The Religious Studies category has 710 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 3,555 ratings. The most-rated is Mere Christianity.
Mere Christianity
Summary
One of the most popular and beloved introductions to the concept of faith ever written, Mere Christianity has sold millions of copies worldwide. This audiobook brings together C. S. Lewis' legendary radio broadcasts during the war years, in which he set out simply to "explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times." Rejecting the boundaries that divide Christianity's many denominations, Mere Christianity provides an unequalled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to absorb a powerful, rational case for the Christian faith.
©1980 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers
God Is Not Great
Summary
In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris' recent best-seller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty of the double helix.
©2007 Christopher Hitchens (P)2007 Hachette Audio
Free Will
Summary
A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion. In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.
©2012 Sam Harris (P)2012 Simon & Schuster
The God Delusion
Summary
Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes. He critiques God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. In so doing, he makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just irrational, but potentially deadly. Dawkins has fashioned an impassioned, rigorous rebuttal to religion, to be embraced by anyone who sputters at the inconsistencies and cruelties that riddle the Bible, bristles at the inanity of "intelligent design", or agonizes over fundamentalism in the Middle East or Middle America.
©2006 Richard Dawkins (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.
Unfollow
Summary
The activist and TED speaker Megan Phelps-Roper reveals her life growing up in the most hated family in America At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy. As Phelps-Roper grew up, she saw that church members were close companions and accomplished debaters, applying the logic of predestination and the language of the King James Bible to everyday life with aplomb - which, as the church’s Twitter spokeswoman, she learned to do with great skill. Soon, however, dialogue on Twitter caused her to begin doubting the church’s leaders and message: If humans were sinful and fallible, how could the church itself be so confident about its beliefs? As she digitally jousted with critics, she started to wonder if sometimes they had a point - and then she began exchanging messages with a man who would help change her life. A gripping memoir of escaping extremism and falling in love, Unfollow relates Phelps-Roper’s moral awakening, her departure from the church, and how she exchanged the absolutes she grew up with for new forms of warmth and community. Rich with suspense and thoughtful reflection, Phelps-Roper’s life story exposes the dangers of black-and-white thinking and the need for true humility in a time of angry polarization.
©2019 Megan Phelps-Roper (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
The Road Less Traveled
Summary
Perhaps no book in this generation has had a more profound impact on our intellectual and spiritual lives than The Road Less Traveled. With sales of more than 7 million copies in the United States and Canada, and translation into more than 23 languages, it has made publishing history, with more than 10 years on The New York Times best seller list. Told in a voice that is timeless in its message of understanding, The Road Less Traveled continues to enable us to explore the nature of loving relationships and leads us toward a new serenity and fullness of life. It helps us determine how to distinguish dependency from love; how to become a more sensitive parent; and ultimately how to become one's own true self. Recognizing that "Life is difficult" and that the journey to spiritual growth is a long one, Dr. Peck never bullies his listeners, but gently guides them through the hard and often painful process of change toward a higher level of self-understanding. Combining profound psychological insight and deep spirituality, this is an audiobook that provides inspiration and understanding.
©1986 M. Scott Peck, M.D., All Rights Reserved (P)1986 Simon & Schuster Inc., All Rights Reserved, AUDIOWORKS Is an Imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.
The Great Divorce
Summary
C. S. Lewis' dazzling allegory about Heaven and Hell - and the chasm fixed between them - is one of his most brilliantly imaginative tales, where we discover that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. In a dream, the narrator boards a bus on a drizzly afternoon in Hell and embarks on an incredible voyage to Heaven. Anyone in Hell is invited on board, and anyone may remain in Heaven if he or she so chooses. But do we really want to live in Heaven? This powerful, exquisitely written fantasy is one of C. S. Lewis's most enduring works of fiction and a profound meditation on good and evil and on what God really offers us.
©1973 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers
Jesus and the Essenes
Summary
This extraordinary document represents a new form of historical research and straightens out many open questions and misinterpretations. It takes the form of direct dialogues between a modern researcher and a member of the Qumran Essene community. Alive around the time of Christ, this community has become the focus of ideas about the connection of Jesus' teachings to earlier traditions. This book gives a full description of the nature and purpose of the community and the birth and upbringing of Jesus and John the Baptist. Also, it gives Essene renderings of Key Old Testament stories concerning Moses, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others, plus startling insights into ancient history. This information is candid and for real, even about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and many Biblical images and statements are corrected and added to.
©2009 Ozark Mountain Publishing, Inc. (P)2018 Ozark Mountain Publishing, Inc.
Undeniable
Summary
Sparked by a provocative comment to BigThink.com last fall, and fueled by a highly controversial debate with Creation Museum curator Ken Ham, Bill Nye's campaign to confront the scientific shortcoming of creationism has exploded in just a few months into a national crusade. In this book, he expands the points he has made, and claims that this debate is not so much about religion versus science, as about the nature of science itself. With infectious enthusiasm, he reveals the mechanics of evolutionary theory, explains how it is rooted in the testable and verifiable scientific method, and why it is therefore a sound explanation of our beginning. He argues passionately that to continue to assert otherwise, to continue to insist that creationism has a place in the science classroom is harmful not only to our children, but to the future of the greater world as well.
©2014 William S. Nye (P)2014 Macmillan Audio
Breaking Free
Summary
In this searing memoir of survival in the spirit of Stolen Innocence, the daughter of Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the FLDS Church, takes you deep inside the secretive polygamist Mormon fundamentalist cult run by her family and how she escaped it. Born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Rachel Jeffs was raised in a strict patriarchal culture defined by subordinate sister wives and men they must obey. No one in this radical splinter sect of the Mormon Church was more powerful or terrifying than its leader, Warren Jeffs - Rachel's father. Living outside mainstream Mormonism and federal law, Jeffs arranged marriages between underage girls and middle-aged and elderly members of his congregation. In 2006 he gained international notoriety when the FBI placed him on its 10 Most Wanted List. Though he is serving a life sentence for child sexual assault, Jeffs' iron grip on the church remains firm and his edicts to his followers increasingly restrictive and bizarre. In Breaking Free, Rachel blows the lid off this taciturn community made famous by John Krakauer's best-selling Under the Banner of Heaven to offer a harrowing look at her life with Warren Jeffs and the years of physical and emotional abuse she suffered. Sexually assaulted, compelled into an arranged polygamous marriage, locked away in "houses of hiding" as punishment for perceived transgressions, and physically separated from her children, Rachel, Jeffs' first plural daughter by his second of more than 50 wives, eventually found the courage to leave the church in 2015. But Breaking Free is not only her story - Rachel's experiences illuminate those of her family and the countless others who remain trapped in the strange world she left behind. A shocking and mesmerizing memoir of faith, abuse, courage, and freedom, Breaking Free is an exposé of religious extremism and a beacon of hope for anyone trying to overcome personal obstacles. Rachel Jeffs grew up in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the polygamous Mormon sect, which she escaped in 2015. Rachel lives in Idaho with her five children and two dogs. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2017 Rachel Jeffs (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Scarred
Summary
The shocking and subversive memoir of a 12-year-NXIVM-member-turned-whistleblower, and her inspiring true story of abuse, escape, and redemption. "Master, would you brand me? It would be an honor." Scarred follows actress Sarah Edmondson's account of her recruitment into the NXIVM cult, founded by Keith Raniere. It narrates in detail the 12 years she spent within the organization, during which she enrolled over 2,000 members, chronicling her breaking point and her harrowing fight to get out, help others, and heal. Complete with personal photographs, this tell-all follows Sarah from the moment she takes her first NXIVM seminar, to the invitation she accepts from her best friend, Lauren Salzman, into DOS - a "secret sisterhood" within the cult - to her journey toward becoming a key witness in the federal case against its founders. Listeners will learn how cults like NXIVM get started, why people get involved (and stay), and the importance of whistleblowers who bring light to illegal and unethical practices. Sarah Edmondson is a Canadian actress and playwright who has starred in the CBS series Salvation and more than 12 films for the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime. She is featured in the CBC podcast Uncover: Escaping NXIVM and The Vow, the upcoming HBO documentary series on NXIVM. Scarred isn't just about NXIVM. It is also a story about abuses of power, the role female friendships play in cults, and how sometimes the search to be "better" can override everything else. A thrilling listen for fans of true crime and cults, as well as listeners of podcasts like My Favorite Murder and Up and Vanished. Great for fans of Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini, Escape by Carolyn Jessop, Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill, and Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. Evokes questions about friendship, ethics, good, and evil, making it a perfect selection for book clubs. Audio edition read by the author.
©2019 Sarah Edmondson and Kristine Gasbarre (P)2019 Hachette Audio
God
Summary
The number one New York Times best-selling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity's quest to make sense of the divine and sounds a call to embrace a deeper, more expansive understanding of God. In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large. In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as one long and remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, "Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless if we are believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves." But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature - our compassion, our thirst for justice - but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments. More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will transform the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives.
©2017 Reza Aslan (P)2017 Random House Audio
Under the Banner of Heaven
Summary
At the core of this book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America's fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief. Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five "plural wives," several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents. Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism's violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.
©2003 Jon Krakauer (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc., Published by arrangement with Random House Audio Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
Proof of Heaven
Summary
A Harvard-trained neurosurgeon's minute-by-minute account of his own near-death experience - and what he discovered in the heavenly realm beyond life. On November 10, 2008, Dr. Eben Alexander was driven into coma by a disease so lethal that only 1 in 10,000,000 survive. Seven days later, he awakened with memories of a fantastic odyssey deep into another realm that were more real than this earthly one - memories that included meeting a deceased birth sister he had never known existed. Dr. Alexander deployed all his knowledge as a scientist to find out whether his mind could have played a trick on him. In its shutdown state, there was no way it could have functioned at all. That left only one conclusion: that we are conscious in spite of our brains - that, in fact, consciousness is at the root of all existence. The evidence supporting Dr. Alexander's experience transformed him into a believer in God's unconditional love and brought reconciliation to his family - and will upend our ideas about human consciousness and spirituality.
©2012 Eben Alexander (P)2012 Simon & Schuster, Inc
Leaving the Witness
Summary
"À la Tara Westover's Educated, Scorah's pensive, ultimately liberating memoir chronicles her formative years as a Jehovah's Witness...and captures the bewilderment of belief and the bliss of self-discovery...[Leaving the Witness] is a suture for anyone searching to reconcile their past and present selves." (O, The Oprah Magazine - named one of "The Best Books by Women of Summer 2019") "Scorah's book, the bravery of which cannot be overstated, is an earnest one, fueled by a plucky humor and a can-do spirit that endears. Her tale, though an exploration of extremity, is highly readable and warm." (The New York Times Book Review) A riveting memoir of losing faith and finding freedom while a covert missionary in one of the world's most restrictive countries. A third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Amber Scorah had devoted her life to sounding God's warning of impending Armageddon. She volunteered to take the message to China, where the preaching she did was illegal and could result in her expulsion or worse. Here, she had some distance from her community for the first time. Immersion in a foreign language and culture - and a whole new way of thinking - turned her world upside down, and eventually led her to lose all that she had been sure was true. As a proselytizer in Shanghai, using fake names and secret codes to evade the authorities' notice, Scorah discreetly looked for targets in public parks and stores. To support herself, she found work at a Chinese language learning podcast, hiding her real purpose from her coworkers. Now with a creative outlet, getting to know worldly people for the first time, she began to understand that there were other ways of seeing the world and living a fulfilling life. When one of these relationships became an "escape hatch", Scorah's loss of faith culminated in her own personal apocalypse, the only kind of ending possible for a Jehovah's Witness. Shunned by family and friends as an apostate, Scorah was alone in Shanghai and thrown into a world she had only known from the periphery - with no education or support system. A coming of age story of a woman already in her 30s, this unforgettable memoir examines what it's like to start one's life over again with an entirely new identity. It follows Scorah to New York City, where a personal tragedy forces her to look for new ways to find meaning in the absence of religion. With compelling, spare prose, Leaving the Witness traces the bittersweet process of starting over, when everything one's life was built around is gone.
©2019 Amber Scorah (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Dominion
Summary
A "marvelous" (Economist) account of how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination. Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion - an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus - was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.
©2019 Tom Holland (P)2019 Basic Books
Why Jesus?
Summary
The author believes that over the past 40 years movements like New Age spirituality and society's obsession with human potential have combined like a "perfect storm" to redefine for popular culture what has been for centuries the classic biblical definition of the person, work, and teaching of Jesus Christ. In Why Jesus?, Ravi Zacharias looks at the impact of this "storm" by discussing the 60s-70s "Age of Aquarius," actor Shirley MacLaine's book and TV series Out on a Limb, author James Redfield (The Celestine Prophecy), Rhonda Byrne (The Secret), Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code), and other books by Eckart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, the Dali Lama, and Marianne Williamson. Special attention will be given to the influence of Oprah Winfrey's media platform in reshaping society by introducing and promoting certain books and authors. Major new age and human potential tenets will be discussed like: the belief that we are all gods and have to discover our divinity; Jesus was only a good teacher; Christianity is but one among many ways to eternal life; reincarnation is real; Jesus was married; truth is relative; there is no sin; and perfection is possible. The truth of and the arguments for the bodily resurrection of Jesus will be presented as the most important argument for the exclusive claims about Jesus and Christianity.
©2012 Ravi Zacharias (P)2012 Hachette Audio
The Gospel Comes with a House Key
Summary
What did God use to draw a radical, committed unbeliever to himself? Did God take her to an evangelistic rally? Or, since she had her doctorate in literature, did he use something in print? No, God used an invitation to dinner in a modest home, from a humble couple who lived out the Gospel daily, simply, and authentically. With this story of her conversion as a backdrop, Rosaria Butterfield invites us into her home to show us how God can use this same “radical, ordinary hospitality” to bring the Gospel to our lost friends and neighbors. Such hospitality sees our homes as not our own but as God’s tools for the furtherance of his kingdom as we welcome those who look, think, believe, and act differently from us into our everyday, sometimes messy lives - helping them see what true Christian faith really looks like.
©2018 eChristian (P)2018 eChristian
The Amityville Horror
Summary
In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property - complete with boathouse and swimming pool - and the price were too good to pass up. Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror. This is the spellbinding, best-selling, true story that gripped the nation - the story of a house possessed by evil spirits, haunted by psychic phenomena almost too terrible to describe. Jay Anson began as a copy boy on the New York Evening Journal in 1937 and later worked in advertising and publicity. With more than 500 documentary scripts for television to his credit, he was associated with Professional Films, Inc. He died in 1980.
©1977 Jay Anson; published in arrangement with Lesia Anson (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Jesus Among Secular Gods
Summary
Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale defend the absolute claims of Christ against modern belief in the "secular gods" of atheism, scientism, relativism, and more. The rise of these secular gods presents the most serious challenge to the absolute claims of Christ since the founding of Christianity itself. The Christian worldview has not only been devalued and dismissed by modern culture, but its believers are openly ridiculed as irrelevant. In Jesus Among Secular Gods, Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale challenge the popular "isms" of the day, skillfully pointing out the fallacies in their claims and presenting compelling evidence for revealed absolute truth as found in Jesus. This book is fresh, insightful, and important, and faces head on today's most urgent challenges to Christian faith. It will help seekers to explore the claims of Christ and will provide Christians with the knowledge to articulate why they believe that Jesus stands tall above all other gods.
©2017 Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale (P)2017 Hachette Audio