This is one of four books in a quick-reference series. Each provides Christians with practical insight into the comprehensive analysis of today's cults, occult, secular and non-Christian religions.

This book explores how Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council, can influence inter-religious dialogue and understanding in the modern world. Although influential in religious, academic, and scholarly circles, it is relatively unknown outside these areas. The contributors remedy that deficit by highlighting the declaration’s difficult historical and social context and the Church’s evolving relationship with non-Christians. Contentious topics are examined such as the link between the Jewish people and the land and state of Israel, that questions the Catholic understanding of the relativity of national borders and identity, and the challenges posed to the Church’s relationship with Islam by its prioritization of human rights and religious freedom for Christians and minorities in certain Muslim regimes. Given its scope, it is an ideal resource for graduate students and researchers in the fields of political science, international relations, religion, and minority studies.

Evangelism is not one-size-fits-all. In this book Luke Cawley shows how we can contextualize the gospel in different ways to connect with three key demographics: the spiritual but not religious, committed atheists and nominal Christians. Filled with real-life stories of changed lives, this book is a practical and hopeful resource for helping people to encounter God.

With our American Philosophy and Religion series, Applewood reissues many primary sources published throughout American history. Through these books, scholars, interpreters, students, and non-academics alike can see the thoughts and beliefs of Americans who came before us.

In the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) the Catholic Church for the first time recognized non-Christian religions as entities which the Church should respect and with which Christians should enter into dialogue. There are, however, conflicting views in Catholic interpretations of Conciliar theology: to what extent did the Council see other religions as means to salvation? The author offers The Catholic Doctrine of non-Christian Religions according to the Second Vatican Council as the first comprehensive and analytic piece of research on Conciliar teaching concerning the nature of other faiths. His study is based on the original Latin and covers Conciliar and pre-conciliar documents, with special focus on the Declaration on the relation of the Church to Non-Christian religions, (Nostra aetate). In his detailed and careful analysis Ruokanen demonstrates that Vaticanum Secundum understood non-Christian religions as naturally good entities, part of human culture. Religions express in many ways and to varying degrees the natural cognition of God and of natural moral law. Except for Judaism, they do not, however, possess the status of being considered channels of divine revelation or salvific grace. The seeds of truth present in other faiths must be purified and perfected by the fullness of grace and truth given in Christ and entrusted to the Church.