All Videos Tagged Christianity (Book Trailers) - Book Trailers

Jesus vs. Santa: Christmas Misunderstood

2015-09-21T03:41:27.773Z

Who influences our children more, Jesus or Santa?

The Story of the Bay of Parables – From James Martin's Jesus: A Pilgrimage

2014-03-11T18:35:41.303Z

LEARN MORE: http://JamesMartinSJ.com

In his new book, Jesus: A Pilgrimage, James Martin, SJ, will help you encounter Jesus in a new, vivid, and exciting way with a seamless combination of stories from a real-life pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the most up-to-date biblical scholarship, and profound spiritual reflections.

The New New Testament by Hal Taussig Book Trailer

2013-03-05T16:25:49.297Z

It is time for a new New Testament. In February of 2012, a council of scholars and spiritual leaders, convened by religious scholar Hal Taussig, came together to discuss, debate, and reconsider which books belong in the New Testament. They talked about dozens of newly found texts, their lessons, and how they inform the previously bound books. Reading the existing New Testament alongside these new texts—The Gospel of Luke with The Gospel of Mary, Paul’s letters with The Letter of Peter to Philip, The Revelation to John with The Secret Revelation to John—offers the exciting possibility of understanding both—the new and the old—better. What were early Christians’ concerns? What was daily practice? What was a woman’s place? How was Jesus remembered and his message promoted? In this imaginative reframing, Taussig presents explanatory introductions and additional historical background alongside the traditional New Testament books and ten newly included scriptures, all bringing us closer to a full appreciation of these documents and their impact on spiritual life. Learn more at http://bit.ly/newnewtestament Religion

The Myth of Persecution by Candida Moss

2013-01-10T00:17:23.389Z

LEARN MORE: http://bit.ly/10g6T3d

In THE MYTH OF PERSECUTION, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors.

According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity’s inspirational heroes, are still venerated today.

Moss, however, exposes that the “Age of Martyrs” is a fiction—there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches.

The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.