Augsburg Fortress

Brave: Women of the Bible and Their Stories of Grief, Mercy, Folly, Joy, Sex, and Redemption

Following the success of Fierce, Alice Connor returns to introduce a new group of women from the Bible, some whose names we know, others who go unnamed. Connor invites us to see them not as players in a man's story, but as foremothers of the faith.

Skillfully drawn by the author, these women's stories are challenging and beautiful. When we read their stories, we see not only their particular, formidable lives but also our own.

9781506463964

Waging Peace: One Soldier's Story of Putting Love First

Diana Oestreich served 407 days as a combat medic in Iraq. But when she was commanded to run over an Iraqi child to keep her battle buddies safe, she became a peacemaker instead. This beautiful and gut-wrenching memoir exposes the false divide between loving our country and living out our faith's call to love our enemies. By showing that us-versus-them is a false choice, this book will inspire us all to choose love over fear.

9781506463704

In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

From master storyteller and host of On Being's Poetry Unbound, Pádraig Ó Tuama, comes an unforgettable spiritual memoir of peace and reconciliation, Celtic spirituality, belonging, and sexual identity. From the heart of a poet comes a profound look at the landscapes we all try to inhabit even as we always search for shelter, a place we can call home.

9781506470528

Breath Prayer: An Ancient Practice for the Everyday Sacred

Christine Valters Paintner, abbess of Abbey of the Arts, introduces us to the spiritual practice of breath prayer and offers beautiful poem-prayers for walking, working, dressing, cleaning, sitting in silence, doing the dishes, living in community--breathing the divine into our daily lives. Over time these recitations become as natural as breathing. We don't so much recite the prayers as the prayers recite us, guide us, and open our hearts to the everyday sacred.

9781506470672

Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do about It (New and Revised)

New updated and expanded paperback reveals the universal yearning writer David Zahl identifies, not to be happy or respected so much as enough--what religions call "righteous." Today, we look to various passions--from eating to parenting to voting--for the meaning once provided on Sunday morning. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism." Ultimately, Zahl brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder.

9781506467641

#ChurchToo: How Purity Culture Upholds Abuse and How to Find Healing

Sexual abuse is utterly rampant in Christian churches in America. And the reasons are somewhat different than those you might find in the #MeToo stories coming out of Hollywood or Washington. #ChurchToo turns over the rocks of the church's sexual dysfunction, revealing just what makes sexualized violence in religious contexts both ubiquitous and uniquely traumatizing, and lays the groundwork for survivors of abuse to live full, free, healthy lives.

9781506464817

Dear Doctor: What Doctors Don't Ask, What Patients Need to Say

In the form of an open letter from patients to their doctors, spiritual writer and professor of medical humanities Marilyn McEntyre brings to light the hidden fears, desperate needs, deepest hopes, and heartfelt truths that many feel doctors overlook in their approach to health care. Ultimately, Dear Doctor is an important first step to begin a dialogue between two communities that often have a very large disconnect.

9781506460475

Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age

Five hundred years ago, the world was enchanted with angels and demons--God existed, and the devil was real. Today, we live in a post-Christian world characterized by doubt and skepticism. Richard Beck argues this is not evidence of a crisis of belief but a crisis of attention. Hunting Magic Eels reveals how we can cultivate an enchanted faith in a skeptical age and recover our ability to experience God as a living, vital presence.

9781506464657

Thy Queendom Come: Breaking Free from the Patriarchy to Save Your Soul

Telling the stories of some of the strongest women in all of Scripture, Thy Queendom Come offers Christian women a new path forward - a revolutionary new spirituality, and a revolutionary word to describe it: queendom. We can leave the narrow kingdom behind and embrace a more vibrant and just spiritual life.

9781506469140

Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage

Native America knows something about cultivating resilience and resisting darkness. Choctaw elder and Episcopal priest Steven Charleston offers words of hard-won hope, rooted in daily conversations with the Spirit and steeped in Indigenous wisdom. For all who yearn for hope, Ladder to the Light is a book of comfort, truth, and challenge in a time of anguish and fear. Night will not last forever. Together we can climb toward the light.

9781506465739

Wild Belief: Poets and Prophets in the Wilderness

Wild Belief brings together a diverse and unique set of writers who span literary styles, genres, and time periods--but who are united in their search for spirit in the wild.

Through them we discover the tension between our understanding of the wilderness as both a fearful and a sacred space, which makes it particularly apt for capturing the unknown and surprising elements of belief.

9781506464633

Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred

Like many who feel unfulfilled by traditional faith expressions, Victoria Loorz went in search of a spirituality strong enough to reckon with the unraveling of her vocation, identity, and planet, and found herself in the wilderness. As cofounder of the Wild Church Network and Seminary of the Wild, Loorz invites us to reimagine our relationship with and deepen our commitment to a suffering planet by falling in love with it--and calling it church.

9781506469645

Feed the Wolf: Befriending Our Fears in the Way of Saint Francis

Turn from fear and find peace. In Feed the Wolf, author and Saint Francis scholar Jon M. Sweeney explores fifteen spiritual practices from the essential wisdom of Saint Francis for us to apply to our twenty-first-century lives.

9781506470733

Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children's Novels to Refresh Our Tired Souls

Can you love a classic novel from childhood and also name its flaws? Mitali Perkins helps us do both as she explores seven timeless children's novels. Through works by Louisa May Alcott, C.S. Lewis, L.M. Montgomery, Francis Hodgson Burnett, and other literary "uncles" and "aunts," Perkins unpacks wisdom to help adults thrive in uncertain times.

9781506469102

The Peacemaker's Path: Multifaith Reflections to Deepen Your Spirituality

Now more than ever, people are painfully divided politically, religiously, and culturally. And yet, there is a commonality in our faith traditions that can help us create a greater sense of community in which our differences are honored. Through daily readings that explore the tenets, teachings, writings, and prayers of the world's major religions, The Peacemaker's Path shows us that we have much more in common than what divides us.

9781506469126

In My Grandmother's House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit

A grandmother's theology carries wisdom strong enough for future generations. In the pages of In My Grandmother's House, public theologian Yolanda Pierce builds an everyday womanist theology rooted in liberating scriptures, stories from the Black church, and truths from Black women's lives. The Divine has been showing up at the kitchen tables of Black women for a long time. It's time to get to know that God.

9781506464718

Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity

In Just Faith, activist and writer Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons explains how a strong religious left has accompanied every major progressive advance in our society, and he resurrects the long but forgotten history of progressive Christianity in the United States. This book is a rallying cry for a bold progressive Christianity that unapologetically fights for its values to impact the biggest political battles of our time--from immigration and economic fairness to LGBTQ+ and abortion rights.

9781506462523

Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do About It

We have a universal yearning, writes David Zahl, not to be happy or respected so much as enough--what religions call "righteous." Today, we look to all sorts of everyday activities--from eating and parenting to dating and voting--for the meaning once provided on Sunday morning. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism." Ultimately, Zahl brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder.

9781506449432

Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11

In this powerful book, Dr. Maha Hilal tells the story of two decades of the War on Terror, through both an overview of the policies created under its umbrella and the lived realities of Muslim Americans who have experienced hate and discrimination as a result.

9781506470467

The Defiant Middle: How Women Claim Life's In-Betweens to Remake the World

Women who don't fit in amid cultural expectations, because of life transitions or changes in their body, mind, or gender identity, are carving out new ways of being in and remaking the world. Drawing on the wisdom of women mystics, this book explores how transitional eras can be both spiritually challenging and excitingly freeing. Ultimately, we see how these in-between times lead us to reinvented ways of seeing ourselves and changing the world.

9781506467689