Mark Ellingsen dares you to go ahead and sin bravely! In this refreshing and unique book, he challenges the religious legalism pervasive throughout American evangelicalism today and encourages a new understanding of what it means to be both a Christian and a human being. Equipped with the joyful, rebellious vision of Martin Luther, father of the Protestant reformation, and the latest in neuroscientific research, Ellingsen offers a new approach for healthy living - one opposed to the duty-oriented, selfish and stifling conception of faith that has gained such a strong foothold in contemporary American culture. It is an approach that fully embraces the active role that God's grace plays in each person's life and the fun and freedom one gains from it. Beginning with the first theological analysis of Rick Warren's brand of Christianity, this book exposes the burdens and narcissism that purpose-driven and duty-bound living encourages, and includes the purveyors of the Prosperity Gospel, taught by such influential preachers like Joel Osteen, in his critique. Ellingsen writes that brave sinners, aware of God's grace in their lives, instead say "no" to narcissism and "yes" to healthy risk-taking that gets beyond selfish desires to the desire to help one another. When people sin bravely, acknowledging that everything done is done in sin with God's saving grace acting upon them, people can learn to recognize God. This awareness leads to freedom and joy, since the pressure is now removed to do and be good. In addition, total dependence on God entails a self-forgetfulness that leads to happiness. The more boldly someone acknowledges their sin, in failing to take credit for the good they have done, the more focused on God the individual becomes. Correspondingly, this self-forgetful lifestyle is a promising counter-cultural alternative to the cultural narcissism, which so dominate in many segments of contemporary American society. This book demonstrates both how and why brave sinning leads to joy, and in so doing offers readers practical advice on living this way. Ellingsen also cites recent neurobiological findings showing that when people forget themselves in order to focus on bigger projects, the pleasure centers of the brain are stimulated and people become happier and more content. It is this joyous risk-taking that he suggests brings people closer together, closer to God, and closer to a better understanding of themselves. Sin Bravely dares to be that joyful alternative to the purpose driven life.

A tour de force, voice-driven debut that examines how one woman finally found the middle ground between Heaven and Hell--an NPR Best Book of the Year. As a young girl, Maggie Rowe took the idea of salvation very seriously. Growing up in a moderately religious household, her fear of eternal damnation turned into a childhood terror that drove her to become an outrageously dedicated Born-again Christian —regularly slinging Bible verses in cutthroat scripture memorization competitions and assaulting strangers at shopping malls with the “good news” that they were going to hell. Finally, at nineteen, crippled by her fear, she checked herself in to an Evangelical psychiatric facility. And that is where her journey really began. Surrounded by a ragtag cast of characters, including a former biker meth-head struggling with anger management issues, a set of identical twins tormented by erotic fantasies, a World War II veteran and artist of denial who insists that he’s only “locked up for a tune-up,” and a warm and upbeat chronic depressive who becomes the author’s closest ally, Maggie launches a campaign to, in the words of Martin Luther, "Sin bravely in order to know the forgiveness of God."

Written by one of the world's greatest authorities on Martin Luther, this is the definitive biography of the central figure of the Protestant Reformation. “A brilliant account of Luther’s evolution as a man, a thinker, and a Christian. . . . Every person interested in Christianity should put this on his or her reading list.”—Lawrence Cunningham, Commonweal “This is the biography of Luther for our time by the world’s foremost authority.”—Steven Ozment, Harvard University “If the world is to gain from Luther it must turn to the real Luther—furious, violent, foul-mouthed, passionately concerned. Him it will find in Oberman’s book, a labour of love.”—G. R. Elton, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

This volume is a unique interpretation of what Martin Luther contributes to renewed appreciation of Biblical diversity. The Church in the West is struggling. One reason behind this is that the prevailing models for Theology have imposed logical and modern ways of thinking about faith that renders theology academic, and therefore largely irrelevant for daily life. By letting the first Reformer speak for himself in this book, Mark Ellingsen shows how Martin Luther’s theological approach can reform the Church’s theology today. The real Luther-not the one taught by his various systematic interpreters-presents Christian faith in its entirety, with all its rough edges, in such a way as to direct on how and when to employ those dimensions of the Biblical witness most appropriate for the situation in which we find ourselves.

Reproduction of the original: Luther Examined and Reexamined a Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea ... by W.H.T. Dau