From Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Christian Scientist Caroline Fraser comes the first unvarnished account of one of America's most controversial and little-understood religious movements. Millions of Americans – from Lady Astor to Ginger Rogers to Watergate conspirator H. R. Haldeman – have been touched by the Church of Christ, Scientist. Founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, Christian Science was based on a belief that intense contemplation of the perfection of God can heal all ills – an extreme expression of the American faith in self-reliance. In this unflinching investigation, Caroline Fraser, herself raised in a Scientist household, shows how the Church transformed itself from a small, eccentric sect into a politically powerful and socially respectable religion, and explores the human cost of Christian Science's remarkable rise. Fraser examines the strange life and psychology of Mary Baker Eddy, who lived in dread of a kind of witchcraft she called Malicious Animal Magnetism. She takes us into the closed world of Eddy's followers, who refuse to acknowledge the existence of illness and death and reject modern medicine, even at the cost of their children's lives. She reveals just how Christian Science managed to gain extraordinary legal and Congressional sanction for its dubious practices and tracks its enormous influence on new-age beliefs and other modern healing cults. A passionate exposé of zealotry, God's Perfect Child tells one of the most dramatic and little-known stories in American religious history.

Drawing upon a diverse range of archival evidence, medical treatises, religious texts, public discourses, and legal documents, this book examines the rich historical context in which controversies surrounding the medical neglect of children erupted onto the American scene. It argues that several nineteenth-century developments collided to produce the first criminal prosecutions of parents who rejected medical attendance as a tenet of their religious faith. A view of children as distinct biological beings with particularized needs for physical care had engendered both the new medical practice field of pediatrics and a vigorous child welfare movement that forced legislatures and courts to reconsider public and private responsibility for ensuring children’s physical well-being. At the same time, a number of healing religions had emerged to challenge the growing authority of medical doctors and the appropriate role of the state in the realm of child welfare. The rapid proliferation of the new healing churches, and the mixed outcomes of parents’ criminal trials, reflected ongoing uneasiness about the increasing presence of science in American life.

"Slaves of God provides the first philosophical explanation of Augustine's reasons for justifying slavery. It shows that once we understand why Augustine judged slavery permissible, we can appreciate the central role it plays in his broader religious, ethical, and political thought. It demonstrates this by examining the role slavery played in his conceptions of religion/worship, law, and citizenship. This monograph also situates Augustine in the Roman intellectual landscape of late antiquity, placing him in relation to Cicero, Seneca, Varro, and Lactantius"--

Wouldnt you just love to truly understand the purpose of your life, along with that of everyone and everything else in existence? This is not as difficult to realize as some believe. We only need to openly resolve a few fundamental questions from a big-picture perspective. Then understanding the purpose of everything will become more a matter of common sense than such a great mystery. These are the basic questions: Did we merely evolve, or were we created? If we were created, why were we created? If we were created by God, whose god, from which religion, is the genuine God? Can we know with absolute certainty that particular God is real? Why would any factual God allow bad things to happen to so many good people? And, can we know with certainty whether theres an afterlife? We all instinctively contemplate these questions, either consciously or subconsciously, so we must resolve them to understand who we are and our place in the grand scheme of things. Lets settle these issues once and for all.

Every Christian mother knows the stress of trying to raise her child for Christ. How do the Ten Commandments apply to that child beyond the superficial legalistic disciplines? How do they apply to me? What does Christ and his sacrifice on the cross have to do with any of these laws? If you want to love God more with all of your heart and help your child to do the same, this book will help point you in the right direction of Calvary. With stories of her own children and from her own life, we can identify with the author's journey toward having a godly family dedicated to God. Spiritual blessings from God's hand are evidenced and encouraged in these pages.

INTRODUCTION: WHO IS THE AUTHOR OF SEX? WAS IT ORIGINALLY IN GOD’S PLAN OR INTRODUCED LATER? HOW WAS THE COMMISSION OF GEN. 1:28 ORIGINALLY TO BE CARRIED OUT? WHAT WAS GOD’S ORIGINAL PURPOSE IN WOMAN? WHY WAS CHRIST BORN OF A VIRGIN WOMAN?

'When Prayer Fails' examines the web of legal and ethical questions that arise when criminal prosecutions are mounted against parents whose children die as a result of religion-based medical neglect. It explores efforts to balance judicial protections for the religious liberty of faith-healers against the rights of children.