Julia Duin

Days of Fire and Glory

“Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community” is about one of the most gifted leaders of the charismatic movement and the newspaper reporter who unwittingly unearthed his secret.

Millions of evangelical Christians who lived through the Jesus movement and the charismatic renewal of the 1970s and 1980s wish to process what happened them in the early days of their faith. Some even moved into covenant community households to replicate the pattern of the early church in Acts 2. Many are seeking to regain the spiritual power and assurance they felt during those days. Still others have watched how this Pentecostal subset of American life has gone mainstream in the 21st century, starting with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a vice presidential candidate in 2008. This continued with the rise of the Rev. Paula White, a Pentecostal leader who amassed evangelical Christian support for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

In the House of the Serpent Handler

In the House of the Serpent Handler: A Story of Faith and Fleeting Fame in an Age of Social Media offers an intimate and engrossing look at the latest generation of Pentecostal believers who “take up” venomous snakes as a test of their religious faith. Focusing on several preachers and their families in six Appalachian states, journalist Julia Duin explores the impact that such twenty-first-century phenomena as social media and “reality television” have had on rituals long practiced in obscurity.

Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing

Americans still believe in God, but they are leaving the church in record numbers. Why? Julia Duin, a veteran journalist, has collected data and insights from interviews with disillusioned followers, as well as from her own story. In this engrossing account of churches in decline, Duin visits numerous congregations and explores factors underlying the social shift away from church: irrelevant teaching, neglect of singles, marginalization of women, and a lack of authentic spiritual power. First published in 2008, it was prophetic in terms of major drops in church attendance during the second decade of the 21st century. This most recent edition, with updates in 2013 and 2020, is sure to help church leaders and churchgoers create inviting spiritual homes for people of all kinds.

Knights, Maidens and Dragons: Six medieval tales of virtue and valor

These six enchanting stories set in Scotland, China, Arabia, Russia and at King Arthur’s court in England will capture your heart with their wonder and wisdom. First created at the turn of the 20th century, these Victorian-era tales retold from the Little Colonel books have been rewritten for today's reader, retaining all the beauty of the originals. Purity before marriage, patience in adversity, faithfulness in small things, and sacrificial love and courage in despair are some of the virtues displayed in these new spiritual classics. Knights, Maidens and Dragons is illustrated with more than a dozen full-color gorgeous artworks created by renowned illustrator Diana Magnuson.

Future book: The Kurdish Princess

Finding Joy: A Mongolian Woman’s Jo

How does God transform a country? Sometimes He chooses from the most unlikely people. Yanjmaa Jutmaan is an outstanding talent in applied mathematics and statistics and, at the age of 35, was appointed Mongolia's first female chancellor of a state university. She also made the cover of Forbes Mongolia magazine as one of 40 outstanding young Asian leaders. She has also served as an advisor to the Mongolian Parliament on gender, data analysis and information technology. Converted to Christianity at the age of 14 during the tumultuous first years of Mongolia's independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, she is part of a the first-ever generation of Mongolian Christian leaders now in their spiritual prime.