Dr. Laura Anderson takes an honest look at a side of religion that few like to talk about. Drawing from her own life and therapy practice, she helps listeners understand what religious trauma is and isn't, and how high-control churches can be harmful and abusive, often resulting in trauma. She shows how elements of fundamentalist church life—such as fear of hell, purity culture, corporal punishment, and authoritarian leaders—can cause psychological, relational, physical, and spiritual damage.

Questioning our faith and spiritual beliefs, while leaving the familiarity of our religious homeland, can be excruciatingly painful. Loneliness, isolation, and fear of rejection - from God and others - can give rise to shame, guilt, anger, and sadness. In Religious Refugees, therapist and ordained pastor Mark Karris explores this disorienting faith shift through the lens of cutting-edge psychological research, theology, philosophy, and, most importantly, the real world experiences of those who are going through - and have gone through - this arduous and confusing journey.

Jon Ward's life is divided in half: two decades inside the evangelical Christian bubble and two decades outside of it. In Testimony, Ward tells the engaging story of his upbringing in, and eventual break from, an influential evangelical church in the 1980s and 1990s. Ward sheds light on the evangelical movement's troubling political and cultural dimensions, tracing the ways in which the Jesus People movement was seduced by materialism and other factors to become politically captive rather than prophetic.

In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls - resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder - and trapped them in a cycle of shame.

Life throws us “curve balls”—from devastating personal losses to world tragedies. These events often leave us doubting God, the Bible, and our faith. But instead of pushing away our reservations, we should embrace them, Peter Enns argues. A leading biblical scholar and Christian mentor, Enns has never been afraid to question the Bible or Christian beliefs. Such thoughtful inquisitiveness, he argues, is part of God’s plan. He wants us to question, because doing so actually leads to a stronger, lasting faith.

Changing Our Mind has helped thousands of families and congregations carefully and compassionately rethink traditional religious teachings about full LGBTQ inclusion. With growing scientific evidence, our wider society has taken big steps, but too many religious families and communities have not kept up. Dr. David Gushee offers a powerful, inspiring message of hope and healing by helping Christians to return to Bible study, prayer, and reflection in a way that creates a vision for a more inclusive church.

This essential guide explores the methods by which groups and individuals can manipulate people's minds and behaviors in a subtle and covert manner. Hassan combines his personal narrative with extensive psychological research to provide strategies for protection, intervention, and healing for those affected by destructive cults.

The shocking untold story of how the FBI partnered with white evangelicals to champion a vision of America as a white Christian nation.

How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate's staunchest supporters? Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last 75 years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism.

As a twenty-three-year-old singer and the soon-to-be wife of youth pastor Joshua Harris, nothing in Shannon Harris's secular upbringing prepared her to enter the world of conservative Christianity. Soon Joshua's bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye helped inspire a national purity movement, and Shannon's identity became "pastor's wife." The Woman They Wanted recounts Shannon's remarkable experience inside Big Church—where she was asked to live within a narrow definition of womanhood for almost two decades—and her journey out of that world and into a more authentic version of herself.

The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.

Dr. Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) model has been transforming psychology for decades. With No Bad Parts, you’ll learn why IFS has been so effective in areas such as trauma recovery, addiction therapy, and depression treatment - and how this new understanding of consciousness has the potential to radically change our lives.

The insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not a blip or an aberration. It was the logical outcome of years of a White evangelical subculture's preparation for war. Religion scholar and former insider Bradley Onishi maps the origins of White Christian nationalism and traces its offshoots in Preparing for War.

As Martha Beck says in her book, “Integrity is the cure for psychological suffering. Period.” In The Way of Integrity, Beck presents a four-stage process that anyone can use to find integrity, and with it, a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us—people pleasing, staying in stale relationships, negative habits—all point to what happens when we are out of touch with what truly makes us feel whole.

Do I Stay Christian? addresses in public the powerful question that surprising numbers of people—including pastors, priests, and other religious leaders—are asking in private. Picking up where Faith After Doubt leaves off, Do I Stay Christian? is not McLaren's attempt to persuade Christians to dig in their heels or run for the exit. Instead, he combines his own experience with that of thousands of people who have confided in him over the years to help readers make a responsible, honest, ethical decision about their religious identity.

Kristin Neff changed how we talk about self-care with her enormously popular first book, Self-Compassion. Now, 10 years and many studies later, she expands her body of work to explore a brand-new take on self-compassion. Although kindness and self-acceptance allow us to be with ourselves as we are, in all our glorious imperfection, the desire to alleviate suffering at the heart of this mindset isn't always gentle, sometimes it's fierce.

Our emotions are complex. Some of us seem able to ignore our feelings, while others feel controlled by them. But most of us would admit that we don’t always know what to do with how we feel. The Bible teaches us that our emotions are an indispensable part of what makes us human―and play a crucial role in our relationships with God and others. Exploring how God designed emotions for our good, this book shows us how to properly engage with our emotions.

We all experience moments when God's love and presence are tangible. But we also experience feeling utterly abandoned by God. Why? The answer is found when you take a deep look at the other important relationships in your life and understand your attachment style. Through his years working in trauma recovery programs, extensive research into attachment science, and personal experiences with spiritual striving and abuse, licensed therapist Krispin Mayfield has learned to answer the question: Why do I feel so far from God?

If you were raised to believe that painful emotions are a sign of weakness, or if being vulnerable has always made you feel unsafe, then you may have survived by creating a perfect-looking life - a life where you appear to be successful, engaged, and always there for others. The problem? You're filled with self-criticism and shame, and you can't allow yourself to express fear, anger, loss, or grief. You recognize something is wrong, but you're not sure what exactly - only that you feel trapped and alone. If this sounds like you, you may have perfectly hidden depression (PHD).

During times of betrayal, when we most need support, sometimes the ones we would turn to first are the betrayers. Other times, we’re saddled with shame and fear. But it’s during these times that we need to learn to trust again. This book offers support, comfort, and community to those struggling with feelings associated with betrayal and guides them to healing from painful experiences of it. Listeners will learn about and move through five stages from betrayal to breakthrough and will be lovingly guided with tools and strategies along the way.

The inner critic is the voice inside our heads reminding us that we are never "good enough". It's behind the insidious thoughts that can make us second-guess our every action and doubt our own value. The inner critic might feel overpowering, but it can be managed effectively. Meditation teacher and therapist Mark Coleman helps listeners understand and free themselves from the inner critic using the tools of mindfulness and compassion.

You and your ego: how to develop a healthy sense of self without becoming an egotist - and how to see through that sense of self for the happiness of yourself and others. How can you build the healthy ego necessary to be effective in life - yet avoid the kind of egotism that makes people dislike you? Don't worry; Dave Richo has the answers. His new book shows you how to navigate the tricky waters between egotism and selflessness in a way that avoids both extremes and makes you much more effective and loving.

Explaining the important difference between grief and mourning, this book explores every mourner's need to acknowledge death and embrace the pain of loss. Also explored are the many factors that make each person's grief unique and the many normal thoughts and feelings mourners might have. Questions of spirituality and religion are addressed as well.

Do you struggle with small talk and prefer deep conversation? Are you extremely sensitive to other people's moods? Are you exhausted after being in busy places? If you've answered "yes" to any of the above questions, you may be a Highly Intuitive Person: someone who is especially sensitive to the energy of others. Highly Intuitive People, also known as Intuitive-Sensitives, are a refined group of sensitive people who are said to make up 15-20 per cent of the population.

Today - as repeated attempts to “fix ourselves and our lives” fail - many of us face unprecedented fears about the future, struggle with unspeakable life tragedies, and sink under the belief that certain lives do not matter in our society. Others confront our epidemic of anxiety with fierce resistance, or “the fight to be right”, criticizing anyone and everyone just to end up stuck. In the face of such pervasive human suffering, New York Times best-selling author and legendary life coach Iyanla Vanzant challenges us: What if it’s not them - what if it’s you?