Deep Down Things: Essays on Catholic Culture explores common threads that characterize Catholicism. The contributors look successively at: Catholic culture and everyday life of the parish and of work, at Catholic culture and the imaginative life of poets and fiction writers, and at Catholic culture and postmodern life where individual conscience, skepticism, and relativism challenge Church authority and faith itself. They do so while looking for foundational components that persist and com...

Uplifting and thought provoking, this collection of sayings by Benedict XVI provides an accessible introduction to his theology and his approach to modern-day faith. The pope is perhaps the most influential and important religious leader in the world, yet despite his high office, Benedict XVI has much to teach about humility and spiritual life. Each quotation brings fresh insights and allows us to experience anew the depth and humanity of the Catholic faith.

Explore the history of original sin—and how it shapes our view of human nature—in “one of the best books on the history of the evolution of Christianity and its ideology” (Washington Book Review).Original sin is the Western world’s creation story.According to the Christian doctrine of original sin, humans are born inherently bad, and only through God’s grace can they achieve salvation. In this captivating and controversial book, acclaimed ...

A theologian advocates for the Catholic Church through this exploration of its teachings and controversies."An important book and a spectacular public service. It opens a window onto the Catholic faith and will open the minds of believers and skeptics alike." —Pulitzer Prize winner Peggy NoonanThe Catholic Church may be the most controversial institution in the world. Some find its teachings inexplicable, puzzling, even cruel. In this incis...

**A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"Already the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade." —David BrooksIn this controversial bestseller, Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life.**From the inside, American churches have been hollowed out by the departure of young people and by an insipid pseudo–Christianity. From the outside, they are beset by challenges to reli...

"A genuinely Catholic life should feed the soul as well as the mind; should offer a vision of men and women made whole by the love of God, the knowledge of creation, and the reality of things unseen; should enable us to see the beauty of the world in the light of eternity; and should help us recapture the nobility of the human story and the dignity of the human person. This is the kind of witness that sets fire to the human heart."—Archbishop Charles J. ChaputIn thi...

In this award-winning collection, the bestselling author of Gilead offers us other ways of thinking about history, religion, and society. Whether rescuing "Calvinism" and its creator Jean Cauvin from the repressive "puritan" stereotype, or considering how the McGuffey readers were inspired by Midwestern abolitionists, or the divide between the Bible and Darwinism, Marilynne Robinson repeatedly sends her reader back to the primary texts that are central to the development of Americ...

In The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and relates the rise of the capitalist economy to the Calvinist belief in the moral value of hard work and the fulfillment of one's worldly duties.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works througho...

Essayist and biographer Alan Jacobs introduces us to the world of original sin, which he describes as not only a profound idea but a necessary one. As G. K. Chesterton explains, "Only with original sin can we at once pity the beggar and distrust the king."Do we arrive in this world predisposed to evil? St. Augustine passionately argued that we do; his opponents thought the notion was an insult to a good God. Ever since Augustine, the church has taught the doctrine of original sin, ...

A personal examination of the Catholic faith, its leaders, and its complicated history by a National Book Award–winning, New York Times-bestselling author.James Carroll turns to the notion of practice—both as a way to learn and a means of improvement—as a lens for this thoughtful and frank look at what it means to be Catholic. He acknowledges the slow and steady transformation of the Church from its darker medieval roots to a more pluralist and inclusive in...

Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What The Qur'an Meant, coming fall 2017."The truth, we are told, will make us free. It is time to free Catholics, lay as well as clerical, from the structures of deceit that are our subtle modern form of papal sin. Paler, subtler, less dramatic than the sins castigated by Orcagna or Dante, these are the quiet sins of intellectual betrayal."--from the IntroductionFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gar...

How do we come by our worldviews and philosophies? What impact did Christianity have on the worldviews that are common to Western civilization?Why You Think the Way You Do traces the development of the worldviews that underpin the Western world. Professor and historian Glenn S. Sunshine demonstrates the decisive impact that the growth of Christianity had in transforming the outlook of pagan Roman culture into one that—based on biblical concepts of humanity...