An exploration and celebration, in word and image, of how our way of life, that is, the Western way of life, has been transformed, and continues to be shaped, by the Church's faith. For each generation, the life and teachings of Christ has provided an answer to its deepest and most probing questions. Those questions remain. So do the human longings from which they spring. Where do we come from? How shall we live? Am I loved? What awaits after death? Many of our teachers, our law makers, our entertainers, and even our families, no longer retain the vital memory of the answers that faith offers. Thankfully, Dr. Ryan Topping does. Accompany him through these pages and reawaken that memory for yourself and those you love.

In this first volume, The Gift of the Church: How the Catholic Church Transformed the History and Soul of the West, Topping brilliantly describes the Church's indispensable role in the development of western civilization. He does so by identifying the various gifts which the Church, through the divine action of God, and the human actions of her members, has given to us—even those of us who have forgotten and those of us who never knew—gifts explained in chapters such as:

Prophets: What Pagans and Jews were Expecting

Martyrs: The Gift of Witness

Scholars: The Gift of the Universities

Crusaders: The Forgotten Gifts of the Christian Warriors

Missionaries: The Gift of the Gospel for the New World

Join Topping on a fascinating tour through the history of the West as influenced and affected by the Catholic Church. It promises to be a journey, and a gift, that you'll not soon forget.