Bringing up girls : practical advice and encouragement for those shaping the next generation of women

 by James C. Dobson. Summary: Based on extensive research, and handled with Dr. Dobson's trademark down-to-earth approach, "Bringing Up Girls" equips parents to help their daughters to become healthy, happy, and successful women. (Check Catalog)

The principle of the path : how to get from where you are to where you want to be

 by Andy Stanley. Summary: Your Direction, not Your Intention, Determines Your Destination. There is often a tension between where we want to end up in life and the path we choose to get there. We fail to see that having good intentions is never good enough. Like Charlie Brown, we wrongly believe there's something to be said for trying hard. We need to understand why, in spite of our good intentions, we may have ended up at the wrong destination with our finances, our marriages, our careers, or a host of other dreams. So how do we get from where we are to where we truly want to be? The Principle of the Path is a road map to proper direction and discipline. Includes Extensive Study Guide. (Check catalog)

Savor : mindful eating, mindful life

 by Thích Nhát Hạnh, So essential to healthy eating is a healthy perspective that Zen Buddhist master and prolific author Nhat Hanh joins forces with nutritionist Cheung for a truly holistic approach. The duo pairs the latest nutritional information with the age-old Buddhist practice of mindfulness that is, of being fully aware of all that is going on within ourselves and all that is happening around us to draw attention to what and how we eat. Guidance is offered for recognizing what barriers physical, psychological, cultural, and environmental prevent us from controlling our weight, and readers are encouraged to savor food in order to fully nourish both the body and the mind. To that end, Nhat Hanh provides guided meditations on everything from eating an apple to coping with stressful situations, along with advice on selecting and preparing food, staying active, and avoiding self-criticism. Complete with a discussion of why healthy eating is also good for the environment, this is a uniquely insightful and positive program for wellness: a book of tested wisdom; practical action; and intellectual, emotional, and spiritual nutriments. --Booklist. (Check Catalog)

Cox (theology, Harvard Divinity Sch.; The Secular City) poses the question "What does the future hold for religion, and for Christianity in particular?" and answers by exploring how religious history has moved through three phases. The Age of Faith lasted from the time of Jesus until Constantine adopted Christianity as the state religion. During the Age of Belief, creeds and doctrinal divisions dominated, but Cox sees an Age of the Spirit underway that is marked by the decline of dogma and the rise of spirituality. In short chapters, he leads readers through the evolution of Christianity as we know it today and speculates on a future where less emphasis is placed on rigid belief systems and more on spiritual experience within the Christian framework. The author of many books that combine scholarship and personal narrative, Cox once again brings a wide range of current scholarship to examine "a profound change in the elemental nature of religiousness." Verdict Accessible and readable, this is highly recommended for all interested readers.-

 by Harvey Gallagher Cox. Cox (theology, Harvard Divinity Sch.; The Secular City) poses the question "What does the future hold for religion, and for Christianity in particular?" and answers by exploring how religious history has moved through three phases. The Age of Faith lasted from the time of Jesus until Constantine adopted Christianity as the state religion. During the Age of Belief, creeds and doctrinal divisions dominated, but Cox sees an Age of the Spirit underway that is marked by the decline of dogma and the rise of spirituality. In short chapters, he leads readers through the evolution of Christianity as we know it today and speculates on a future where less emphasis is placed on rigid belief systems and more on spiritual experience within the Christian framework. The author of many books that combine scholarship and personal narrative, Cox once again brings a wide range of current scholarship to examine "a profound change in the elemental nature of religiousness." Verdict Accessible and readable, this is highly recommended for all interested readers. --Library Journal (Check catalog)

Roman philosophy and the good life

 by Raymond A. Belliotti. This book combines discussions of Roman ethical philosophy with illustrations from lives of famous Romans. Following a discussion of academic skepticism are an account of Cicero's life, Stoicism by the life of Cato the Younger, and Epicureanism by the lives of Caesar and Cassius. For Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, their own lives serve to illustrate their theories. Belliotti (SUNY at Fredonia) also is concerned to show the contemporary relevance of Roman issues such as stoic indifference; whether death is an evil; and the place of pleasure, wealth, and public service in the good life. Belliotti's approach brings out the degree to which Roman philosophy is a practical guide to public and private life, rather than an abstract theoretical activity. The treatment of Roman philosophers and their Greek predecessors is reliable, and Belliotti judiciously engages enough of the vast secondary literature to help serious students find their way into it without getting bogged down. Clearly written in a lively, engaging style, this book is a useful guide for students getting oriented in Roman thought. It is a welcome resource for courses in Roman philosophy, politics, and history. Summing Up: Recommended, --Choice. (Check Catalog)

Made for goodness : and why this makes all the difference

 by Desmond Tutu. As head of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Tutu reached a world audience in his call for forgiveness for apartheid perpetrators who confessed to horrific evil and said they were sorry. Writing here with his daughter, also a minister, he insists that, with all the horror he has heard about and witnessed, We are fundamentally good. Racism has to be learned. It is not an instinct. Sin is real. But goodness is normative. Even readers not focused on the religious debate will be drawn to this account for the insider's view of the history and the personal struggle with forgiveness. Inspired by heroes of many faiths, including Father Trevor Huddleston; Afrikaaans cleric Beyers Naude; the kids in the 1976 Soweto riots; the parents of murdered Amy Biehl; and, of course, by Mandela, Gandhi, King, and Mother Teresa, Tutu is also haunted by his own failure to forgive his father before he died. The personal perspective will spark discussion about the bigger issues of morality, politics, and religion. If God is all-powerful, why do we suffer? --Booklist. (Check Catalog)

Prayers of the faithful : the shifting spiritual life of American Catholics

 by James P. McCartin. McCartin examines the shifting landscape of American Catholicism through the lens of prayer. According to the author, devotional rituals and communal prayer, once the backbone of the Catholic faith, no longer play pivotal roles in the lives of many modern Catholics. Over the course of th past several decades, many Catholics have rejected the strispiritual hierarchy that was, for centuries, the foundation of the organized church. This dramatic shift in the practice of the Catholic religion has resulted in the evolution of prayer itself into an independent-centered activity incorporated into daily routines rather than a publicly performed and formalized ritual. The author analyzes this spiritual transformation in terms of the American Catholic contribution to the culture and sociology of the American experience, placing his theory firmly into historical context. --Booklist. (Check Catalog)

Einstein's God : conversations about science and the human spirit

 by Krista Tippett. Tippett describes religion and science as pursuits of cohesive knowledge and underlying truths and seeks to dispel the erroneous assumption that these two realms of inquiry are in opposition. Tippett looks to Einstein's self-described cosmic religious sense' as a key example of how spiritual insights deepen the resonance of scientific discoveries and vice versa. As listeners to her Peabody Award-winning radio program, Speaking of Faith, know, Tippett is driven by a genuine hunger for understanding of how the revelations of religious traditions, spiritual practices, and cutting-edge findings in science and medicine can help us live more giving and fulfilling lives and create a less polarized society. Tippett sparks a mind-expanding synergy by gathering 13 far-reaching and often-moving discussions with luminaries working in an array of disciplines, including physicist Freeman Dyson, Darwin scholar James Moore, and surgeons and writers Sherwin Nuland and Mehmet Oz. Impressively well informed, thoughtful, intrepid, and articulate, Tippett steadfastly pilots her ardent conversations toward an elegant clarity, ensuring that complex concepts are comprehensible and relevant to everyone. --Booklist. (Check Catalog)

Heidegger and a hippo : walk through those pearly gates : using philosophy (and jokes!) to explain life, death, the afterlife, and everything in between

 by Thomas Cathcart. Did you know that Heidegger's notion of living in the shadow of death has its most profound articulation in a country and western song by Tim McGraw? Or what Law and Order has in common with theologian Paul Tillich's view of eternity? Such are the nuggets of wisdom found in this smart and lighthearted consideration of the philosophical dimensions of death. Cathcart and Klein (coauthors of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar) take readers on a whirlwind tour of anthropological, philosophical and theological theories of why and how we avoid accepting our own mortality. The authors demonstrate how humor allows us to express our fears about death "while defusing anxiety." Succinct accounts of Kierkegaard's notion of embracing angst, Schopenhauer's notion of undying will and Descartes on mind-body dualism are thus all peppered by comic asides (Leibnitz "maintained that Mind and Matter don't actually get into each others knickers"). This little book is an entertaining and surprisingly informative survey of the "Big D" and its centrality in human life. --Publishers Weekly. (Check catalog)

The gods of war : is religion the primary cause of violent conflict?

 by Meic Pearse. To best-selling antireligionist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion, 2006), Pearse ripostes that the one thing that bears a heavier responsibility than religion as a principal cause of war . . . is, of course, irreligion. While proving his point in a review of twentieth-century wars and the antitheist ideologies that incited them, however, he grants that those wars' enormous lethality was a consequence of modern technology, not any kind of secularity. He is a historian, not a propagandist, and succeeding chapters weighing the intertwining of war and religion throughout history are full of similar distinctions. On the whole, he argues, religion tends to abet wars that are conceived and fought for political reasons, and this is true even when wars are launched, like the Crusades, at the behest of religious leaders. Before it became an imperial faith, Christianity was peaceable, though heavily persecuted, for three centuries and, since its post-Enlightenment removal from seats of state power, has significantly reembraced that legacy. Essential reading for those caught up in the new war about, not of, religion. --Booklist. (Check catalog)