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The notion of Christianity as a religion of peace was severely tested during the Middle Ages, when killing in the name of God became a sanctified act. In this book, Tim Rayborn traces the development of the early Crusades, Christian views of war and violence, and its attitudes toward Islam, primarily during the turbulent period of the 11th and 12th centuries (with some attention to earlier centuries). A marked shift in Christian perceptions of its own identity coincided with a considerably more martial and aggressive approach to nonbelievers both inside and outside of Europe. This wide-ranging study includes such topics as the background to the First Crusade, the Knights Templar, Bernard of Clairvaux, the Cistercian Order, the works of Peter the Venerable, apocalyptic hopes and fears, and martyrdom in the context of Christian conflicts with Islam. Focusing on French monastic writings, the book also examines papal documents, Spanish polemics, crusade chronicles, and other works. This is a survey of research on these important subjects, and serves as both a reference work and a point of departure for further study.

From "the world's greatest tour guide," a deeply-researched, captivating journey through the rich history of Christianity and the winding paths of the French and Italian countryside that will feed mind, body, and soul (New York Times). "What a wondrous work! This beautifully written and totally clear-eyed account of his pilgrimage will have you wondering whether we should all embark on such a journey, either of the body, the soul or, as in Egan's case, both." --Cokie Roberts "Egan draws us in, making us feel frozen in the snow-covered Alps, joyful in valleys of trees with low-hanging fruit, skeptical of the relics of embalmed saints and hopeful for the healing of his encrusted toes, so worn and weathered from their walk."--The Washington Post Moved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity to explore the religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval trail leading the devout to Rome, and travels overland via the alpine peaks and small mountain towns of France, Switzerland and Italy, accompanied by a quirky cast of fellow pilgrims and by some of the towering figures of the faith--Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther. The goal: walking to St. Peter's Square, in hopes of meeting the galvanizing pope who is struggling to hold together the church through the worst crisis in half a millennium. A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.

The islands of the Outer Hebrides are home to some of the most remote and spectacular scenery in the world. They host an astonishing range of mysterious structures - stone circles, beehive dwellings, holy wells and 'temples' from the Celtic era. Over a twelve-day pilgrimage, often in appalling conditions, Alastair McIntosh returns to the islands of his childhood and explores the meaning of these places. Traversing moors and mountains, struggling through torrential rivers, he walks from the most southerly tip of Harris to the northerly Butt of Lewis. The book is a walk through space and time, across a physical landscape and into a spiritual one. As he battled with his own ability to endure some of the toughest terrain in Britain, he met with the healing power of the land and its communities. This is a moving book, a powerful reflection not simply of this extraordinary place and its people met along the way, but of imaginative hope for humankind.

"Whenever I was asked: 'Why did you go to Santiago?', I had a hard time answering. How could I explain to those who had not done it that the way has the effect - if not the virtue - to make you forget all reasons that led you to become involved in it in the first place." Each year, tens of thousands of backpackers (Christian pilgrims and many others) set out from either their front doorstep or from popular starting points across Europe, to Santiago de Compostela. Most travel by foot, others ride a bicycle, and a few of them travel as did some of their medieval counterparts, on horseback or with a donkey. In addition to those who undertake a religious pilgrimage, the majority are hikers who walk the way for non-religious reasons: travel, sport, or simply the challenge of spending weeks walking in a foreign land. Also, many consider the experience as a spiritual adventure, with a view to removing themselves from the bustle of modern life. Jean-Christophe Rufin followed this "Northern Way" to Santiago de Compostela by foot, on over eight hundred kilometers. Much less crowded than the usual pilgrimage route, this one runs along the Basque and Cantabrian coasts in Spain and through the wild mountains of Asturias and Galicia. Translated from the French by Malcolm Imrie and Martina Dervis

MLK’s classic account of the first successful large-scale act of nonviolent resistance in America: the Montgomery bus boycott. A young Dr. King wrote Stride Toward Freedom just 2 years after the successful completion of the boycott. In his memoir about the event, he tells the stories that informed his radical political thinking before, during, and after the boycott—from first witnessing economic injustice as a teenager and watching his parents experience discrimination to his decision to begin working with the NAACP. Throughout, he demonstrates how activism and leadership can come from any experience at any age. Comprehensive and intimate, Stride Toward Freedom emphasizes the collective nature of the movement and includes King’s experiences learning from other activists working on the boycott, including Mrs. Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin. It traces the phenomenal journey of a community and shows how the 28-year-old Dr. King, with his conviction for equality and nonviolence, helped transform the nation and the world. This book was published with two different covers. Customers will be shipped one of them at random.

Pilgrimage opens in the deep winter of 1891 on the Métis and missionary settlement of Lac St. Anne, Canada. A young woman of mixed-blood named Mahkesîs is carrying the child of the married Englishman who manages the Hudson Bay Company trading post. She is forced to reveal her devastating secret to her Cree grandmother. As an unmarried Catholic girl, Mahkesîs waits for a miracle in the very place others come for redemption. Set in a northern landscape, Pilgrimage is a brilliant debut novel about love and loss and women and men trying to survive the violent intimacy of a small place in a changing colonial empire.

In 1935, at the height of his powers, Howard Thurman, one of the most influential African American religious thinkers of the twentieth century, took a pivotal trip to India that would forever change him—and that would ultimately shape the course of the civil rights movement in the United States. When Thurman (1899–1981) became the first African American to meet with Mahatma Gandhi, he found himself called upon to create a new version of American Christianity, one that eschewed self-imposed racial and religious boundaries, and equipped itself to confront the enormous social injustices that plagued the United States during this period. Gandhi’s philosophy and practice of satyagraha, or “soul force,” would have a momentous impact on Thurman, showing him the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance. After the journey to India, Thurman’s distinctly American translation of satyagraha into a Black Christian context became one of the key inspirations for the civil rights movement, fulfilling Gandhi’s prescient words that “it may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world.” Thurman went on to found one of the first explicitly interracial congregations in the United States and to deeply influence an entire generation of black ministers—among them Martin Luther King Jr. Visions of a Better World depicts a visionary leader at a transformative moment in his life. Drawing from previously untapped archival material and obscurely published works, Quinton Dixie and Peter Eisenstadt explore, for the first time, Thurman’s development into a towering theologian who would profoundly affect American Christianity—and American history.

In this fast-paced biography, Harvard Sitkoff presents a stunningly relevant and radical King. Honestly assessing his successes alongside his failures, King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop weaves together high and low points to capture King's lifelong struggle, through disappointment and epiphany, with his own injunction: "Let us be Christian in all our actions." By telling King's life as one on the verge of reaching its fulfillment, Sitkoff powerfully shows where King's faith and activism were leading him--to a direct confrontation with a president over an immoral war and with an America blind to its complicity in economic injustice.

Millions around the world revere Mahatma Gandhi, yet only a few know the man Mohandas Gandhi and the internal journey of his soul. This pioneering book fills the spiritual void in Gandhian literature by focusing on the soul and the substance of the man. Uma Majmudar shows that, contrary to popular belief, Gandhi's rise to greatness was not meteoric; it was, rather, a continuous process of faith development, punctuated by conflicts, crises, and turning points. Using James W. Fowler's theory of "Stages of Faith" as a guide, Majmudar undertakes the first developmental study to analyze the fundamental role of faith in transforming Gandhi's life. She proposes that the power that nourished Gandhi's soul was his ever-growing faith in the ultimate triumph of Truth and in the innate Godliness of the human soul. Along with making an invaluable contribution to numerous cross-cultural disciplines, the book also offers something special to those wishing to embark on their own faith developmental journey, guided by Gandhi's example. "Majmudar wants us to touch and feel Gandhi. He is not on a pedestal, he is not made of granite or bronze, he is warm and vulnerable." — from the Foreword by Rajmohan Gandhi