Books about Converted from Amazon.com

Acclaimed writer V.S. Naipaul has the eye of a novelist, the fearless curiosity of a 2-year-old, and the tenacity of a cornered badger. In Beyond Belief, he puts these three attributes to use in delving into the secrets of Islam--the other Islam, that is. Journeying into the non-Arab Islamic countries of Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia, Naipaul wonders about how these young nations are absorbing a resurgent Islam into their ancient societies and where it might lead them. His exploration is at the grassroots level, through the people living and breathing Islam today. Naipaul illustrates his points with vignettes about characters he meets, by both happenstance and calculation, along the way. We learn about their histories, their families' histories, their motivations, and their dreams. The mosaic that materializes is not always appealing, for Naipaul is a sensitive but disinterested observer, more a watcher than a champion. Islam, we learn, is a font of hope for the converted peoples, sweet when taken in gulps but often bearing an acrid aftertaste. It buries traditional cultures under promising new foundations, indirectly encourages broken families through polygamy, and turns only tentatively to face the issues of modernity. From beginning to end, we find ourselves empathizing with Naipaul's subjects, seeing ourselves in their struggles with family, religion, and nation, feeling their drive to create a fresh world of virtue and prosperity. --Brian Bruya.
Price: $4.93 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Busy Mom's Dairy-Free SCD Cookbook with Honey Sweetened Recipes is a cookbook and resource guide for parents of children with autistic spectrum disorders. It is of particular interest to parents already using the Gluten-Free Casein-Free diet and considering a GFCF version of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. The book documents some of our family's experiences and attempts to help our autistic son, Matthew. Our book records important variations and adaptations of recipes we found to be unworkable for a variety of reasons. Most often, a recipe's taste or texture was unacceptable in its original form and we endured a great deal of trial-and-error to find the solutions set forth in our book. The biggest obstacles we faced: creating recipes that were both GFCF and SCD compliant, and sweetening desserts with honey. While the book focuses on recipes for special diets, we did not apply these diets by themselves. Consequently, the book includes other ideas and techniques that worked well for us. Our response to Autism has been rigorous adherence to very strict diets while using tools like weighted vests and special cushions. The foods and ideas discussed here may not help every child but they were very successful with our son. We believe this book covers the key concepts which took our son from a state of autistic incapacitation to an A and B student. It is our hope this small book may help other parents in situations similar to ours..
Price: $17.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Barns are the enduring symbols of a vibrant rural tradition as well as the heart and soul of a new generation of imaginative country houses.Architects are now using and rethinking these alluring and escapist structures, employing design principles that ensure they continue to complement the natural landscape in which they are set. Barns examines the architecture and design of barn conversions and a new generation of contemporary barn houses and illustrates a wide variety of ways to approach such spaces. Each chapter focuses on a key theme -- Landscape, Architecture, Materials, Light, Open Spaces and Private Spaces -- and features detailed case studies. All of the locations are part of a new wave of conversions or new-builds, spurred on by the growing exodus of city dwellers to the countryside.

The country equivalent of the urban loft, barns offer similar opportunities for open-plan flexible living. The open spaces and high ceilings give them a fluidity that allows multifunctional spaces for eating, relaxing and entertaining, making them the home of choice for those wanting to combine rural traditions and natural landscape with new architecture and unconventional layouts. As well as celebrating the new innovations in dividing and ordering space and experimenting with unexpected materials within such traditional structures, Barns also explores the attractions of vernacular architecture that encourages so many architects and homeowners to look again at the traditional barn materials like thatch, wood, mud and straw.

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Price: $8.44 [Notify me when price goes down.]

At first, the Watchtower Society seemed harmless to William J. Schnell, even valuable as a way to develop his faith in God and pass it on to others. This book is Schnell's fascinating account of his involvement with the cult, which effectively enticed him in the 1920s and continues to lure countless individuals today. Readers will learn, as Schnell did, that the Jehovah's Witness religion he had joined was anything but innocent. For thirty years he was enslaved by one of the most totalitarian religions of our day, and his story of finally becoming free is riveting. Readers will be alerted to the inner machinations, methods, and doctrines of the Watchtower Society, arming them to forewarn others and witness to their Jehovah's Witness friends, relatives, neighbors, and the stranger at the door. With more than 300,000 copies sold, 30 Years a Watchtower Slave is truly one of the classic testimonies of freedom from a powerful cult..
Price: $11.70 [Notify me when price goes down.]

After decades of official atheism, a religious renaissance swept through much of the former Soviet Union beginning in the late 1980s. The Calvinist-like austerity and fundamentalist ethos that had evolved among sequestered and frequently persecuted Soviet evangelicals gave way to a charismatic embrace of ecstatic experience, replete with a belief in faith healing. Catherine Wanner's historically informed ethnography, the first book on evangelism in the former Soviet Union, shows how once-marginal Ukrainian evangelical communities are now thriving and growing in social and political prominence. Many Soviet evangelicals relocated to the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union, expanding the spectrum of evangelicalism in the United States and altering religious life in Ukraine. Migration has created new transnational evangelical communities that are now asserting a new public role for religion in the resolution of numerous social problems.

Hundreds of American evangelical missionaries have engaged in "church planting" in Ukraine, which is today home to some of the most active and robust evangelical communities in all of Europe. Thanks to massive assistance from the West, Ukraine has become a hub for clerical and missionary training in Eurasia. Many Ukrainians travel as missionaries to Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union. In revealing the phenomenal transformation of religious life in a land once thought to be militantly godless, Wanner shows how formerly socialist countries experience evangelical revival. Communities of the Converted engages issues of migration, morality, secularization, and global evangelism, while highlighting how they have been shaped by socialism..
Price: $19.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When new LDS convert Darrick Evenson encountered anti-Mormon literature for the first time, it devastated him. He naively accepted it as true, and it led him out of the Church into the ranks of the "Ex-Mormons for Jesus." Darrick learned their "witnessing" approaches and techniques and began functioning with them in their fight against the Mormon Church. But as he became familiar with them and their message, he found himself increasingly uncomfortable in their midst. What they were saying and teaching just didn't match with the scriptures, not with what he personally knew of the Latter-day Saints. And though they professed to "love" the Mormons, he found the "Ex-Mormon" motivation to be just the opposite. Darrick began an extended period of research and assessment, trying to determine just where truth was to be found. As he encountered more and more instances of falsehood and deception in the "Ex-Mormon" teachings, his conscience began to work on him more and more. He finally renounced his affiliation with them and returned to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As he served a mission in California, he found his knowledge of the tactics and techniques of the anti-Mormon movement serving him in good stead. He was able to recognize and rebut many of the ploys of anti-Mormon adversaries. But Darrick is aware that the message and methods of anti-Mormon gainsayers have kept many truth-seekers from hearing and accepting the gospel of Jesus Chrsit. Seeing the need for Latter-day Saints to be able to recognize and refute the assertions of these adversaries of the truth, he has recorded his observations of their methodologies and written strong rebuttals to the things they teach. What is a "gainsayer?" To gainsay means "to oppose or deny, to speak or act against, to contradict, to dispute or declare false." Anti-Mormon organizations such as "Saints Alive" and "Ex-Mormons for Jesus" are modern gainsayers in the truest sense of the word. In this book, the author presents evidence which shows that the same techniques used by those who fought against Christ's Church in the Meredian of time (the "anti-Nazerines") are being used against the Mormons today. Satan's work follows the same patterns down through time. The author describes the techniques used in Satan's counter-mission, showing numerous ancient and modern parallels. He shows that Christ's Church in ancient time was considered a "cult" by the mainline churches of the day, just as major churches in today's panorama of Protestant organizations regard the Mormons as a "cult." And what is a "cult?" It's a word that really says, "You're different than we are." Then he focuses on key Mormon doctrines, showing that they were clearly taughts in ancient times by the Christian community. Key concepts such as the LDS belief that man can attain Godhood and that the temple service existed in Christ's day are carfully documented. That documentation stands as clear rebuttal to gainsayer assertions that those teachings are recent Mormon fabrications. In another highly significant chapter, the author describes many of the missionary strategies currently used by the anti-Mormon movement. He exposes numerous "witnessing techniques" so that Latter-day Saints will recognize them and not be deceived nor influenced by their usage. He focuses on the film "The God Makers," reviewing it as an example of extreme anti-Mormon propaganda. Recognizing that most Latter-day Saints will never see the film but that many of their non-LDS friends will be exposed to it, he summarizes the major scenes so that LDS members will be more aware of the blatant falsehoods and dstortions which are being used in an effort to harm the Church. A powerful chapter is devoted to a presentation of responses to many of the anti-Mormon distortions and misrepresentations currently being used. It is obvious that the author is well acquainted with the nature of yellow journalism used against the Ch.
Price: $12.78 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The re-use of buildings is not only natural and necessary, it's amazing This book offers a selection of churches, convents and monasteries converted for new uses. Preserving their old structure and very special rooms, these buildings have become modern and luminous spaces: art centers, galleries, hotels, theaters, lofts, houses, commercial buildings, and more. Converted churches shows 35 highly suggestive projects, as a result of this contrast between the original shell and the modern elements, transformed by renowned or just brilliant architects and designers such as Jean Nouvel, Luis Vicente Flores, Matthew Lloyd Architects or Paredes Pedrosa..
Price: $30.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]