Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed: Educating for the Virtues in the Twenty-First Century

Karen Armstrong

The History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest

"Strange as it may seem, the idea of 'God' developed in a market economy in a spirit of aggressive capitalism," Karen Armstrong asserts in her fascinating work A History of God. Armstrong considers herself a "historian of ideas," and with this broad view she gives a compelling account of the correspondences among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the historical, philosophical, intellectual, and social developments through the ages that both shaped them and were shaped by them. Religion is "highly pragmatic," Armstrong finds. Any particular idea of God must work for the people who develop it. Consequently, as the times have changed, so have our ideas about God. "Understanding the ever-changing ideas of God in the past and their relevance and usefulness in their time," she says, "will help us to develop a new concept for the future." Today an increasing number of people have difficulty with the idea of a God that behaves as a larger version of themselves. Armstrong sees this as inevitable, and welcomes believers to a notion of God that "works for us in the empirical age."

C. S. Lewis

Mere Christianity

In 1941 England, when all hope was threatened by the inhumanity of war, C. S. Lewis was invited to give a series of radio lectures addressing the central issues of Christianity. More than half a century later, these talks continue to retain their poignancy. First heard as informal radio broadcasts on the BBC, the lectures were published as three books and subsequently combined as Mere Christianity . C. S. Lewis proves that "at the center of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice," rejecting the boundaries that divide Christianity's many denominations. This twentieth century masterpiece provides an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear a powerful, rational case for the Christian faith. With a new foreword by Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, this illustrated gift edition evokes the historic time and place of the book's creation.

Dylan Thomas

A Child's Christmas in Wales CD: And Five Poems

First recorded in February of 1952, this remastered recording of Dylan Thomas reading A Child's Christmas in Wales recalls all of the sights, smells, and sounds of a long-ago Christmas. Thomas's wonderful recollection of this holiday in the seaside town of his youth is captured in this vivid performance. Also included are five poems selected and read by Dylan Thomas, including arguably his most well-known Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night . Includes: A Child's Christmas in Wales Fern Hill Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night In the White Giant's Thigh Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait Ceremony After a Fire Raid