what hope there might be for peace among believers of different creeds in our time. At a moment of rising geopolitical chaos, the imperative of mutual understanding between nations and faith communities has never been more urgent, the dangers of action based on misunderstanding never greater. Informed by Armstrong’s sweeping erudition and personal commitment to the promotion of compassion, Fields of Blood makes vividly clear that religion is not the problem.

The greatest challenge facing most churches today isn't getting people through the front door--it's keeping them from leaving through the back door. In his new book, Larry Osborne reveals what it takes to cultivate a “sticky

Drawing on the success of their own church campaign, two pastors help readers learn to value, respect and care for the people who live in their own neighborhoods. Original.

Voted one of Christianity Today's 1998 Books of the Year!All kinds of important choices are made during the college years. Young men and women explore what they really believe about the nature of the world and the purpose of life. They choose their work. They build friendships and often choose to marry. They develop goals and adopt habits that may last a lifetime.Yet late modernity is not a welcome environment for emotional, intellectual and spiritual formation. Society is increasingly fragmented. And the educational system itself, fragmented and specialized, may disintegrate more than it integrates.How do parents, professors, campus ministers, youth pastors and others help students, during one of the most eventful and intense periods of life, learn to connect what they believe about the world with how they live in it? Steven Garber vigorously engages just that question in this revised edition that includes a new chapter on what he has learned about lifelong formation in the years since the book first appeared. Drawing on the history of ideas, ethics, sociology and popular culture, he offers must-reading on the critical lifework of making sense of life.

Eilberg, a Conservative rabbi who has worked in hospice care, pastoral care, spiritual teaching, and interfaith programs, explores the work of peace-building and the transformation of an enemy into a friend as a spiritual practice. She uses her experiences with interpersonal, intercommunal, and intergroup conflict, as well as wisdom from ancient Jewish sacred texts and perspectives from the academic study of peace and conflict and communications theory, to understand and teach what happens to humans under threat and in the middle of conflict and what it takes to meet the other and see him or her as oneself. She addresses the experience of conflict in interpersonal relations, then conflict engagement between faith communities, across ideological lines within the North American Jewish community on the subject of Israel, and in the context of grassroots Israeli-Palestinian peace-building, ending with discussion of the qualities of soul needed in peace. Annotation ©2014 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

The relationship between a teacher and student can be a most rewarding and life-enhancing experience, yet it can also be fraught with problems and misunderstandings. For Westerners working with Eastern teachers, the difficulties can be compounded by cultural differences, language barriers, and divergent expectations. Wise Teacher, Wise Student examines the teacher-student relationship as it is understood in the Tibetan Buddhist context. The author surveys a wide spectrum of situations, exploring the causes of potential pitfalls. In illuminating the sources of misunderstandings, he offers methods to heal wounds and encourage healthy relationships. "Alex Berzin has taken head on one of the hottest issues of Buddhism in the West-the teacher student and gurudisciple relationship. I consider this a seminal work."---Lama Surya Das, author of Letting Go of the Person You Used to be "...the most thoughtful and comprehensive book yet written on the teacher-student relationship."---Jack Kornfield, author of the Wise Heart "An informative, thoughtful, and in depth approach to the mentor-student relationship that will benefit both newcomers to the path and more advanced practitioners."---Ven. Thubten Chodron, author of Buddhism for Beginners "...a sane and valuable cultural and spiritual bridge, for practitioners and teachers in any tradition."---Sangha Journal

Bestselling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis shows how Christians can work together to overcome the destructive and pervasive nature of racism in American society.

Describes the personal histories of some of the 12,000 ministers, priests and rabbis who were part of the Chaplain Corps during World War II, seeing to the spiritual needs of military personnel as they followed them into battle. 25,000 first printing.