Religious Studies Audiobooks | Religion & Spirituality

Great Bharata: The Invasion Begins Audiobook

In this captivating reimagining of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Maha-bharata, Howard Resnick, a distinguished scholar and graduate of Harvard University, having received his PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies, breathes new life into the enchanting tale of the heroine Satya-vati. Hailing from a modest fishing village, Satya-vati embarks on a remarkable journey that includes thrilling adventures, a royal marriage, and a pivotal role in the salvation of the world. The epic saga, Great Bharata, unfolds across multiple volumes, offering a spiritual tale that narrates the timeless stories from the Maha-bharata. This ancient Sanskrit epic is an extraordinary text that chronicles the ageless history of South Asia, the Earth, and the entire cosmos, seamlessly interweaving the realms of the earthly, cosmic, and spiritual in its narrative tapestry. Diving into the series with its inaugural volume, 'Great Bharata: The Invasion Begins,' the spotlight is cast on Satya-vati, a compelling young protagonist whose life takes an adventurous turn. As her journey unfurls, Satya-vati confronts numerous challenges, ever rising to the occasion, and playing a key role in the genesis of the Kurukshetra War.

Howard Resnick (Author), Howard Resnick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Wolves Unseen: A Theological Excavation of Christianity, Cults, and Ideologies

Wolves Unseen uncovers false prophets, wolves in sheep's clothing, covert cults, the prosperity gospel, the tithe, the role of women, and a system that has pulled the wool over the eyes of Christians for centuries. Tekoa Manning exposes the fastest-growing religions in America–Satanism and Wicca–also known as 'The Craft,' as well as the Christian witch movement and why it is progressing among the younger generation and gaining more and more followers. Manning expounds on the Book of Proverbs and uses it as a proof text to uncover the characteristics of the harlot religious system and the true bride of Messiah in drastic juxtaposition. Manning warns that to pull up a root system and a tree older than time, with all its falseness and debauchery, we Believers must unite and become the Bride of Christ, Messiah Yeshua. We must moisten the soil so that this root system from the tree of Christianity slides out of the ground and is thrown into the fire. Read the entire series Unmasking the Unseen to examine doctrines that have evolved.

Tekoa Manning (Author), Lynn Marie Brunk (Narrator)

Audiobook

Troubled by Faith: Insanity and the Supernatural in the Age of the Asylum

The birth of psychiatry in the early nineteenth-century fundamentally changed how madness was categorized and understood. A century on, their conceptions of mental illness continue to influence our views today. Beliefs and behavior were divided up into the pathological and the healthy. The influence of religion and the supernatural became significant measures of insanity in individuals, countries, and cultures. Psychiatrists not only thought they could transform society in the industrial age but also explain the many strange beliefs expressed in the distant past. Troubled by Faith explores these ideas about the supernatural across society through the prism of medical history. It is a story of how people continued to make sense of the world in supernatural terms, and how belief came to be a medical issue. This cannot be done without exploring the lives of those who found themselves in asylums because of their belief in ghosts, witches, angels, devils, and fairies, or because they thought themselves in divine communication or were haunted by modern technology. The beliefs expressed by asylum patients were not just an expression of their individual mental health, but also provide a unique reflection of society at the time-a world still steeped in the ideas and imagery of folklore and faith in a fast-changing world.

Owen Davies (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Rethinking the Police: An Officer's Confession and the Pathway to Reform

A former officer grapples with the reality of our broken police culture Our society has long been stuck in cultural and ideological battles about police brutality and the police force's broken relationship with our communities. Rethinking the Police promises to start a more hopeful conversation. Daniel Reinhardt spent twenty-four years as a police officer near Cleveland, Ohio. He was long unaware of the ways the culture of the police department was shaping him, but gradually, through his own experiences as a police officer and through the mentorship of Black Christians in his life, his eyes were opened to a difficult truth: police brutality against racial minorities was endemic to the culture of the system itself. In Rethinking the Police, Reinhardt lays out a history of policing in the United States, showing how it developed a culture of dehumanization, systemic racism, and brutality. But Reinhardt doesn't stop there: he offers a new model of policing based not in dominance and control but in a culture of servant leadership, with concrete suggestions for procedural justice and community policing.

Daniel Reinhardt (Author), Jim Denison (Narrator)

Audiobook

Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being, Second Edition

The achievement of our humanity comes about only through immersion in concrete, visceral, embodied relational experience, yet for many human beings, that achievement is stamped by the struggle against oppression in history, society, and religion. In this incisive and important work, distinguished theologian M. Shawn Copeland demonstrates with rare insight and conviction how Black women's historical experience and oppression cast a completely different light on our theological ideas about being human. Copeland argues that race, embodiment, and relations of power reframe not only theological anthropology but also our notions of discipleship, church, Eucharist, and Christ. Enfleshing Freedom is a work of deep moral seriousness, rigorous speculative skill, and sharp theological reasoning. This new edition incorporates recent theological, philosophical, historical, political, and sociological scholarship; engages with current social movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo; and presents a new chapter on the body.

M. Shawn Copeland (Author), Lisa Reneé Pitts (Narrator)

Audiobook

Cultural Christians in the Early Church: Audio Lectures: A Historical and Practical Introduction to

These audio lectures are a unique learning experience. Unlike a traditional audiobook's direct narration of a book's text, Cultural Christians in the Early Church Audio Lectures includes high quality live-recordings of college-level lectures that cover the important points from each subject as well as relevant material from other sources. In the middle of the third century CE, one North African bishop wrote a treatise for the women of his church, exhorting them to resist such culturally normalized yet immodest behaviors in their cosmopolitan Roman city as mixed public bathing in the nude, and wearing excessive amounts of jewelry and makeup. Stories like this one challenge the general assumption that the earliest Christians were zealous converts who were much more counterculturally devoted to their faith than typical church-goers today. Too often Christians today think of cultural Christianity as a modern concept, and one most likely to occur in areas where Christianity is the majority culture, such as the American 'Bible Belt.' Cultural Christians in the Early Church: Audio Lectures, which aims to be both historical and practical, argues that cultural Christians were the rule, rather than the exception, in the early church. Using different categories of sins as its organizing principle, lessons consider the challenge of culture to the earliest converts to Christianity as they struggled to live on mission in the Greco-Roman cultural milieu of the Roman Empire. Their stories provide a fresh perspective for considering the difficult timeless questions that stubbornly persist in our own world and churches: Are women inherently more sinful than men? Why is Christian nationalism a problem and, at times, a sin? Ultimately, recognizing that cultural sins were always a part of the story of the church and its people is a message that is both a source of comfort and a call to action in our pursuit of sanctification today.

Nadya Williams (Author), Nadya Williams (Narrator)

Audiobook

Cultural Christians in the Early Church: A Historical and Practical Introduction to Christians in th

In the middle of the third century CE, one North African bishop wrote a treatise for the women of his church, exhorting them to resist such culturally normalized yet immodest behaviors in their cosmopolitan Roman city as mixed public bathing in the nude, and wearing excessive amounts of jewelry and makeup. The treatise appears even more striking, once we realize that the scandalous virgins to whom it was addressed were single women who had dedicated their virginity to Christ. Stories like this one challenge the general assumption among Christians today that the earliest Christians were zealous converts who were much more counterculturally devoted to their faith than typical church-goers today. Too often Christians today think of cultural Christianity as a modern concept, and one most likely to occur in areas where Christianity is the majority culture, such as the American 'Bible Belt.' The story that this book presents, refutes both of these assumptions. Cultural Christians in the Early Church, which aims to be both historical and practical, argues that cultural Christians were the rule, rather than the exception, in the early church. Using different categories of sins as its organizing principle, the book considers the challenge of culture to the earliest converts to Christianity, as they struggled to live on mission in the Greco-Roman cultural milieu of the Roman Empire. These believers blurred and pushed the boundaries of what it meant to be a saint or sinner from the first to the fifth centuries CE, and their stories provide the opportunity to get to know the regular people in the early churches. At the same time, their stories provide a fresh perspective for considering the difficult timeless questions that stubbornly persist in our own world and churches: when is it a sin to eat or not eat a particular food? Are women inherently more sinful than men? And why is Christian nationalism a problem and, at times, a sin? Ultimately, recognizing that cultural sins were always a part of the story of the church and its people is a message that is both a source of comfort and a call to action in our pursuit of sanctification today.

Nadya Williams (Author), Marni Penning (Narrator)

Audiobook

Politics for People Who Hate Politics: How to Engage Without Losing Your Friends or Selling Your Sou

Politics that Unite Rather than Divide Politics can be infuriating. From unjust policies to unholy politicians, there are justifiable reasons to be upset or walk away altogether. Yet we must stay involved if we are to protect and sustain our fragile nation from the divisions that threaten it. With more than two decades of experience working in the highest levels of government, insider Denise Grace Gitsham offers a remedy to America's dark political reality: Christians filled with light, love, and Christ's heart for unity. With spiritual insights, hard-earned political lessons, and practical advice, she helps you engage with wisdom and discernment, love those you disagree with while standing firm on God's truth, serve as a unifying force, and embrace God's plan for our nation and the world. As citizens of heaven, we can engage in politics God's way: with the countercultural love, integrity, and unity that will heal our land.

Denise Grace Gitsham (Author), Lauren Pedersen (Narrator)

Audiobook

How the Talmud Can Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book

For numerous centuries, the Talmud-an extraordinary work of Jewish ethics, law, and tradition-has compelled readers to grapple with how to live a good life. Full of folk legends, bawdy tales, and rabbinical repartee, it is inspiring, demanding, confounding, and thousands of pages long. As Liel Leibovitz enthusiastically explores the Talmud, what has sometimes been misunderstood as a dusty and arcane volume becomes humanity's first self-help book. How the Talmud Can Change Your Life contains sage advice on an unparalleled scope of topics. Leibovitz guides listeners through the sprawling text with all its humor, rich insights, compulsively readable stories, and multilayered conversations. Contemporary discussions framed by Talmudic philosophy and psychology draw on subjects ranging from Weight Watchers and the Dewey decimal system to the lives of Billie Holiday and C. S. Lewis. Chapters focus on fundamental human experiences to illuminate how the Talmud speaks to our daily existence. As Leibovitz explores some of life's greatest questions, he also delivers a concise history of the Talmud itself, explaining the process of its lengthy compilation and organization. With infectious passion and candor, Leibovitz brilliantly displays how the Talmud's wisdom reverberates for the modern age and how it can, indeed, change your life.

Liel Leibovitz (Author), Liel Leibovitz (Narrator)

Audiobook

I Didn't Survive: Emerging Whole After Deception, Persecution, and Hidden Abuse

It's hard enough having a painful secret that you are terrified of sharing. It's even harder when you find yourself in the international limelight as the advocate wife of a Christian hero imprisoned for his faith. The worst part is fearing that, if you did share this secret, it might devastate the lives of your family and close friends, alienate tens of thousands of active supporters, and cause persecuted people around the world to become even more vulnerable. Naghmeh Abedini Panahi lived in constant tension from the irreconcilable realities playing out in her own life, in her family life, in the conduct of others, and on the worldwide stage as she interacted with power brokers and well-known religious leaders. Tension involving: - Steadfastly honoring God versus being carried away by the tide of circumstances - Personal reality versus public persona - Genuine faith versus hypocritical religion - Truth and caring versus the end justifying the means - Obedience to God versus loyalty to others For Naghmeh, it all came to a breaking point, and the only way through it was to die. Not physically, but in experiencing a death and rebirth in her understanding of God, her faith, and her identity as a woman. "I can't tell you how I was able to make it through, because I didn't," she writes. "Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, the new me emerged from the catastrophe of my marriage." I Didn't Survive: Emerging Whole After Deception, Persecution, and Hidden Abuse is Naghmeh's firsthand story, which takes you from war-torn Tehran to the quiet Midwestern U.S. to the halls of power in Washington D.C. It vividly describes the Islamic upbringing that shaped her, her unexpected conversion to Christianity, and the events that led to her marriage to Saeed Abedini, a magnetic pastor in the Iranian underground church. The book details Saeed's arrest and imprisonment for preaching the gospel, her fateful decision to share the truth about her husband, her betrayal and abandonment by former supporters, and the new life of advocacy for women that has arisen from the brokenness. Through the pain, abuse, and loss, Naghmeh clearly demonstrates what it means for us to find our true identity in God, discover the protective care God has for His children, and participate in sharing the love and healing He desires to bring to the world.

Eugene Bach, Naghmeh Abedini Panahi (Author), Naghmeh Abedini Panahi (Narrator)

Audiobook

[Spanish] - El Gran Divorcio: Un Sueño

Un fantástico viaje entre el Cielo y el Infierno En El Gran Divorcio, C. S. Lewis de nuevo utiliza su formidable talento para contar fábulas y alegorías. En un sueño, el escritor se sube a un autobús una tarde lloviznosa y se embarca en un increíble viaje por el Cielo y el Infierno. Este es el punto de partida para la profunda meditación sobre el bien y el mal. 'Si insistimos en quedarnos con el Infierno (o incluso la Tierra) no veremos el Cielo: si aceptamos al Cielo no podremos quedarnos ni siquiera con el más pequeño e íntimo souvenir del Infierno.' In The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis again employs his formidable talent for fable and allegory. The writer, in a dream, finds himself in a bus which travels between Hell and Heaven. This is the starting point for an extraordinary meditation upon good and evil which takes issue with William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In Lewis's own words, 'If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.' "I think it is unlikely that if other books as generally entertaining ... appear this year, they will be as generally instructive." W.H. Auden, Saturday Review The Great Divorce In The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis again employs his formidable talent for fable and allegory. The writer, in a dream, finds himself in a bus which travels between Hell and Heaven. This is the starting point for an extraordinary meditation upon good and evil which takes issue with William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In Lewis's own words, 'If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.' "I think it is unlikely that if other books as generally entertaining ... appear this year, they will be as generally instructive." W.H. Auden, Saturday Review

C.S. Lewis (Author), Cris Cisneros (Narrator)

Audiobook

C.S. Lewis in America: Readings and Reception, 1935 - 1947

Perhaps no other literary figure has transformed the American religious landscape in recent history as much as C. S. Lewis. Even before the international publication and incredible success of his fictional works such as The Chronicles of Narnia or apologetic works like Mere Christianity, Lewis was already being read "across the pond" in America. But who exactly was reading his work? And how was he received? With fresh research and shrewd analysis, this volume by noted historian Mark A. Noll considers the surprising reception of Lewis among Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, and evangelical readers to see how early readings of the Oxford don shaped his later influence. Based on the annual lecture series hosted at Wheaton College's Marion E. Wade Center, volumes in the Hansen Lectureship Series reflect on the imaginative work and lasting influence of seven British authors: Owen Barfield, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.

Mark A. Noll (Author), Charles Constant (Narrator)

Audiobook

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