Love Wins

Millions of Christians have struggled with how to reconcile God's love and God's judgment: Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell? Is this acceptable to God? How is this "good news"? Troubling questions—so troubling that many have lost their faith because of them. Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud. But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them? What if it is God who wants us to face these questions? Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined. Love wins.

The fascinating and very moving story of the lovers, lawyers, judges and activists behind the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that led to one of the most important, national civil rights victories in decades—the legalization of same-sex marriage. In June 2015, the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law in all fifty states in a decision as groundbreaking as Roe v Wade and Brown v Board of Education. Through insider accounts and access to key players, this definitive account reveals the dramatic and previously unreported events behind Obergefell v Hodges and the lives at its center. This is a story of law and love—and a promise made to a dying man who wanted to know how he would be remembered. Twenty years ago, Jim Obergefell and John Arthur fell in love in Cincinnati, Ohio, a place where gays were routinely picked up by police and fired from their jobs. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had to provide married gay couples all the benefits offered to straight couples. Jim and John—who was dying from ALS—flew to Maryland, where same-sex marriage was legal. But back home, Ohio refused to recognize their union, or even list Jim’s name on John’s death certificate. Then they met Al Gerhardstein, a courageous attorney who had spent nearly three decades advocating for civil rights and who now saw an opening for the cause that few others had before him. This forceful and deeply affecting narrative—Part Erin Brockovich, part Milk, part Still Alice—chronicles how this grieving man and his lawyer, against overwhelming odds, introduced the most important gay rights case in U.S. history. It is an urgent and unforgettable account that will inspire readers for many years to come.

Bestselling author Rob Bell offers a provocative book which gets to the heart of questions about life and death. His perspective, encapsulated by his famous slogan ‘love wins’, will surprise and challenge both Christians and atheists, and will inspire people of all faiths and none.

Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins, has generated a national conversation about ultimate issues, such as the nature of hell, heaven, and the ultimate destiny of humankind. Yet, the book has also created unnecessary confusion. God Wins is a response to the provocative questions Love Wins has raised. In God Wins, Mark Galli explores the important questions that are left unasked and the issues left uncharted. Mark shows how Love Wins is not enough—and that there is even better news for our world. Includes a group-discussion guide with relevant Scripture passages.

For anyone who wants to delve deeper into Rob Bell’s bestselling Love Wins, the expansive and accessible Love Wins Companion offers scholarly support and critiques, resources for individuals, groups, and classes, and brand new material by Rob Bell himself. As Love Wins continues to become a touchstone for thousands of readers worldwide, controversy surrounds the book’s arguments. Author Brian D. McClaren wrote that with Love Wins “thousands of readers will find freedom and hope and a new way of understanding the biblical story," yet USA Today observed that “Bell has stuck a pitchfork in how Christians talk about damnation." Here, in The Love Wins Companion, Rob Bell offers commentary on the positive and negative attention his groundbreaking book is receiving, delivering a crucial supplement to one of the most talked-about books in recent memory.

Best friends Shenin and Tyler didn't mean to fall in love. Though, does anyone? A friendship-turned love affair is hard enough to navigate through; throw in IEDs and gun battles, along with the separation that inevitably comes with life in the military and you're asking for trouble. This is uncharted territory for both of them; Tyler has been openly gay for years, whilst Shenin has always dated men. With the government's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, it's a path that could endanger both of their careers but realising they cannot live without each other, they take it all on to prove that love really can win.

A “New & Noteworthy” selection of The New York Times Book Review “Alexis Clark illuminates a whole corner of unknown World War II history.” —Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci “[A]n irresistible human story. . . . Clark's voice is engaging, and her tale universal.” —Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power and American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House A true and deeply moving narrative of forbidden love during World War II and a shocking, hidden history of race on the home front This is a love story like no other: Elinor Powell was an African American nurse in the U.S. military during World War II; Frederick Albert was a soldier in Hitler's army, captured by the Allies and shipped to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Arizona desert. Like most other black nurses, Elinor pulled a second-class assignment, in a dusty, sun-baked—and segregated—Western town. The army figured that the risk of fraternization between black nurses and white German POWs was almost nil. Brought together by unlikely circumstances in a racist world, Elinor and Frederick should have been bitter enemies; but instead, at the height of World War II, they fell in love. Their dramatic story was unearthed by journalist Alexis Clark, who through years of interviews and historical research has pieced together an astounding narrative of race and true love in the cauldron of war. Based on a New York Times story by Clark that drew national attention, Enemies in Love paints a tableau of dreams deferred and of love struggling to survive, twenty-five years before the Supreme Court's Loving decision legalizing mixed-race marriage—revealing the surprising possibilities for human connection during one of history's most violent conflicts.

On his return after six years’ fighting with the Duke of Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars, Colonel Romney Wood, who has just become Lord Heywood, is horrified at the state of the country he left behind, where agricultural labourers are now starving, food shops are bare and Luddites lay waste new agricultural machinery. Worse still his own estate is almost bankrupt and he has to find something to sell to save it and his loyal staff from penury. He is considerably hampered because his grandfather has legally entailed everything of value onto future generations of Lord Heywoods and so he cannot dispose of virtually anything without the Trustees’ approval, which he knows will not be forthcoming. Scouring Heywood Abbey, his country home, for possible items to sell, he is astonished when he stumbles across something he is soon to prize beyond price – a beautiful, fawn-like young girl with deep blue eyes in a white diaphanous nightgown. She is an interloper and a runaway, hiding from her wicked uncle, who is forcing her into marriage with a man she despises. Her name is Lalita. But more than that she will not tell Lord Heywood. Yet slowly she reveals more of herself to him – and with each revelation the bond between them grows. And in spite of himself Lord Heywood is falling in love. They are two people with nothing left to lose and maybe only love to win.