In this four-color illustrated journey that is part travelogue and part theological investigation, bestselling author and acclaimed Bible scholar John Dominic Crossan and his wife Sarah painstakingly travel throughout the ancient Eastern church, documenting through text and image a completely different model for understanding Easter’s resurrection story, one that provides promise and hope for us today.

Traveling the world, the Crossans noticed a surprising difference in how the Eastern Church considers Jesus’ resurrection—an event not described in the Bible. At Saint Barbara’s Church in Cairo, they found a painting in which the risen Jesus grasps the hands of other figures around him. Unlike the Western image of a solitary Jesus rising from an empty tomb that he viewed across Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the Crossans saw images of the resurrection depicting a Jesus grasping the hands of figures around him, or lifting Adam and Eve to heaven from Hades or hell, or carrying the old and sick to the afterlife. They discovered that the standard image for the Resurrection in Eastern Christianity is communal and collective, something unique from the solitary depiction of the resurrection in Western Christianity.

Fifteen years in the making, Resurrecting Easter reflects on this divide in how the Western and Eastern churches depict the resurrection and its implications. The Crossans argue that the West has gutted the heart of Christianity’s understanding of the resurrection by rejecting that once-common communal iconography in favor of an individualistic vision. As they examine the ubiquitous Eastern imagery of Jesus freeing Eve from Hades while ascending to heaven, the Crossans suggest that this iconography raises profound questions about Christian morality and forgiveness.

A fundamentally different way of understand the story of Jesus’ rebirth illustrated with 130 images, Resurrecting Easter introduces an inclusive, traditional community-based ideal that offers renewed hope and possibilities for our fractured modern society.

Join poets and novelists from across the centuries as you travel through the liturgical seasons of Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide. With the popular collections At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time and Light Upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, this third collection of daily and weekly readings from classic and contemporary literature completes the church calendar. New voices such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Benjamín Alire Sáenz join well-loved classics by Dostoevsky, Rossetti, and Eliot. Light in the darkness, illuminating the soul. Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide will use imagination to draw you deeper into God’s presence. Read it through, then use it as a resource for years to come.

An anthology of inspired readings from cherished writers to enrich every day of the Lenten season. From Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday and beyond, these 54 readings from beloved writers, classical and contemporary, will surprise you with joy, touch you with love, and comfort you with peace. The authors include: James Martin, Pope Francis, Joyce Rupp, Thomas Merton, Joan Chittister, Henri Nouwen, Phyllis Tickle, John Updike, Mary Oliver, T.S. Eliot, Dorothy Day, and Brian Doyle.

An updated and revised version of a book that has impacted thousands of churches: Are you tired of how consumerism has stolen the soul of Christmas? This year, take a stand! Join the groundswell of Christ-followers who are choosing to make Christmas what it should be, a joyous celebration of Jesus’ birth that enriches our hearts and the world around us, not a retail circus that depletes our pocketbooks and defeats our spirits. 

Advent Conspiracy shows you how to substitute consumption with compassion by practicing four simple but powerful, countercultural concepts: Worship fully because Christmas begins and ends with Jesus. Spend less and free your resources for things that truly matter. Give more of your presence: your hands, your words, your time, your heart. Love all the poor, the forgotten, the marginalized, and the sick in ways that make a difference. Find out how to have a Christmas worth remembering, not dreading. Christmas can still change the world when you, like Jesus, give what matters most your presence.

This updated and revised version, with some all-new content, will share stories of the impact this movement has made around the globe as well as giving individuals and churches even better, more practical help in planning the kind of Christmas that truly can change the world.

Thirty-one daily readings from Paul David Tripp equip us to do the one thing that matters most each December?celebrating the glory of the incarnation of God's Son.