The Televangelist

Meet Egypt’s top TV preacher Hatem el-Shenawi: a national celebrity revered by housewives and politicians alike for delivering Islam to the masses. Charismatic and quick-witted, he has friends in high places. But when he is entrusted with a secret that threatens to wreak havoc across the country, he is drawn into a web of political intrigue at the very heart of government. Can Hatem’s fame and fortune save him from this unspeakable scandal?

In his Arabic Booker shortlisted novel, renowned Egyptian journalist, broadcaster, and political activist Ibrahim Eissa introduces us to Hatem el-Shenawi, a Muslim televangelist who has won fame and fortune through his regular television program explaining Islam to a mass audience. Affable, sharp-witted, open-minded, and now well-connected with the government and business elite of Cairo, Shenawi seems at the top of his game. But when the president's son contacts him to carry out a very delicate assignment, his personal and political skills will be tested to the limit. Mawlana takes us on a journey into the corrupt nexus of power, business, media, and religious performance that dominated the last years of President Mubarak's rule. Along the way, besides the action, the intrigue, and the surprise denouement, the book challenges many Muslims' conventional conceptions about their own religion and airs an alternative world view based soundly on reason and common sense.

A look at the spiritual, cultural, and historical impact of the life and ministry of Billy Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. How much can one man do to influence the world for Christ? How do we begin to measure the worth of his work? In this documentary, evangelism scholar Lewis Drummond examines the Billy Graham ministry phenomenon of the last half of the 20th Century-spiritually, culturally, and historically. As a personal friend and student of the Graham family, Drummond has compiled a book that is a great resource for any student, pastor, or layperson seeking a better understanding of the Graham ministry.

Although most evangelical traditions bar women from ordained ministry, many women have carved out unofficial positions of power in their husbands' spiritual empires or their own ministries. The biggest stars write bestselling books, grab high ratings on Christian television, and even preach. Bowler offers a sympathetic and revealing portrait of megachurch women celebrities, showing how they must balance the demands of celebrity culture and conservative, male-dominated faiths. And black celebrity preachers' wives carry a special burden of respectability. A compelling account of women's search for spiritual authority in the age of celebrity. -- adapted from jacket

Not just another trashing of televangelism. . . . Schultze's sensitive critique of present patterns of religious programming is meant to promote a more responsible Christian use of the television medium. His book deserves to be read by all who care deeply about the obedient proclamation of the gospel in contemporary culture. Richard Mouw The problems [Schultze] addresses are more profound than sexual or financial scandals. They are rather problems of idolatry (substituting a charismatic image on the screen of God), heresy (defining the faith by what it will do for me), and ecclesiastical suicide (transforming churches into audiences). Amazingly, after such an indictment, Schultze holds out hope for the Christian use of television. Mark Noll The most intelligent report on televangelism that I have read and, I suspect, the best ever. . . . Clearly the work of a smart student, a discerning watcher and fair critic of the media, but best of all, a careful Christian mind. Lewis Smedes Schultze's concluding chapter should be required reading for every Christian. It provides solid biblical guidelines for calling religious broadcasters to accountability, challenges individual Christians as well as the Christian media to be more critical and selective in their support of religious broadcasters, and calls Christian educators to address the implications of living in the television age. Steve Rabey ('Christianity Today') A disturbing book, useful both for [the author's] cultural and Christian critique, and for his citation of a wide range of evidence. Lloyd Averill ('The Christian Century')

Hot on the heels of her phenomenal American debut, The Ice Princess, Camilla Läckberg brings readers back to the quiet, isolated fishing village in Sweden where dangerous secrets lie just beneath the community’s tranquil surface. During an unusually hot July, detective Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck are enjoying a rare week at home together, nervous and excited about the imminent birth of their first baby. Across town, however, a six-year-old boy makes a gruesome discovery that will ravage their little tourist community and catapult Patrik into the center of a terrifying murder case. The boy has stumbled upon the brutally murdered body of a young woman, and Patrik is immediately called to lead the investigation. Things get even worse when his team uncovers, buried beneath the victim, the skeletons of two campers whose disappearance had baffled police for decades. The three victims’ injuries seem to be the work of the same killer, but that is impossible: the main suspect in the original kidnappings committed suicide twenty-four years ago. When yet another young girl disappears and panic begins to spread, Patrik leads a desperate manhunt to track down a ruthless serial killer before he strikes again.

Jonathan Lethem, acclaimed author of The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, here takes the reader on a road trip through a post-apocalyptic USA.Since the war came and the bombs fell, Hatfork, Wyoming, has been a broken-down, mutant-ridden town. Young Chaos lives in the projection booth of the abandoned multiplex cinema, trying to blot out his present, but unable to remember his past. Then, over a can of dog food, the local tyrant Kellogg reveals to Chaos that those bombs never actually fell. The truth, in fact, is a little more complicated . . .So Chaos gets behind the wheel of an automobile and, accompanied by a fur-covered mutant female, sets out onto the empty highway for a journey to the edge of his American nightmare: in search of a missing identity and a stolen love.

I write because I am concerned that I and my agricultural colleagues have avoided addressing the moral dimension of the environmental and social problems we have contributed to. I hope for an exchange of ideas about agriculture's moral dilemmas. I encourage my readers to engage in a collective conversation about the dilemmas and avoid remaining in what Merton calls "the collective arrogance and despair of his own herd." If those engaged in agriculture continue to ignore and fail to realize our common difficulties they will be addressed and resolved by societal pressure and political action, which may not yield the resolution we favor. The book's goal is not to resolve the moral dilemmas raised. It is to raise them and encourage thought and discussion. It will ask but not answer why nearly all involved in agriculture have not addressed the moral concerns voiced by the general public. The agricultural enterprise is committed to the benefits and future success of the present, very productive, chemical, capital, and energy intensive system, which is, in the minds of many, not sustainable. The internal justification invokes the moral claim that they feed the world's population. The question remains whether or not the prevailing moral justification of feeding the world is adequate given all the issues modern, developed country agriculture faces: pesticides in soil, water, and food, cruelty to animals, Biotech/GMO's, corporate agriculture, pollution by animal factory waste, exploitation of and cruelty to migrant labor.