Kirjahaku

Diana Butler Bass, one of contemporary Christianity's leading trend-spotters, exposes how the failings of the church today are giving rise to a new "spiritual but not religious" movement. Using evidence from the latest national polls and from her own cutting-edge research, Bass, the visionary author of A People's History of Christianity, continues the conversation began in books like Brian D. McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity and Harvey Cox's The Future of Faith, examining the connections--and the divisions--between theology, practice, and community that Christians experience today. Bass's clearly worded, powerful, and probing Christianity After Religion is required reading for anyone invested in the future of Christianity.

Winner of the RNA Book Award, Nautilus Award, and Wilbur Award.This special paperback edition includes a 40-day devotional that pairs passages from Grounded with prayers and reflections, ideal for use during the Lenten season or any season of reflection.The headlines are clear: religion is on the decline in America as many people leave behind traditional religious practices. Diana Butler Bass, leading commentator on religion, politics, and culture, follows up her acclaimed book Christianity After Religion by arguing that what appears to be a decline actually signals a major transformation in how people understand and experience God. The distant God of conventional religion has given way to a more intimate sense of the sacred that is with us in the world. This shift, from a vertical understanding of God to a God found on the horizons of nature and human community, is at the heart of a spiritual revolution that surrounds us -- and that is challenging not only religious institutions but political and social ones as well.Grounded explores this cultural turn as Bass unpacks how people are finding new spiritual ground by discovering and embracing God everywhere in the world around us--in the soil, the water, the sky, in our homes and neighborhoods, and in the global commons. Faith is no longer a matter of mountaintop experience or institutional practice; instead, people are connecting with God through the environment in which we live. Grounded guides readers through our contemporary spiritual habitat as it points out and pays attention to the ways in which people experience a God who animates creation and community.Bass brings her understanding of the latest research and studies and her deep knowledge of history and theology to Grounded. She cites news, trends, data, and pop culture, weaves in spiritual texts and ancient traditions, and pulls it all together through stories of her own and others' spiritual journeys. Grounded observes and reports a radical change in the way many people understand God and how they practice faith. In doing so, Bass invites readers to join this emerging spiritual revolution, find a revitalized expression of faith, and change the world.

The Wilbur Award-winning book Grateful is now available in paperback and with an updated subtitle.If gratitude is good, why is it so hard to do? In Grateful, Diana Butler Bass untangles our conflicting understandings of gratitude and sets the table for a renewed practice of giving thanks. We know that gratitude is good, but many of us find it hard to sustain a meaningful life of gratefulness. Four out of five Americans report feeling gratitude on a regular basis, but those private feelings seem disconnected from larger concerns of our public lives. In Grateful, cultural observer and theologian Diana Butler Bass takes on this "gratitude gap" and offers up surprising, relevant, and powerful insights to practice gratitude.Bass, author of the award-winning Grounded and ten other books on spirituality and culture, explores the transformative, subversive power of gratitude for our personal lives and in communities. Using her trademark blend of historical research, spiritual insights, and timely cultural observation, she shows how we can overcome this gap and make change in our own lives and in the world.With honest stories and heartrending examples from history and her own life, Bass reclaims gratitude as a path to greater connection with god, with others, with the world, and even with our own souls. It's time to embrace a more radical practice of gratitude--the virtue that heals us and helps us thrive.

The award-winning author of Grateful goes beyond the culture wars to offer a refreshing take on the comprehensive, multi-faceted nature of Jesus, keeping his teachings relevant and alive in our daily lives.How can you still be a Christian?This is the most common question Diana Butler Bass is asked today. It is a question that many believers ponder as they wrestle with disappointment and disillusionment in their church and its leadership. But while many Christians have left their churches, they cannot leave their faith behind. In Freeing Jesus, Bass challenges the idea that Jesus can only be understood in static, one-dimensional ways and asks us to instead consider a life where Jesus grows with us and helps us through life's challenges in several capacities: as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence. Freeing Jesus is an invitation to leave the religious wars behind and rediscover Jesus in all his many manifestations, to experience Jesus beyond the narrow confines we have built around him. It renews our hope in faith and worship at a time when we need it most.

The award-winning author of Grateful goes beyond the culture wars to offer a refreshing take on the comprehensive, multi-faceted nature of Jesus, keeping his teachings relevant and alive in our daily lives.How can you still be a Christian?This is the most common question Diana Butler Bass is asked today. It is a question that many believers ponder as they wrestle with disappointment and disillusionment in their church and its leadership. But while many Christians have left their churches, they cannot leave their faith behind. In Freeing Jesus, Bass challenges the idea that Jesus can only be understood in static, one-dimensional ways and asks us to instead consider a life where Jesus grows with us and helps us through life's challenges in several capacities: as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence. Freeing Jesus is an invitation to leave the religious wars behind and rediscover Jesus in all his many manifestations, to experience Jesus beyond the narrow confines we have built around him. It renews our hope in faith and worship at a time when we need it most.

• Updated version of spiritual autobiography from an important voice in the church • Insights on how parishes have confronted issues of change As a standard in the field of spiritual autobiography, Diana Butler Bass’ Strength for the Journey has been a guide for thousands of Christians who have also found themselves “journeying” along a path toward a faith different from that discovered in childhood. This new edition will retain all that drew readers to its pages alongside the voice of those next generation Christians now walking that path for themselves. In Strength for the Journey, Diana Butler Bass illustrates the dynamic strength and persistence of mainline Protestantism. While many baby boomers left the church, only to come back later in life, Bass was a “stayer” who witnessed the struggles and changes and found much there that was meaningful. Offering thought-provoking portraits of eight parishes she attended over two decades, she explores the major issues that have confronted mainline denominations, congregations, and parishioners during those years—from debates over women clergy to conflicts about diversity and community to scrimmages between tradition and innovation.

One of America's most trusted theologians offers spiritual inspiration for every week of the year A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance offers an essay for every week in the seasons of the Christian year: From Advent and Christmas to Lent and Easter through the entire calendar. Other than its major holidays, many people are not familiar with the rhythms of the church year, an ancient spiritual cycle of time.Yet all religions have such calendars -- and they shape our understanding of faith. In the West, we live in tension with the secular calendar (mostly an inheritance from the Roman Empire) and the Christian liturgical calendar, a cycle of sacred stories that compose a larger narrative of love, hospitality, mercy, justice, and gratitude. Bass reclaims and presents fresh perspectives for every biblical text in the church year; from musing on A Wrinkle in Time in Advent, to remembering her father's old-fashioned blue Christmas decorations, and offering a revolutionary reading of the Last Supper. With fresh insights on familiar stories, these essays surprise and inspire, challenge and comfort, and will be savored year after year. Beautifully designed, the book is also a perfect gift.

In this newest installment, Diana Butler Bass expands on the ideas she developed in her recent book, Christianity after Religion, exploring what Christianity may look like beyond religion and beyond the church. Segments include (1) Arriving, (2) Believing, (3) Behaving, (4) Belonging and (5) Awakening. Sold in combination with the Embracing Spiritual Awakening DVD, 846863019830. Buy one DVD per class and one guide per participant and leader."