Summary & Analysis of Why Religion: A Personal Story
A Guide to the Book by Elaine Pagels
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Narrated by:
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Melissa Sheldon
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By:
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ZIP Reads
About this listen
PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary and analysis of the book and not the original book.
Why Religion?, is a deeply personal and powerful account of renowned scholar Elaine Pagels’s journey to come to terms with intense personal loss through her ground-breaking research into Christian traditions. Her book will compel any thoughtful reader to re-examine their own attitudes towards sexuality, suffering, joy, and death.
What does this ZIP Reads summary include?
- Synopsis of the original book
- Chapter-by-chapter summaries
- Analysis of Pagels' intertwining of the Bible, spirituality, modern society, and other religions.
- Thoughts on feminism, sexuality, grief, death, the afterlife, and more
- In-depth editorial review
- Background on Elaine Pagels
About the Original Book:
In Why Religion?: A Personal Story, the award-winning religious scholar Elaine Pagels weaves together a story of heart-breaking personal loss with an examination of the relevance of religious traditions in modern times. Her research into the recently discovered Gnostic Gospels took upon a personal meaning after she lost her son and husband within a year of each other. The book relates how she found solace in the insights discovered in these “secret” texts and offers the reader a deeper understanding of how Christian folklore continues to shape Western cultural attitudes centuries later.
DISCLAIMER: This audiobook is intended as a companion to, not a replacement for, Why Religion? ZIP Reads is wholly responsible for this content and is not associated with the original author in any way.
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Story
No conversation about Jesus Christ is complete without a discussion of the two Marys: one his mother, and the other his wife. Sylvia Browne's readers are deeply committed to exploring the life of Jesus through her eyes. Continuing the journey she began a year ago with The Mystical Life of Jesus, the respected psychic seeks and reveals answers to questions that have been asked by countless people of faith.
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blasphemy
- By David on 03-10-08
By: Sylvia Browne
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Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
- It's Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature
- By: Peter Scazzero
- Narrated by: Peter Scazzero
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this revised best-selling book, Peter Scazzero outlines a road map for discipleship with Jesus that is powerfully transformative. He unveils what's wrong with our current definition of "spiritual growth" and offers not only a model of spirituality that actually works, but seven steps to change that will help you experience authentic faith and hunger for God.
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Very thoughtful book
- By Anonymous User on 01-28-22
By: Peter Scazzero
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Falling Upward
- A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
- By: Richard Rohr
- Narrated by: Richard Rohr
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In the first half of life, we are naturally preoccupied with establishing ourselves; climbing, achieving, and performing. But as we grow older and encounter challenges and mistakes, we need to see ourselves in a different and more life-giving way. This message of falling down - that is in fact moving upward - is the most resisted and counterintuitive of messages in the world's religions. Falling Upward offers a new paradigm for understanding one of the most profound of life's mysteries: how those who have fallen down are the only ones who understand "up".
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I almost gave up on Christianity until I read this
- By J. Mark Wells on 09-03-14
By: Richard Rohr
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The Problem of God
- By: Mark Clark
- Narrated by: Mark Clark
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The Problem of God is written by a skeptic who became a Christian and then a pastor, all while exploring answers to the most difficult questions raised against Christianity. Mark grew up in an atheistic home, and after his father's death, began a skeptical search for truth through exploring science, philosophy, and history, asking the big questions of life, and eventually finding answers in Christianity. In a disarming, winsome, and persuasive way, The Problem of God responds to the top 10 questions people raise against God, and Christianity.
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Very Convincing and Quite Good
- By Daniel on 12-07-19
By: Mark Clark
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Insurrection
- To Believe is Human. To Doubt, Divine.
- By: Peter Rollins
- Narrated by: Joshua Swanson
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In this incendiary new work, the controversial author and speaker Peter Rollins proclaims that the Christian faith is not primarily concerned with questions regarding life after death but with the possibility of life before death. In order to unearth this truth, Rollins prescribes a radical and wholesale critique of contemporary Christianity that he calls pyro-theology.
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The deconstructed cliff
- By ND4SP33D on 09-22-16
By: Peter Rollins
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Living the Secular Life
- New Answers to Old Questions
- By: Phil Zuckerman
- Narrated by: Andy Paris
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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A guidebook for living a life without religion, combining sociological insight and personal inspiration. Over the last 25 years, "no religion" has become the fastest growing religion in the United States. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people have turned away from the traditional faiths of the past and embraced a secular - or nonreligious - life, generating societies vastly less religious than at any other time in human history.
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Anecdotal based approach for understanding
- By Gary on 12-30-14
By: Phil Zuckerman
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Stay
- A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It
- By: Jennifer Michael Hecht
- Narrated by: Jennifer Michael Hecht
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Worldwide, more people die by suicide than by murder, and many more are left behind to grieve. Despite distressing statistics that show suicide rates rising, the subject, long a taboo, is infrequently talked about. In this sweeping intellectual and cultural history, poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht channels her grief for two friends lost to suicide into a search for history’s most persuasive arguments against the irretrievable act, arguments she hopes to bring back into public consciousness.
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Informative but oddly dispassionate
- By Scott on 01-07-14
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Silence and Beauty
- Hidden Faith Born of Suffering
- By: Makoto Fujimura, Philip Yancey - foreword
- Narrated by: Ova Saopeng
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Shusaku Endo's novel Silence took visual artist Makoto Fujimura on a pilgrimage of grappling with the nature of art, the significance of pain, and his own cultural heritage. His artistic faith journey overlaps with Endo's as he uncovers deep layers of meaning in Japanese history and literature, expressed in art both past and present. He finds connections to how faith is lived amid trauma and glimpses of how the Gospel is conveyed in Christ-hidden cultures.
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A unique book of history and reflections
- By M. Burlingame on 02-26-18
By: Makoto Fujimura, and others
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The Holy Longing
- The Search for a Christian Spirituality
- By: Ronald Rolheiser
- Narrated by: Bill Loran
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Listeners will be fully engaged in a unique and altogether fascinating discussion of Christian spirituality. Rolheiser seeks to reconcile the rift between a smorgasbord of spiritual voices and an authentic Christian discipleship by the use of anecdotes, personal examples and a wide range of literary and cultural references. His starting point is the desire within us that longs irresistibly for fulfillment.
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Great content
- By Allison Winter on 11-07-23
By: Ronald Rolheiser
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After Jesus, Before Christianity
- A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements
- By: Erin Vearncombe, Brandon Scott, Hal Taussig, and others
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination.
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Excellent and informative
- By Claire Z. on 04-17-22
By: Erin Vearncombe, and others