Engages with the taboo questions of Christianity as investigative reportage, exploring the "mysteries of faith". Is America becoming preoccupied with religion? In a country with a tradition of keeping matters of creed private, we are now seeing religion in the headlines almost daily, while ironically, escalating numbers of Americans are abandoning organized religion altogether. A recent Pew survey of Americans show: 91% believe in God, 44% have switched religions, 71% of 18-30 year-olds are “spiritual but not religious” and the Catholic Church estimates at least one third of Catholics are lapsed. We are a nation under God, a country of believers it seems, but one undergoing a collective shift in our allegiance to organized religion. But, before the individual shifts they are aided by looking at what they were taught to believe in the first place. A View from the Back Pew: God, Religion & Our Personal Quest for Truth investigates the mysteries of faith in a no-holds-barred exposé into the very core of the Christianity. Candid, humorous and controversial, Tim O’Donnell takes us on a powerful search for balance – between faith and personal experience, between the roots of Christianity and layers of doctrine and between ritual and the connection to the entity we call God. A View from the Back Pew is not written for theologians or the so-called spiritual illuminati, but for ordinary people who are asking deeper questions about their faith. Before one can venture from the safe harbor of organized religion to the open water of spirituality, it helps to be clear about what causes our quandary. This book helps deal with the imprint religion has made while leaving out the guilt commonly linked to asking such questions. “My hope” writes O’Donnell “is that if you are drawn to the Divine but labor over dogma and ritual, you will find a fresh perspective in my view from the back pew”.

Just who was Abraham Lincoln? How did he become one of the most admired persons who ever lived? What daily experiences lead him on the path to the Presidency of the United States of America at the most difficult time of its existence? Why is he the man visitors come streaming to discover in the heartland of central Illinois This work of Historical Fiction answers the question of what Lincoln's daily life was like. By selecting 3 very different years and researching them on a day-to-day, month-by-month basis, the picture of our 16 President becomes clearer. What Did Lincoln Do in 1832? is told through the eyes of Peggy Rutledge, one of Anne's younger sisters, and details the daily life in the remote log cabin New Salem Illinois Lincoln Do in 1842? is told through the eyes of Jed, a twelve-year-old boy whom Lincoln befriends in the booming town of Springfield Illinois What Did Lincoln Do in 1862? is told in a stream-of-consciousness style by Tad Lincoln, Abraham's youngest son. It details the year in the White House in which Willie dies and writes the Emancipation Proclamation. This work of Historical Fiction is grounded in research and footnoted for those whose spark is lit to do further study on this unique American who strode from obscurity to center stage not so long

A View from the Pew is a compilation of Bible mysteries that the author was compelled to research and interpret himself, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, due to his mistrust in individual church doctrines, personalities, and their misguided Bible interpretations. The reader will discover everything the Bible really says about the tribulation, what truly was the thorn that tormented Paul, the true name of God, the exact location of the kingdom of God, and many other topics not normally discussed in church. A View from the Pew comprises over forty individual Bible topic studies written by a Spirit-filled recovered alcoholic and drug addict with thirty-two years of sobriety. After reading A View from the Pew and applying the principles held within, it is the sincere hope of the author that you find the power within yourself that he found, which allowed him to walk away from cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol. The author was forced into early retirement and was told he had three to five years to live in 2003. Thirteen years later after two strokes, two heart attacks, and then being diagnosed with diabetes, Steven has found a useable power that heals, guides, and protects his life to this very day. A View from the Pew is written from the skeptical viewpoint of a member of the congregation and not a seminary student or doctor of theology. To the author, it is not true unless you can show him Bible and verse. Your burning questions about prophecy (does God test man, and is America found in the Bible?) will be shown to you in A View from a Pew.

WINNER of the 2021 NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award. Finalist for the 2021 Dylan Thomas Prize. Longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. One of Publishers Weekly's Best Fiction Books of 2020. One of Amazon's 100 Best Books of 2020. “The people of this community are stifling, and generous, cruel, earnest, needy, overconfident, fragile and repressive, which is to say that they are brilliantly rendered by their wise maker, Catherine Lacey.” --Rachel Kushner, author of The Flamethrowers A figure with no discernible identity appears in a small, religious town, throwing its inhabitants into a frenzy In a small, unnamed town in the American South, a church congregation arrives for a service and finds a figure asleep on a pew. The person is genderless and racially ambiguous and refuses to speak. One family takes in the strange visitor and nicknames them Pew. As the town spends the week preparing for a mysterious Forgiveness Festival, Pew is shuttled from one household to the next. The earnest and seemingly well-meaning townspeople see conflicting identities in Pew, and many confess their fears and secrets to them in one-sided conversations. Pew listens and observes while experiencing brief flashes of past lives or clues about their origin. As days pass, the void around Pew’s presence begins to unnerve the community, whose generosity erodes into menace and suspicion. Yet by the time Pew’s story reaches a shattering and unsettling climax at the Forgiveness Festival, the secret of who they really are—a devil or an angel or something else entirely—is dwarfed by even larger truths. Pew, Catherine Lacey’s third novel, is a foreboding, provocative, and amorphous fable about the world today: its contradictions, its flimsy morality, and the limits of judging others based on their appearance. With precision and restraint, one of our most beloved and boundary-pushing writers holds up a mirror to her characters’ true selves, revealing something about forgiveness, perception, and the faulty tools society uses to categorize human complexity.

THE VATICAN BATTLE OF BISHOPS: A VIEW FROM THE PEW There are two problems with the Catholic Church: the Hierarchy thinks they own the Church, and the pew-Catholic is too comfy in his cushioned pew. The Catholic Laity have been enablers of the Hierarchy. The basic and formal difference is that the Hierarchy sees they own the Holy Spirit. In general, the lay folks have had their voices ignored. The Bishops of Vatican II have decreed and Pope Francis has issued a formal invitation to the pews to present their thoughts. Invited to speak, the pew-Catholics voice their inspirations. The Hierarchy [most] disdain the Faithful’s inspirations. That suggests a Vatican Battle: Bishops defending the status quo versus Bishops defending the pews. Three factors explain why the Church Hierarchy does not listen to the Holy Spirit from the pews. The Hierarchy is not open to “becoming.” They view the status quo as sacred. Second, the Hierarchy is truly convinced they constitute the Church. The oils of Holy Orders mark the anointed with the special gifts needed to guide God’s society. Finally, the Hierarchy has traditionally been a caste of privilege. The Roman Emperor Constantine gave the clerics official Roman rank which in turn offered a paycheck. The clergy were no longer required to work for a living alongside the regular believers. They lost touch with all the other believers. In their minds, the ordained are above listening to the laity. In the pews, Catholics have long been second class citizens. They need question how did the Hierarchy arrive at their status. The Roman Emperor Constantine saw the community-minded Christians as a unifier for his empire, and made all clergy officials of the State. The clergy were the ones who had the time and leisure to make memorial meal arrangements. That’s when the clergy took on a culture of clericalism, i.e. The clergy own the Church and the Holy Spirit through ordination. That was Ancient Rome. Now priests are abusing the innocence of the youth. Pope Francis calls that Church “a bride caught in adultery.” In Biblical terms the use of “adultery” is reserved for the Jews when they went off to worship other gods, idolatry! Pope Francis asserts the Hierarchy worshipped a false god. They worshiped their “ordained-only-church,” a sham church, trying to keep the appearance of “Holy.” They were covering up the sin [also legal crime] of priests who abused children to fake holy. What about the People of God when all of this was going on? Did they just sit there? The answer is “yes” and “no.” Most pew-Catholics did nothing because most did not know what was really going on. Some heard but concluded it must be a lie from some disgruntled Catholic trying to make trouble for one of the priests. These Laity were true enablers of the Hierarchy to sin. But the Holy Spirit managed to alert some of the Catholics. They followed up on what they had heard: “Trust but verify.” When they learned of the abuse, they warned their pastors and Bishops about the problem priests. Their pastors and Bishops went numb, denied, hid the abuse, and some Bishops had their law team actually dishonor the victims in courts of law. Again, the Holy Spirit did not allow silence to cover the snub the Hierarchy had dealt the Spirit’s counsel. An offended Spirit counseled Pope Francis to call for a Synodal Process to allow the pew-Catholics voice. Because the pew-Catholics had listened to the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete now favored them with the spiritual opportunity of a Synod. Thus, the pew-Catholic had a chance to speak. The agenda for the Bishops is out. The issues are clearly controversial, (women priests, optional priest celibacy, foundations of sexual morality, divorced-remarried catholics) for The Vatican Battle Of Bishops.

In this deeply spiritual and prophetic collection of sermons, meditations, and prayers, Pat Brown takes the reader on a personal journey into and out of some of the most critical challenges facing the church in these turbulent and confusing times. She unveils her story of God's handiwork in shaping her life as a child of the Reformed tradition and as the mother of a special needs son. In a time when the call for justice withers on the vine as the church struggles with itself, this book is required reading for every perplexed servant of Jesus Christ.

Several years ago, Richard Kerger was reading before going to bed when he got a clear message from God. Not a trumpet blast or a burning bush but a thought in his mind that he had not had but was nonetheless there: "I want you to write a book about what you believe." He was shocked, to say the least, and his initial reaction was to say, "Who will care about what I believe?" He got an immediate answer. The unspoken voice said not to worry about it, and so he did not. The result is this book which is derived from many sermons by many different pastors, from reading and rereading the Bible, from countless other books of religion, and from a lifetime of experiences which have given texture to the words that he heard spoken and that he read. The author is no expert on religion, but he has written hundreds of articles on various topics and a couple of books on nonreligious matters. He truly hopes this will help others focus their beliefs as they sit in their pews.