National Network for Equitable Library Service

"The New Testament gives us 27 canonical texts-gospels, letters, and more-but these works are only a tiny fraction of the many volumes written about the life of Jesus, his family, and the apostles. This alternative body of literature falls under the category of "apocrypha," which means "hidden" or "secret," and it offers fascinating insights into the early Christian world. But these early Christian apocryphal works are more than historical curiosities.

Have we been taught to discount the veracity and deeper meaning of our emotional resonance with the world around us? In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis looks at the curriculum of the English "prep school" and begins to wonder if this subliminal teaching has indeed produced a generation who discount such a nature. In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis's classic vision of the Afterworld, the narrator boards a bus on a drizzly English afternoon and embarks on an incredible voyage through Heaven and Hell.

A sparklingly strange odyssey through the kaleidoscope of America's new spirituality: the cults, practices, high priests and prophets of our supposedly post-religion age.55 years have passed since the cover of Time Magazine proclaimed the death of God and while participation in mainstream religion has indeed plummeted, Americans have never been more spiritually busy.

The only book to examine the origins of Scientology's current leader, Ruthless tells the revealing story of David Miscavige's childhood and his path to the head seat of the Church of Scientology told through the eyes of his father. Ron Miscavige's personal, heartfelt story is a riveting insider's look at life within the world of Scientology.

What do you think of when you hear the word Zen? Many Westerners may associate Zen with the counterculture of the 1960s and '70s, while others may associate it with today’s hipster culture. Many use the word to simply mean laid-back and relaxed. But what does Zen really mean? Zen is a school of Buddhism and a rigorous spiritual discipline. To understand what Zen is really about, it is vital not only to study its profound philosophical teachings, but also to engage in the practice of Zen. The word Zen means meditation, and Zen meditation is a practice of “clearing the heart-mind”.

As a Christian woman in today's world, you face pressure on all sides from clashing cultural expectations. How can you stay true to who God has uniquely created you to be in the face of the script you've been given? The secret, Cameron-Bure has learned, is kindness. It's classy, unexpected, even counter-cultural, and ultimately wins the day. Whether you're navigating major life choices, questions of calling and career, relationships, or personal goals, she shows you how to step into a new way to flourish as a woman today.

This ambitious and critically-acclaimed presentation of the Bible is set to an original musical underscore performed by the Prague Symphony Orchestra and a Hollywood-style sound design created by Technicolor Studios. Listen as the voices of Idris Elba, Blair Underwood, Taraji P. Henson, Tyler Perry, Tyrese Gibson, Terry Crews, Eartha Kitt (Serpent), Common, Tia and Tamera Mowry, Vanessa Williams, Keke Palmer, and featuring Samuel L. Jackson as God in the New Testament, bring the stories and lessons of the Bible to life.

Making Believe responds to a remarkable flowering of art by Mennonites in Canada. After the publication of his first novel in 1962, Rudy Wiebe was the only identifiable Mennonite literary writer in the country. Beginning in the 1970s, the numbers grew rapidly and now include writers Patrick Friesen, Sandra Birdsell, Di Brandt, Sarah Klassen, Armin Wiebe, David Bergen, Miriam Toews, Carrie Snyder, Casey Plett, and many more.

Religious ceremonies were an inseparable part of Aboriginal traditional life, reinforcing social, economic and political values. However, missionaries and government officials with ethnocentric attitudes of cultural superiority decreed that Native dances and ceremonies were immoral or un-Christian and an impediment to the integration of the Native population into Canadian society.

The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman's courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.