Marriage and sexuality, religious freedom, abortion, assisted suicide, stem cell research and human trafficking: The stands we take and the choices we make on such vital issues, as individuals and as a nation, matter now and for eternity. Faith Steps encourages and equips people of faith to winsomely engage friends and the culture on vital issues--not as partisans but as ambassadors. We can communicate life-honoring and moral perspectives to secular audiences, by appealing to self-interest, outlining the harms and benefits of choices. Decisively rejecting the stifling notion that Christians should remain mute on controversial social issues and shun the political arena, Faith Steps reveals how courageous and compassionate engagement can help our neighbors and transform culture. Drawing on the author's many years of experience in Washington, DC in government relations and communications, the book provides practical, in-the-trenches communications strategies to address and engage individuals and society on the most controversial and consequential issues of our day.

Miss Kay and Phil Robertson introduce readers to Duck Commander holiday traditions with this quintessential Christmas Field Guide! Savor a genuine feast of memories, mistletoe and misfires that Miss Kay and Phil have experienced over the years—including that Christmas Eve their house almost burned down.

Ever since John Winthrop told his fellow colonists in 1630 that they were about to establish a City upon a Hill, the idea of having a special place in history has captured the American imagination. Through centuries of crises and opportunities, many have taken up this theme to inspire the nation. But others have criticized the notion because it implies a sense of superiority which can fuel racism, warmongering and even idolatry. In this remarkable book, John Wilsey traces the historical development of exceptionalism, including its theological meaning and implications for civil religion. From seventeenth-century Puritans to twentieth-century industrialists, from politicians to educators, exceptionalism does not appear as a monolithic concept to be either totally rejected or devotedly embraced. While it can lead to abuses, it can also point to constructive civil engagement and human flourishing. This book considers historically and theologically what makes the difference. Neither the term nor the idea of American exceptionalism is going away. John Wilsey's careful history and analysis will therefore prove an important touchstone for discussions of American identity in the decades to come.

The “Cultural Lightning Rod” of American Exceptionalism

Is the United States an exceptional nation? Of course it
is. The United States was the first nation to be built on the ideas that would come to define the Western world
—freedom, democracy and the celebration of individual rights. The United States commitment to religious
freedom, the exportation of its capitalist economy around the world and its long lasting experiment in ordered liberty make it unlike any other nation. Though not everyone may like the way the United States has used
its exceptional status over the course of the last two centuries, it is hard to deny that it has been, and continues to be, extraordinary.