Revised and updated, with a new chapter on the refugee crisis. Welcome to the front lines. Everywhere we turn, battle lines are being drawn—traditional marriage vs. gay marriage, pro-life vs. pro-choice, personal freedom vs. governmental protection. Seemingly overnight, culture has shifted to the point where right and wrong are no longer measured by universal truth but by popular opinion. And as difficult conversations about homosexuality, abortion, and religious liberty continue to inject themselves into our workplaces, our churches, our schools, and our homes, Christians everywhere are asking the same question: How are we supposed to respond to all this? In Counter Culture, New York Times bestselling author David Platt shows Christians how to actively take a stand on such issues as poverty, sex trafficking, marriage, abortion, racism, and religious liberty—and challenges us to become passionate, unwavering voices for Christ. Drawing on compelling personal accounts from around the world, Platt presents an unapologetic yet winsome call for Christians to faithfully follow Christ into the cultural battlefield in ways that will prove both costly and rewarding. The lines have been drawn. The moment has come for Christians to rise up and deliver a gospel message that’s more radical than even the most controversial issues of our day.

Does religion cause violent conflict, asks Chad M. Bauman, and if so, does it cause conflict more than other social identities? Through an extended history of Christian-Hindu relations, with particular attention to the 2007–2008 riots in Kandhamal, Odisha, Anti-Christian Violence in India examines religious violence and how it pertains to broader aspects of humanity. Is "religious" conflict sui generis, or is it merely one species of intergroup conflict? Why and how might violence become an attractive option for religious actors? What explains the increase in religious violence over the last twenty to thirty years? Integrating theories of anti-Christian violence focused on politics, economics, and proselytization, Anti-Christian Violence in India additionally weaves in recent theory about globalization and, in particular, the forms of resistance against Western secular modernity that globalization periodically helps to provoke. With such theories in mind, Bauman explores the nature of anti-Christian violence in India, contending that resistance to secular modernities is, in fact, an important but often overlooked reason behind Hindu attacks on Christians. Intensifying the widespread Hindu tendency to think of religion in ethnic rather than universal terms, the ideology of Hindutva, or "Hinduness," explicitly rejects both the secular privatization of religion and the separability of religions from the communities that incubate them. And so, with provocative and original analysis, Bauman questions whether anti-Christian violence in contemporary India is really about religion, in the narrowest sense, or rather a manifestation of broader concerns among some Hindus about the Western sociopolitical order with which they associate global Christianity.

A timely and galvanizing work that examines how right-wing evangelical Christians have veered from an admirable faith to a pernicious, destructive ideology. Today’s right-wing Evangelical Christianity stands as the very antithesis of the message of Jesus Christ. In his new book, Christians Against Christianity, best-selling author and religious scholar Obery M. Hendricks Jr. challenges right-wing evangelicals on the terrain of their own religious claims, exposing the falsehoods, contradictions, and misuses of the Bible that are embedded in their rabid homophobia, their poorly veiled racism and demonizing of immigrants and Muslims, and their ungodly alliance with big business against the interests of American workers. He scathingly indicts the religious leaders who helped facilitate the rise of the notoriously unchristian Donald Trump, likening them to the “court jesters” and hypocritical priestly sycophants of bygone eras who unquestioningly supported their sovereigns’ every act, no matter how hateful or destructive to those they were supposed to serve. In the wake of the deadly insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol, Christians Against Christianity is a clarion call to stand up to the hypocrisy of the evangelical Right, as well as a guide for Christians to return their faith to the life-affirming message that Jesus brought and died for. What Hendricks offers is a provocative diagnosis, an urgent warning that right-wing evangelicals’ aspirations for Christian nationalist supremacy are a looming threat, not only to Christian decency but to democracy itself. What they offer to America is anything but good news.

Against the Christians examines the anti-Christian polemic works of Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian the Apostate. The first book to analyze the phenomenon of early anti-Christian literature in depth, it chooses the critics' objection to Christian exclusivism as its starting point. The evolution in the polemic, from a rhetoric of radical distinction to one of «rhetorical assimilation, » reveals a sophisticated attempt to expose contradictions and inconsistencies within Christianity, while at the same time reflecting the process of fusion between Christianity and the culture of late antiquity.

"The Anti-Christian: The Curse of Christianity" is Nietzsche's scathing critique of Christianity and its influence on Western culture and morality. Although most English translations have rendered the title as "The Anti-Christ ", the German word for "Christian" is "Christ", so this work can also be translated as "The Anti-Christian". As he is referring to himself as the "ender of Christianity", not only the Biblical Antichrist, this translation communicates the intent of the title better. The text is one of Nietzsche's last works, and it delivers a critique of Christianity in a sharp, polemical and extremely hostile style. Nietzsche denounces Christianity as a religion of weakness and resentment, arguing that it has suppressed the natural instincts and vitality of humanity in favor of a morality based on guilt, self-denial, and the promise of an afterlife. He contrasts the Christian worldview with his own vision of a life-affirming trans-humanist, Dionysian philosophy that celebrates strength over goodness, creativity over truth, and the embrace of the Nihilism of material existence. "The Antichrist" is an attempt by Nietzsche to repudiate all religious and metaphysical dogma, ironically asserting metaphysical dogmas of his own, a reality on which Heidegger comments on extensively. Nietzsche's father was a Protestant pastor, and many of his family members were pastors (including his brother-in-law), so the image of Christianity he attacks here is clearly the Protestant one. Eastern Orthodoxy is not mentioned at all, and Catholicism is rarely mentioned. He writes in a letter to Peter Gast: "It occurred to me, dear friend, that the constant inner debate with Christianity in my book must be strange, even embarrassing to you; but it is the best piece of ideal life that I have really come to know; from childhood I have followed it into many corners, and I believe I have never been mean in my heart against it. Finally, I am the descendant of whole generations of Christian clergymen." "Der Antichrist' was written in 1888 but first published in 1895. This publication was part of the larger volume "The Will to Power," a collection of Nietzsche's unpublished writings that were assembled and edited by his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and published by C.G. Naumann in Leipzig. The text is one of Nietzsche's final works, and it delivers a critique of Christianity in a sharp and polemical style. This new 2024 translation of the original 1889 German manuscript includes a new afterword by the translator, a timeline of Nietzsche's life and works, an index with descriptions of his key concepts, and summaries of his complete works. This translation is designed to allow the armchair philosopher to engage deeply with Nietzsche's works without having to be a full-time Academic. The language is modern and clean, with simplified sentence structures and diction to make Nietzsche's complex language and arguments as accessible as possible. This Reader's Edition also contains extra material that amplifies the manuscript with autobiographical, historical and linguistic context. This provides the reader a holistic view of this very enigmatic philosopher as both an introduction and an exploration of Nietzsche's works; from his general understanding of his philosophic project to an exploration of the depths of his metaphysics and unique contributions. This edition contains: • An Afterword by the Translator on the history, impact and intellectual legacy of Nietzsche • Translation notes on the original German, Latin and Greek manuscript • An index of Philosophical concepts used by Nietzsche with a focus on Existentialism and Phenomenology • A chronological list of Nietzsche's entire body of works • A detailed timeline of Nietzsche's life and works

Sociologist George Yancey unpacks the underlying perspectives and root causes of "Christianophobia," or intense anti-Christian hostility. He considers to what extent Christians have themselves contributed to this animosity and explores how we can respond more constructively, defusing tensions and working toward the common good.