Hearts & Minds Books

I had reason to develop a big ol list of my favorite books on prayer for a friend, so thought I'd post it as the June column here at the website.  I describe each book, and there are some wildly different sorts there, some more theological, some more practical, some quite oriented around Biblical prayers, others a bit more contemplative, from Walter Brueggemann to J. Oswald Sanders; C.S. Lewis to Scot McKnight.  Want to grow in intercession?  Have a favorite book on praery that you have used?  Click here to see my large listing.  May you find resources that nourish your soul, that equip you to greater faithfulness in this urgent aspect of Christian formation.

Just for fun, here are just a few covers of some of the titles I describe.

ORDER any on the list and get a special 20% OFF prayerful blog-readers discount.  And, we promise to pray for you.  Seriously. 

Order here.   Or call us at 717.246.3333.  Thanks.

I really, really wanted to write this earlier in the week, but I was busy proving to be a less than perfect dad.  Consider this a Father's Day confession, or a clever way to introduce a book about the search for a father who is truly there for his child.  The Girl in the Orange Dress: Searching for a Father Who Does Not Fail (Likewise. $16.00) by Margot Starbuck is a great book to tell you about on Father's Day weekend, although it is not about fathering.  It is about being a child of a father.  Or fathers, as the case may be.

Margot Starbuck is one heckuva great writer, a breezy, witty gal who will be (or ought to be) compared to Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz) and Lauren Winner (Girl Meets God), perhaps even the queen of all memoirs, Mary Karr.  She is less bohemian than Miller, not as elegant as Winner, but (sorry Lauren) funnier by far.  (And while making comparisons, her life was not as hardscrabble as Karr chronicles in The Liars Club and Cherry but for some reason it made me think of those amazing works.  Starbuck is raised in a seemingly safe suburb of Chicago.)  Her quick wit and self-consciousness---how do good memoirists recall such details about their days lived out in previous decades?---serves us well, as The Girl in the Orange Dress is a rollicking story, moving quickly with some laugh out loud lines and some very clever tales, and yet has this wonderful novelistic arch.  It is a powerful read.

It gets heavier as it goes as Margot struggles to reconcile a loving God who calls Himself Father with the lack of faithful fathers in her own life.  I don't want to spoil the story, but she is searching for her birth parents after her adoptive parents divorce, re-marry, divorce again.  Early on, she easily sees what she considers the good gift in having many caring adults in her life, and doesn't quite see the anguish to come as she becomes more aware of issues of abandonment and family dysfunction. 

Margot tells of her high school years, her church life and coming to more robust faith, even choosing to go to an evangelical Christian college (although, admittedly, not for the most pious of reasons.)  The stories set in this portion of the book ring so very true; anyone now in college, longing for intentional community, learning to serve the poor and work for justice, trying to discern vocation, to make a difference and make ends meet, and (yes, of course) falling in and out of love--with all the requisite embarrassments and tomfoolery---will surely relate to these chapters.  She gets this part really right and I recommend it to college students and parents of college students.

Ms Starbuck is quite a pistol in those years, the kind of 80s punk chic grrrl who wears maybe different color converses and dies her hair weird colors, showing off multiple piercings.  Her mom (I can just hear it) is concerned about her wardrobe, even as she tries to be supportive, more or less.  Here she describes her look:

    ...I looked like the strange offspring of Pippi Longstocking and G.I. Joe. Blond spiky hair, candy-cane striped tights, mismatched socks, rhinestone jewelry, and daisy-painted combat boots did not a mothers dream make.  When I look at the short stack of pictures I have from the period, I am forced to admit that I cannot distinguish from my clothing a typical school day from our high school's annual Wacky Tacky Day.  Could we really have celebrated it five days a week?

She continues writing about her decision to go to Westmont College, a short ride from the Southern California beaches.  She and her mom, while visiting, noted the tastefully dressed girls in cute sandals.  By this time, Margot had a half-shaved head, visiting campus in cut off overalls.  She reflects, "Mine had to have been the only family in the Midwest to hope that the child they were sending off to college in southern California might actually be domesticated by the experience.  My family would, of course, be sorely disappointed."

"I would be changed there", she continues, "but not in a way I ever expected."

Navigating a conservative religious ethos while being an artsy firebrand is not an uncommon journey for many younger friends, and her journey through these good years is well told.  Finally, there is the sojourn to Portland.  An epic road trip, talking about justice and romance and Providence and beauty?  In a blue Chevy Nova, no less?  Move over, Donald Miller, that open road stuff ain't just for the edgy Christian boys any more...

Yet, these lighthearted escapades and heart-wrenching experiences (she does inner city work in Camden for a summer, has some relationship and spiritual crises, a friend becomes a single mom) are backdrop for what is clearly more than a postmodern evangelical coming of age narrative.  Girl in the Orange Dress tells of this desire to find a God who can be the parent who does not reject her, who can heal her deep woundedness, who can bring her Home.

Our grrrl ends up donning some somewhat more reliable cloths and ends up at Princeton Seminary.  And how I appreciated the story of a moderately evangelical, slightly charismatic, intuitively feminist student at a liberal seminary where one may not use masculine pronounces about God.  She had served in reconciliation work in South Africa as apartheid fell; yet here, abstract post-colonial theology ruled, oddly without much traction for the real poor that she so obviously served herself.  Ideologically strict males yell at women who have more traditional faith for not being pro-woman.  Hmmm.  Unless one is experienced in this arcane theological academic climate, her observations in the chapter "Welcome to Oz" may seem surprising.  For many, mainline Protestant seminaries nearly ruin one's vibrant faith and she tells it fairly.

She moves on, through very painful physical disabilities and the trajectory towards reunion (or not?) with her long lost birth mom and dad. She works at a church while seriously depressed. She sleuths and prays and yells at God.  Suffice it to say that I stayed up way too late reading this thing, as I had to know what comes next.  I even read while on a Greyhound bus, a dizzying feat for those of us who are easily made queasy.  I had tears in my eyes at one point, savoring the pathos and joy and goodness of insights gained the hard way.  And the poignant story of the Pink Post-It note is worth the price of the book, right there (especially if you have any tenderness for aging grandparents.) 

This is a fun book, and, I think, it is an important one.  Whether you have, who know someone who has had, experience with adoption, or know adopted kids or foster parents or have divorced parents in your extended circle of family and friends, or a clay-footed father, this matter---knowing we are beloved and accepted by a God who is there for us---is of extraordinary significance. 

Near the end, Margot tells of seeing an unusual church sign--not that unusual, oddly, since our churches are so often theologically murky and grossly sentimental---that said something dumb about good parents, implying that it would be "unthinkable" for a parent to fail a child.  Ahh yes, she is driven to knock on the door, to ask the pastor what in the heck he meant by this.  Didn't he know?  It is all too thinkable for parents to do hurtful things.  Ask her.  Ask me.

The Girl in an Orange Dress: Searching for a Father Who Does Not Fail is a beautiful gift for anyone, a perfect kind of book because it is easy to read, a bit lighthearted (no, it is downright funny) and yet packs a notable punch, in the story-line, the sheer emotions in conjures, and in the theological truths it conveys.  It is published by an edgy recent imprint by one of our most respected publishers, IVP. (They did the truly stunning memoir Stone Crossings by L.L. Barkat a year or so ago.)  Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines) calls it "lovely and challenging" and novelist Lisa Samson says it is for "anyone who needs to know, really needs to know, how much God loves his children."  Happy Father's Day, indeed.

Check out the publisher's webpage that has samples of her writing, endorsements of the book and such, but please come back and order it here.  Thanks.



I mentioned the memoirist Donald Miller.  I presume you know his books published by Nelson, which have sold over a million copies.  Blue Like Jazz is his most popular. His second (and more substantive) is Searching for God Knows What, and his epic road trip saga is Through Painted Deserts (first discovered by Terry Glaspy at Harvest House, originally titled Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, although now considerably expanded.)  Mr. Miller has co-authored a book about the absence of fathers, not as witty or precocious as his others, but a deeply moving story of a man who stepped up and mentored him, since Miller's father had left the family.  It is called To Own A Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father and it is very highly recommended for fathers, young men, or anybody who cares about them.

And, for the record, I truly recommend Starbuck's The Girl in the Orange Dress for men and women readers, and, likewise, Miller's To Own A Dragon is not just for men, although I suppose it may be most helpful to hurting guys.  Or dads who need reminded of the value of their love.

Donald Miller's very long-awaited fifth book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Edited My Own Life is due out in hardcover at the end of the summer. It will detail one man's opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie, which he sort of is. You can order it now if you'd like, and be among the first to receive it in September.

Check out his blog, and tell me if he isn't trying to look like Tom Waits.  Great stuff.  We stock the DVD projects he talks about, too, btw (The Open Table and Free Market Jesus.)  

Two new books came in recently that are not just how to deepen one's relationship with God or how to practice the spiritual life.  These two are about how to know, really, whether what we think or feel about God is true, and whether one is making proper headway in one's journey "deeper in and farther along" (as Lewis put it.)  These are fairly serious books, so  may not be for everyone, but are for anyone who is fluent in this literature, experienced in these habits, or involved in spiritual director or pastoring or teaching others, they are very, very important.

First is the most serious work Dallas Willard has done to date (well, excepting his professional scholarly work as a philosopher.)  Knowing Christ Today Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge (HarperOne; $24.99.)  It is a thorny debate, actually, about the nature of truth---can we really know spiritual things?  (What are spiritual things, really?  If religious truths are real---as Christians insist---than why do we have this sort of dichtomy in our language?  Is there a split between "facts" and "values"?  Others have addressed this helpufully (Leslie Newbegin, for instance, in his brief but potent Foolishness to the Greeks, or Nancy Pearcy in her worldview opus Total Truth.)  To see Willard "focusing like a laser beam" (as Foster puts it) "on the issue of moral knowledge as a legitimate source for understanding reality" is extraordinary.  How many books on Christ-likeness and formation carry endorsements by eminent sociologists, as this one does, with the rave blurb from Boston University's Peter Berger?  Do you recall the Bible verse "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge"?  This lucid account of the issues of what true knowledge is, and how that helps us gauge our growth into Christ-likeness, give an excellent lay of the land to how we can regain faith-based knowing, authentic insight, and confident spirituality. This one is worth working through slowly, pondering and underlining as you go.  

Seasons of the Soul: Stages of Spiritual Development Bruce Demarest (IVP) $16.00  This is another book that is less about how to grow as a Christian, but how to measure or discern the maturity and adequacy of this growth.  And how to learn to appreciate the new levels and stages and ages of the trek.  Some of us have read and appreciated the developmental research done by James Fowler et al.  A bit too influenced by Piaget's rationalism, perhaps, and a bit too academic, that school of thought has influenced Christian educators, but hasn't caught on for ordinary folks as a helpful tool for self examination or aiding formation.  Stages and ages are useful, but haven't necessarily helped us be more aware of understandable ups and downs on the journey with God, or more comfortable in our spiritual stages.  This new book fills a real need and looks to be just spectacular.  It uses the structure of Walter Brueggemann's seminal assessment of the Psalms, namely, that there is orientation, disorientation and re-orientation.  Demarest calls it "initial orientation" (the first stage of putting our faith in Christ), "painful disorientation" (which is the season of experiencing struggles, doubts, and the dark night sort of loss of God's presence), and the phase of coming to subsequent deeper faith, which he calls "joyful reorientation."  Are they three simple chronological stages?  Cycles or phases?  How can our deepest relationship with God and our devotional life help us as we suffer?  

Demarest, of Denver Seminary, has a very helpful appendix summarizing other authors who have used the journey as a metaphor for spiritual maturity, from the desert fathers, the medieval mystics, to contemporaries such as Evelyn Underhill to M. Scott Peck.  Throughout the book, Dr. Demarest proves himself fluent in the widest readings;  what a delight to see the Syrian fourth century Pseudo-Macarius quoted next to 20th century CM&A preacher A.W. Tozer; to see Elizabeth O'Connor cited next to John Owen.    Like I said, it may not be for everyone, but there are many Hearts & Minds readers who would benefit from this slower, deeper sort of reading, which actually is delightfully written and really quite amazing.  Seasons of the Soul will help you, and equip you to help others. Highly recommended.

A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life: Welcoming the Soul and
Weaving Community in a Wounded World Parker J. Palmer (Jossey-Bass)  $19.95; DVD included  This is not particularly academic or dense, but for those who are used to primarily evangelical piety, this blend of spirituality and psychology, community and pain, may be bracing.  Parker, of course, is a beloved writer, a clear and kind thinker, old friend of Henri Nouwen, and contemporary philosopher of education.  We stock all of his stuff (and his very first, Promise of Paradox, was re-issued this year in a lovely hand-sized hardcover.)  This new paperback edition of Hidden Wholeness includes two new features. Circles of Trust is a DVD containing interviews with Parker Palmer and footage from retreats he facilitated for the Center for Courage & Renewal.  Bringing the Book to Life is a reader's and leader's guide to exploring the book's themes.  (The discussion guide particularly connects the DVD and the book, drawing on the insights and practices of "circles of trust.")  As it says on the back, "Together, these features gives readers new ways to internalize the themes of A Hidden Wholeness and share with others this approach to sustaining identity and integrity in all the venues of our lives."

If one wants to delve into these thoughtful areas, deep spirituality and classic convictions, habits and practices, and learn the broad teachings of the church universal, you may want to pick up as a life-long reference what may be the best collection of essays and articles in a large textbook format, The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality  edited by Evan B. Howard (Brazos) $39.99. At 500 large pages, this is a treasure trove, interdisciplinary and ecumenical.  There are chapter outlines and objectives, sidebars, focus boxes, charts, pictures (and even cartoons) a useful glossary, chapter summaries, questions for consideration and very helpful "looking further" resource lists.  If one wants to know what a relationship with God looks like for Christians, and is willing to hear the perspectives of the breadth of Christian spirituality, this comprehensive volume is a must.


 

In the last post I linked to the May Review column where I annotated a whole bunch of great books about nature, wilderness, and finding God in the great outdoors.  Some were overtly Christian, although some were not.  I don't know how many other so-called Christian bookstores stock this kind of stuff, but we hope you like our distinctiveness in bringing together these genres and perspectives, books and authors not commonly found together. Do check it out if you haven't; it's a fun early summer list!

I've just recently finished Terry Tempest Williams brave and unusual and deeply moving book Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Pantheon; $26.00.) It deserves more than I can give but I thought I'd offer a few remarks and reflections. We commended her in the previous post, so this is a natural follow-up, as she is known as an eminent nature writer, a memoirist of place, a passionate critic of the foolish policies of progress that have eroded sustainability and sanity.  We like her a lot.

Finding Beauty in a Broken World is a sprawling, big book, divided into three distinct portions.  This is a bit unusual, and although she weaves the themes of each portion together a bit, I would have wished for more connection, making explicit what I presume is understated purposefully.  Still, at the end my jaw was dropped in one of those experiences of epiphany and connectivity.  It really did come full circle.

The book opens with a beautiful, mysterious account of her learning the fine art of mosaic
work; the frontispiece line These fragments I have shored against my ruins from T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland** becomes clearly relevant. Ms Tempest Williams is in Ravenna, Italy, waxing on about the history and power of mosaic.  "Eloquence is spoken through the labor of hands, anonymous hands of forgotten centuries.  With eyes looking up, artisans rolled gold tessarae between their fingers in thought, as they searched for the precise placement in domes and aspes where light could converse with glass.  Jeweled ceilings become lavish tales.  I want to understand these stories told through fragments."

Even as I type that quote it dawns on me---" stories told through fragments," how did I miss it?---that the fragmentary nature of this book (some pages only have one sentence, some appear to be journal entries or quotes from other books) is itself mirroring these fragmented tales, made luminous as they are brought together.  Hmm;  a stroke of brilliance perhaps, some hint at form and content?

This first part is brief but beautiful.  She tells about the "city of mosaics" and tells of her learning the craft, in this mosaic workshop, so that she could "learn a new language with my hands."  It is interesting that this art form uses broken pieces.  It is an imperfect beauty.

The second more lengthy portion is more typical terrain for Ms Williams as she has volunteered to serve as an assistant with the world's leading scholar of several species of prairie dogs.  She is at Bryce Canyon National Park, assisting the study of this fascinating critter, a controversial animal beloved and hated in the developing West.  She makes a very strong case for the preservation of prairie dog towns and it is helpful to learn of how the eco-spheres of the prairie lands are dependent and inter-dependent on these rodents maintaining their traditional habitat.  It is also interesting how government mandates of protecting habitats of such creatures are and are not followed, are contested and ignored.  As a small side-note, she is banned from some National Parks because she was a signature of a class-action type lawsuit against the feds in their disregard for environmental law protecting the dogs.  Who knew citizens could be banned for such things?  Outrageous.  It is not a large portion of the book, but the expose of the corruption in the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bush appointee Julie MacDonald who so undermined the mandates of law, is important as we assess the current state of environmental law after recent years of disregard.

In this well-written portion she laments the gross mismanagement of Western lands, and portrays the gross hostility of those who love to squish to death these small creatures (not to mention the companies that burn them alive in their burrows which she describes in a harrowing paragraph.)  This battle about exterminating the dogs is symbolic of much of the public debate around ecological living, and her personalizing it---working in this one spot, marking and observing these mammals' behaviors, following their habits for 8 hours a day sitting in a little tree stand---was helpful and informative.  (Her method, offering fragments of repeated numbers and letters from her daily log was tedious, and I admit to skipping pages at at time, having "gotten" the painstaking monotony of natural science research in action.)  Still, learning about these "prayer dogs" was very interesting and oddly compelling reading. You may want to read "Report from the Burrow" or glance around the website of WildEarth Guardians which she recommends.

This section becomes truly riveting, though, as she narrates the story of her blue-collar family, whose family work is in large excavation.  Her father and brothers are honorable men, hard-working and dedicated, and Tempest Williams' sincere appreciation for their diligence and skill give her a local working-man's view of the eco-conflicts.  That her brother was dying of cancer during this portion of the book adds an extra poignancy.  Without drawing it out into overstatement, the battle over protecting endangered species, the cancer that is prominent in Nevada and Utah due to the testing of nuclear weapons, and the inter-relationship with family, land, local history and prairie dog towns, becomes profound. One chapter reprints some of her famous piece in the New York Times, written on Groundhog Day, 2003.   Given the world's large and looming problems (this was just weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq) why should we care about rodents?  "Quite simply, she wrote, because the story of the Utah prairie dog is the story of the range of our compassion.  If we can extend our idea of community to include the lowliest of creatures, then we will indeed be closer to a path of peace and tolerance.  If we cannot accommodate "the other," the shadow we will see on our own home ground will be the forecast of our own species extended winter of the soul."

She raises important questions for all of us, even those of us who hold to a Christian worldview, which insists on distinguishing between God and creation, and humans and non-humans.  Yet, even the conservative theologian and cultural critic Francis Schaeffer went to great lengths to show that evangelicals should agree with St. Francis as he talked about our unity with fellow-creatures.  Terry Tempest Williams writes,

Most people are not comfortable making a connection between racism and specism or the ill treatment of human beings and the mistreatment of animals.  We want to keep our boundaries clean and separate. But isn't that the point, to separate, isolate, and discriminate?  We create hierarchies, viewing life from the top down, top being, of course, God, then a ranking of human races, and so our judgements move down "the Great Chain of Being" until we touch rocks.  This is the attitude of power, and it hinges on who is in control.  Who has the power over whom?  How does this kind of behavior infiltrate the psyche of a culture?  And what are the consequences of scala natura?

The third portion of this book was even more captivating, and I was riveted by the tale she weaves of her journey to Rwanda with a Philadelphia artist, Lily Yeh, whose movement of "Barefoot Artists" work to create spots of beauty to memorialize the inhuman brutality of the genocide there.  Her time in this crowded African country is told powerfully and engagingly and the relationships that develop in this part of the book moved me as deeply as any great novel. Whether you know much about this place (think of Hotel Rwanda) or very little, this is an amazing bit of writing and very, very worthwhile reading.  Some of it is horrific as she tells of listening to the stories of the genocide victims; some is healing in a manner made known to the world by the South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission.  That is, it is hard, hard stuff, but told in the service of healing, justice, and even forgiveness.  There is great grace reported here, and their desire to offer an artistically rich spot, a regional memorial, as a symbol and place of remembrance, is truly one of the most amazing things about which I've ever read.

Much could be said about this moving last third of the book, but I cannot do it justice.  The plot develops and unfolds as we read of Terry's month-long stay and friendship with rural Rwandan folk (and of a subsequent visit later with some fabulous episodes which I won't spoil by telling.)  She studies the local soil erosion, visits the Congo and hears of the killing of guerrillas (this is the area where Diane Fossey did her famous research), the rise of evangelical religion, the creation of small local businesses, like a sunflower oil press. The arts are celebrated, schools are started, art classes begun, villages beautified and the architectural plans and creation of this mosaic-laden memorial completed.  Through rain and illness, hard stories and great laughter, multi-cultural teams find beauty as hopeful as they empower and work with those at the Genocide Survival Village in Rugerero.

A Catholic mystic writer once said that beauty can save the world and my esteemed friend an editor of Image, Greg Wolfe, will have a book out soon with that title.  I do not think it is so.  But it sure can help, and my simple formulation is woefully inadequate. It does more than "help."  Such gifts of true beauty are, as Calvin Seerveld says in his book of this title, a "rainbow for the fallen world."  People of Biblical faith can give away their artistic gifts, he says, as signs of redemptive hope, like the dove returning to the ark (Seerveld's other famous book about the arts is entitled Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves.) Terry Tempest Williams and her gang of barefoot artists do just that, offer hope in color and texture, fragments of light, forming truth and goodness.  Thank God for this brave and important book and the work it so passionately documents.  What connections there are that linger, nearly unspoken, between art, justice, ecology, life.  "Grace" sings Bono of U2, "makes beauty out of ugly things."  Finding Beauty in a Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams is an example of just that.  As they proclaim in Rwanda, Ukurikurakiz!  Truth heals!  Read it and take hope.

You can see pictures of the memorial, and other great global arts projects of the Barefoot Artists project at their glorious website. There is even a 24-minute film you can watch.

**in a footnote, TTW writes, "...the poet William Caros Williams described the effect of The Waste Land as that of an atom bomb.  This 433-line poem is Eliot's monument of words to a fragmented and disparaging world, his own poetic mosaic of collage that celebrates the failure of civilization, the distractive and destructive impulses of the modern era."

By the way, kudos to Zondervan for recently publishing two books on Rwanda (rather a risky move for a publisher, doing not only one, but two.)  Both are excellent. 

Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda  Emmanuel Katongole (Zondervan) $15.99  Katongole is a prof at Duke and co-director (with Chris Rice) of their Center for Reconciliation.  He is a Catholic priest of the Kampala Archdiocese in Uganda. Fr. K had some help in the writing by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. Not only does this serve as an excellent and brief introduction to the horror of the Hutu's and Tutsi's barbarism, it explores what we can learn, and how the gospel must transcend national and ethnic differences.  Very important stuff, indeed.


As We Forgive: Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda  Catherine Claire Larson (Zondervan) $15.99  This well written collection is inspired by the award-winning film of the same name.  As We Forgive was the Gold Winner for Best Documentary in the 2008 Student Academy Awards (yes, sponsored by the Academy Awards!)  An evangelical Episcopalian living in the DC area, this film-maker is a talented, sharp young woman and her film would be a good compliment to anyone reading Larson's powerful book.  You can get info at the As We Forgive website.

I'm hoping that many Hearts & Minds customers will click on over to the larger May 09 Review Column to see my annotated bibliography of books of nature writing, devotions for the outdoors, backpack inspirations and memoirs of gardening, hiking and such.  It is a great list, if I do say so myself, with a mix of titles and authors I suspect you may not find in any other bookshop anywhere.

Here is how I introduced the list.  We hope it invites you to check it out, maybe order some.  Enjoy the Springtime.  Thanks for reading----we couldn't be booksellers if there weren't good readers.

A few years ago I did a book review column that really meant a lot to me.  (Then, in the pre-blog era, I did them every month and they are still archived in the "reviews" section here at the "reviews" section of the website.)  I told about a new nature writer that I discovered, a woman who occasionally writes for Orion, and whose work I really, really loved.  Her name is Kathleen Dean Moore and one of her wonderful, wonderful books is called Pine Island Paradox: Making Connections in a Disconnected World. (Mildweed Editioins; $14.95)  Another is called Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World (Lyons; $20.00) another yet is Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water (Harvest; $13.00) and they are truly among some of the best essays I've ever read, drawing out themes of philosophy and religion, marriage and family and commitment, caring for home and caring for nature, being at home in this world.  And, lots of good ol' adventure, outdoorsy stuff.  You can read that old review here, and I would be pleased if you did, as I still hold her work in utmost respect. 

I've rarely found anyone who can write like she does, but the nature writing genre is an old one with many classics, and it continues to grow and there are authors who take my breath away.  My wife Beth and I have both recently finished the stunning and haunting book Trespass: Living on the Edge of the Promised Land (North Point Press; $15.00) by Amy Irvine, and we continue to talk about it as it haunts us so.  Set in the Redland canyons and deserts of Utah, it evokes a very strong sense of the place making for a memorable reading journey;  I was  holding those last few chapters, reading slowly, so I could savor them, when I heard that it had been chosen as the Orion magazine Book of the Year.  Orion is a remarkably literate environmentalist journal, with contributors like and Bill McKibben, Wendell Berry and Terry Tempest Williams.  I have to say I'm a little proud for choosing Trespass before they did.   I may write more about it eventually, as it is a serious study of belonging amidst hostility (the redneck locals hate "tree huggers and the upright, Mormon locals hate anybody who isn't like them, it seems) of competing visions of progress, a story, finally, of loss and hope.  Irvine and her husband work to protect wilderness land, even as in the Bush years, land was being sold off for drilling and desecration.  She tells of her time in the desert, recovering from a dysfunctional family of origin, coping with her own inner turmoil as she bonds with her passionate new husband, recalling ancient Pueblo culture and not-so-ancient Mormon history.  It is a heavy and beautifully written book, insightful and lovely and troubling and unforgettable.  And so keenly aware of place: colors, smells, experience of light and soil, temperature, sensations of God's extraordinary creation near the famous four corners region of South Eastern Utah.  Like Terry Tempest Williams' famous Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, this is quintessential nature writing woven together with a woman's own memoir full of politics and faith and weirdness and  love.  It is a wonderful sort of literature that I truly love.

Other similiar "nature" books are also memoiristic, but with less inner turmoil, less back-story.  These kind of books narrate a journey into the woods, into the wilderness, tell about adventure or hi-jinx, hard living or joyous contemplation of beauty, farming or gardening, but they are, well, just that.  Shorter on biography or politics, they tell the tale of what happened when, and show you around the place.  Think of the great Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods which is his beloved tale of hiking the Appalachian trail.  Often the ones I like may not even be about a canoe trip or wilderness climb, but are just reflections on a ordinary life with a particularly clear sense of place; that is, they are a memoir of what Russell Scott Saunder's called, in a lovely book by this name, "staying put."  For those who love the great out of doors, or enjoy the slower life, these make nice reminders of the beauty of nature, and are perfect for a day off, Sabbath reading, or a book to take along on a day hike or vacation.

If you skip on over to the monthly review column, filed under May 2009,  you will see I start off with One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World, an earnest and interesting story of a road trip by the world's leading recorder of natural sounds, Gordon Hempton. I only describe it a bit, but could say much more---it is fascinating!  I list a book by the Adventure Rabbi, (yes, there is an Adventure Rabbi, and she rocks), classics like Desert Solitaire, and philosophical studies on the nature of landscape and place.  Mostly, though, fun stories of those who love the great outdoors.  One title is called Heaven is a Leaky Tent.   Another brings luscious reflections on the beauty in creation, and gardening, by an Orthodox theologian. 

I hope you enjoy the May list.  We could have listed more...what are you favorites in this genre?  Annie Dillard? McKibben on silence?  Into Thin Air? Feel free to post suggestions...

I have been too busy to write well about our work, our recent times with clergy retreats and other opportunities to talk books with good folks, or to develop detailed reviews of great titles.  Sorry...Forthwith, I will dispense with the hoopla and hype, and just list a bunch.  I am enthusiastic and glad, just so you know.  Holler back when you can.

Christian Attitudes to War, Peace and Revolution  John Howard Yoder (Brazos) $34.99  A few more cheers for Brazos who has brought this largely unknown collection of posthomously published lectures, class notes and underground curriculum to light.  It is a marvelous 450+ paperback, long, long-awaited.  Thanks to Theodore J. Koontz and Andy Alexis-Baker, Mennonites who gathered this together and edited it well.  A new Yoder---imagine!

Divine Presence Amid Violence: Contextualizing the Book of Joshua  Walter Brueggemann (Cascade) $13.00  This is the second new Brueggy book from Cascade issued just recently.  As one reviewer said of this brief work, he addresses this pressing matter of violence in the Bible "with theological candor, exegetical rigor, and literary eloquence."  Of course he does.  Whew.

The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith  Mark A. Noll (IVP) $25.00  With a stellar blurb from Lamin Sanneh on the back, and the spirit of Philip Jenkins hovering, this is more than another urgent investigation of global faith.  This provides deep insight into the relationship (or lack thereof) of American evangelicalism and the growth of Christianity throughout the world.   Noll is a historian so he looks back to the 19th century, and makes what Ogbu U. Kalu (McCormick Theological Seminary) calls "startling conclusions."  Complex and nuanced, Noll is a great read;  IVP Academic extraordinary in their  important, high-quality output.  

Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality  Barbara Bradley Hagerty  (Riverhead) $26.95  A prestigious and literary imprint, an author known by all who listen to NPR.  A Christian friend, a great journalist, a true seeker.  What more do ya want, I ask?  This looks to be one of the books of the year---can we measure faith?  What's going on in brain studies?  Who are we, after all?  How many sharply written, insightful books have blurbs from Coki Roberts and Donald Miller?  As Sister Helen Prejean writes, this will "provoke you, intrigue you, and inspire you."  I think it will be a delight and inspiration to many.

Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting  Michael Perry (Harper) $25.99
I hope you know that Beth and I really, really love this guy, this writerly rural fella who regularly makes you laugh, and occasionally cry, and often clap your hands at the joy of a well crafted sentence.  Jonathan Miles (Dear American Airline) says he writes books of "ultra-charming midwestern earnestness and serrated wit" and that he is "outrageously funny and surprisingly touching."  Homesteader Gene Logsdon writes that "There is a literary gem on every page."  We adored his Population 485 and Truck and the thoughtful essays Off Main Street. Here he revisits the faith of his youth, buys some pigs and poultry, tells of some other crazy stuff that happens at his rickety new farm, and home births their baby.  You don't want to miss it; trust me, you don't want to miss this.  

Indwelling the Forsaken Other: The Trinitarian Ethics of Jurgen Moltmann  J. Matthew Bonzo (Pickwick) $14.00  We have oodles of what appear to be doctoral dissertations that become books in theology, social theory, political science, and some are pretty good.  This is great.  It is concise and clear and offers important insights for anyone interested in contemporary theology of the way in which a Christian worldview impacts our hurting world.   What does it mean that we are to copy God? How does that work, anyway?  Okay, he doesn't say anyway; it's a thesis. But, man, this is good stuff.  Matt is a friend, now teacher at Cornerstone in Grand Rapids, where he operates a sustainable farmstead.  He co-wrote (with Michael Stevens) A Celebration of Life: Wendell Berry's Vision of Life.

Life, Inc.  How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back  Douglas Rushkoff (Random House) $26.00 Decades ago I was taken with social critic Jeremy Rifkin.  Years ago, somebody said that Rushkoff is a postmodern Rifkin.  I don't know about that, but some of us await every new book he does.  The corporatization of public life and personal space is urgent and there are blurbs on the back from Naomi Wolf and Seth Godin.  How cool is that?

The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life  Dennis P. Hollinger (Baker) $19.99  We have said before that Dennis is one of the most sane and thoughtful ethicists around. He is a friend and I admire his work and his writing.  Now the President of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, this deeply faithful book addresses the complexity of this tender and painful and joyous side of life.  Blurbs on the back come form scholar-leaders like Rich Mouw, those who have worked in socio-sexual research like Stanton Jones, and youth worker guru Walt Mueller.  We'll send it in brown paper if you want, but just buy it!  Very thoughtful.


The Orthodox Heretic And Other Impossible Tales  Peter Rollins  (Paraclete) $19.99  This is a handsome little book that fits nicely in the hand, with endorsements from Phyllis Tickle and Frank Schaeffer.  I think it is worth it just to see that, if you know what I mean. (If not, don't worry about it.)  I don't fully grasp the meaning of these wild stories but Rob Bell says that he heard Pete once and just thought that, "Everybody needs to hear these." You may know his other books, How (Not) To Speak of God and The Betrayal of Unbelief.  Founder of the Ikon community in Ireland, which may explain the storytelling.

 





BLOG SPECIAL





 

Last week we spent a few good days with a small group of mostly Presbyterian (USA) Christian educators.  As I have written before, these are innovative and caring folk, some learned and theologically informed, others who are volunteers and serious about growing in pedagogy and ministry.  Young and old, mostly women, these directors of educational ministries in local churches work very hard, often affirmed in ways that tend to minimize their important work.  We sell to them a ton of books, from good theology to fun programmatic stuff, from childrens books and Bibles to inspiring memoir and a bit of fiction.  We love the Eastern region of APCE, and hope that if you have educators at your church, or at least Sunday school teachers, you thank them often.  And, maybe buy them a good book or two, since they usually use their budgets for workbooks and curriculum resources and supplies.

Virginia Theological Seminary prof and popular author Joyce Ann Mercer was their main speaker, a woman whose books we stock at the store. Beth nor I had never met her, and although I've often wanted to do a blog review since I like her new book a lot.  (That my daughter likes the mash-up,  re-mix "not a DJ" performing artist GirlTalk makes it that much more fun to talk about.)  Now that we've heard her and spent some time listening to her describe her research (and yes, selling her a couple of books, too) it seems a perfect time to tell you about three of her titles.  And offer you a "blog special" deal, too.

Girltalk/GodTalk: Why Faith Matters to Teenage Girls---and Their Parents (Jossey-Bass) $22.95  We generally rave about the Jossy Bass religious line, and this one is no exception.  It combines a scholarly acumen with tender heart, good academic and theological foundation with tons of stories, illustrations and narrative.  In fact, that is mostly what this is---which makes it worth twice the price for anybody who needs to know this stuff:  Mercer spent weeks and weeks interviewing adolescent girls doing "holy listening" and creating a safe space for them to tell of their lives.  The girls she interviews are admittedly mostly Christian, although they represent nearly every sort, from Catholic to charismatic, African Methodist Episcopal to United Methodist, Presbyterian to Unitarian.  A significant finding of the research, which the narrations show over and over, is that these girls (at least) are willing and able to talk about their faith.  Unlike the important work of Christian Smith (whose now-classic Oxford University Press Soul Searching:The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers she cites) which found that most youth are unsure and unaware of their religious convictions and inarticulate at that, these girls were often confident and articulate.  (This is not to say they were orthodox, or even sensible...) A second fascinating insight that Mercer found was that the subjects---girls she obviously cared for---were able to weave together their own faith and life;  God was a given, and their own story (girl-talk) naturally included---no, it naturally was---God-talk.

For instance, Mercer tells of one good, rambling, long conversation with a girl name Kit;  an hour in, she suggested they take a break and then come back and maybe talk about her understanding of God and her faith.  Kit broke in: "That's what I have been talking about!"    As the reinging queen of youth ministry scholarship Kenda Creasy Dean (The God Bearing Life and Practicing Passion) writes, "In a world where the struggles of adolescent girls seems to get most of the press, GirlTalk/GodTalk offers a refreshing dose of hope..."

She continues: "If you have ever loved a teenager, and if you have ever cared about the faith of our daughters, GirlTalk/GodTalk is a must read."   I agree.  Mercer has used her clinical research work and her pastoral insights as a feminist theologian to gather together story upon story, grouping them around chapters that help us understand how (at least) some Christian young women construe their lives, their gender, their bodies, their relationships.  There is a section on moms, a section on dads.   The opening long preface, where Joyce tells of her own journey of faith, coming of age in the early 70s, relating growing faith and gender awareness, is itself priceless.  Beth and I were honored to meet Dr. Mercer, glad for her good work, and want to tells others about this helpful, fascinating, well-crafted and powerful collection of young womans stories.  Bonnie Miller-McClemore (whose books Let the Children Come and In the Midst of Chaos are also "must reads" from Jossey Bass) notes,

Mercer practices wonderfully the spiritual discipline she preaches---listening attentively, thoughtfully, sympathetically to adolescents---and takes us straight to the heart of the rich complexities of faith as framed through the voices of teenage girls.  For all those eager to understand how theology is woven into everyday life, for those ready to serve as advocates for vital faith among teens, this book is an immeasurable resource.

Lives to Offer: Accompanying Youth on Their Vocational Questions  Joyce Ann Mercer & Dori Grinenko Baker) $20.00  This is part of the "youth ministry alternatives" series released by the UCC publishing house.  "Resources of Theological Integrity Rooted in Real Congregations" is their tag line, and there are several of these in the series.  (All are serious and fascinating and, I think, important.  One is about entering into discernment with youth, one called Branded is about consumerism, another on the formational power of worship is called Book, Bath, Table, Time.) 

Lives to Offer is a rare book about helping teens think through and embody their own faith journey, especially regarding coming alongside youth as they respond to God by finding callings that matter. There is fabulous stuff in here, interesting and provocative. (And fun!  What other books compares Whale Rider and Napoleon Dynamite?) There is a unique chapter about guys (informed by the likes of Raising Cain) another about girls (Reviving Ophelia, natch).  There is an closing chapter by "stages of faith development" guru James Fowler regarding vocational discernment and faith development. (And, yes, of course, they cite Sharon Parks, whose Big Questions,Worthy Dreams offers the best research on mentoring young adults.)  What a treat to see a semi-scholarly, ecumenically-oriented study of youth ministry.

Still, I wish the book would have quoted more solid theological stuff on vocation (like the important standard, Os Guinness' The Call) and it would be improved if it cited Steve Garber's Fabric of Faithfulness which remains the most important book for helping young adults forge meaning amidst responsibility in history, connecting faith and vocation, calling and career. Granted, they are wise to remind us that theologically speaking, vocation is more than paid employment, the question for meaning more than a "baptized" job search.  However, a more robust doctrine of calling and work would have enhanced and deepened their thin account where vocation seems reduced to discipleship.  It is ironic that their important work on vocation--citing Brueggemann's accalimed article on "covenanting as human vocation" and Doug Schuurman's book Vocation and at least mentioning in passing Luther and Calvin and Barth--which they offer as a more substantial offering than some of the more typical youth min topics and approaches, say, remains somehow less than substantial or sustainable, for all of life, for the rest of their life, as Garber might say... There isn't much about mentoring youth into practices in their jobs, either, unless their career path is about social change.  What about those desiring to make a difference in law or medicine or business, as public school teachers or scientists, artists or advertisers? How might adult lay people who take up their callings in the world with Christian integrity help youth along the way to meaningful service in their college years and future jobs?)

There is an important section in Lives to Offer which is about how being in nature can help young adults.  With the adventure/experiential education movement growing, this is a splendidly important chapter; one needn't agree with the near-pantheism of cited authors Sally McFague or Rosemary Ruether (theological integrity? Yikes!) to agree that this thoughtful chapter is a significant contribution to how we construe youth ministry, and a reminder to be intentional about creation-care, "nature deficit disorder" and helping folks of all ages be open to the voice of God found in the outdoors.  I recommend this book for a variety of reasons, but this chapter alone could serve to start good conversations for those doing wilderness trips, church camps and outdoor education.

Welcoming Children: A Practical Theology of Childhood Joyce Ann Mercer (Chalice) $29.99  Again, Dr. Mercer here is shining as an author, practical theologian, Christian educator and researcher.  Part sociologist, part mainline denominational advocate, always a caring follower of Jesus (and herself a mom) Ms Mercer brings various skills and sensibilities to her work.  She obviously knows Fowler's work--developmental stages, brain research, discipleship as a journey and such.  And, she is well grounded in ecumenical theology;  how many Christian ed books get ringing endorsements from Yale's Letty Russell, say?  (Russell brought her own inclusive passions as a feminist theologian into her blurb: "This is not an ordinary book on Christian education and children," she writes. "It is a compelling invitation to practice full inclusion of children in all aspects of church ministry and outreach.  By welcoming children as partners in our shared life, we join Christ in reaching out to the least of these our sisters and brothers."

At our recent APCE conference, Joyce spoke passionately and caringly about her convictions not to exclude children (and don't even get her started about "childrens church"!)  She was a delight to listen to--and to read, here--because she has logged so many hours doing the hard professional work of listening to kids.  (Think of the way Jonathan Kozel, say, has woven so many good stories and anecdotes of childrens lives in his important work over the years.)  This book not only explores the Biblical data and offers theological insight, but it is really grounded in the lives of children and youth. It is based on her extensive research and her hearing and explaining  the voices and experiences of children, in church and in the world.

I mentioned her passion for children in worship.  One chapter in Welcoming Children speaks volumes, and ought to be weighed by pastors, worship leaders and congregational leaders on this very topic: "Practicing Liturgy as a Practice of Justice for Children."    It is rich, thoughtful, deep and radical. 

In fact, this whole book is rich, thoughtful, deep and radical.  It brings together oodles of interesting, vital voices such as social critics bell hooks, Neil Postman, and Zygmunt Bauman, Bible schoars and theologians such as Chad Meyers, Richard Horsely, and Karl Rahner and, educators like Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, Iris Cully and Carol Lakey Hess.  Of course Mercer knows her colleagues and pals in the theology of childhood movement such as Marcia Bunge, Elizabeth Caldwell, or Karen-Marie Yust.

Do you care about kids, serious theology, radical social criticism, church renewal?  This would be a good, if rigorous, book to work through with some friends over the summer.  If you aren't used to edgy theology and critical theory, it might be stretching, but it is well worth it.   As Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore says in the forward,

Many congregations do attempt to welcome children and many do an excellent job.  Yet Mercer makes clear that vigilance, reflection, and action are needed.  Complaints about the impact of consumer culture upon children are common, but few people really press the deeper question of genuine change.  A market-driven consumer culture forms North American Christian life, not Christian discipleship.  This has particularly insidious consequence for children...Welcoming Children takes the reader on a fabulous excursion that does not disappoint in its suggestive vision of the road leading toward a more "child-affirming theology and church."

A final book or two, not written by Dr. Mercer.  We've got shelves of books about children's ministry, about the role of children in our congregations and lives, and a large youth ministry section.  Do call us if you want more info.

Although it deserves its own long review, a slim book by seasoned main-line denominational youth workers packs an incredible wallop, a powerful critique of mass culture and how we have domesticated adolescence and tamed youth ministry.  Awakening Youth Discipleship: Christian Resistance in a Consumer
Culture is by Brian J. Mahan, Michael Warren, and David F. White (Cascade; $17.00.)  If you are interested in the very ways of Jesus and the social practices intrinsic to Christian discipleship--contra the consumerism and shallowness of our contemporary culture--this call to radical formation and multi-faceted youth work could rock your world.  How many youth ministry books quote evangelical youthster Mike Yaconelli and Catholic resister, Dan Berrigan?  How many drawer on Charles Taylor, "The Merchants of Cool" and The Prophetic Imagination?  Co-author Brian Mahan, by the way, wrote the absolutely wonderful Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition. Wow. 


I think that one of my favorite books on understanding the cultural context of kids today is the very, very important book we've noted here before: Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture: Bridging Teen Worldviews and Christian Truth by Dr. Walt Mueller (IVP; $1700)  Walt is more represenitive of a more historic, orthodox view of Christian doctrine, so that evangelical framework will underscore his sense of vocation, discipleship and the call to nurturing students with life-long commitments to the authority of Scripture and so forth.  Yet, I think that even those with more liberal theological biases will find Walt's work in this book (and at the Center for Parent and Youth Understanding) a very helpful ally for understanding youth, the context for their emerging faith in a postmodern setting.  He is, I would say, one of the best cultural critics working in youth ministry today, and his clarifying insight is extraordinary.  Is cultural discernment a spiritual gift?  If so, he is gifted as he and his CPYU team helps nurture in women and men who do youth work a sense of being "sons and daughters of Issachar" (I Chronicals 12:32) who understand the times and know what God's people should do.  I commend his incisive work in this important book.

 For a quicker-read compendium of the latest in youth trends and teen culture, see Walt Mueller's popular Youth Culture 101 (Youth Specialties; $19.99.)  It is fairly recent, so it is still up-to-date (although these sorts of books have a short shelf-life these days.) None-the-less, Walt and his CPYU gang have kept their ear to the ground, read widely, gone to movies that teens watch, listen to more hip-hop and alt-rock than most adults ever will, and have a great fun time hanging with kids they love. If Joyce Ann Mercer is the gentle and caring listener, creating space for students to share long narratives of their complex faith lives, Walt is the anthropologist--without the pith helmet--- of the cultural context in which those narrations unfold.  If you are a parent of a teen, or a youth worker, Christian educator, Sunday school teacher or volunteer youth ministry volunteer, and over 30, you need this book, as the kids might say, so yesterday.  Order it today.

A week or so ago I published several posts about the mysteries and centrality of the cross of Christ.  We recommended a few books of varying viewpoints and of different tones.  This, of course, is dear to the heart of the redeemed, and it is good to often revisit the core claims of the gospel.  Justification by faith is surely one of these topics about which we can always learn more, always find new ways to describe, and deeper reasons for praise, adoration and faithful response.

We noted that N.T. Wright's book on justification, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision (IVP; $25) has been long awaited by many of us, and particularly so after the hefty critique offered by John Piper in his book 2008 The Future of Justification (Crossway.)  We offered to take pre-orders at a 25% discount.  Now, the wait is over: the new N.T. Wright volume is here, and it will surely be one of the most talked about theological books of the year.  It is rigorous and thoughtful, of course, but not only for the academic or theologically mature.  This is a book for us all, serious, in-depth, but accessible.  I am sure you will be reading about it, hearing about it, and, hopefully, will be able to form an opinion yourself.  It is, in our opinion, one of those books that is worth owning and working on.

Here are some blurbs that adorn that back.  I love 'em, and enjoy knowing that it is commended by such an august crew.  Books that create this sort of buzz, that are seen as this significant, don't come around that often.  We are pleased to offer it to you.   

"For some time now, I have watched in puzzlement as some critics, imagining themselves as defenders of Paul's gospel, have derided Tom Wright as a dangerous betrayer of the Christian faith. In fact, Paul's gospel of God's reconciling, world-transforming grace has no more ardent and eloquent exponent in our time than Tom Wright. If his detractors read this book carefully, they will find themselves engaged in close exegesis of Paul's letters, and they will be challenged to join Wright in grappling with the deepest logic of Paul's message. Beyond slogans and caricatures of 'Lutheran readings' and 'the New Perspective,' the task we all face is to interpret these difficult, theologically generative letters afresh for our time. Wright's sweeping, incisive sketch of Paul's thought, set forward in this book, will help us all in that task."

--Richard B. Hays, Duke University

"Tom Wright has out-Reformed America's newest religious zealots--the neo-Reformed--by taking them back to Scripture and to its meaning in its historical context. Wright reveals that the neo-Reformed are more committed to tradition than to the sacred text. This irony is palpable on every page of this judicious, hard-hitting, respectful study."

--Scot McKnight, North Park University

"Like Paul himself writing to the Galatians, in this book Bishop Tom expounds and defends his interpretation of the apostle's teaching on justification with passion and power. At the same time, he seeks to move beyond divisive categories (old perspective versus new; soteriology versus ecclesiology; justification versus participation) so that Paul can speak from within his own context and thereby to us in ours. The result is an extraordinary synthesis of the apostle's--and the Bishop's--views that should be read by the sympathetic, the suspicious and everyone else."

--Michael J. Gorman, St. Mary's Seminary & University, Baltimore

"N. T. Wright provides yet again another fresh and exciting exposition of the apostle Paul. Here Wright shows how Paul proclaimed justification by faith as part of the Bible's theodramatic story of salvation, a story that stretches from creation to Abraham to Israel and all the way through to Jesus the Messiah. Wright responds to many criticisms including those of John Piper, and regardless of whether one gravitates toward Wright's or Piper's unpacking of Paul, you cannot help but enjoy the sparks that fly when these two great modern pastor-scholars cross swords over the apostle. Moreover, Wright artfully brings readers into the narrative world of Paul, and he sets before us a stirring portrait of the apostle to the Gentiles and his gospel."

--Michael F. Bird, Highland Theological College, Scotland

"Frank theological table talk is sometimes a necessary endeavor. Tom Wright's Justification is his substantive reply to critical work by many, including John Piper, on the New Perspective. Wright correctly reminds us that this approach should be better called New or Fresh Perspectives. The goal is to open up the text concerning what it originally said in the first century, not change it. This book sets up a meaningful and significant conversation between the camps in this debate through its direct interaction with the critique. It should be read and reflected on, just as work on the other side should be. So I recommend this book and say, pull up a chair to the table and pay careful attention to the conversation. In the dialogue, all of us will learn more about what Paul and Scripture say about justification (and a few other things as well)."

--Darrell Bock, Research Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary

"I find it quite stunning that a book dealing with the subject of justification could be this compelling of a read. Along the way you find yourself getting caught up in the momentum and energy of the book which pulls you into the momentum and energy of THE BOOK--which is, of course, Tom's point."

--Rob Bell, author Velvet Elvis

"John Piper, it turns out, has done us all a wonderful favor. In writing the critique that invited this response, he has given Bishop Wright the opportunity to clearly, directly, passionately and concisely summarize many of the key themes of his still-in-process yet already historic scholarly and pastoral project. Wright shows--convincingly--how the comprehensive view of Paul, Romans, justification, Jesus, and the Christian life and mission that he has helped articulate embraces 'both the truths the Reformers were eager to set forth and also the truths which, in their eagerness, they sidelined.' Eavesdropping on this conversation will help readers who are new to Wright get into the main themes of his work and the important conversation of which it is a part. And it will give Wright's critics a clearer sense than ever of what they are rejecting when they cling to their cherished old wineskins of conventional thought."

--Brian McLaren, author A Generous Orthodoxy

"This is a sharply polemical book, and N. T. Wright occasionally rises to Pauline heights of exasperation at his opponents. At bottom, though, it is about Pauline basics--about Abraham and Israel, eschatology and covenant, courtroom and Christology. With debates about perspectives old and new swirling around him like a cyclone, Wright does what he always does--he leads us carefully through the text. Some will doubtless remain skeptical about the Copernican revolution Wright proposes, but we are all indebted to him for reminding us once again of the breadth of the gospel of God and the majesty of the God of the gospel."

--Peter Leithart, author of Solomon Among the Postmoderns

"This sprightly and gracious yet robust work is Tom Wright's carefully argued and scripturally based response to those who think that he has deeply misunderstood Paul's doctrine of justification. Although it is intended especially for those familiar with the debate between the various scholarly perspectives on Paul, it is in fact a straightforward and reasonably succinct exposition of Tom's interpretation that incorporates a defense of his approach to Paul in general and his exegesis of specific passages in Galatians and Romans in particular. This is definitely one of the most exciting and significant books that I have read this year. Like all of the author's work, I found it hard to set down once I had started to read it. Strongly commended!"

__I. Howard Marshall, University of Aberdeen, Scotland

Here is a good interview with Wright.  Reading it, you'll surely want to get the book.

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A few days ago we had the privilege of setting up a book display at a central Pennsylvania Brethren in Christ church, surrounded by lovely luncheon tables, each decorated with tableaus about culture-making.  To call these table centerpieces wouldn't do as they were little works of educational art, each with a theme, each with a card asking the famous "5 questions" from
Andy Crouch's Culture Making website. Do I need to tell you that Andy was the speaker at this important gathering?  Can I say again how much we love that book, Culture Making: Recoving Our Creative Calling (IVP; $20), how important I think it is, how good it would be for you or your group to take it up, to give theological meat to the bones of our natural inclination to be busy making much (or not so much) of the world.  There is even a free study guide for download at Andy's site. It has been widely discussed in various venues, pro and con, the website is a hoot to explore (keep visiting as they keep adding good stuff) and I still say it was one of the top two or three books of 2008.

This event, though, was not just to promote the book and the audience was not cultural creatives, media folk, pop-culture fans or artists.  They were teachers, informal intellectuals, Christian college professors, pastors, grad students and others who see investing in higher education as a worthy goal, a strategic goal, itself an example of important culture making.  Patrons, supporters and those who are interested in the good work of Tom Grosh, who works with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Faculty and Grad Student Ministry, gathered to hear Andy reflect on the ways in which this new central PA project----a mission we're calling the Christian Scholars Network--- would be an example of the general themes he draws out in Culture Making.  Culture-making by networking adult Christians in the academy?  We work with students, care about campus culture, send campus workers like IVCF or CCO staff to minister to students in this great time of transition in their lives.  What about the staff of colleges? Deans, teachers, assistants, researchers, counselors, student affairs staff?  How do we come alongside them, encourage them, resource them, challange them?  Is it hard for them to live out an natural Christian faith in the secular campus setting?  And how about affirming the work of grad students and PhD candidates?  IVCF has a national movement called "the emerging scholars network" which we think is also very important.  Although our Hearts & Minds "vocations" annotated bibliography is basic and designed for beginners in the journey of developing a Christian perspective in various academic disciplines, fields and callings, it really is an important resource.  I should have announced it at the Network event.

I had the wonderful opportunity to make small talk with two significant scholars from two colleges here in the area, a philosopher and a scientist (not to mention an inner city teacher, an artist, a retired theologian, a student at Hershey Medical School.)  We didn't solve the worlds problems, let alone the problems of the academy (hee heee) but it was good to connect.  And good to have Andy call us to intentional Christian integration, the effort to relate faith to learning, to be Biblically-informed and distinctive as scholars and teachers, administrations and serious students.  Thank God for the grad students and workers, professors and pastors that attended and intended to be further involved in Tom's ministry.  He hopes to continue conversations about raising a respectable evangelical witness at places which are commonly known in these parts---Dickinson, F&M, Elizabethtown, York, HAAC, Millersville and the like.

I made a plug for some books in my part in the program.  As you might guess, I reminded them that we may not need to work so hard pushing what Marsden called "the outrageous idea of Christian scholarship" (a title of his book inspired by a critic in the New York Times who declared a Christian perspective in higher learning "outrageous") if we started younger, explained the vision of faith & learning being integrated, used the language of vocation, calling, scholarship, and such, with our undergrads, so, for the formation of future Christian scholars I recommended The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness by Derek Melleby & Donald Opitz (Brazos; $14) as a gift for high school students who are college bound.  Every youth pastor and anybody who works on campus should have a few of these to pass on to students who need help relating faith and higher learning.  As Tom brought in Andy to inspire local scholars, I felt the need to remind folks of this handy little book which raises these questions in simple, fun ways for those who aren't yet serious scholars, but are ordinary students.

A natural follow up was another all time H&M favorite: Steve Garber's Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior (IVP; $17.) This is a grand book for a group of faculty or grad students to ponder. Steve wrote this on the heels of his work with CCO doing ministry with law & med students, and his time doing serious consulting with various church-related college administrators. It was a perfect title to recommend in that setting.  What can be done to help young adults mature in faith in ways that are integrated, sustainable, faithful?  Can the things they learn on campus make a difference, a real difference, in their lives as they unfold year by year?  Fabric of Faithfulness documents (based on interviews with 30 & 40- somethings) how they maintained the radical Christian commitments that they learned in college to think vocationally and worldviewishly--relating Christ's Kingship to all they do, in private and in public, in home and at work, in prayer and in politics--over the course of the ups and downs of life in the modern world.  It is a bit rigorous reading for most 18 year olds, I'm afraid (even though Stan Hauerwas famously wrote he wished we could give one to every student going off to college) it surely is ideal for older students, grad students, teachers and administrators. How do we find people and principals and programs that can impact those in formative times in their lives? Can faculty be significant mentors to young adults?  Can they really teach in a way that inspires Christian conviction?  How does what we learn make a difference?  Can a thoughtful and intellectually integrated faith last in the post-Christian climate of the new millenium?  What a great choice for academics, or those who support their work, to read and ponder.

There are books on this project of "thinking Christianly" and we commended a few on the Christian mind.  Messiah College's Richard Hughes has a lovely, lovely book called The Vocation of the Christian Scholar which we really like. (Get a nice look at it here.)  James Sire's Discipleship of the Mind is very helpful as is the sequal, Habits of the Mind, on the calling of being a Christian intellectual.  I believe that Parker Palmer's little book To Know As We Are Known (subtitled "a spirituality of education") is wonderful, to be reflected upon by teachers of all kinds.  Brian Walsh & Richard Middleton's must-read worldview book Transforming Vision has a few excellent and insightful chapters on the task of the Christian scholar and how to develop an awareness of creational norms for various disciplines and life areas.  The appendix, written for undergrads, the "bibliography we can't live without" is an asset for anyone serious about developing the Christian mind (did I note that we helped with that??)  So I highlighted a couple of books and explained why what we do here at the bookstore might help faculty or others on campus.  Christian scholars unite!  Get the resources out!  Spread the word that, outrageous or not, Christ calls us to be faithful in our work, which means thinking in new ways about the ideas that shape our work.   I didn't have a bull-horn, but I was sort of on my soapbox, if a mere book announcement can become a quickie homily. 

Of course, we mostly celebrated Andy's work** among us that day in Elizabethtown, glad for non-denominational evangelicals, anabaptists, Episopalians, Presbyterians and all sorts of folks to unite around this cultural mandate which God so graciously gives in Genesis.  We have the huge and uncontainable privelege of stewarding God world---from caring for the Earth to caring for families, caring for neighborhoods and caring about international trade, working in Godly buying habits and playing habits, thinking habits, work habits.  To practice Christian discipleship all the live-long day, in the world but not of it, through God's common grace for the common good---ahh, this is the calling of us all.  Crouch is a help, a surprisingly interesting ally, in our awareness of how culture impacts us, and how we can impact culture, and, finally, how we can be more human and humane.  (One of the earliest church fathers, you may recall, said the glory of Christ is a human who is fully alive!)   For Christians interested in work like Tom's "Christian Scholars Network" Culture Making is a great resource, inspiring and insightful.  It was wonderful being a part of this launch, and I hope telling you about it might open horizons in your own mind.  Who can you unite with?  What sort of networks are needed in your profesional or vocational arena?  Can Hearts & Minds somehow serve as a resource for your ongoing reading in being faithful in every zone of life, agents of cultural transformation and truly human social good. Can we help you make more of your life, your world?  Let us know.

**Here is a very interesting video interview; with Andy.  I'm not sure the blond read the book, but Andy holds forth remarkably well.  Check it out.

A final great point:  Andy in his wonderful presentation gave some good reasons why we should support Grosh's "Christian Scholars Network" and why investing in the university, or those who work in college settings, is vital for Christian cultural faithfulness.  Our forebears started colleges and universities but perhaps didn't steward them well:  some have fallen away from Christian faith, for better or for worse (Crouch suggested it is a very mixed bag and only to be lamented.)  Yet, he insisted, in a highlight of his talk, that we need not go quickly to the strategy or talking point that "college faculty shape the next generation of gatekeepers" and to impact college students for Christ and reform the university we must also reach faculty with the gospel, since the ideas that are taught in colleges will soon trickle down to street level, shaping culture, often for ill.  Yes, it is true that colleges may be influential settings for young people in transition, and yes, the ideas there grow legs and can be hugely influential.  Yet Crouch made a spectacular argument that due to commercialization of learning, the consumerism of students and their parents---coupled with the way in which industry and the military pay for the most interesting research these days---the university may actually be declining in its often emphasized influence.  It simply may not be as influential or strategic for shaping culture as it once was.

Did you get that?  The colleges and universities of our era may have reached their zenith of influence, may be in decline (in terms of societal influence) and yet we must support and invest in them, in the very elites that live and move and have their being in those hallowed ivy leagues.  Why?  Because some things are just good to do.  Not because of utilty.  Not because it pays off. Not because we "get" some ministry bang for our buck.  The fine arts and the fine sciences, for instance, are not always obviously "for" anything.  They are good to do.  We should support those who live in such arcane arenas, and be glad that God may get glory for jobs well done. 

His proof text for this?  Psalm 111:2 which reads, "Great are the works of the Lord, they are to be studied by all who delight in them."   An early scientist had it emblazed over his primitive lab. Perhaps it is something we should all emblazen all over this good world, over art studios and work benches, labs and libraries.

Pete Schmiechen is the President Emeritus of Lancaster Theological Seminary and in the preface to this major work he notes how his work as a UCC pastor, an academic, and then a seminary President shaped his on-going passion for this important topic. It shows;  this is a serious and wide-ranging book and yet is certainly not written for the theological guild, or even for exclusive use as a seminary text, but for working pastors, church leaders and interested learners of all sorts.  The sub-title is important since Dr. Schmiechen is interested not only in learning how to explain and formulate the reconciling work of the Cross, but how that might shape pastoral practice and typologies and styles of congregational formation and church life.

The last few posts here at BookNotes have, I hope, reminded readers of our (rare, I'm told) tendency to read widely, to stock books which represent the best of various schools of thought, and to invite customers into generous conversations that might transcend some typical polarities within the Body of Christ.  In plain words, that means we sell books that are theologically liberal and theologically conservative, stuff that is classic and stuff that is innovative, books that are reassuring and books that provoke.  (I keep saying this to readers and customers, otherwise our selection may just look confused, which I suspect some fear we are.)  Further, we hope to invite customers, readers, reviewers, friends, into deeper dialogue with authors, denominations and traditions perhaps other than their own.  This question about the substitutionary atonement, Christ paying the penalty we deserve, justification through grace at the expense of the blood of the Christ who came to pay a ransom--- these are important matters.  The Bible calls us to proclaim God's good news, and we are overjoyed to announce that, for those in Christ, there is now no condemnation.  But that surely implies a backstory, a context, a situation where there was some condemnation, judgment from which we are---because of Christ---now free.  How the cross and death of Christ fits into that story---and the broader gospel Story of the coming of the Kingdom of God---is an endlessly beguiling matter.  So one more book here, again---see our special pricing offer, below.

Saving Power: Theories of Atonement and Forms of the Church (Eerdmans; $35.00) offers a thoughtful, thorough, and interesting study of ten different schools of thought regarding the way the saving power of God's grace gets said.  These ten are grouped in four categories.  With each atonement theory, he offers a case study, and explains the critical issues that have been raised (and that he himself may have) with that approach.  For instance,  the notion of Sacrifice has as its main proponent the book of Hebrews;  Justification by Grace explores, of course, Martin Luther.  The case study for Penal Substitution is the work of old Princeton scholar Charles Hodge, about which S says, 

(he is) one of the strongest defenders of the theory, based on appeals to Scripture, tradition, and reason.  Hodge has no interest in innovation but claims only to be consistent with these sources.  It is not surprising that, for so many followers, such a formidable defense should provide legitimacy for this theory. Conversely, those who would reject this theory will have to deal with the biblical and theological sources used by Hodge.

In the mid-19th century, Hodge taught (for 50 years) at Princeton and as a leading defender of historic orthodoxy "shaped the general theological character of the Presbyterian church."
Of course few Presbyterian Church (USA) seminaries teach him now, although he is esteemed in PCA circles. Regardless, it was an excellent choice for Schmiechen since his intellectual shadow has been cast upon most evangelicals, whether they realize it or not.

Well, on he goes, walking us carefully through Athanasius and Anselm, who emphasize the renewal and restoration of creation, respectively.  He has a chapter on the cross as reconciliation (he had an earlier book on this drawn largely from I Corinthians 1 and 2) and one comparing Irenaeus and 20th century liberation theologians.  Under the theme of "The Wondrous Love of God" he looks at Peter Abelard, John Wesley, and Jurgen Moltmann.

My more strict and evangelical friends may find reading a UCC leader a bit of a stretch, but I truly recommend this nearly majesterial work.  As Hans Boersma (of Regent College) puts it

Convinced that many of the church's problems may be traced back to a lack of clarity in atonement theology, Peter Schmiechen presents a comprehensive range of atonement theologies with integrity, theological acumen, and, at times, surprising analyses.  Refusing to reduce the meaning of Christ's work to one model or theory, Schmiechen boldly presents to less than ten theories, describing their strengths and weaknesses.  Those who wish to immerse themselves in the broad spectrum of Christian reflection on the saving power of God in Jesus Christ will be impressed with the lucidity, depth, and congeniality with which he approaches each of the theories he discusses.  Even where he feels the need to express his strong reservations, Schmiechen treads carefully, respectfully, and yet frankly.

Or as the ever-thoughtful and winsome Walter Brueggemann blurbs: "Schmiechen's sturdy scholarship is an important resource for the church seeking to find its way back to the saving truth that is larger than all our pet projects."

Here are all the lyrics of a marvelously rich song, "Come Ye Sinners" a Joseph Hart hymn from 1759 that is poetic ("weak and wounded/sick and sore"), theological mature in deep awareness of God's grace, and, in Indelible Grace's folk-rock rendition, (sorry, this is just a portion of their recording) is one of my all-time favorites.  It is from the first of their five CDs, simply called Indelible Grace.   Give us a holler if you want to order any..

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