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Religion can be source of comfort when facing struggles both personal and universal. But clinging to religion as a codependent fix for all problems can cultivate excessive fear, shame, guilt and low self-esteem. Acclaimed author Reverend Leo Booth, a Unity minister and former Episcopal priest, warns that a belief in tenets like "Everything happens for a reason" and "This is in God's hands" can be the first step in developing religious codependency. Rev. Leo turns traditional thinking and spirituality upside down by suggesting that many toxic messages emanate from core religious beliefs. In The Happy Heretic, he challenges beliefs like original sin; a dogmatic, one-way path to God; the shaming of human sexuality, religious codependency; and the exclusiveness of Jesus' perfection within the human race. The arguments he presents are derived from Pelagius, a fourth-century monk who challenged the teachings of St. Augustine; and Rumi, a revolutionary thirteenth-century poet and philosopher. In his confessions, St. Augustine's states, "It is only by Your grace and mercy that You have melted away the ice of my evil." Pelagius felt this idea lacked balance. It affirmed only God's role and didn't speak to our involvement. Likewise, Rumi believed that God's spirit exists within all human beings and enables divine creativity in life. The theology, philosophy, and recited prayers we learned through organized religion often emphasize the idea that we are sinful people who are dependent upon a powerful and punishing God. The Happy Heretic provides an escape from this shadow by encouraging readers to enter into a partnership with God, affirming personal dignity alongside responsibility; in other words, "free will" and the choices we make determine much of the success or failure we encounter. Real-life examples of the core issues surrounding religious codependency, along with Seven Spiritual Insights, help readers rethink their religious beliefs—including the prayers they grew up with—to form a deeper, more spiritual understanding of who they are and their connection with God. In this thought-provoking read, Reverend Leo calls himself a heretic, a person who is willing to think differently, and he invites readers to discover an alternative explanation for how we experience God's grace. The Happy Heretic explains this divine relationship in ways that make us feel alive, empowered, and still true to who we are. The Happy Heretic confronts toxic religious messages and brings a spiritual awareness that affirms human possibility and responsibility. . . .This book is not for the fainthearted –John Bradshaw, author of Homecoming
Judith Hayes, the Erma Bombeck of the secular humanist community, has the unique ability to raise serious points while making us laugh as she throws buckets of cold water on the irrational beliefs and maddening inconsistencies that often characterise popular religion. She's at her best when recounting modern-day "miracles" such as the apparition of the Virgin Mary's face in a waffle at a Fresno diner; or when she describes how she started rubbing a stuffed penguin whenever she had the urge to pray, and got the same results. But there are also poignant stories about believing friends and acquaintances whose struggles with irrational beliefs in the face of perplexing dilemmas and personal tragedies are in many cases heartrending. She also devotes a chapter to explaining in clear, concise, layperson's terms exactly what humanism is and stands for, in particular extolling its tolerance. By turns funny, provocative, and touching, Judith Hayes is the perfect popular spokesperson for clear thinking and reason.
Starting in 1964, writes Margot Adler in this dazzling memoir, “I found myself mysteriously at the center of extraordinary events.” Now a correspondent for National Public Radio, Adler was a young woman determined to be taken seriously and to be an agent of change—on her own terms, free from dogma and authoritarian constraints. From campus activism at the University of California at Berkeley to civil rights work in Mississippi, from antiwar protests to observing the socialist revolution in Cuba, she found those chances in the 1960s. Heretic’s Heart illuminates the events, ideas, passions, and ecstatic commitments of the decade like no other memoir. At the book’s center is the powerful—and unique—correspondence between Adler, then an antiwar activist at Berkeley, and a young American soldier fighting in Vietnam. The correspondence begins when Adler reads a letter the infantryman has written to a Berkeley newspaper. “I’ve heard rumors that there are people back in the world who don’t believe this war should be. I’m not positive of this though, ’cause it seems to me that if enough of them told the right people in the right way, then something might be done about it. . . . You see, while you’re discussing it amongst each other, being beat, getting in bed with dark-haired artists . . . some people here are dying for lighting a cigarette at night.” Heretic’s Heart also explores Adler’s attempt to come to terms with her singular legacy as the only grandchild of Alfred Adler, collaborator of Freud and founder of Individual Psychology, and as the daughter of a forceful beauty who bequeaths her spunk and adventurousness to her daughter, but whose overpowering personality forces Adler to strike out on her own. Adler’s memoir marks an initiatory journey from spirit through politics and revolution back to spirit again. Revealing, funny, joyful, and often wise, Heretic’s Heart will restore the spirit of the 1960s: the passion, the confusion, the sense of social transformation and limitless possibility, and the ecstatic feeling that the world is on the cusp of change.
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year! Put an atheist in a strict Catholic school? Expect comedy, chaos, and an Inquisition. The Breakfast Club meets Saved! in debut author Katie Henry’s hilarious novel about a band of misfits who set out to challenge their school, one nun at a time. Perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Robyn Schneider. When Michael walks through the doors of Catholic school, things can’t get much worse. His dad has just made the family move again, and Michael needs a friend. When a girl challenges their teacher in class, Michael thinks he might have found one, and a fellow atheist at that. Only this girl, Lucy, isn’t just Catholic . . . she wants to be a priest. Lucy introduces Michael to other St. Clare’s outcasts, and he officially joins Heretics Anonymous, where he can be an atheist, Lucy can be an outspoken feminist, Avi can be Jewish and gay, Max can wear whatever he wants, and Eden can practice paganism. Michael encourages the Heretics to go from secret society to rebels intent on exposing the school’s hypocrisies one stunt at a time. But when Michael takes one mission too far—putting the other Heretics at risk—he must decide whether to fight for his own freedom or rely on faith, whatever that means, in God, his friends, or himself.
How did Christianity become the dominant religion in the West? In the early first century, a small group of peasants from the backwaters of the Roman Empire proclaimed that an executed enemy of the state was God’s messiah. Less than four hundred years later it had become the official religion of Rome with some thirty million followers. It could so easily have been a forgotten sect of Judaism. Through meticulous research, Bart Ehrman, an expert on Christian history, texts and traditions, explores the way we think about one of the most important cultural transformations the world has ever seen, one that has shaped the art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics and economics of modern Western civilisation.
“How curiously different is this white God from the one preached by Jesus who understood faithfulness by how we treat the hungry and thirsty, the naked and alien, the incarcerated and infirm. This white God of empire may be appropriate for global conquerors who benefit from all that has been stolen and through the labor of all those defined as inferior; but such a deity can never be the God of the conquered.” Echoing James Cone’s 1970 assertion that white Christianity is a satanic heresy, Miguel De La Torre argues that whiteness has desecrated the message of Jesus. In a scathing indictment, he describes how white American Christians have aligned themselves with the oppressors who subjugate the “least of these”—those who have been systemically marginalized because of their race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status—and, in overwhelming numbers, elected and supported an antichrist as president who has brought the bigotry ingrained in American society out into the open. With this follow-up to his earlier Burying White Privilege, De La Torre prophetically outlines how we need to decolonize Christianity and reclaim its revolutionary, badass message. Timid white liberalism is not the answer for De La Torre—only another form of complicity. Working from the parable of the sheep and the goats in the Gospel of Matthew, he calls for unapologetic solidarity with the sheep and an unequivocal rejection of the false, idolatrous Christianity of whiteness.
In opposition to those who would claim that Christian faith embraces God at the expense of the suffering world, Rollins shows how the true believer embraces God only inasmuch as he fully embraces a needy world.
When people find out she is a therapist, Niro Feliciano knows she isn't going anywhere anytime soon. At soccer games, at cocktail parties, in waiting rooms, people corner her and ask: Why am I so stressed? Is the way I feel normal? Why can't I just be happy? The truth is happiness is fleeting, and we are stressing ourselves out trying to achieve it. In This Book Won't Make You Happy, national media commentator and Psychology Today columnist Feliciano offers a path to something much more achievable and abundantly more satisfying: contentment. By incorporating eight simple postures rooted in cognitive behavioral science and mindfulness practices into our daily routines, we can move away from anxiety and toward balance and calm. Acceptance, gratitude, connection, a present-focused perspective, intentionality and priority, self-compassion, resilience, and faith: through these practices we will overcome obstacles that hold us back from living full, meaningful, contented lives. Anxiety, stress, and grief aren't going away anytime soon, and this book won't make you happy. But with wit and empathy, Feliciano leads you right past happy to calm. No matter how "happy" your life is--or isn't--you can reach a deeper, truer, and longer-lasting place of contentment.
When computer records are trusted more than our own memories, more than our own senses, whoever controls the computers controls reality. The Heretic is a new kind of story, blending high-speed action with the fantasy elements of virtual reality. In the shadows of the net, a battle rages among powerful programmers whom novices see as no less than wizards. The prize: control of the very fabric of reality.
Charlie Garcia has spent his life helping others. For years, he's provided free healthcare for his neighbors and served as a counselor for his friends and their partners. He loves being the go-to guy, except when it results in him falling for the wrong man.Now, six years later, the one who got away is back in Denver to donate a kidney, and he has a request - he wants Charlie to marry him long enough to serve as medical power of attorney. Charlie's happy to help, but in addition to a surprise fiancé, he suddenly has two huge problems: a neighbor with a grudge who wants to ruin his career, and a secret that may destroy his friendship with Warren, Phil, and Gray.Bonus Content: Includes three new Heretic Doms Club vignettes.20% of the author's proceeds from ebook sales will be donated to the National Kidney Foundation.