Arguing against the presumption that the U.S. has no dominant ideology, the author confronts the myths in American society that limit the perception of political reality and constrain progressive reform.

Feeding off the frenzy of fleeting fame and image overload, Hostetler takes anecessary look at the false gods in modern society. This timely book can helpreaders realize and overcome their own idolatries.

In this work, Christina Harker deconstructs the prevailing treatment of the New Testament as anti-imperial by contextualizing both New Testament scholarship and the Galatian experience within imperialist discourses that survived the dissolution of conventional empires in the twentieth century. She critiques simplistic treatments of empire as post-imperial (that is, replicating patterns of imperialist ideology, albeit unwittingly). To solve the problem, a new interpretation of Galatians is proposed that reworks and complicates the portrait of the Galatians themselves, rather than Paul, within what then emerges as a diverse social world peopled by complex individuals with heterogeneous social and cultural identities. The author is thus able to show how New Testament scholars who rehabilitate the Bible and Paul as anti-empire perpetuate the same imperialist modes of interpretation they seek to repudiate.

The Book of Zechariah may be one of the least read books in the Bible. For the past twenty years I have taught the Bible to pastors in Asian countries where life is difficult for them. My pattern was to begin each day with a devotional that would apply specific Bible lessons to their lives. When I started giving devotional thoughts from Zechariah, I learned that the Asian pastors had a keen interest in that prophet. They would often ask questions or share their thoughts about Zechariah long after our devotional had ended. I believe that a daily time with the Lord is essential for believers who desire to serve Him in this knotty world. According to Proverbs, life is a series of choices between which roads we will travel. We decide daily to either take the path of the righteous or the way of the wicked. We choose regularly to either walk on the path of the wise person or stroll along the way of the fool.

Guardians of the Galaxy meets TheHobbit in this rollicking fantasy adventure series. The Dragons who once ruled over the land are dead. The motley crew that stumbled through that revolution are rich and praised as saviors. Everyone gets to live happily ever after, right? Right? Well, it might have worked out that way if the dragons in Kondorra had been the only ones. If they hadn't been just the tip of the spear about to fall upon the whole world. . .

An Economist Best Book of the Year In this timely and lively look at the act of toppling monuments, the popular historian and author of Blood and Sand explores the vital question of how a society remembers—and confronts—the past. In 2020, history came tumbling down. From the US and the UK to Belgium, New Zealand, and Bangladesh, Black Lives Matter protesters defaced, and in some cases, hauled down statues of Confederate icons, slaveholders, and imperialists. General Robert E. Lee, head of the Confederate Army, was covered in graffiti in Richmond, Virginia. Edward Colston, a member of Parliament and slave trader, was knocked off his plinth in Bristol, England, and hurled into the harbor. Statues of Christopher Columbus were toppled in Minnesota, burned and thrown into a lake in Virginia, and beheaded in Massachusetts. Belgian King Leopold II was set on fire in Antwerp and doused in red paint in Ghent. Winston Churchill’s monument in London was daubed with the word “racist.” As these iconic effigies fell, the backlash was swift and intense. But as the past three hundred years have shown, history is not erased when statues are removed. If anything, Alex von Tunzelmann reminds us, it is made. Exploring the rise and fall of twelve famous, yet now controversial statues, she takes us on a fascinating global historical tour around North America, Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia, filled with larger than life characters and dramatic stories. Von Tunzelmann reveals that statues are not historical records but political statements and distinguishes between statuary—the representation of “virtuous” individuals, usually “Great Men”—and other forms of sculpture, public art, and memorialization. Nobody wants to get rid of all memorials. But Fallen Idols asks: have statues had their day?