MU Libraries New Books: Christianity

About the new book list

11/4/2009

The RSS feeds for the new books list is updated every Wednesday and contains a list of books added to the Ellis Library collection for the last six weeks. The titles are grouped by call number classification, and are listed by week and alphabetically by title.

Books for the most recent weeks are currently on the New Books Shelves inside the north entrance of Ellis Library. They can be checked out.

D. Martin Luther's Werke : kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimarer Ausgabe) : [Abt. 1, Schriften]. (11/4/2009)

11/4/2009

Call #: BR330 .A2 A1 1883

Medieval Christianity in practice / Miri Rubin, editor. (10/28/2009)

10/28/2009

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David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania )

Call #: BR253 .M36 2009

Secular sabotage : how liberals are destroying religion and culture in America / William A. Donohue. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

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Product Description

This assault is not happening from accident or whim. It is happening because disaffected liberals have deliberately set out to upend our Judeo-Christian traditions. Indeed, they are determined to tear down the traditional norms, values, and institutions that have been part of American society from its founding. The cultural debris that these saboteurs have created will take decades to clean up.

In feisty prose Donohue explores our nation where a college student is threatened with expulsion because she prayed on campus, a civil rights organization protests a statue of Jesus found on the ocean floor and a housewife sues a school district to stop the singing of Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer at a school choral production. These are just a few examples cited that demonstrate a culture descending into madness.

Donohue takes no prisoners as he digs out and exposes the groups behind this all-out attack on our Christian traditions. Among these are the radical atheists, the proponents of multiculturalism, the sexual libertines, the Hollywood elite with their not-so-hidden agenda and lawyers who collaborate for profit.

Call #: BR515 .D66 2009

Versöhnung und Wandel : Festschrift für Martin Anton Schmidt zum 90. Geburtstag am 20. Juli 2009 = Reconciliation and transformation / herausgegeben von Meehyun Chung und Reiner Jansen. (10/21/2009)

10/21/2009

Call #: BR50 .V426 2009

A handlist of the printed books in the Simmlersche Sammlung (complete imprints from volumes 1-155) : manuscript collection in the microfilm library of the Center for Reformation Research, the original located in the Zentralbibliothek in Zurich / compiled (10/14/2009)

10/14/2009

Call #: BR305.2 .Z46 1976

Annotated bibliography of Luther studies, 1977-1983 / Kenneth Hagen, Franz Possett. (10/14/2009)

10/14/2009

Call #: BR325 .H22 1985

Melanchthon in English : new translations into English with a registry of previous translations : a memorial to William Hammer (1909-1976) / Lowell C. Green assisted by Charles D. Froehlich. (10/14/2009)

10/14/2009

Call #: BR338 .G74 1982

God and the founders : Madison, Washington, and Jefferson / Vincent Phillip Muñoz. (10/7/2009)

10/7/2009

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Review
"Vincent Philip Muñoz begins this fine book by pointing to a notorious scandal-that there is no evident logic to the opinions handed down over the last sixty years by the U. S. Supreme Court regarding church and state and that over time the confusion sown by the court has grown more seriousness. This state of affairs he traces to the fact that the Justices always cite the Founders in their opinions on this matter and get them wrong. To encourage greater clarity and thoughtfulness in their judicial deliberations, he demonstrates that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were, in fact, at odds; he encourages the Justices to make a fully-informed choice between their positions; and he indicates which choice he thinks most reasonable."
-Paul Rahe, Hillsdale College

"An engaging, thoroughly researched, and well-written probe into the origins of one of America's most distinctive accomplishments - religious freedom - which also happens to be one of our most contentious contemporary constitutional issues. Muñoz is one of the country's brightest young scholars; his first major book should be required reading at the Supreme Court, and indeed wherever issues of religious freedom are discussed in America today."
-George Weigel, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC

"I know of no other book that does so good a job of probing the theoretical statements of the founders, relating their theory to their practice and then making concrete applications to specific cases and issues. Most of the literature tries to come up with a generalized 'consensus' founding view, which Muñoz definitively shows is misguided. Most of the other literature remains at a level of generality that fails to show the concrete implications of the founders' (different) positions. This book definitely makes a contribution to a field on which a great deal has indeed been written."
-Michael Zuckert, University of Notre Dame

Product Description
Did the Founding Fathers intend to build a "wall of separation" between church and state? Are public Ten Commandments displays or the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance consistent with the Founders' understandings of religious freedom? In God and the Founders, Dr. Vincent Phillip Muñoz answers these questions by providing new, comprehensive interpretations of James Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. By analyzing Madison's, Washington's, and Jefferson's public documents, private writings, and political actions, Muñoz explains the Founders' competing church-state political philosophies. Muñoz explores how Madison, Washington, and Jefferson agreed and disagreed by showing how their different principles of religious freedom would decide the Supreme Court's most important First Amendment religion cases. God and the Founders answers the question, "What would the Founders do?" for the most pressing church-state issues of our time, including prayer in public schools, government support of religion, and legal burdens on individual's religious conscience.

Book Description
Vincent Phillip Muñoz explains the Founders' competing church-state political philosophies by exploring Madison's, Washington's, and Jefferson's public documents, private writings, and political actions. God and the Founders answers the question, "What would the Founders do?" for the most pressing church-state issues of our time, including prayer in public schools, government support of religion, and legal burdens on individual's religious conscience.

About the Author
Dr Vincent Phillip Muñoz is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Tufts University and a Faculty Affiliate at the Seattle University School of Law. He has held positions at Princeton University, Claremont McKenna College, North Carolina State University, and Pomona College. His writings have appeared in American Political Science Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, the Review of Politics, the Wall Street Journal, First Things, and Claremont Review of Books. His media appearances include commentary on National Public Radio and Voice of America Radio. He has testified before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee on legal hostility toward religious expression in the public square.

Call #: BR516 .M86 2009

And the word became flesh : studies in history, communication, and scripture in memory of Michael W. Casey / edited by Thomas H. Olbricht and David Fleer. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Call #: BR526 .A53 2009

Christianity in Western Europe c. 1100-c. 1500 / edited by Miri Rubin and Walter Simons. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Review
"...inspires awe....enormous diversity of of excellent scholars....stands out from rivals by its sheer scale....provide an effective structure....identification and development of themes is thoroughly successful....deeply impressive..."
--Philip Jenkins

Product Description
During the early middle ages, Europe developed complex and varied Christian cultures, and from about 1100 secular rulers, competing factions and inspired individuals continued to engender a diverse and ever-changing mix within Christian society. This volume explores the wide range of institutions, practices and experiences associated with the life of European Christians in the later middle ages. The clergy of this period initiated new approaches to the role of priests, bishops and popes, and developed an ambitious project to instruct the laity. For lay people, the practices of parish religion were central, but many sought additional ways to enrich their lives as Christians. Impulses towards reform and renewal periodically swept across Europe, led by charismatic preachers and supported by secular rulers. This book provides accessible accounts of these complex historical processes and entices the reader towards further enquiry.

Book Description
This volume explores the wide range of institutions, beliefs and practices within later medieval Christianity. It describes and analyses routines of Christian life, dissent, and the striving for religious perfection and provides an accessible account of the rich and varied life of medieval European Christians.

About the Author
Miri Rubin is Professor of Medieval History at Queen Mary, University of London. Her most recent publications include A Sort of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (2009), The Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the Late Middle Ages (2005) and Love, Friendship and Faith in Europe 1300-1800 (2005) co-edited with Laura Gowing and Michael Hunter.

Walter Simons is Associate Professor in the Department of History, Dartmouth College. He is author of Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries 1200-1565 and co-editor of Ludo J. R. Milis, Religion, Culture and Mentalities in the Medieval Low Countries: Selected Essays (2005) with Jeroen Deploige, Martine De Reu and Steven Vanderputten and The Productivity of Urban Space in Northern Europe with Peter Arnade and Martha Howell (2002).

Call #: BR252 .C475 2009

Wechselseitige Wahrnehmung der Religionen im Spätmittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit / herausgegeben von Ludger Grenzmann ... [et al.]. (9/23/2009)

9/23/2009

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Product Description
This volume combines a number of approaches to the history of the conflict between religions and cultures. Contributions from history, art and legal history, as well as Judaistic studies deal with new conceptual considerations on the history of perceptions in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern period; above all interpretations of non-European religions, of paganism in their own European tradition, and how ecclesiastic law treated ""non-believers"" in relation to the heretics. The second volume is in preparation.

Call #: BR162.3 .W43 2009

Instructions / Commodien texte établi et traduit par Jean-Michel Poinsotte. (9/16/2009)

9/16/2009

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Call #: BR65.C683 I5 2009

Christian America and the Kingdom of God / Richard T. Hughes foreword by Brian McLaren. (9/9/2009)

9/9/2009

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Review

"Hughes busts the myth of America as a Christian nation by quoting widely from the Bible and showing how American actions since the founding of the republic have often contradicted the central scriptural teaching of peace on earth and goodwill to man. . . . A genuinely thought-provoking read, Christian America and the Kingdom of God makes one wonder if those who wage wars and bloodshed in the name of God do really know the holy canon."--Chicago Sun-Times

Product Description

The idea of the United States as a Christian nation is a powerful, seductive, and potentially destructive theme in American life, culture, and politics. Many fundamentalist and evangelical leaders routinely promote this notion, and millions of Americans simply assume the Christian character of the United States. And yet, as Richard T. Hughes reveals in this powerful book, the biblical vision of the "kingdom of God" stands at odds with the values and actions of an American empire that sanctions war instead of peace, promotes dominance and oppression instead of reconciliation, and exalts wealth and power instead of justice for the poor and needy.

With conviction and careful consideration, Hughes reviews the myth of Christian America from its earliest history in the founding of the republic to the present day. Extensively analyzing the Old and New Testaments, Hughes provides a solid, scripturally-based explanation of the kingdom of God--a kingdom defined by love, peace, patience, and generosity. Throughout American history, however, this concept has been appropriated by religious and political leaders and distorted into a messianic nationalism that champions the United States as God's "chosen nation" and bears little resemblance to the teachings of Jesus.

Pointing to a systemic biblical and theological illiteracy running rampant in the United States, Hughes investigates the reasons why so many Americans think of the United States as a Christian nation despite the Constitution's outright prohibition against establishing any national religion by law or coercion. He traces the development of fundamentalist Christianity throughout American history, noting especially the increased power and widespread influence of fundamentalism at the dawn of the twenty-first century, embodied and enacted by the administration of President George W. Bush and America's reaction to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Timely and provocative, Christian America and the Kingdom of God illuminates the devastating irony of a "Christian America" that so often behaves in unchristian ways.

About the Author

Richard T. Hughes is Senior Fellow in the Ernest L. Boyer Center and Distinguished Professor of Religion at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, and author or editor of more than a dozen books, including Myths America Lives By and How Christian Faith Can Sustain the Life of the Mind.

Call #: BR517 .H83 2009

The wilderness, the nation, and the electronic era : American Christianity and religious communication, 1620-2000 : an annotated bibliography / Elmer J. O'Brien. (9/9/2009)

9/9/2009

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Product Description
The Wilderness, the Nation, and the Electronic Era: American Christianity and Religious Communication 1620-2000: An Annotated Bibliography has over 2,400 annotations of books, book chapters, essays, periodical articles, and selected dissertations dealing with the various means and technologies of Christian communication used by clergy, churches, denominations, benevolent associations, printers, booksellers, publishing houses, and individuals and movements in their efforts to disseminate news, knowledge, and information about religious beliefs and life in the United States from colonial times to the present.

Call #: BR515 .O275 2009