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Spirituality and Religion July 2026 |
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| Beyond Wellness: How Restoring the Religious Roots of Spiritual Practices Can Heal Us by Liz BucarChallenging our contemporary fixation on “wellness” (along with the many promises made by the attendant industry), this guide traces ma variety of self-care ideas back to their religious and spiritual traditions. Looking beyond self-optimization toward deeper questions of meaning, ethics, and caring for those around us, readers are encouraged to take old practices and make them their own. |
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| Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience... by Bart D. EhrmanBiblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman turns to early Christian texts to explore what Jesus originally taught about loving outsiders, enemies, and those on the margins. While the ideas themselves may feel familiar, this accessible study places them in historical context, tracing how a radical ethic of care took shape, and how it continues to echo, albeit imperfectly, in modern moral discourse. |
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| We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter's Reckoning with American Christianity by Kristin T. LeeIn this searching debut, physician Kristin T. Lee draws on the Japanese art of kintsugi to reflect on her own Christian faith -broken and reshaped after growing up in a strict immigrant church setting. Weaving personal story with theology, she explores what it means to question inherited beliefs and to piece together something more expansive and truer to her lived experience. |
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The Secret History of the Universe: How Ancient Wisdom Made the Modern World
by Mark Booth
From the author of the global bestseller The Secret History of the World comes an epic new history of the relationship between spiritual belief and cutting-edge science. Human beings have a deep-rooted desire to find something worth believing in. But there is a widespread assumption that science is at odds with spiritual belief and offers the only intelligent way to think about the universe. In this epic new history, Mark Booth offers an alternative view, showing us how the great geniuses of modern science, from Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, and Albert Einstein to today's architects of AI, turned instead to secret, mystical, and higher teachings, including Indian mysticism and Freemasonry, to make sense of the strange phenomena they were encountering. The result of many years of research, and deep conversations with prominent academics in the field, this book takes us on an exhilarating journey in the company of some of the greatest minds of our age, toward a deeper understanding of our place in the cosmos.
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How to Be a (Happy) Skeptic: The Power of Doubt in a Meaningful Life
by Massimo Pigliucci
Celebrated CUNY philosopher Massimo Pigliucci investigates the practical applications of Cicero's skepticism, weaving together ancient wisdom, personal narrative, and practical insights to help readers find meaning through doubt You may have picked up this book because you're searching for a philosophy of life. Beware that it is dangerous to accept a philosophical or religious practice without questioning it.
Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers believed that, without a healthy amount of doubt, you could be tricked into thinking you have found the ultimate Truth- and the danger of absolute faith is no less threatening today. In How to Be a (Happy) Skeptic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci reveals the way to a meaningful, happy life through the power of curiosity and doubt with the ancient Roman public advocate, orator, statesman, and thinker Marcus Tullius Cicero as his guide.
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| Beyond Life and Death: The Way of True Freedom by Jet LiBest known for his martial arts films, Jet Li turns inward in this reflective memoir, drawing on Buddhist philosophy and his own life experiences to make sense of both loss and survival, and the search for meaning itself. He explores how confronting impermanence can reshape priorities and open the door to a more centered kind of peace. |
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| The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America by Raphael G. WarnockIn this deeply passionate reflection, Senator Raphael Warnock (also a pastor) draws on scripture, personal experience, and a deep commitment to justice to consider what faith looks like in public life. Grounding his thinking in the prophetic vision of Isaiah, he connects it to issues like inequality, gun violence, and incarceration -- inviting readers to imagine a more just and compassionate society. |
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| A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America by Brook Wilensky-LanfordEver since conquistadores claimed Taino land in the name of their Catholic God and New England Puritans formed their strictly Protestant "city on a hill," religion has been central to American life. Even as some found religious freedom -Rhode Island welcomed the Quakers, Jews, and Baptists that Massachusetts expelled as dissenters -indigenous people and Africans forced into slavery struggled to protect their religious practices. With the constitutional separation of church and state, it fell to the American people to decide: would they sharpen religion's formidable powers of division, or reimagine its creative possibilities?
In A God-Shaped Nation, Brook Wilensky-Lanford follows this essential American tension from first contact through the 2024 election. This is an expansive history of extraordinary religious questions, told through the ordinary people who grappled with them. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Michigan City Public Library
100 E. 4th Street
Michigan City, Indiana 46360
219-873-3044mclib.org/ |
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