Faith Misplaced

The two-hundred-year-long relationship between the Arab world and United States has been fraught with tension and resentment. What began in the nineteenth century as a favorable exchange of cultural understanding and economic opportunity deteriorated with America's increasing interest in oil, and finally collapsed when America's pushed for the legitimization of the State of Israel. In this provocative new book, Lebanese-American historian Ussama Makdisi explores America's fractured relationship with the Arab world, and offers policy recommendations that can lead to its repair.

Looking up from his busy life, Misplaced was troubled by what he saw. "I'm not sure how I got here, but this is not where I want to be." The early-middle-aged entrepreneur was following a path which proved to be much more difficult and costly than anticipated. Invited to join a backpacking trip, Misplaced escaped the pressures of his business for a weekend and learned life-changing lessons on his journey from Here to There. Misplaced: Here, There, and the Journey Between is a mostly true story about difficult paths and personal growth. The allegorical tale follows six men whose names reveal their qualities: Faith, Loyalty, Wisdom, Strength, Resolve, and Misplaced. Join them as they travel their difficult path and perhaps you will gain helpful insight for your own journey from where you are to where you want to be.

A provocative account of the decayed relationship between the U.S. and Arab world, and a powerful recommendation for how it can be salvaged

In this riveting account of U.S.-Arab relations, award-winning author Ussama Makdisi explores why Arabs once had a favorable view of America and why they no longer do. Firmly rejecting the spurious notion of a civilizational clash between Islam and the West, Makdisi instead demonstrates how an initial zealous American missionary crusade was transformed across the nineteenth-century into a leading American educational presence in the Arab world, and how the advent of the idea of Wilsonian self-determination, amidst wide-scale Arab emigration to the United States, further bolstered a positive, foundational Arab idea of America. However, a series of subsequent political turning points-beginning with the British and French colonial partition of the Arab world in 1920 and culminating in the U.S.-backed creation of Israel in 1948 at the expense of the Palestinians-systematically alienated Arabs from America. Drawing on both American and Arab sources, Makdisi brings to the fore for the first time a wide range of hitherto marginalized Arab perspectives on their multifaceted cultural and political encounters with America. Unearthing this neglected history puts current politics and Arab attitudes toward the United States in a crucial historical perspective. By tracing how American missionaries laid the basis for an initial Arab discovery of America, and then how later U.S. policy decisions fueled anti-Americanism, Makdisi tells a powerful historical tale brimming with contemporary relevance.

In Dimensions of Faith, cognitive scientist Steve Donaldson takes readers on a journey from the world of assumptions, set minds, widely varying beliefs, and popular misconceptions to an understanding of the true essence and role of faith as the natural and inevitable product of brains. Using numerous illustrations and examples, Donaldson shows how faith is necessitated by a variety of unavoidable limitations, exposes the myth of a divide between faith and critical thinking, provides practical advice for crafting coherent beliefs, and explains why there can never be such a place as Factland. Along the way he takes a special look at religious faith - evaluating its attributes, exploring its relation to other manifestations of faith, investigating whether God has done his job well enough to warrant the faith placed in him, and pondering how truth seekers can sometimes end up in very different places.

A financial consultant presents a simple yet revolutionary approach to managing investments safely and responsibly in today’s high-risk environment. The risk of investing in the stock market has increased remarkably in the past couple of decades. We've seen tremendous volatility in stock prices, market bubbles and devastating crashes, a parade of corporate scandals, and proven deception by many so-called investment analysts employed by major brokerage firms. In addition, the realities of ever-increasing geopolitical risks contribute to an uncertain economic future. Corporate America and the investment industry have little to gain and lots to lose when investors decide to stop playing by their rules. But with this simple guide, readers will be equipped with both the strategy and the tools for success in virtually any economic environment while ending their participation in a system that has taken full advantage of their blind faith and misplaced trust.

It is true that mankind itself has probably always been characterized with the main desire to determine just what spiritual truth really is. For centuries and centuries, highly educated philosophers and religious men alike have always stood toe-to-toe, disagreeing on spiritual truth. Since they cannot all be right, this would strongly indicate that education, religious persuasion, or even intelligence has little to do with our discovery of the real spiritual truth. For if these things were truly critical, then obviously, the spiritual/intellectual giants of history would have agreed on spiritual truth long ago. In this work, author Ted Even endeavors to show that the disagreeing intellectuals/skeptics of the past only serves to reinforce Christ's radical statement about our need to just become like little children in order to discover the spiritual truth and that literally everyone has the same opportunity to enter the kingdom of heaven on that basis. However, while super-intelligence or big degrees may not be necessary, the discovery of spiritual truth does require just one very reasonable quality of heart which little children have always possessed. Find out just what this basic quality of heart is as you continue your search for spiritual truth within this simple to understand work which only leaves the real spiritual truth left standing.

Where is Western culture going? What should Christians think about it? Those who already ask these questions often come up with confused answers. Those who do not are, arguably, living in a fool's paradise (or a fool's hell.) In this second edition of Subversive Christianity, Brian Walsh returns to the themes of cultural discernment that he unpacked more than twenty years ago. In a new Postscript, Walsh revisits Francis Fukuyama, Bruce Cockburn, and the prophet Jeremiah and asks, Where are we now? In light of 9/11 and the world economic crisis of 2008, how do we discern the times, and what does that discernment tell us about the calling of the church?