Much has been written about the miners who responded to the discovery of Gold in California, yet little has been said of the church and community leaders who came along with them. The life of William Brier is a forgotten story of one pioneer and Presbyterian minister who came to California to change the newly emerging society. This biography begins with his neglected tombstone, and works backward to recreate his colorful and controversial life history. He founded over 27 churches, shaped the California school system, stood up for law and order, and protected the rights of Chinese workers.

The inspirational and dramatic story of a Hindu child who heard of God's love for her, and trusted in Him through years of persecution and adversity

The years following the Great Awakening in New England saw a great theological struggle between proponents of Calvinism and the champions of Christian liberty, setting the stage for American Unitarianism. The adherents of Christian liberty, who were branded Arminians by their opponents, were contending for the liberty of the mind and the soul to pursue truth and salvation free from prior restraint. The Arminian movement took shape as a major, quasi-denominational force in New England under the guidance of particular clergymen, most notably Ebenezer Gay, minister of the First Parish in Hingham, Massachusetts, from 1718 to 1787. Despite his ubiquitous presence in the history of Arminianism, however, Gay has been a historical enigma. Robert J. Wilson's purpose in this biography is to trace Gay's long and fascinating intellectual odyssey against the evolving social, political, and economic life of eighteenth-century Hingham as well as the religious history of the coastal region between Boston and Plymouth.

In the prime of his life, William Hendricks surrendered his wife to breast cancer. Yet he could say, 'Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.' In a warm gentle style, Bill shares God's goodness, not just even in the midst of suffering, but especially in that personal pain.

The extraordinary life of the man who founded Islam, and the world he inhabited - and remade. Muhammad's was a life of almost unparalleled historical importance; yet for all the iconic power of his name, the intensely dramatic story of the prophet of Islam is not well known. In The First Muslim, Lesley Hazleton brings him vibrantly to life. Drawing on early eyewitness sources and on history, politics, religion, and psychology, she renders him as a man in full, in all his complexity and vitality. Hazleton's account follows the arc of Muhammad's rise from powerlessness to power, from anonymity to renown, from insignificance to lasting significance. How did a child shunted to the margins end up revolutionizing his world? How did a merchant come to challenge the established order with a new vision of social justice? How did the pariah hounded out of Mecca turn exile into a new and victorious beginning? How did the outsider become the ultimate insider? Impeccably researched and thrillingly readable, Hazleton's narrative creates vivid insight into a man navigating between idealism and pragmatism, faith and politics, non-violence and violence, rejection and acclaim. The First Muslim illuminates not only an immensely significant figure but his lastingly relevant legacy.

The author traveled to South Africa to interview surviving members of Murray's family in order to produce this biography of the 19th-century missionary statesman, revivalist, evangelist, pastor, and one of the best-loved and most widely read writers on faith and spirit-filled living.

Love and Liberation reads the autobiographical and biographical writings of one of the few Tibetan Buddhist women to record the story of her life. Sera Khandro Kunzang Dekyong Chonyi Wangmo (also called Dewe Dorje, 1892-1940) was extraordinary not only for achieving religious mastery as a Tibetan Buddhist visionary and guru to many lamas, monastics, and laity in the Golok region of eastern Tibet, but also for her candor. This book listens to Sera Khandro's conversations with land deities, dakinis, bodhisattvas, lamas, and fellow religious community members whose voices interweave with her own to narrate what is a story of both love between Sera Khandro and her guru, Drime Ozer, and spiritual liberation. Sarah H. Jacoby's analysis focuses on the status of the female body in Sera Khandro's texts, the virtue of celibacy versus the expediency of sexuality for religious purposes, and the difference between profane lust and sacred love between male and female tantric partners. Her findings add new dimensions to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist consort practices, complicating standard scriptural presentations of male subject and female aide. Sera Khandro depicts herself and Drime Ozer as inseparable embodiments of insight and method that together form the Vajrayana Buddhist vision of complete buddhahood. By advancing this complementary sacred partnership, Sera Khandro carved a place for herself as a female virtuoso in the male-dominated sphere of early twentieth-century Tibetan religion.

A refreshingly honest spiritual exploration from the New York Times bestselling author of the Anna Pigeon novels.
Actor, adventuress, seeker of truth, and author of the New York Times bestselling Anna Pigeon mystery series, Nevada Barr beckons readers to share her spiritual search for meaning in life.
Hat by hat, step by step, Barr leads readers down her path to enlightenment by sharing personal episodes, some of them funny and revealing, others painfully honest. Each chapter offers a truth or an answer forged through experience and deep reflection, and a nugget of insight certain to encourage thought and discussion among readers, who may, in turn, find their own spiritual language.

Author Annette Adams shares the remarkable story of Aileen Coleman, an Australian missionary to the Arab world. Known by many names including the Desert Rat, Angel of the Desert, Blood Brother to the Bedouin, Aileen has been honored by queen Noorah of Jordan and Queen Elizabeth of England and celebrated by the princely and noble as well as the lowly and oppressed.

Franklin Graham of Samaritan's Purse, asks: "How in the world could a lady from the Outback of Australia turn ... the Arab world upside down?"

Rabble-Rouser for Peace is the first book to tell the full story of how a boy from South Africa's poverty-stricken black townships became one of the world's best-known religious figures, a moral icon to those who work for peace and justice everywhere. Drawn from 30 years of the author's first-hand contact with Desmond Tutu, this is not only a vivid character study of a public figure with a unique capacity to communicate warmth, humour and compassion; it is also a rich account of his dynamic place in history. The story of Desmond Tutu's life tells a crucial part of South Africa's history and its movement from Apartheid towards peace, but it also follows the growth of one of the best loved and globally most recognised men of our time.

Cotton Mather (1663-1728) was America's most famous pastor and scholar at the beginning of the eighteenth century. People today generally associate him with the infamous Salem witch trials, but that picture has mostly come down to us from one unreliable, antagonistic source. This biography by Rick Kennedy, based largely on new research by an international team of scholars, corrects misconceptions of Cotton Mather and focuses on the way he tried to promote, socially and intellectually, a biblical lifestyle. As older Puritan hopes in New England were giving way to a broader and shallower Protestantism, Mather led a populist, Bible-oriented movement that embraced the new century -- the beginning of a dynamic evangelical tradition that eventually became a major force in American culture.

Milarepa (1052-1135), a major figure in the history of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and known as one of Tibet's greatest lamas and poets, continues to inspire Buddhist practitioners worldwide to the present day. This title explores the history and spirituality of the Kagyu lineage in relationship to the narratives and teachings attributed to Milarepa by studying some of the earliest versions of these materials.