Christianity for Modern Pagans

Christianity for Modern Pagans
Author: Peter Kreeft
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 1993
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780898704525

Peter Kreeft believes that Baise Pascal is the first post-medieval apologist. No writer in history, claims Kreeft, is a more effective Christian apologist and evangelist to today's uprooted, confused, secularized pagans (inside and outside the Church) than Pascal. He was a brilliant man--a great scientist who did major work in physics and mathematics, as well as an inventor--whom Kreeft thinks was three centuries ahead of his time. His apologetics found in his Pensees are ideal for the modern, sophisticated skeptic.

Pens閑s

Pens閑s
Author: Blaise Pascal
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 716
Release: 1995-12
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0140446451

Blaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the Christian religion upon which his reputation now rests. The Penseés is a collection of philosohical fragments, notes and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in pscyhological, social, metaphysical and - above all - theological terms. Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis as a wretched and desolate creature within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in God's grace. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Pagans and Christians in the City

Pagans and Christians in the City
Author: Steven D. Smith
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467451487

Traditionalist Christians who oppose same-sex marriage and other cultural developments in the United States wonder why they are being forced to bracket their beliefs in order to participate in public life. This situation is not new, says Steven D. Smith: Christians two thousand years ago faced very similar challenges. Picking up poet T. S. Eliot’s World War II–era thesis that the future of the West would be determined by a contest between Christianity and “modern paganism,” Smith argues in this book that today’s culture wars can be seen as a reprise of the basic antagonism that pitted pagans against Christians in the Roman Empire. Smith’s Pagans and Christians in the City looks at that historical conflict and explores how the same competing ideas continue to clash today. All of us, Smith shows, have much to learn by observing how patterns from ancient history are reemerging in today’s most controversial issues.

Christianity for Modern Pagans

Christianity for Modern Pagans
Author: Peter Kreeft
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2015-03-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1681496534

Peter Kreeft believes that Blaise Pascal is the first post-medieval apologist. No writer in history, claims Kreeft, is a more effective Christian apologist and evangelist to today's uprooted, confused, secularized pagans (inside and outside the Church) than Pascal. He was a brilliant man--a great scientist who did major work in physics and mathematics, as well as an inventor--whom Kreeft thinks was three centuries ahead of his time. His apologetics found in his Pens褳 are ideal for the modern, sophisticated skeptic. Kreeft has selected the parts of Pascal's Pens褳 which best respond to the needs of modern man, and offers his own comments on applying Pascal's wisdom to today's problems. Addressed to modern skeptics and unbelievers, as well as to modern Christians for apologetics and self-examination, Pascal and Kreeft combine to provide a powerful witness to Christian truth.

Pagans & Christians

Pagans & Christians
Author: Gus DiZerega
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2001
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9781567182286

Although Christianity is still a major religious force, there are growing numbers of people in other faiths, including the various Pagan traditions. Some Christians have responded to this trend with fear and derision, while some Pagans have reacted to that fear with anger and mistrust. Much of the problem is due to misunderstandings and lack of communication. This can change with Gus diZerega's Pagans & Christians. Here you will find a penetrating and illuminating comparison, showing that neither path has the single correct approach to the Divine. Rather, either or both can be authentic and legitimate expressions of the appreciation of the Ultimate Source of All. Pagans & Christians is an ideal way to help bridge what at time seems a wide chasm between Christian and Pagan beliefs. By sharing core ideas of both paths, this book provides a way to give deeper mutual understanding and unity among the religions of the world. Although Pagans & Christians accepts both paths as valid, the book provides a more in-depth explanation of Paganism ó the minority religion because in some ways, Paganism demands a greater defense and explanation of its beliefs and ideas to dispel misunderstandings. The author is a Third Degree Gardenerian Elder and in Pagans & Christians has presented nothing less than a brilliant defense of Paganism, clearly showing how it should stand beside all of the major religions of the world as an equal. As part of this defense, diZerega gives a listing of biblical contradictions and Christian philosophical difficulties which can help any Pagan responding to a negative attack, and will help any Christian to view his or her religion as a way, not the way. Winner of the 2001 Coalition of Visionary Resources (COVR) Award for Best Non-fiction Book

Pagan Christianity?

Pagan Christianity?
Author: Frank Viola
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2010-09-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1414341652

Have you ever wondered why we Christians do what we do for church every Sunday morning? Why do we “dress up” for church? Why does the pastor preach a sermon each week? Why do we have pews, steeples, and choirs? This ground-breaking book, now in affordable softcover, makes an unsettling proposal: most of what Christians do in present-day churches is rooted, not in the New Testament, but in pagan culture and rituals developed long after the death of the apostles. Coauthors Frank Viola and George Barna support their thesis with compelling historical evidence and extensive footnotes that document the origins of modern Christian church practices. In the process, the authors uncover the problems that emerge when the church functions more like a business organization than the living organism it was created to be. As you reconsider Christ's revolutionary plan for his church—to be the head of a fully functioning body in which all believers play an active role—you'll be challenged to decide whether you can ever do church the same way again.

Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity

Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity
Author: Dirk Rohmann
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2016-07-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110486075

It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.

Pagan Britain

Pagan Britain
Author: Ronald Hutton
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2014-05-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300198582

Britain's pagan past, with its mysterious monuments, atmospheric sites, enigmatic artifacts, bloodthirsty legends, and cryptic inscriptions, is both enthralling and perplexing to a resident of the twenty-first century. In this ambitious and thoroughly up-to-date book, Ronald Hutton reveals the long development, rapid suppression, and enduring cultural significance of paganism, from the Paleolithic Era to the coming of Christianity. He draws on an array of recently discovered evidence and shows how new findings have radically transformed understandings of belief and ritual in Britain before the arrival of organized religion. Setting forth a chronological narrative, Hutton along the way makes side visits to explore specific locations of ancient pagan activity. He includes the well-known sacred sites—Stonehenge, Avebury, Seahenge, Maiden Castle, Anglesey—as well as more obscure locations across the mainland and coastal islands. In tireless pursuit of the elusive “why” of pagan behavior, Hutton astonishes with the breadth of his understanding of Britain’s deep past and inspires with the originality of his insights.

Making Sense of It All

Making Sense of It All
Author: Thomas V. Morris
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 224
Release: 1992-10-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780802806529

Thomas V. Morris discusses life, death, religion, the nature of faith and more. This captivating book is ideal both for thoughtful unbelievers who consider Christianity unreasonable, and Christians wanting to know how to share their faith with sceptics. Writing in an engaging, conversational style, Morris takes an intriguing new look at the big questions that keep coming up -- questions about life, death, God, religion, the nature of faith, the formation of an adequate worldview, and the meaning of life. Morris explores these kinds of questions in an earnest yet thoroughly entertaining and easily readable way, relating numerous personal anecdotes, incorporating intriguing material from the films of Woody Allen and the journals of Tolstoy, and using the writings of the seventeenth-century genius Blaise Pascal as a central guide.

The Final Pagan Generation

The Final Pagan Generation
Author: Edward J. Watts
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520379225

A compelling history of radical transformation in the fourth-century--when Christianity decimated the practices of traditional pagan religion in the Roman Empire. The Final Pagan Generation recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century’s dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors’ interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity for violent conflict. Watts examines why the "final pagan generation"—born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the past two thousand years—proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.