Featured new additions to DPL’s Religion and Spirituality collections! Click on the title to place a hold. For more new books, visit our Upcoming Releases page. As always, if there’s a title you would like to read, please send us a purchase suggestion.
The Name of God is Mercy by Pope Francis – In his first book published as Pope, and in conjunction with the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis here invites all humanity to an intimate and personal dialogue on the subject closest to his heart—mercy—which has long been the cornerstone of his faith and is now the central teaching of his papacy.
Breaking Busy: How to Find Peace on Purpose in a World of Crazy by Alli Worthington – Marrying popular secular research with solid biblical principles, Allie Worthington instills confidence that you, too, can move from crazy busy to confident calm. With refreshing candor, uproarious true stories, and a Christian worldview, Alli delivers truths that dismantle common happiness myths. Then she empowers you to get unstuck, to let go of the good to make way for the great, to know yourself and your Creator, and ultimately to find peace and purpose in this world of crazy.
The Vow-Powered Life: A Simple Method for Living with Purpose by Jan Chozen Bays – Making a vow is a powerful mindfulness practice—and all you have to do to tap into that power is set your intention consciously. A vow can be as “small” as the aspiration to smile at someone at least once every day, or as “big” as marriage; as personal as deciding to be mindful when picking up the phone or as universal as vowing to save all sentient beings. It can be deeply spiritual, utterly ordinary, or both. Zen teacher Jan Chozen Bays looks to traditional Buddhist teachings to show the power of vows—and then applies that teaching broadly to the many vows we make. She shows that if we work with vows consciously, they set us in the direction of achieving our goals, both temporal and spiritual.
Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World by Tim Whitmarsh – How new is atheism? Although adherents and opponents alike today present it as an invention of the European Enlightenment, when the forces of science and secularism broadly challenged those of faith, disbelief in the gods, in fact, originated in a far more remote past. In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh journeys into the ancient Mediterranean, a world almost unimaginably different from our own, to recover the stories and voices of those who first refused the divinities.
Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith by Sarah Bessey – Blogger Bessey shares with her readers the power of uncertainty in the face of the transformative reality of the Spirit. Instead of arguments, Bessey invites readers into a conversation of loosely topical vignettes. These biographical reflections are a feast of wit, passion, criticism, intelligence, and, above all, gentleness. Whether Bessey is addressing how to handle theology, the authority of Scripture, social justice, or the problem of evil, it is always as a story. Along the way, we walk with her in her early embrace of the Charismatic Movement, her disillusionment with it and Christianity in general, and finally her critical reconciliation.
For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards by Jen Hatmaker – Best-selling author Jen Hatmaker is convinced life can be lovely and fun and courageous and kind. She reveals with humor and style how Jesus’ embarrassing grace is the key to dealing with life’s biggest challenge: people. The majority of our joys, struggles, thrills, and heartbreaks relate to people, beginning with ourselves and then the people we came from, married, birthed, live by, go to church with, don’t like, don’t understand, fear, compare ourselves to, and judge. Jen knows how the squeeze of this life can make us competitive and judgmental, how we can lose love for others and then for ourselves. She reveals how to: Break free of guilt and shame by dismantling the unattainable Pinterest life.