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Strange Gods
- A Secular History of Conversion
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 19 hrs and 33 mins
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Strange Gods
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Publisher's summary
In this original and riveting exploration, Susan Jacoby argues that conversion - especially in the free American "religious marketplace" - is too often viewed only within the conventional and simplistic narrative of personal reinvention and divine grace. Instead, the author places conversions within a secular social context that has, at various times, included the force of a unified church and state, desire for upward economic mobility, and interreligious marriage.
Moving through time, continents, and cultures, Jacoby examines conversions to authoritarian secular ideologies. She also provides portraits of individual converts, including the Catholic Church father Augustine of Hippo; the German Jewish convert to Catholicism Edith Stein, murdered at Auschwitz and canonized by the church; boxing champion Muhammad Ali, who scandalized white Americans in the 1960s by becoming a Muslim; and even politicians such as George W. Bush. Finally, Jacoby takes on the question of why the freedom to choose a religion - or to reject religion altogether - is a fundamental human rights issue that remains a breeding ground for violence in areas of the world that never experienced an Enlightenment.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 85
For five centuries, Martin Luther has been lionized as an outspoken and fearless icon of change who ended the Middle Ages and heralded the beginning of the modern world. In Rebel in the Ranks, Brad Gregory, renowned professor of European history at Notre Dame, recasts this long-accepted portrait. Luther did not intend to start a revolution that would divide the Catholic Church and forever change Western civilization. Yet his actions would profoundly shape our world in ways he could never have imagined.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Something to think about
- By Like Loehe on 09-19-17
By: Brad S. Gregory
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Protestants
- The Faith That Made the Modern World
- By: Alec Ryrie
- Narrated by: Tim Bruce
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
In this dazzling global history that charts five centuries of innovation and change, Alec Ryrie makes the case that Protestants made the modern world. Protestants introduces us to the men and women who defined and redefined this quarrelsome faith. Some turned to their newly accessible bibles to justify bold acts of political opposition, others to support a new understanding of who they were and what they could and should do. Above all, they were willing to fight for their beliefs.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A secular history protestantism.
- By SakuraHB on 07-19-17
By: Alec Ryrie
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A History of the Jews
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 28 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 497
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 381
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 382
This historical magnum opus covers 4,000 years of the extraordinary history of the Jews as a people, a culture, and a nation. It shows the impact of Jewish character on the world: their genius, imagination, and, most of all, their ability to persevere despite severe persecutions. Compelling insights into events and individuals are chronologically detailed, from Moses and Jesus to Spinoza, Marx, Freud, the Rothschilds, and Golda Meir.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent History
- By Rilezmom on 06-06-09
By: Paul Johnson
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The Faiths of the Founding Fathers
- By: David L. Holmes
- Narrated by: C. James Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4 out of 5 stars 54
In this compact audiobook, David L. Holmes offers a clear, concise and illuminating look at the spiritual beliefs of our founding fathers. He begins with an informative account of the religious culture of the late colonial era, surveying the religious groups in each colony. In particular, he sheds light on the various forms of deism that flourished in America, highlighting the profound influence this intellectual movement had on the founding generation.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Compelling but deism oversold
- By Thomas Gordon on 06-23-19
By: David L. Holmes
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Freethinkers
- A History of American Secularism
- By: Susan Jacoby
- Narrated by: Rich Miller
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason. In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby traces more than 200 years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Essential history of free thought in America
- By Clark Savage on 11-27-17
By: Susan Jacoby
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Anti-Judaism
- The Western Tradition
- By: David Nirenberg
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
This incisive history upends the complacency that confines anti-Judaism to the ideological extremes in the Western tradition. With deep learning and elegance, David Nirenberg shows how foundational anti-Judaism is to the history of the West. Questions of how we are Jewish and, more critically, how and why we are not have been churning within the Western imagination throughout its history. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; Christians and Muslims of every period; even the secularists of modernity have used Judaism in constructing their visions of the world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book: Terrible Narrator
- By LB on 12-29-16
By: David Nirenberg
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Heretic
- By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Narrated by: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,004
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 893
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 885
What happened to Islamic reform? Why have al Qaeda and Boko Haram become the faces of contemporary Islam? Why has the Arab Spring devolved into a battle over sharia law? Continuing her personal journey from a deeply religious Islamic upbringing to a post at Harvard and American citizenship, the New York Times best-selling author of Infidel and Nomad crafts a powerful call for an Islamic reformation as the only way to end the current wave of global violence and repression of women.
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5 out of 5 stars
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And They Revoked Her Honorary University Degree!
- By Russell on 04-14-15
By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1, Revised and Updated
- The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation
- By: Justo L. González
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 18 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 599
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 524
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 524
In The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1, Justo L. González, author of the highly praised three-volume History of Christian Thought, presents a narrative history of Christianity from the early church to the dawn of the Protestant reformation. From Jesus' faithful apostles to the early reformist John Wycliffe, González skillfully traces core theological issues and developments within the various traditions of the church, including major events outside of Europe, such as the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the New World.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Throughly engaging
- By Scott Pursley on 12-15-16
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Why the Jews?
- The Reason for Anti-Semitism, the Most Accurate Predictor of Human Evil
- By: Dennis Prager, Joseph Telushkin
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 328
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 288
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 287
In this seminal work that has spent more than 30 years in print, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin explain the reasons behind anti-Semitism, the world's preoccupation with the Jews and Israel, and why now more than ever the world needs to confront anti-Jewish sentiment. Prager and Telushkin examine in detail how anti-Semitism is a unique hatred - no other prejudice has been as universal, deep, or permanent - and how the concept of the "chosen people" spawned that hatred.
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4 out of 5 stars
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It answers the question!
- By MarissaB on 10-01-16
By: Dennis Prager, and others
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Medieval Christianity
- A New History
- By: Kevin Madigan
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
For many, the medieval world seems dark and foreign - a miraculous, brutal, and irrational time of superstition and strange relics. The pursuit of heretics, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the domination of the "Holy Land" come to mind.
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4 out of 5 stars
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New Standard Text for This Period
- By Bill Martin on 10-22-16
By: Kevin Madigan
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Aristotle's Children
- How Christian, Muslims and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom
- By: Richard E. Rubenstein
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Best-selling author Richard E. Rubenstein brings the past to life in this engrossing story of social, religious, and scientific revolution during one of the darkest periods in European history. When a group of Dark Ages scholars rediscovered the works of Aristotle, the great thinker's ideas ignited a firestorm of enlightened thought. This is the endlessly fascinating account of the pivotal period in history when the modern era took root.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting story of the rediscovery of Aristotle
- By John on 12-16-04
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The Reformation
- A History
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 36 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 285
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 253
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 249
At a time when men and women were prepared to kill - and be killed - for their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly recreates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians - from the zealous Martin Luther and his 95 Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By Eli Shem Tov on 05-15-17
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Founding Faith
- Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America
- By: Steven Waldman
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4 out of 5 stars 64
The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation". Many on the left contend that the Founders were secular or Deist and that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state throughout the land. None of these claims are true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Eye-opening
- By Michael on 06-28-08
By: Steven Waldman
![The Catholic Church [Modern Library Chronicles] Audiobook By Hans Kung cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41sL0LfM83L._SL320_.jpg)
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The Catholic Church [Modern Library Chronicles]
- By: Hans Kung
- Narrated by: Robert O'Keefe
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In 1979 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith withdrew Hans Kung's missio canonica. Pope Paul VI approved the censure saying, "We are obligated to declare that in his writings he fell short of integrity and the truth of the Catholic faith." Through a 1980 agreement with the Vatican, Kung is now permitted to teach, but only under secular auspices. In this acclaimed Modern Library Chronicle, Kung examines the Catholic Church through its many reformations, focusing on the people and events...
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5 out of 5 stars
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Theologian's Accurate View of Church Development
- By Jack on 01-12-06
By: Hans Kung
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American Gospel
- God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 455
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 273
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 268
In American Gospel (literally meaning the "good news about America"), New York Times best-selling author Jon Meacham sets the record straight on the history of religion in American public life. As Meacham shows, faith, meaning a belief in a higher power, and the sense that we are God's chosen, has always been at the heart of our national experience, from Jamestown to the Constitutional Convention to the Civil Rights Movement to September 11th.
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5 out of 5 stars
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what you weren't taught in school
- By Stanley on 06-12-06
By: Jon Meacham
What listeners say about Strange Gods
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- ACW
- 05-28-16
For the religious and for the atheist
Excellent book, excellent read. It is written for people of all faiths or none. It is a fantastic description of the history and impact of religious conversions in society. Highly recommended!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- David E. Felker
- 01-03-17
Our own fabrications
Strange Gods was entertaining enough that I listened it through is less than a week. My joy in hearing her framing of religion rests in my being Eastern Orthodox and certain of Gregory of Nyssa's understanding of the community labeled "church". Many of us dwell in the church because it is where we were raised and where all my friends are. Or, it is where we think the greatest return will be gained, here and now or later with the resurrection. Dr. Jacoby wrote a marvelous book describing where, probably, 99 of us reside.
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1 person found this helpful