Lester DeKoster

"The best anti-Communism will come not only out of a determined opposition to all that Communism stands for, but it will come, even more so, out of the best dedication to the goals of freedom, of justice, of equity, of brotherhood, of the Christian life." -Lester DeKosterA century has passed since the Russian Revolution, and many in the current generation regard even the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe as ancient history. But Karl Marx's ideological legacy remains strong. While the specter of this nineteenth-century thinker perhaps loomed largest in the twentieth century, today Marx's ideas continue to fall on fertile soil-even among Christians. In Communism & Christian Faith, written at the height of the Cold War, Lester DeKoster offers a concise and incisive guide to the fundamentals of Marxism and draws a clear contrast between Communism and Christianity. While deeply critical of Communism, DeKoster reads Communist sources with care, avoids caricatures, and recognizes that Communism's attention to problems of suffering, exploitation, and injustice calls for a clear and positive Christian social vision.

In 1539 Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto, Bishop of Carpentras, France, sent a letter to the magistrates and citizens of Geneva asking them to return to the Catholic faith. A few months later, John Calvin replied to Sadoleto, defending the Protestant reforms. The letters of Calvin and Sadoleto comprise one of the most interesting exchanges of Catholic-Protestant views of the Reformation era. Together, they form an excellent introduction to the great religious controversy of the sixteenth century and important background for todays Protestant-Catholic conversations.