They think you're rich. Do they think you're godly? Your supporters consider you saintly and self-sacrificing. Your Middle Eastern friends might beg to differ. So might God. Wealth and Piety explores biblical and Arab cultural expectations for getting, using, talking about, and giving money. This book contains hundreds of verbatim observations about local and foreign wealth by thirty-five Middle Easterners from nine countries, representing all major religious groups. These comments are a mirror in which workers can see their own status and moral reputation as people of the region see them. Combining biblical commentary, cultural analysis and practical advice for expats, Wealth and Piety is designed for both new and experienced workers, as well as mission leaders, administrators, supporters, and donors. Although focused on the Middle East, much of the wisdom of this book is valuable for workers anywhere in the Muslim world or in societies characterized by patronage or an honor/shame orientation.

In Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute Jay W. Richards and bestselling author of Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It's Too Late and Infiltrated: How to Stop the Insiders and Activists Who Are Exploiting the Financial Crisis to Control Our Lives and Our Fortunes, defends capitalism within the context of the Christian faith, revealing how entrepreneurial enterprise, based on hard work, honesty, and trust, actually fosters creativity and growth. In doing so, Money, Greed, and God exposes eight myths about capitalism, and demonstrates that a good Christian can be a good capitalist.

A grand and startling work of American history America was founded, we’re taught in school, by the Pilgrims and other Puritans escaping religious persecution in Europe—an austere and pious lot who established a culture that remained pure and uncorrupted until the Industrial Revolution got in the way. In The Money Cult, Chris Lehmann reveals that we have it backward: American capitalism has always been entangled with religion, and so today’s megapastors, for example, aren’t an aberration—they’re as American as Benjamin Franklin. Tracing American Christianity from John Winthrop to the rise of the Mormon Church and on to the triumph of Joel Osteen, The Money Cult is an ambitious work of history from a widely admired journalist. Examining nearly four hundred years of American history, Lehmann reveals how America’s religious leaders became less worried about sin and the afterlife and more concerned with the material world, until the social gospel was overtaken by the gospel of wealth. Showing how American Christianity came to accommodate—and eventually embrace—the pursuit of profit, as well as the inescapability of economic inequality, The Money Cult is a wide-ranging and revelatory book that will make you rethink what you know about the form of American capitalism so dominant in the world today, as well as the core tenets of America itself.

This international and interdisciplinary volume investigates Protestant devotional identities in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Divided into two sections, the book examines the ‘sites’ where these identities were forged – the academy, printing house, household, theatre and prison – and the ‘types’ of texts that expressed them – spiritual autobiographies, religious poetry and writings tied to the ars moriendi – providing a broad analysis of social, material and literary forms of devotion during England’s Long Reformation. Through archival and cutting-edge research, a detailed picture of ‘lived religion’ emerges, which re-evaluates the pietistic acts and attitudes of well-known and recently discovered figures. To those studying and teaching religion and identity in early modern England, and anyone interested in the history of religious self-expression, these chapters offer a rich and rewarding read.

Do religions justify and cause violence or are they more appropriately seen as forces for peace and tolerance? Featuring contributions from international experts in the field, this book explores the debate that has emerged in the context of secular modernity about whether religion is a primary cause of social division, conflict and war, or whether this is simply a distortion of the 'true' significance of religion and that if properly followed it promotes peace, harmony, goodwill and social cohesion. Focusing on how this debate is played out in the South Asian con.

Plague was one of the enduring facts of everyday life on the European continent, from earliest antiquity through the first decades of the eighteenth century. It represents one of the most important influences on the development of Europe’s society and culture. In order to understand the changing circumstances of the political, economic, ecclesiastical, artistic, and social history of that continent, it is important to understand epidemic disease and society’s response to it. To date, the largest portion of scholarship about plague has focused on its political, economic, demographic, and medical aspects. This interdisciplinary volume offers greater coverage of the religious and the psychological dimensions of plague and of European society’s response to it through many centuries and over a wide geographical terrain, including Byzantium. This research draws extensively upon a wealth of primary sources, both printed and painted, and includes ample bibliographical reference to the most important secondary sources, providing much new insight into how generations of Europeans responded to this dread disease.