An expansive illustrated history of the historic Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.

The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus is one of the oldest continuously used religious sites in the world. The mosque we see today was built in 705 CE by the Umayyad caliph al-Walid on top of a fourth-century Christian church that had been erected over a temple of Jupiter. Incredibly, despite the recent war, the mosque has remained almost unscathed, but over the centuries has been continuously rebuilt after damage from earthquakes and fires. In this comprehensive biography of the Umayyad Mosque, Alain George explores a wide range of sources to excavate the dense layers of the mosque’s history, also uncovering what the structure looked like when it was first built with its impressive marble and mosaic-clad walls. George incorporates a range of sources, including new information he found in three previously untranslated poems written at the time the mosque was built, as well as in descriptions left by medieval scholars. He also looks carefully at the many photographs and paintings made by nineteenth-century European travelers, particularly those who recorded the building before the catastrophic fire of 1893.

“How has unbelief come to dominate so many Western societies? The usual account invokes the advance of science and rational knowledge. Ryrie’s alternative, in which emotions are the driving force, offers new and interesting insights into our past and present.”
—Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age

Why have societies that were once overwhelmingly Christian become so secular? We think we know the answer, pointing to science and reason as the twin culprits, but in this lively, startlingly original reconsideration, Alec Ryrie argues that people embraced unbelief much as they have always chosen their worldviews: through the heart more than the mind.

Looking back to the crisis of the Reformation and beyond, he shows how, long before philosophers started to make the case for atheism, powerful cultural currents were challenging traditional faith. As Protestant radicals eroded time-honored certainties and ushered in an age of anger and anxiety, some defended their faith by redefining it in terms of ethics, setting in motion secularizing forces that soon became transformational. Unbelievers tells a powerful emotional history of doubt with potent lessons for our own angry and anxious times.

“Well-researched and thought-provoking…Ryrie is definitely on to something right and important.”
—Christianity Today

“A beautifully crafted history of early doubt…Unbelievers covers much ground in a short space with deep erudition and considerable wit.”
—The Spectator

“Ryrie traces the root of religious skepticism to the anger, the anxiety, and the ‘desperate search for certainty’ that drove thinkers like…John Donne to grapple with church dogma.”
—New Yorker

In this volume, The Unity of Faith: Essays for the Building Up of the Body of Christ, Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., has compiled a theologically significant medley of essays. The title is taken from Ephesians 4:11–13 (“And his gifts were … for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God….”). The “unity of faith” in this book refers both to the interrelation between the truths of the faith, whether Trinitarian, Christological, or ecclesiological, and to unity among those who hold the faith. The first section deals with the Trinity, usually with ecumenical questions in mind, ranging from the question of the filioque to the trinitarian thought of Johnathan Edwards. The second section presents the author’s mature judgments in a topic for which Weinandy has become notable—the impassability of God and the human suffering of Christ. The third looks at other aspects of Christology with the help of patristic writers, but for sake of the contemporary theological milieu. For example, what is the relationship between the Incarnation and soteriology? What is the nature of Christ’s human consciousness and knowledge? How does Paul perceive the primacy of Christ within his Christological hymns? The fourth section turns to the unity between faith and reason. In doing Catholic theology, how do theologians apply reason when contemplating the mysteries of faith? What is the philosophical and theological significance of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio? The final section turns to the life of believers in the unity of faith, with topics such as Henri de Lubac’s contributions to ecclesiology, the sacramentality of the Catholic priesthood, the very delicate issue of the need for conversion and the Jews in relationship to the Church, and the Christian family as a domestic church, taking up the roles of priest, prophet, and king. Weinandy invariably writes in a clear and engaging manner, so much so that these essays will bring to the greater knowledge of God not only academics and students of theology, but also the educated laity.