The Public Order and the Sacred Order evaluates a range of contemporary social and political questions in light of Catholic social teaching, philosophy, great political thinkers, and America's founding tradition. It treats a wide range of topics, including · economics · education · free speech · abortion · church-state relations · American legal trends · international politics Through discussions of these and other issues confronting contemporary American society, author Stephen M. Krason offers a scholarly social commentary, suggests means for a reconstruction of sound social and political thought, and calls for a renewal of American institutions, politics, and culture. The book is structured in three parts: Part I sets out foundational principles guided by Catholic social teaching, philosophical reasoning, Western political thought, and the American founding; Part II examines and evaluates the numerous issues in light of the principles set out in Part I; and Part III provides approaches to the issues-both general and specific policy ideas-consonant with the foundational principles set out in Part I. There is also a volume of important Catholic Church documents, Supreme Court cases, and excerpts of important writings in the history of Western and American political thought that let the reader examine directly many documents discussed in the text of the book. Along with being a strong and focused defense of traditional Catholic approaches to the questions of our time, the vast array of material covered makes this book an invaluable reference for anyone interested in contemporary politics.

Winner of a Christianity Today Book Award An incisive look at how evangelical Christians shaped—and were shaped by—the American criminal justice system. America incarcerates on a massive scale. Despite recent reforms, the United States locks up large numbers of people—disproportionately poor and nonwhite—for long periods and offers little opportunity for restoration. Aaron Griffith reveals a key component in the origins of American mass incarceration: evangelical Christianity. Evangelicals in the postwar era made crime concern a major religious issue and found new platforms for shaping public life through punitive politics. Religious leaders like Billy Graham and David Wilkerson mobilized fears of lawbreaking and concern for offenders to sharpen appeals for Christian conversion, setting the stage for evangelicals who began advocating tough-on-crime politics in the 1960s. Building on religious campaigns for public safety earlier in the twentieth century, some preachers and politicians pushed for “law and order,” urging support for harsh sentences and expanded policing. Other evangelicals saw crime as a missionary opportunity, launching innovative ministries that reshaped the practice of religion in prisons. From the 1980s on, evangelicals were instrumental in popularizing criminal justice reform, making it a central cause in the compassionate conservative movement. At every stage in their work, evangelicals framed their efforts as colorblind, which only masked racial inequality in incarceration and delayed real change. Today evangelicals play an ambiguous role in reform, pressing for reduced imprisonment while backing law-and-order politicians. God’s Law and Order shows that we cannot understand the criminal justice system without accounting for evangelicalism’s impact on its historical development.

This book is an ambitious and challenging restatement of traditional political philosophy. The first of a three-volume series, Limits and Renewals, the book is concerned with the nature of political society, particularly with the errors and faulty arguments that have been used to support a "liberal modernist" view of the state and our political system. Clark argues that political modernism, which is determinedly secular and untraditional, has been a destructive influence on religion and our understanding of community living. In order to secure a decent social order, he contends, we must rediscover our allegiance to a sacred order that is represented by, for example, family loyalties, a respect for tradition, and attention to the wider interests of the global and historical community.

"In this volume, Rieff advances his thesis that the third culture of disenchantment, which is now more widely and deeply entrenched than ever before as 'our' culture, is distinguished by its rejection of any and all visions of sacred order inherited from either first world cultures of fate or second world culture of faith." --introd.

Matthew Fox, a 76-year-old elder, activist and spiritual theologian, along with Skylar Wilson, a 33-year-old wilderness guide, leader of inter-cultural ceremonies, and an event producer, and Jennifer Berit Listug, a 28-year-old writer, spiritual leader, and publicist, are presenting a challenge and an opportunity in the vision launched in this modest book. That vision is about creating an Order of the Sacred Earth. Essay contributors to the book and its vision include Mirabai Starr, Brian Thomas Swimme, Adam Bucko, and David Korten.

This popular textbook has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect recent global developments, whilst retaining its unique and compelling narrative-style approach. Using ancient stories from diverse religions, it explores a broad range of important and complex moral issues, resulting in a truly reader-friendly and comparative introduction to religious ethics. A thoroughly revised and expanded new edition of this popular textbook, yet retains the unique narrative-style approach which has proved so successful with students Considers the ways in which ancient stories from diverse religions, such as the Bhagavad Gita and the lives of Jesus and Buddha, have provided ethical orientation in the modern world Updated to reflect recent discussions on globalization and its influence on cross-cultural and comparative ethics, economic dimensions to ethics, Gandhian traditions, and global ethics in an age of terrorism Expands coverage of Asian religions, quest narratives, the religious and philosophical approach to ethics in the West, and considers Chinese influences on Thich Nhat Hanh’s Zen Buddhism, and Augustine’s Confessions Accompanied by an instructor’s manual (coming soon, see www.wiley.com/go/fasching) which shows how to use the book in conjunction with contemporary films

The true story of the Three Wise Men of the Christmas Nativity Story has remained a secret for over two thousand years. The Three Wise Men are the founder members of the very Sacred Order of the Magi. The Order has survived for two thousand years much the same as the Ancient Orders of Stonemasons and the Knights Templar. Unlike those orders, however, it has remained a secretuntil now. Members of the Sacred Order of the Magi have worked on their own or in small groups, with some members never knowing others. For certain families, it was a dynasty that encompassed some but not all family members. The vow that all members of the Sacred Order of the Magi take is to uphold in their hearts and souls the truth of Jesus mission. Why was the order kept a secret? Why is the story of the Three Wise Men and their Sacred Order being disclosed now? You will read how the Three Wise Men of love and light with unrelenting integrity, bravery, and overwhelming sadness discover the role they are to play in Jesus destiny. For his sake and safety and for the salvation of our planet, the Sacred Order of the Magi went undercover and became the Spiritual Security Service. Now is the time to reveal its existence. Now is the time to disclose many sacred truths. It was ordained to be so. Now is the time of the second coming of Jesus, or Yeshua Ben Joseph, as he was known to the Magi. The story of The Three Wise Men is not solely for Christmas; it is for all time.

When seeking to understand Christian love with some precision, we inevitably come to speak about order in loving. The title of this book, Love's Sacred Order, is intended to address the problem of the need for clarification in the matter of love, above all the question of the relationship among the different kinds of love, all of which make their legitimate claim on us. A central concern of these reflections is the fact that we can do as much harm to ourselves by being too restrictive as by being too permissive in what we allow to come under the heading of Christian love. The main intent of these meditations is to explore what the hierarchy might be that God established among all our human loves, on the one hand, and between these and the gratuitously revealed love of God that uncreated mystery, "kept secret for long ages", to which we could not have had access if God himself had not taken the initiative to manifest it in Christ Jesus. The author approaches this subject pondering and responding to issues raised in the widely known work of C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, of which the year 2000 marks the fortieth anniversary of publication. This volume, then, is offered as a modest contribution to our celebration of this year of the Great Jubilee of our redemption, as well as an homage to the great Christian writer.

Edited by Ronald J. Rychlak, American Law from a Catholic Perspective is one of the most comprehensive surveys of American legal topics by major Catholic legal scholars. Contributors explore bankruptcy, corporate law, environmental law, family law, immigration, labor law, military law, property, torts, and several different aspects of constitutional law, among other subjects. Readers will find probing arguments that bring to bear the critical perspective of Catholic social thought on American legal jurisprudence. Essays include Michael Ariens’s account of Catholicism in the intellectual discipline of legal history, William Saunders’s assessment of human rights and Catholic social teaching, Hadley Arkes’s look at the place of Catholic social thought with respect to bioethics, and many others on major legal topics and their intersection with Catholic social teaching. American Law from a Catholic Perspective is essential reading for all Catholic lawyers, judges, and law students, as well as an important contribution to non-Catholic readers seeking guidance from a faith tradition on questions of legal jurisprudence. Based on well-developed and established ideas in Catholic social thought, the evaluations, suggestions, and remedies offer ample food for thought and a basis for action in the realm of legal scholarship.